Training Log Archive: Bash

Thomass TOC at Greenwood Conservation Area. It was sunny and below -10C - a beautiful morning to run. Fields were coated with soft snow and trails were covered with crunchy snow and occasional ice patches. I meant to use my ankle brace but realized a few minutes before the race that I'd forgotten it. So I inadvertently took another step forward in my recovery and luckily, nothing terrible happened. My SpikeCross shoes were perfect for these conditions.

I enjoyed the course layout - lots of different types of running. The map was imperfect in a few places but for an adventure racer, it was no big deal. It was the first time in a few months that I've felt I had flow on an orienteering course. It felt like I was running slowly since the race course was unfolding at a very understandable rate. At the last two Thomass races, I've run faster than my brain worked. Today was actually faster though. For me, 7 min/km is fast orienteering (even though that statistic is normally calculated using the straight line distance between controls, which I don't know). So it is progress.

For the most part things went smoothly, although one control was so well hidden in the boughs of a big spruce tree that I ran right by it and wasted about 20 seconds being confused. There were also two situations where unleashed dogs started running with me; as a dog lover, I had to take a little time off from racing to shoo them back toward their owners. At control F, this meant climbing south out of the gully toward the owners instead of continuing north down to the road I was headed for. Couldn't take a chocolate Lab to a road. Finished 6th overall, 1st female.

Thanks to Ralph and Raymond for their hard work in putting on today's event!

Good times afterward as 11 of us went out for lunch/brunch. Great to spend some relaxed time with fellow racers indoors.

Highlands Nordic got a dump of powder last night and today was high -10C with some wind chill and light flurries. Awesome! I picked up my new Christmas skis today but figured I'd still need to use my rock skis. However, for the first time this year, it was *not* rock ski weather. Yahoo!



Skied by myself for awhile and with 'Bent for a bit. (He looks chilly!)



It took a few tries to get the new skis sufficiently grippy, which meant a few stops early on since the first thing you do at Highlands is ski up the escarpment. It seemed like everyone was there - Tarno, Frankenjack & friends, Nick & Val, CraigK, KD (and probably Doughtys unseen) and the Follas family. Great day.

Yahoo! It's a couple of weeks late but we received our Christmas card from Joy T., the person 'Bent and I both want to be when we're 87. I worry every year until we hear from her. We met this amazing British Columbian when we paddled down the Nahanni River together when she was merely 70.

She did hiking trips in Kananaskis and Turkey last year. One day she did 3,000' of elevation gain but she suspects that may be the last time. She's got another 2 weeks of hiking planned in Croatia this spring before her 88th birthday, then for a break, she's cruising the Arctic in September.

What impresses me is that she did this sort of thing when she was younger but then she married a man who didn't share her love of backcountry travel, so she spent years doing more civilized trips. She didn't get back into serious outdoor activities until her retirement years. So cool.

'Bent is so restless from the lack of snow sports that he is practically ricocheting off the walls. Wheeeee!! There he goes again! In an attempt to harness this excess energy, I invited him to join me for a nice ride from Las Vegas up into Valley of Fire State Park - in our basement.

Our local bike shop carries the "Rides" DVD series and said this one is a favourite in their spinning studio. It focuses on strength and recovery, i.e. hill climbs and fast downhills where we pedal at high cadence rather than resting.

As a mountain biker, I've had to work over the past couple of years to increase my cadence. It's hard to make any cadence of 90+ feel like "recovery". We had intervals up to 110+ but at least they didn't try to pass *that* off as recovery. I was dripping with sweat after the first couple of "hills".

I enjoy watching The Daily Show or a movie on the trainer (as much as any trainer ride can be enjoyed) but it takes a DVD like this or a Spinervals session to make me work really hard. I get a lot of data from the power tap trainer and it's possible to work with the DVDs to make use of the data. It wouldn't be as interesting without at least a cadence meter and heart rate monitor - although 'Bent only has HRM and he liked it OK. I spent most of my time looking at cadence and wattage with occasional glances at HRM.
Average cadence: 83
Average wattage: 151 Max: 248
(Go ahead and laugh, Harps!)

Post-Thomass brunch this Sunday at the Safari Bar & Grill in Ajax. Who's in? Not many people are signed up and registration closes at 6 p.m. today.

Another day hijacked partway through - a good argument for scheduling training in the morning. We pushed dinner back so I could have a short trainer session with little high intensity thrown in. I've been focusing on running for so long; it's nice to be back on the bike. Being outside would have been better but today's weather was evil and useless. Rain, ice, slush, fog, mud. What are we supposed to do with that? Such a ridiculous January!

P.S. Hoping to pick up my new Christmas skis this weekend. Sigh...

My Death Race book arrived... too early to start cramming for the test?

I'm not usually one for trite motivational posters but maybe ultrarunning has changed me. ;)

Needed to deal with some surprising issues on a volunteer project after spending a long day in the city. No time to get on the spin bike as planned. Argghh.

On a happier note, I'm doing way more strength training now that I've switched from a time-based goal to a "get stronger" goal.

Ottawa folks... Into The Arctic II is coming to town on Feb. 2. Cory Trepanier, the artist who made this film about his Arctic painting adventures, is a friend and past AR teammate. It really makes you appreciate how much more difficult it is to paint a wilderness landscape vs. taking a photo. And yes, he ran into polar bears. (Nice polite ones who kept their distance with some prompting.)

There's not enough snow to ski, and the forest trails are really icy so I cracked out the new Salomon Crossmax Climashield shoes and ran around the block. It was a mix of mud, slush, wet pavement and slick ice - especially slippery on the northern portion of Duffy's Lane which features the steepest hill. This is a hilly route all the way around and I felt strong today. I've been working to get rid of some extra holiday weight; there is more to go but it's helpful to have a little less Bash to push uphill.

Today's workout was inspired by Carbon's scientific spin classes, Baloney who is the Consistency Queen when it comes to Indoor Biking, Trav who is giving it a decent shot, Harps / SistaP / Gallys / Slice on their Computrainers, Hammer who does paperwork on his bike, Frankenjack and Hodgepodge pedalling in the garage, JayXC biking indoors because there's no snow, Cookie Monster's winter biking, Funderstorm and Mrs. Tiny who get up (or *not*, in Mrs. T's case today) for ridiculously early spin classes, WandAR's spin intervals, Hansel's rides to work and - of course - STORM with his Stupid Spinning... (And there are more!)

I finally set up my power tap trainer for the winter yesterday. Today was the first workout just to remember what all the buttons do. I've got a bunch of DVDs that are designed to increase wattage over a period of weeks. So that's what's on (power) tap over the next while!

The female teammate of my Finnish friend Tuomas Sovijärvi has had to drop out of the Patagonian Expedition Race on Feb. 14-22. Tuomas is a nice guy and this is a good team with international experience although I cannot pronounce their name. ;) Tuomas can be reached on Attackpoint.

I've been thinking about 2012 training goals some more. I think it will motivate me better if I have a results-type goal for the Death Race, rather than "just crossing the finish line", which is the goal I keep setting for events where my abilities are unknown. I would have raced the TNF 50 Mile Championship differently if I were aiming for the best possible result vs. just finishing within the time limit, and I ended up missing the age group win by 7 minutes. I don't regret it but it has made me think.

I have a lot of respect for the Death Race and know several runners much stronger than I am who have not finished in their first attempt. Only 38% of the women who started last year's race made it to the finish. I know it may kick my a** long before the finish line. But anyway... after reviewing past results and consulting a friendly Death Racer, my goal is to finish the 125-km mountain race in 22 hours. In 2011, this would have been 16th/73 women and 3rd in my age group. In most other years, it would have won the age group. So... let there be intervals!

Just a reminder that the Thomass Winter Orienteering Series resumes this Sunday with TOC Thomass at Greenwood Conservation Area. Registration closes on Friday at 6 p.m.