Training Log Archive: Bash

Know any kids? This Sat. Oct. 2, C3 (the Canadian Cross-Training Club) in Caledon wants to get 1100 kids out to Caledon East to break their own national record for kids doing a 1-mile run/walk. Toddlers, teenagers and even older youth are welcome.

Thanks to sponsors, this event is free but advance registration is needed since each kid gets a free shirt, poster, finisher's medal, post-race food and a chance to meet some great international athletes and coaches.
http://www.c3online.ca/events.shtml

For adults, there is a fast-flat 5km run and an adult rolling 10km run (with an entry fee). This is part of Caledon Day and there will be a car show, artists, food vendors, climbing wall, etc. Autumn is a nice season to visit!

Turkey Trot Long course
Eldred King Forest

Trivia Note: Eldred King's son Jeff and I went to engineering school together at Waterloo. Eldred was the Mayor of Stouffville back then.

Great day to be running in the woods - cool temperature with the autumn leaves turning. Navigation wasn't difficult although the leaves made for low visibility in places, so smaller features were often invisible until I was right on top of them.

I chose trail routes whenever possible to avoid the abundant poison ivy but that wasn't really possible - it was all through the woods. I can often escape a reaction if I just run through the stuff and clean my gear carefully afterward. However, today I did a Superman dive on a sandy trail and landed hard on my right forearm and compass in poison ivy. Argghh. I tried not to touch anything with my right hand after that and washed up with soap at the end. Fingers are crossed but I won't know for sure for 4 days. Hope I'm not running the Toad 50K with a rash on Saturday!

Nice to see the orienteering crowd again - it's been awhile and it was great to chat with friends. TOC had pulled together an amazing prize table. Even though I was ineligible for an event award because I didn't compete yesterday, I came home with a nice buff as a draw prize. I think almost everybody won something! I haven't seen the results but I know Elena Logvina (who won $100 as top Female Elite for the weekend) was 2 minutes ahead of me today so I was in the right ballpark.

Easy trail run to Palgrave East then around the rolling, rooty single track. I tried the closed northeast trail and it is pretty much gone. This meant about 1 km of bushwhacking through a thick meadow with weeds over my head. If I didn't know where the trail was supposed to be, I wouldn't have made it to the other end. BulletDog had an excellent time swimming and playing with various members of the Dog Paddler outdoor club who were out on the trails.

'Bent stayed home with his feet up as per doctor's orders. He's super bored with reading, Internet and TV already! Knee seems to be doing well so far.

'Bent is home after his knee surgery. They let him have spinal anaesthesia so he could watch the whole procedure on the monitor while chatting with the surgeon about it. The radial meniscus tear was a little bigger than it looked on MRI but still not too bad. The doc snipped off the absolute minimum. He walked out of the hospital and is now under strict medical orders to spend the weekend watching TV with his feet up. It's going to be rough!

Hard Core Live with Caron. It's that time of year again.

C3 Class with Caron. Vinyasas tonight.

'Bent's knee surgery is tomorrow. The surgeon expects it to be a simple fix to a common type of meniscus tear followed by a return to light running in two weeks. I sure hope he's right. Tomorrow will be all about sitting around and waiting in the hospital, fuelled by multiple Starbucks beverages, then the challenge for the weekend will be trying to make 'Bent sit still with his feet up. Wish us luck!

For those who thought they'd never see me on a road bike - and I would have included myself in that group - here are a couple of photos from the Centurion 25 to prove it. Noticed another excellent reason to stick to secluded forest trails - I look dorky in cycling shorts. (Maybe everyone does, she said hopefully?) But oh so tough... Andy Schleck, watch out!

Well, the people who think I should gain weight would be pleased with how many calories I've eaten over the past 24 hours. And the ones who voted in favour of increasing my power to weight ratio would be disappointed in me. As for me, I'm feeling kinda oogie.

In honour of World Car-Free Day, I put on a big pack and rode to Inglewood to buy bike gear from Caledon Hills Cycling and food from the weekly farmer's market. To keep it interesting, I left late enough in the day to ensure a little suspense about whether I'd get home before dark. It was a great way to keep the pace up since I hadn't brought lights.

I loved riding a *real* bike again. It's soooo nice to have full suspension and bounce through rough terrain without any worries about whether the bike can handle it. Most of this ride is on rail trail with a few kms each of country road and forest trail. Beautiful evening for touring the countryside!

Just stumbled on the "50K Run for the Toad Training Program" that I dutifully printed out after registering, then promptly ignored.

Excellent news: In a happy coincidence, I was supposed to do a 25K long run on the weekend, which is exactly what Kirikou and I did (even though it meant doing an extra 200 m out and back when we reached the finish line at the 24.6 km mark!)

Bad news: I was supposed to do five runs of 30-40K in the month before that. So we're going to find out whether adventure racing is suitable training for a 50K trail race - or whether 50K will batter my body into submission like my road marathon did.

Kudos to Phatty for getting me out on a day when I wanted to be lazy because my legs were fatigued from the past few days. In fact, I'd considered retiring from road biking completely after hitting the podium on my second ride. There's nowhere to go but down from here! :-)

Phatty took me on a fun tour of the roads north of Bolton, almost as far as our place but turning before the gravel roads started. Light traffic, rolling hills, good conversation and perfect evening temperature - nice. There was one Queen of the Mountain prize awarded and the King won a few too. The light was getting dim by 7 p.m. - there won't be many more evening road rides this year.