Training Log Archive: Bash

Thomass Hilton Falls West. Beautiful late winter day with lots of sunshine and crunchy snow. Good turnout of friends at the race, including our long lost original Tree Hugger teammates, Hingo and The Minister. Fantastic to see them!

For a long time, I thought of this map (used as the NAOC training map) as my nemesis. After a couple of previous practice sessions here, I had to fight the urge to pitch my compass out the car window and take up lawn bowling. But Coach Hammer took me out there last fall before NAOC and managed to instill a moderate level of confidence, so it doesn't scare me quite as much anymore. Still, I do my best to avoid needing to relocate, because I don't have an eye for 2.5 m contours, and I'm not great at distinguishing boulders vs. boulder fields vs. limestone pavement vs. 1.5 m cliffs, especially in the snow.

Today's race started out with a Waterloo "star" - a series of 1- or 2-control butterfly loops that we visited according to our handicaps. Then we switched to another map and ran down into a small Thomass Box, then a fair bit of trail running was required to hit the controls on the way to the finish. On paper, it didn't look like a course that would work well for me, but I guess the Boxes did their job, since I found myself making the first tracks in the snow from #3 all the way to the finish. I didn't want to stop and look hard at the map just then, but I was a bit worried that I might have accidentally missed something! Because of all the trail running, I was fairly certain that I would be overtaken by a stampede of elites at some point, but I was on my own at the front until Griz appeared from my left about 30 m before the finish. The SI units were taped to a car. Griz and I raced around the car from opposite directions, and had a football tackle moment before I managed to punch the finish a nanosecond before him. Full body contact orienteering is a new twist on the sport - I thought it was enough to wear eye protection!

Speedy Sudden came 3rd, so we had a GHO sweep of the podium today. Team Salomon/Suunto had a strong showing too, with Leanimal leading the charge, followed a short time later by Tiny and Phatty. Poor 'Bent had a great day except for a 23-minute split between controls #1 and #2, where he had to relocate a few times. (See explanation above re why you never want to have to relocate in this terrain.) As he points out, at least he will have more Attackpoint training hours than I will.

SlowRunner's strength training program. I like this routine, and I need to make more time to do it. I was stronger at this time last year because I worked harder on strength through the winter. Not sure if it's too late for the spring racing season, but things definitely won't improve if I don't at least try.

For anyone who may have been following the saga (it came up in my training log from time to time), our new and apparently-highly-difficult-to-make-for-something-that-looks-incredibly-simple pine bed finally arrived today, 4-5 months after its promised delivery. It'll be weird not to sleep on the floor after all this time, but I think we'll get used to it, and maybe the improvement in sleep quality will lead to increased enthusiasm for early morning training sessions. (hahahahahahahahaha)

HUGE congrats to Tree Hugger Brittany Webster who just placed 6th at the World Junior XC Ski Champs in the 10 km pursuit. She was 9th in Wednesday's 5 km freestyle event. WOW!!!! Glad we've already arranged our accommodation for the 2010 Olympics.

A quick run around Palgrave West with 'Bent, BulletDog and ThunderDog (for the 1st lap). From looking at our property, I'd assumed that the woods would be mostly clear of snow and ice, but I'd assumed wrong. 'Bent had warned me to wear Ice Bugs, but there were some slippery spots where my legs were spinning wildly like a Road Runner cartoon, and I was desperately hoping that I would regain control before crashing some body part hard on the ice. Fun, and I felt pretty strong, considering that I haven't done much running lately. The pain in my lower calf is still very much there. Ignoring it hasn't been the most successful strategy. A couple more days, and I may be off to see Leanimal about it.

My log is at 9,999 hits. If the next person who reads this makes a comment, you will be declared the official 10,000th visitor, and thus eligible for all the prizes and prestige that accompany that honour.

If anyone knows a woman interested in doing the sold-out MIX adventure race in Michigan in late May, contact Team Adventureheads (www.adventureheads.com) at twagar AT nortel DOT com. This is supposed to be an awesome race, and the two members I know from this team are experienced racers and nice guys.

C3 training run in Caledon East. One of the women who has been running since her high school track days told me that I have an unusual stride. Oh well... I think my legs don't know what to do when they hit a smooth road! On the bright side, I was the fastest woman there tonight.

Caron's Hard Core Live. For the first while, tonight's theme seemed to be "flow from one exercise to another without any breaks", but we finished off a bit more reasonably!

Power Yoga class. Tonight's theme was holding poses for a really long time and breathing slowly - the opposite of last week, which involved a lot of moves between poses. Holding poses for a long time meant that easy poses eventually became hard to hold, especially the balance ones. Fun as always - and no levitating or breathing through the top of my head, like Hansel has to do in his classes.

Road and bayfront trail run with Etoile on a warmish evening with occasional rain. Great company, nice scenery. Almost immediately after starting, I felt a sharp pain in the lower back of my right leg - not a usual place to feel calf pain. It didn't feel like it was something I'd done tonight. It felt like existing damage that I hadn't noticed yet because this was my first run post-SnowGaine. I kept expecting it to stretch out and go away, but it bothered me throughout, and is still bugging me 5 hrs later. Hopefully just a temporary aberration, since I need to start doing lots of running to get ready for the GRR.

Not sure if it's the antibiotics, but I'm feeling somewhat improved today and probably ready for exercise tomorrow. I've spent the past 5 days ravenously hungry, but unable to make much food or drink agree with my body for very long. I didn't turn on the "Sick" flag, since I did a 16-hr race while feeling this way, which automatically makes me ineligible for sympathy.

Yesterday marked the end of the 2nd full year that I've logged my training on Attackpoint.

Looking at the numbers, there are some obvious trends - several of them resulting from the reduced amount of snow and adventure races in Ontario over the past year.

2nd Year on AP (1st Year on AP)

Total Training – 541 hrs (599) Mostly due to fewer long adventure races.

Breakdown by Activity:

Orienteering – 153 hrs (129.5) 2006 was a very fun year for O.
Adventure Racing – 89 hrs (181) Not as many long races available.
Running – 69 hrs (77) Oops, I should be increasing my running.
Trekking – 54.5 hrs (17) New Zealand fun!
Cycling – 53 hrs (53) At least I'm consistent.
Strength – 41.5 hrs (32) Improving, but not good enough.
XC Skiing – 38 hrs (62) Winter came late - sigh.
Paddling – 16 hrs (29) I'm missing Coach Bill.
Yoga – 13.5 hrs (2) Thank you, Caron. This is helping.
Snowshoeing – 10.5 hrs (16) Not enough snow days.
Other – 3 hrs (0)