Training Log Archive: Bash

Event: Frontier Adventure Challenge Canadian Champs
 

The FAR Fall Classic is usually the last big adventure race of the season, and it was great to see so many friends in beautiful Bon Echo. I admit that I missed having 'Bent with me. As a couple, we're lucky to be able to race and train together as much as we do. But his knee is not ready for prime time, so my excellent Tree Hugger teammates were Goose (renamed from "Smash" to appease 'Bent) and 3PinJim. Goose's first adventure race was ESAR earlier this year, which we finished in 3.5 hrs. He was curious to see how a 10-14 hr event would go, since ESAR had been his longest race to date of any kind. Meanwhile, 3PinJim, who recently medalled in the 100-mile Haliburton trail race, expressed groundless concerns about his recent lack of bike and speed training. Both of them were great teammates and looked strong all through the race - especially when they were at the front of my tow rope! :-)

We gathered at South Beach for the 4 a.m. race start. Everyone had to scramble to find one of two points, then answer a trivia question at CP1, which was the canoe rental dock. From there, it was a quick paddle across the water to the east side of the lake. Good thing we were relatively quick to get there, since it looked like it might be hard to squeeze the final boats onto the landing. Most teams headed up the stairs, but we jumped off after the 2nd flight and headed south a short distance to avoid a swamp before starting our 2 km bushwhack to meet a "cottage road".

It was far less civilized around Shabomeka Lake than the map made it appear, but there was definitely a lake with occasional cottages hidden down the hill from a rough snowmobile trail (including one place with a very irritated dog). The compass directions all made sense, even though it wasn't the easy run we had envisioned. We arrived at CP2, then I went on tow behind 3Pin for the dirt road run to our next attack point. We left a bend in the road to head for the middle point of the northwest bay of McCausland Lake - a conservative route, but I don't take many risks at night. We followed an ATV trail that ran approximately along our bearing for 350 m, then we saw the lake with the fire burning on the peninsula at CP3 on the opposite shore. 3Pin was keen to swim (100+ m), which I would have done in daytime, but since it was still dark and chilly, we bushwhacked about 700 m around the north end of the lake to the peninsula. The first part had some nasty, steep rocks with ankle-grabbing crevices, then the forest smoothed out for nice running on pine needles over the last stretch to CP3. Not the fastest route, but never any doubt about where we were going in the dark, and that's worth a lot.

From there, we bushwhacked along the shore with Beowulf, hitting the road before they did. 3Pin suggested that we go into stealth mode (heh heh) with headlamps off to avoid showing the location of the road - a little nervewracking, since he started towing me around that time, so I couldn't see potholes in the road that might turn my ankle. Eventually I had to turn my headlamp on to see the map, which is one little problem with stealth mode at night! Beowulf eventually emerged from the bush, and we took turns leading on the run to CP4//TA1, with one team taking over the lead whenever the other team paused to check their map. We made it to the trek/paddle TA in 5th place, just ahead of Beowulf. Adrenaline Rush, Salomon-Suunto and the Bobkittens had already left by the time we arrived, and we talked to SRS in the TA.

It was a long and very pleasant paddle leg by AR standards, mostly on flat water surrounded by a forested shoreline glowing in brilliant autumn colours. The sun rose partway through - mmm, nice... We had a couple of short portages and a river section where I had to get out a few times, but mostly my gentleman teammates pushed the boat along, floating me over obstacles while I sat like the Queen of Sheba in the centre seat. That didn't last long - neither the Queen of Sheba feeling, nor the centre seat. For our 3rd person, we've always used a hanging seat made of nylon fabric, metal supports and rope. It's always been OK, but not great. In the canoes we had today, it totally sucked. I ended up getting dumped on the floor of the canoe a couple of times. Since the canoe was so short, my paddle banged someone else's paddle whenever I stopped for a second, so I eventually gave up and sat on the floor of the canoe with my back against the thwart - ouch. (I've already gone out and bought a collapsible plastic stool from Canadian Tire, just like the one Dog Runner showed me. A new era has begun!)

The canoe had very little freeboard, and there were a few gasps when we came close to tipping due to over-boisterous paddling. We avoided swimming, but that didn't mean staying dry, of course. In the bottom of the canoe, I had the pleasure of sitting in 2" of cool water at all times, with fresh stuff being flung at me from my teammates' paddles at regular intervals. (Did I mention that I'm not a fan of threesomes in canoes?) On the bright side, Goose didn't land any major blows to my head like he did at ESAR. I'd intended to wear my bike helmet, but since I'd forgotten to move it from the bike TA bag, I paddled with great trepidation. Luckily, today there were only a few light taps to remind me to sit up straight and paddle hard - no serious Goose eggs.

We started the paddle ahead of Beowulf, then they got ahead on Kashwakamak Lake. (Whenever we wanted inspiration, we shouted, "Kashwakamak!!") After awhile, we decided to push to catch them and draft for awhile. Once our arms were rested (thanks, Gally!), we paddled past them toward the Bobkittens, who were not enjoying their defective boat. After another brief draft and chat, we passed them to arrive at TA2 in 4th place, which turned out to be our best position of the day. We saw all the leaders except Adrenaline Rush at TA2. Unfortunately, I'd gotten hypothermic on the paddle and lost my dexterity, so it was a slow TA. Anticipating this problem after last year's September race, I'd packed a complete set of dry clothes in the transition bag, so I changed on the treeless knoll where our TA bags were. (Apologies to anyone who is still having nightmares.) My slow TA allowed the Bobkittens and Beowulf to move back ahead of us before we started the bike section.

Even in dry clothes, the first part of the bike ride on roads was chilly with wet hair. I took occasional tows from Goose, but made a point of pushing myself up some hills just to generate body heat. We passed through the active metropolis of Plevna, then rode through rolling countryside on paved roads to CP6, where we learned from Jim Cassell that the Mayfield high school AR team had finished the trek safely - yahoo! We headed into the forest on a fun ATV trail with lots of rocks, roots and slimy logs interspersed with some smooth riding. 3Pin and Goose were in their element - except for one spectacular crash of Goose's on a slimy log bridge that made me glad to know that he's already had all the children he was planning to. Shortly before arriving at a main trail marked as a road on the map, we heard a gunshot *very* close beside us. A minute later, we met a couple of good ol' boys in a pick-up truck, and 3Pin advised them that there were at least 60 more cyclists behind us, so they might want to look carefully before shooting. I really think that autumn AR events should issue race jerseys in blaze orange, and I'm not joking. I had a huge, nasty crossbow pointed at me during moose season once, and of course Leanimal stepped into a bear trap last year, but an orange race jersey wouldn't have helped her.

We got to the turn-off for the advanced section - a simple 2 km ride/trek on an ATV trail that got worse the further you went in, so you were advised to dump your bikes at some point. Then we were to come back out the same way. I checked the map at the junction, and just when we'd decided to turn, we saw the silhouette of a coed team coming over the rise behind us. Crap, I know I'm not the best technical mountain biker around, and now we'd been caught from behind. They were riding beside us within a few minutes, and when Gally said, "Hey, I'll bet you're surprised to see us!", I said, "Surprised? Try "thrilled"!! We thought you were way ahead." So we rode in toward CP6A with Beowulf, and we met Salomon-Suunto, Adrenaline Rush and the Bobkittens coming out. When the trail got too nasty, we dropped our bikes and continued on foot. It was an unmanned CP where we were supposed to note the colour of a wooden box at the south tip of a swamp. Although Beowulf was jogging ahead of us, Goose noticed the box before we got all the way there. We turned on a dime and hightailed it back to our bikes. By then, Beowulf had caught up, then they cranked ahead up the hill and never looked back for the rest of the race! On the bright side, we didn't meet anyone on our 2 km trip back out to the main road, so we knew that we weren't being stalked from behind - phew.

More dirt road riding and hill climbing to a scenic hydro cut, with some fun trails winding around it. CP7 was unmanned - a broken boulder at a high point on the trail. The info we were given for the next section was deliberately vague, and there were several intersections where you had to go with your gut more than anything else. I wasn't happy about this, since we hadn't prepared the high school AR team for this much ambiguity, and I couldn't stand the thought of them being lost in there at night. (BTW, they did just fine in there.) We actually only made one wrong turn, which we realized within 150 m, but we didn't hammer because I was constantly looking at map, compass and terrain features as I rode along. It was a beautiful moment when we finally turned onto the fantastic, fast trail leading to unmanned CP8 - the cabin with the Labatt's Blue logo on its storage tank. After that, we hammered as hard as we could to CP9. There was always the small hope that one of the leaders had made a wrong turn back there, so every minute might count.

Arriving at the bike/paddle transition at CP9, we learned that we were still in 6th place, so nothing had changed since Beowulf passed us at 6A - oh well. We hopped back into our boat for the final 1-hr paddle to the Bon Echo campground. This time I kept my helmet on so that Goose could bash me in the head if required, but he managed to avoid the temptation. I think I put the fear of God into him with my glare after the ESAR Incident. Mazinaw Lake was another fantastic, scenic place to paddle, but the scale was hard to comprehend. We could see the narrows (just before our destination) from the time we started paddling, and it took *forever* to get there. We noticed boathouses that would never seem to get closer. Most importantly, we saw several competitors' boats ahead of us when we started, and we never *did* get closer to them.

After dropping the boats at the canoe rental, we had a short run through the campground to the finish line at race HQ. This was a bit Laurel-and-Hardy-esque - definitely my worst navigation of the day, since we allowed ourselves to go by gut feel from our morning recollections instead of following the precise directions that I'd written down. It probably cost us less than 2 minutes, but that's what you get for letting your concentration go before you see the finish line.

It was great to cross the finish line and see so many of our friends who had done so well! Our buddies on Salomon-Suunto had won!! Yay to Phatty, AndyCam and Billy W (who soooo needed to win something after the Adventure Sports Games). SRS was 10 minutes behind, with Leanimal's dangerous Bobkittens just a few minutes behind them. Wow, those felines are awesome - they make all women proud! After them, I think it was the amazing Beowulf, followed by Adrenaline Rush, captained by 56 year old Dan Mallory, who inspires us all. We were next in 6th place, 53 minutes behind the leaders. That was good for 2nd Coed, 22 minutes behind Beowulf. The top five are all great teams, and the Tree Huggers were honoured to be in the same group - even though we were at the back of it. After our six teams, there was a long break before 7th place came in - close to an hour, it looked like, although I haven't seen the results.

I was even more excited a short while later to hear that the Mayfield high school team was on the final paddle. We stared at our watches and crossed our fingers, and some tired-looking boys ran across the finish line 4 minutes before the deadline. Good on them!! They'd gone from winning the Sault Challenge, which had one 500 meter bushwhack to a river, and now they had completed one of the longer Adventure Challenge Long Courses there's ever been. Those guys, aged 16-18, are totally awesome and mature beyond their years.

It sounded like everyone enjoyed the course and had a good time. There were some murmurs about wanting a longer trek, but this was a race with more paddling than usual, and that's a nice variation too. After a very poor quality Raid The North this summer, I wasn't prepared for this race to succeed with flying colours, but Geoff really came through and gave us a fantastic event. My only minor complaint was with the poor map print quality, which made it a struggle to distinguish between contour lines and minor roads - or sometimes even to see contour lines at all - without taking a hard look. But overall, FAR can be really proud of this event. It was a fun way to finish the AR season, and I had a great team to race with!

Well, I've certainly done a great job of tapering this week! Off to the FAC Champs 10-14 hr adventure race today with Smash and 3PinJim. I'll be missing 'Bent, who will be home taking care of his injured meniscus. :-( Looking forward to seeing our local high school team, Mayfield AR, doing their first adult race. Hope they don't kick our butt too hard!

It was a late night for me, plus we had lots of rain, thunder, lightning and wind overnight. I backed out of the final Wed. morning group ride of the season today, since I don't like to damage wet trails - and I was drowsy enough that I probably would have skidded out anyway!

Lost my big toenail from the rogaine - that's two this week so far. There might be one more to go - that's definitely a record for me for a single event!

Our thermometer is reading 30C at 5 p.m., so I can only imagine how hot it was when Leanimal and I set out for our run at 12:30 today. At first we reassured ourselves with comments along the lines of, "Sure it's hot, but it's a DRY heat." About 10 minutes in, with sweat pouring down our faces, we retracted that statement. It was hot AND humid, damn it, and the air quality wasn't all that terrifc either. Not sure if that's part of the reason, but both of us felt like crap out there - physically unwell and a bit uncoordinated after awhile. I've called it level 4 intensity today because it was such hard work - but it sure wasn't fast.

When we got to our turnaround point, I told Leanimal that I might have to start walking at some point on our return trip. I felt badly about letting her down, since this was our first run together after her silver medal in a field of 51 runners at the 5 Peaks 15K trail race, and I was feeling pretty pumped about my celebrity running partner.

Our run goes through rolling countryside for awhile, then there is a steep descent to the river on stairs, followed by a climb on the far side of the valley. I decided to push myself until we got to the bottom of the stairs, then start walking up. When I told Leanimal my plan, I encouraged her to carry on running. She said, "I've been wondering when the heck you were going to say we could start walking!" So we walked the uphills and ran the downhills, making our miserable way back to Bolton. Strange how you can do the same run every week for months, but it's never the same experience, and on some days it can totally defeat you.

As Jon Stewart would say, here was my moment of Zen today... At the grocery store, the cashier noticed that I was buying two identical sympathy cards. Helpfully, she told me, "You know, if you buy three of them, you get a discount." Keeping my face utterly deadpan, I said, "Only two people died." She replied, "Well, keep your receipt and bring it with you if you buy another one."

'Bent and I went for a Naked Moraine Hike yesterday afternoon with Knobless, Gorgeous and 5 dogs. I should point out that it was the moraine that was naked, not the hikers. This is the result of the big fire a few weeks ago. It's been interesting to watch the burnt meadow areas regenerating surprisingly quickly. The grass is such a brilliant green that a neighbour actually asked if I had planted some grass seed.

The burnt forest is a different story. The trees appear to be standing in big, blackened sand dunes, and there's not much sprouting beneath the canopy. The bare ground revealed an abundance of little craters built by Ant Lions, which Knobless and 'Bent knew all about, but were new to me.

Originally, we had high hopes for the burnt forest. In spite of some charred bark, most of the tree trunks didn't look too bad, so we hoped they could overcome it. After all, fire is part of the natural process in forests, right? But I got an e-mail from Hammer last week, mentioning that he'd flown over my house and had seen all the dead trees. I went out to take a closer look, and sure enough - a lot of the coniferous trees have turned completely brown now, and their needles are fluttering to earth. Some of the deciduous trees aren't looking too happy either, but we won't know their fate for sure until next spring, since our leaves are already changing colour and falling.

Very sad. I'm continuing to pursue the issue with Town Council, trying to get the rules relating to fire bans tightened up a wee bit. Nobody seems to disagree that a fire ban should have been in place at the time, so they need to re-evaluate their policy.