Training Log Archive: Bash

'Bent and I planned to ride to the Shed today, but the pooches had a long day alone yesterday while we went to Toronto. Between our guilt and the so-so weather, we decided to walk the dogs and watch a movie on the trainer with BulletDog and ThunderDog happily curled up beside us. "Whale Music" is pretty good so far.

I'm spending tonnes of time making complex plans for our trip to Sweden. I assumed that a remote mountain station with 400 beds 150 km north of the Arctic Circle would always have space available. But no, there is a 5-day "hiking race" bringing 2,000 people to the area. Only in Sweden!

Random observations:

- I've been asked twice to submit credit card information via insecure Internet methods. Not gonna happen.

- English translations are good in comparison to translated Japanese instructions for electronics, but it can still be amusing. Here's some info on a hotel I'm considering in Stockholm: "In our guest house the charm is not only impregnated in the walls." That one's high on my list, since it sounds like charm will be impregnated all over the place! (Oh yeah, and it's cheap by Stockholm standards.)

Toronto Orienteering Club's "Why Just Run?" race on the Toronto Islands.

If you weren't there, you missed a great time on a sunny day! WJR provided a nice challenge for adventure racers, and it was also a fun venue for families who could have a picnic or go to the amusement park after the race. A stainless steel water bottle was the swag, and there were loads of good draw prizes. 'Bent got a $25 gift certificate for Running Free.

Michael Johnston created a very clever format for the 10K Adventure course. (There were also simpler, shorter Beginner and Sport courses.) The rules were so deviously complicated that we were sure Nick must have been involved in developing them, but both parties denied it. It was easy enough to understand - just hard to figure out the right strategy.

It was like a Score-O, except that the point values of the 12 controls varied depending on which order you hit the control. For e.g. the course setter might say that #1 was worth 1 point if you went there first, but it would be worth 8 points if you went there 6th or negative 8 points if you went there 11th, so you had to be careful.

We got a 12X12 "Controls vs. Sequence" grid showing all 144 possible point values at 9:30 a.m., then we got our maps at 10 a.m., and we had to punch the start control within 10 minutes after that. (Yahoo, what a nice new map of a fun sprint area!)

Four controls were mandatory, but the rest were optional. It was a heck of an optimization problem. Each point earned would take a minute off your time. Nick Duca won the event by visiting most of the controls quickly, but some people did well by visiting fewer controls, which gave them fewer points, but their base time was low enough that they did OK anyway.

I felt good about my choices in the first half of the race. It didn't always make sense to visit two adjacent controls in sequence, but it also didn't help to run super-long distances between controls just to get more points. (As 'Bent learned.) You had to remember that 1 point = 1 minute, so there was some balance between proximity and point values.

As I approached a control on a little island about 5 meters from the main island, a racer came toward me saying, "It is impossible." I could see the flag right there, so I just stepped into the chilly water that quickly rose over my head and swam across to the control, much to his surprise. He laughed, turned around and did the same. I had to suppress my squeamishness. When I kayaked on Lake Ontario by Toronto years ago, I remember trying soooo hard not to splash droplets of that polluted water on my face... oh well.

Unfortunately, my points value grid floated out of its case during the swim, so for the 2nd half of the race, I was flying blind as far as the points went. Luckily, the map indicated which controls were mandatory. I hit one mandatory control that turned out to be worth minus 8 points - grrr. One fun control was in a big hedge/fence maze. I saw the control within a minute of entering the maze, but it seemed to take me forever to backtrack and find a way to get to it. Can't wait to see my GPS track! I'm not sure if it was efficient to do the maze points-wise, but it sure was fun.

At the end, they subtracted your points from your minutes, and I ended up with 11 minutes, good enough to be the top woman and (more importantly) ahead of 'Bent by 30 seconds after an 80-minute run for both of us. That meant he had to buy lunch. :-) If I hadn't lost the points grid, I probably could have carved another 8 minutes off that time, but I still wouldn't have come close to Nick, who won overall with an amazing time of something like minus 21 minutes! Wow!

Well-organized event by TOC, and there are still two more WJR events this year. The format will be different for each event to keep us on our toes.

Feeling tired today, so thought I'd take it easy before tomorrow's race.

Trying to bump up the quality of my running training, so went out for an iPod-on-the-Rail-Trail run. This was the first time I'd used my iPod since the marathon last December, but I find it a good way to keep the speed a little higher.

Ran from Humber Station to Mt. Hope and back again, turning off my Garmin and iPod for the road crossings.

Outward run: 26:51 5:35/km
Homeward: 27:36 5:43/km

Boston qualifying pace, but it looks like I'm only good for an hour or so! Oh well.

Worked on:
- keeping hips forward, leaning from the feet and not from the waist (from C3 coaches)
- keeping movement in a forward plane, not a side-to-side one (as observed by Caron at the halfway point of my marathon - and quite noticeable when I get tired)
- engaging calf muscles for the rear leg push-off (from C3 coaches)
- using each leg equally (an interesting tip from Sid's log this week)

It sounds like a lot, but these things seemed interconnected, so it wasn't hard to remember. What was hard was trying to hold it together when I got tired.

When I got into the car, I was hit with a brand new, intense pain in the muscles around my lower right back ribs. I think I'd better take it easy on the upper body strength stuff until ESAR - I'm clearly a wimp.

I took my car to the mechanic in Palgrave first thing this morning. He tightened one nut to fix the problem, then refused my money. Sometimes I think I should ask for a refund on my engineering degrees - or maybe on my husband. ;-)

'Bent and I continued with our plan anyway - a bike ride from the village into Albion Hills, then an awesome, long single track ride. We only saw one other rider and a small number of bugs, so it was nicer than an evening ride. It was my first long ride in Albion this year, so there were a few surprises - small re-routes, new logs down, some deeper ruts, etc. It's been a wet spring, and there is more mud than usual, but the drier trails have benefited from the extra moisture and stayed in excellent shape.

It was super-fun, and 'Bent was riding really well. I rode almost all the twisty, rooty, loggy stuff that I've ridden in previous years, although I took the chicken route a few times in the first hour. Need to do one more long bike ride before ESAR, since the Flatfoots always design a course with good biking.

Oooh, I want to do this some day!

Coast to Coast Mountain Biking across Scotland

Slowrunner (aka IronWoman) is not going to let my fitness waste away on her watch, so we went out on the Humber Valley Trail for a combination trail run/Crossfit session. It's been so long that I made a nav error looking for the start of the trail, and I nearly took Slowrunner out with a hard bodycheck. We ran from the Wellness Centre to Duffy's Lane, then back to the creek at the bottom of the last big hill before the Wellness Centre. Using the bridge, boardwalk and steps, we did a bunch of pull-ups, push-ups and squats, then ran 200 meters uphill to the trail junction where it splits off to Bolton, then back down to the bridge. That was one repeat, and we did five of them, with Slowrunner fitting in more strength exercises than I did. Then we ran up the final part of the hill to get back to the Wellness Centre. Fun!!

This was the strength part of the session.

Pedalmag.com posted a report on our MTB-O race. Leanimal and Milhouse are in the same set of headlines as Floyd Landis! And Scooby and Rocky get 15 minutes of fame as well.
http://www.pedalmag.com/index.php?module=Section&a...

Around Palgrave West, just as cold rain was starting. The woods were alive today! I ran into the same loose rottweiler twice. She was friendly after her owner called out to her from behind, but she had a nervewracking habit of freezing totally still, then charging me when I got close. If I didn't love dogs, I would have been freaked out. Then I came around a bend at the Wheelies' place and ran into two men sawing logs - no, they weren't asleep; they were clearing trails.

The running went well - I felt like I was pushing hard, and I worked on keeping my hips forward which Coach C3Hans (not to be mistaken for Coach Sudden) says will engage different muscles and make running more efficient. I find it a good way to fight my naturally bad running posture.

Attended the Dufferin Arts Council meeting to hear GHOSlow's presentation on the work that he and Mrs. GHOSlow have done to find painting locations for a large number of Group of Seven works. Wheelies and Abbotts were there too, so it turns out I could have carpooled. Based on the murmurs in the audience, I'd say that people were blown away. Great presentation!