Training Log Archive: Bash

Event: Stars O-Cup Finale
 

True story: In kindergarten, I failed naptime. This week has been kind of like that. Big goal for next week: get back to sleeping more.

Stars O Cup Finale in Natchez Woods in Kitchener. Snow conditions looked similar to Palgrave so I was one of the few racers who opted for snowshoes. They were an advantage in crossing open areas, particularly near the start and finish, and they also gave me additional options during the race, which was nice. I never expected to gain any race benefit from all my random wandering on animal trails but it came in handy today since the best way to travel off-trail was to follow deer tracks, as I often do.

Even with snowshoes, there was some serious snow slogging in places. Crossing one wetland, I plunged into snow up to the top of my legs, and one of my snowshoes got stuck. With Atlas Race snowshoes running around $300 now, there was no way I wanted to damage it by yanking it out so I loosened it up with some quick, frantic digging.

It was a nice treat to see Sherpa, Mini and Micro cheering us on from the school yard. Wish I could have stopped to say hi but my race was going too well. :) I took advantage of the snowshoes to make some off-trail route choices for the last few controls, then ran into the finish in 2nd place behind the Amazing AdventureGirl! She has the same handicap as I do, and she ran without snowshoes so it was probably just a matter of preference.

It wasn't my best O Cup season, given that I had to walk two of the four races due to my injury, but it's nice to feel reasonably strong and durable now - at least for races of this length.

Thanks to Captain Dale and Lieutenant Tiny for organizing this fun event, and thanks to Funderstorm for finding a really yummy restaurant for our end-of-season lunch. Nice to catch up with friends.

(It appears that the time on our SI printout excluded the run from the Start to #1. For me, the printout said 47:00.)

Some different ideas for agility training.

There's a new 200-mile (about 320 km) single loop ultrarun in North America - the Tahoe 200, which boasts almost 40,000' of elevation gain. In its inaugural year, 25% of entrants are female (compared with less than 10% at UTMB), and there is a huge waiting list. Wow.
http://www.outsideonline.com/fitness/bodywork/in-s...

Myka, 'Bent, BazingaDog and I started the day with a fun, chatty snowshoe trek in Palgrave East. We spent most of our time bushwhacking, including some deep snow slogs through wetlands we can't explore in summer. We found lots of deer beds and a few deer yards so BazingaDog was in sensory heaven. He was wearing his skijoring harness, and there were a few times when he caught a scent and took off with 'Bent thrashing through the brush behind him. Although it was a warm -2C (plus some wind) and I'd dressed warmly, I got badly chilled. Not sure why but I wonder if it has something to do with a fast for a medical test yesterday. Two hours later, I'm still cold indoors.

Some of you may be able to see Myka's photos from Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/marta.kaszczyszyn/posts/1...

'Bent and I skied the Green and Red trails at Albion Hills on a gorgeous, sunny afternoon. The trails were slick and occasionally icy. The beautiful weather attracted a lot of newbies on a day when even experienced skiers had to be cautious on the bigger downhills. We couldn't get up too much speed because we might find someone splayed across the trail around the next bend. It was fun and fast but an hour was enough. It would be great to go back after the next snowfall, preferably in the morning before the March Break crowds arrive.

Our kitchen ceiling waterfall started running again yesterday but things are dry today in all four of our previous flood zones. When the temperature rises over the next few days, we may have to start wearing PFDs around the house.

Rodney Yee Power Yoga for Flexibility.

Mark your calendars... Zoolander and Turbo are back on March 31 when Season 2 of Boundless returns to the Travel and Escape channel in Canada. It will likely start a little later on the Esquire Network in the U.S., Brazil and India. (!!!)
http://www.travelandescape.ca/watch/boundless/

Tour de Palgrave West on a beautiful afternoon. For most of this, I was following powder-filled tracks made by 'Bent or me in the past couple of days, although there were a few herringbone climbs in deep snow when I was travelling in the opposite direction of the tracks.

It was so warm (-6C) and slick that I was knocked off my feet on flat ground in the first 5 minutes. Quelle surprise! I have no idea what happened, and it didn't hurt at all but suddenly my right arm was buried in snow up to the armpit and my head was resting comfortably, albeit slightly downhill, in a powder-filled re-entrant. My legs, skis and poles were tangled. I paid more attention to conditions after that!

Gorgeous day. Not quite spring skiing conditions yet but there was a hint of it in the air.

A new toy arrived in the mail today, inspired by our running strength classes with Sheldon.
http://www.amazon.ca/SKLZ-Quick-Flat-Agility-Ladde...

Vladimir Putin has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Seriously.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/05/putin-nob...

Now that UTMB is less than 6 months away, I'd like to get in the habit of doing a medium-long run mid-week. Just as my long run might be Saturday or Sunday, my mid-week run might happen anywhere between Tuesday and Thursday. Of course, even my long runs are pretty short right now since I'm trying to ramp things up gradually so my foot doesn't rebel too much.

Today's theme was "snow" since we have a lot of fluffy new powder. I started on the rail trail but quickly abandoned it as too lumpy and ankle-threatening. I'm trying to work on running form to avoid getting reinjured, and it's hard to do that when I'm fighting to stay vertical. I ran up Duffy's and did a big loop around Reddington. (I can't bring myself to call it "Legacy Pines" yet. Why do developers name subdivisions after the natural features they destroyed to build the houses?)

Next I ran down into Albion Hills and into the camping area until I met loggers with chainsaws. The new snow has covered the ice on the roads in Albion but it's best not to push off too hard since the ice isn't *that* far down. I ran into Slowrunner for the second time this week. She is also coming back from retrocalcaneal bursitis so it's encouraging to see how she's been able to build up her volume on technical trails after taking time off.

As a side note, I reached my New Year's Resolution weight loss goal this morning - down 8.5 lb. I'm now the same weight I was last September when I had to stop running as much but failed to stop eating as much. I won't check this off officially until I've spent a full week at the target weight since today might just be a lucky day.

Snow has been falling lightly for hours - enough to ensure a nice layer of powder on top of the crust that coats our older snow. It was great to get another chance to ski randomly through the woods, on and off trail. Some years we can't do this at all because we need a lot of snow to do it. It's fun to explore areas we would never go in summer because of poison ivy, thorns and wetlands. Even the uphill, deep snow struggles between saplings are great practice for using poles in ultras.

I bushwhacked into some areas we explored a couple of weeks ago, and it was cool to see that animals have made heavy use of our tracks to get around more easily in the deep snow. I guess they need me to go skiing and snowshoeing more often; I'll see what I can do. :)

Managed to tweak something in my bad foot somehow but it's feeling better now.

There was a bit of a scare this weekend for Salomon runner Ryan Sandes who crossed the finish line first at the prestigious 125K TransGranCanaria trail race in the Canary Islands. The next morning, as he was heading for the awards ceremony, the race organizers issued a press release saying he had been disqualified for not carrying all the mandatory gear.

It turned out that at the finish line, he showed them all his gear, and when they asked him to show his "cover", he didn't understand. Then the volunteers said everything was OK. They meant "emergency blanket", and he had one in his gear; it had been checked at one of the aid stations later in the race. He was reinstated quickly after the confusion was cleared up!
http://www.irunfar.com/2014/03/ryan-sandes-2014-tn...