Training Log Archive: Bash

First ski of the season!!

'Bent, AdventureDog and I headed out the back door into Palgrave West and K-Bash Woods. It was the kind of ski you would never do in spring after being spoiled by several months of gliding along rolling trails and wading through backwoods powder. But in November, we're happy to head into the forest and ski on sticky, wet snow with occasional leaves, pine needles and grass. We'll take whatever winter we can get! We did some bushwhacking and trail clearing. Awesome. :)

O Cup Kick-Off - the start of another fun winter orienteering season. We even had snow!

Thanks to the Stars (and to their childcare providers) for putting on three events in a day for the price of one - two O Cups and a training session in between, all at different locations. It was truly above and beyond.

The first and longest race was the Kick-Off at Homer Watson Park. It's not a huge park but there's a wide variety of terrain and some of it is really hilly since this is the edge of the Grand River Valley.

I mostly had a good race although I oriented my map like I'm supposed to, then proceeded to read an upside-down 9 as a 6, so my route was: 5-9-6-7-8-9. I wondered why Nick Duca didn't follow me when I bushwhacked down that hill!

I ran at a very moderate pace since the last of my bronchitis is still not gone. The real test will be how I feel tomorrow. Last week I felt like crap for a few days after running on Saturday.

I won a pair of socks as the top woman. Good thing AdventureGirl! wasn't there. ;) I left a big bottle of rum on the prize table, which was scooped by the junior winner.

Sadly, my Ambit failed to record the middle part of the course; I guess it hadn't found Kitchener yet. It seemed to record altitude OK. I've tried to guess distance from someone else's track.

Memory-O Training at Breithaupt Park

This was a fun exercise and a great way to use a small area. At the start there were a few copies of the map but we couldn't take them with us. There were about a dozen control circles. In addition to the start/finish, two of the controls were marked "M" and you would find a copy of the map there instead of a flag.

The idea was to visit every control, finding it by memory. If you could, you would try to remember the controls on the way to an "M" control, then you could check the map again and try to remember a few more. Fun!

O Cup #2 - Starry Nights - the first-ever Night O Cup
McLennan Park

So much fun! We were running around a hilly area, mostly open, sometimes through vetch (thanks for the ID, Outdoorsmama) that grabbed our shins and tried to fling us onto our faces. I only went down once but I caught myself a few times. I made a note today to tell Caron how much yoga helps with balance during orienteering races.

We also ran on grass, through open woods, through playgrounds and parking lots and around a school.

I made a 1:30 error near the beginning when I somehow thought I was running past #6 on my way to #1. So confident was I that I didn't even deviate 2 meters to check the code. But it *was* #1, which should have been obvious in hindsight. On the bright side, it meant I got to run through more vetch.

There were lights bobbing around everywhere and a lot of smiles. I think Hammer accidentally stumbled upon a new slogan for the O Cup Series. ;))

As soon as I finished, cold rain mixed with wet snow started pummelling us, which made the drive home an adventure.

Thank you, Stars!

Hard Core Live with Caron.

I felt strong and flexible - which is something positive at least, given that I'm feeling the loss of cardio fitness.

I've switched from the 50 miler to the 50K race in two weeks. Funny how that seems like takin' it easy. We'll see - I may switch to a lower distance.

I'm slowly "unsicking" myself.

Antibiotics don't seem to be the solution - no big surprise. But we tried.

Good News: 'Bent is home!

Possibly other good news: I've started on antibiotics, which may help although bronchitis is usually viral. No running for now. :(