Training Log Archive: BashIn the 7 days ending Jul 24, 2016:
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Sunday Jul 24, 2016 #
Paddling (SUP) 15:00 [1]
slept:5.0
It's a dirty job but some volunteer has to do it... On a spectacular sunny morning, 'Bent and I took Yumi by trail to yesterday's SUP CP, then we paddled the four SUPs (using a tow rope), canopy tent (which we didn't actually paddle) and flags back to the Hub. Yumi and I practised SUP headstands. Hers was much better.
Saturday Jul 23, 2016 #
Event: RockstAR
11 AM
Adventure Racing 7:54:22 49.0 km (9:41 / km) +706m 9:02 / km
slept:6.0 shoes: Salomon S-Lab XT 5 Softground
RockstAR adventure race
Bark Lake
A fantastic weekend of summer fun, friends and adventure racing!
'Bent and I teamed up for the 8-hr RockstAR course. Our route planning back in our room went quite smoothly after Funderstorm and Mrs. Tiny mentioned they'd brought a coffee maker and a large bag of coffee. (Thank you!)
We couldn't do the usual RockstAR bike route because a bridge was under construction so we did a 1.6 km run along the Bark Lake Road to reach our bikes, then rode trails and roads to pick up poker chips at three locations. It was a fun ride with some route choice and strategy. We opted to leave the Lakota single track until the end to avoid congestion so our route was a little longer. We were near the back of the pack on the run (I don't warm up quickly, even when it's 30C) and made up a little time on the biking, finishing at the 70 minute mark of the race.
We had the rest of the 8 hours to find CPs using any combination of foot and canoe. Since the 4-hour race hadn't started yet, we went to CP41, the "dive for a CD on the lake bottom" checkpoint. As expected, there were no other racers and lots of CDs remaining, so this went quickly and felt soooo refreshing. :) Then we headed down to the valuable CPs in the southwest part of the race course. The navigation looked tough but the distances were manageable, and there were trails to take us partway and provide good attackpoints.
On our way into the woods was audio CP44 playing the Tragically Hip - a nice touch! The indistinct Maka Ina trail has been largely reclaimed by the forest so we bushwhacked most of the 2 km to our attackpoint for CP101, which was still 1 km out from the checkpoint. It wasn't hard to bushwhack near the approximate route of the old trail but our time estimates were going to need some major revisions.
We visited CPs 101, 100, 90 and 84. The off-trail navigation in here was challenging, beautiful and fun - in spite of the FDFs. We waded beneath a cliff on a lakeshore and I banged my shin hard into an underwater log. That's the only real pain I'm feeling 24 hours later. On our way back to the Hub, as long as we were attentive, we could see the little-used Zeth "red paint" trail, which led us to the major double track trail leading to camp.
This section took longer than expected and it was already 4 hrs 10 mins into the race when we got back to the Hub. It's mandatory for teams to check into the Hub between 5 and 7 hours into the race. We had planned to paddle north and return just before the 7-hr mark, then get some final CPs near the Hub. Now it seemed more sensible to visit a few nearby CPs and return during the early part of the mandatory check-in period.
It felt fantastic to hop in our canoe and get out onto the water on a hot day. No FDFs there! We paddled up to CPs 40 and 83, the trail building CPs (each team cleared 15' of trail, then got coordinates for a bonus CP), then CP42 where I had to paddle a SUP out to pick up flags from two floating containers. Nice that my SUP yoga classes are now AR-relevant!
It was still too early to check in so we went to CP61 on Storm and Browner's wedding island. If I'd been thinking strategically, we should have headed back to the Hub then and checked in at 5 hrs 10 mins. But it wasn't that much farther to CP45, the inner tube paddling checkpoint, and I was feeling bad that 'Bent hadn't had the chance to do a play-in-the-water CP yet. He enjoyed it so that was a win but the detour added 18 minutes so we were pressed for time as we paddled north after our Hub check-in.
We went via the floating CP60 on our way up to the portage trail at the north end of Bark Lake. I'd originally planned a loop to get CPs but I got cold feet since I didn't know how visible the trails would be, and our time was tight. Instead we headed north and picked up CPs 51, 62 and 50, which were accessed from the portage trail. We met a number of teams but we were definitely going against the flow; most of them still needed to paddle back and check in.
We paddled up to CP46, then continued around to the next bay and pulled our canoe ashore. We had just over an hour before the cut-off, and we wanted to save 20 minutes of that for the paddle back to the Hub. So that meant we could run 20 minutes out and 20 minutes back - no cheating. We picked up CP63 then I had a moment of angst looking at the distance to CP70 on ATV trails that had hills, mud puddles, rocks and a few overgrown bits. 'Bent proposed that we at least try to go for it; we could always turn around when we reached our deadline. Sure, might as well - there weren't any other CPs we could get before the cut-off so there was nothing to lose.
It was about 1.3 km of rugged running on an ATV trail that was easy to follow. We arrived 1 minute past our turnaround deadline (I didn't have the heart to stick to it), then I asked 'Bent to put me on tow. It was 2.1 km back to the canoe at our fastest running pace of the day! When we hit the water, we had 17 minutes to the cut-off - less than our plan called for. I never get cramps but I paddled so hard I got a cramp in my hamstring (huh?!?) We made it in 11 minutes with some help from a tailwind. Phew!
We had so much fun playing around Bark Lake today and it was great to see so many friends on the race course and at the party afterward. The Gally family deserves a special shout out since Mr. Gally, Jacob and his young cousin were the overall winners of the 4-hr course - racing as adult men, not in the Family category! And Mrs. Gally and Emma were the winners of the adult Female category. Awesome!! 'Bent and I were sincerely surprised and thrilled to learn that 1400 pts made us the top Coed team (2 or 3 person) on the 8-hr course, 70 pts behind the male team that won overall.
Thanks so much to Storm, Browner and the wonderful team of staff and volunteers who did an excellent job organizing this event. And of course, thanks to 'Bent for being a terrific teammate. It was a blast! :)
Bark Lake
A fantastic weekend of summer fun, friends and adventure racing!
'Bent and I teamed up for the 8-hr RockstAR course. Our route planning back in our room went quite smoothly after Funderstorm and Mrs. Tiny mentioned they'd brought a coffee maker and a large bag of coffee. (Thank you!)
We couldn't do the usual RockstAR bike route because a bridge was under construction so we did a 1.6 km run along the Bark Lake Road to reach our bikes, then rode trails and roads to pick up poker chips at three locations. It was a fun ride with some route choice and strategy. We opted to leave the Lakota single track until the end to avoid congestion so our route was a little longer. We were near the back of the pack on the run (I don't warm up quickly, even when it's 30C) and made up a little time on the biking, finishing at the 70 minute mark of the race.
We had the rest of the 8 hours to find CPs using any combination of foot and canoe. Since the 4-hour race hadn't started yet, we went to CP41, the "dive for a CD on the lake bottom" checkpoint. As expected, there were no other racers and lots of CDs remaining, so this went quickly and felt soooo refreshing. :) Then we headed down to the valuable CPs in the southwest part of the race course. The navigation looked tough but the distances were manageable, and there were trails to take us partway and provide good attackpoints.
On our way into the woods was audio CP44 playing the Tragically Hip - a nice touch! The indistinct Maka Ina trail has been largely reclaimed by the forest so we bushwhacked most of the 2 km to our attackpoint for CP101, which was still 1 km out from the checkpoint. It wasn't hard to bushwhack near the approximate route of the old trail but our time estimates were going to need some major revisions.
We visited CPs 101, 100, 90 and 84. The off-trail navigation in here was challenging, beautiful and fun - in spite of the FDFs. We waded beneath a cliff on a lakeshore and I banged my shin hard into an underwater log. That's the only real pain I'm feeling 24 hours later. On our way back to the Hub, as long as we were attentive, we could see the little-used Zeth "red paint" trail, which led us to the major double track trail leading to camp.
This section took longer than expected and it was already 4 hrs 10 mins into the race when we got back to the Hub. It's mandatory for teams to check into the Hub between 5 and 7 hours into the race. We had planned to paddle north and return just before the 7-hr mark, then get some final CPs near the Hub. Now it seemed more sensible to visit a few nearby CPs and return during the early part of the mandatory check-in period.
It felt fantastic to hop in our canoe and get out onto the water on a hot day. No FDFs there! We paddled up to CPs 40 and 83, the trail building CPs (each team cleared 15' of trail, then got coordinates for a bonus CP), then CP42 where I had to paddle a SUP out to pick up flags from two floating containers. Nice that my SUP yoga classes are now AR-relevant!
It was still too early to check in so we went to CP61 on Storm and Browner's wedding island. If I'd been thinking strategically, we should have headed back to the Hub then and checked in at 5 hrs 10 mins. But it wasn't that much farther to CP45, the inner tube paddling checkpoint, and I was feeling bad that 'Bent hadn't had the chance to do a play-in-the-water CP yet. He enjoyed it so that was a win but the detour added 18 minutes so we were pressed for time as we paddled north after our Hub check-in.
We went via the floating CP60 on our way up to the portage trail at the north end of Bark Lake. I'd originally planned a loop to get CPs but I got cold feet since I didn't know how visible the trails would be, and our time was tight. Instead we headed north and picked up CPs 51, 62 and 50, which were accessed from the portage trail. We met a number of teams but we were definitely going against the flow; most of them still needed to paddle back and check in.
We paddled up to CP46, then continued around to the next bay and pulled our canoe ashore. We had just over an hour before the cut-off, and we wanted to save 20 minutes of that for the paddle back to the Hub. So that meant we could run 20 minutes out and 20 minutes back - no cheating. We picked up CP63 then I had a moment of angst looking at the distance to CP70 on ATV trails that had hills, mud puddles, rocks and a few overgrown bits. 'Bent proposed that we at least try to go for it; we could always turn around when we reached our deadline. Sure, might as well - there weren't any other CPs we could get before the cut-off so there was nothing to lose.
It was about 1.3 km of rugged running on an ATV trail that was easy to follow. We arrived 1 minute past our turnaround deadline (I didn't have the heart to stick to it), then I asked 'Bent to put me on tow. It was 2.1 km back to the canoe at our fastest running pace of the day! When we hit the water, we had 17 minutes to the cut-off - less than our plan called for. I never get cramps but I paddled so hard I got a cramp in my hamstring (huh?!?) We made it in 11 minutes with some help from a tailwind. Phew!
We had so much fun playing around Bark Lake today and it was great to see so many friends on the race course and at the party afterward. The Gally family deserves a special shout out since Mr. Gally, Jacob and his young cousin were the overall winners of the 4-hr course - racing as adult men, not in the Family category! And Mrs. Gally and Emma were the winners of the adult Female category. Awesome!! 'Bent and I were sincerely surprised and thrilled to learn that 1400 pts made us the top Coed team (2 or 3 person) on the 8-hr course, 70 pts behind the male team that won overall.
Thanks so much to Storm, Browner and the wonderful team of staff and volunteers who did an excellent job organizing this event. And of course, thanks to 'Bent for being a terrific teammate. It was a blast! :)
Friday Jul 22, 2016 #
Note
slept:7.0
Ready to race the RockstAR!
Thursday Jul 21, 2016 #
12 PM
Mountain Biking (Single Track) 40:35 9.61 km (14.2 kph) +123m
slept:6.0
I was feeling much too comfortable and healthy indoors so I went for a ride around the Palgrave single track to better enjoy the humidex near 40C and the "moderate" air quality. Some of the weeds in there are over my head now! Mostly I went out to test my AR bike shoes. AdventureDog had chewed off one of the buckles, and 'Bent contacted Pearl Izumi and obtained spare parts to repair the shoe. It worked just fine. I guess we're as ready for RockstAR as we're going to be!
(Bike computer distance)
(Bike computer distance)
Wednesday Jul 20, 2016 #
Note
slept:6.0
Tuesday Jul 19, 2016 #
Note
slept:7.0
In case you haven't seen it, 'Bent made a terrific video of the 47 km Cortina Trail race in Italy. Storm plays a starring role in the film, just as he played a major role in helping 'Bent get to the finish line.
Cortina Trail 2016 (1080 version) from Richard Ehrlich on Vimeo.
Monday Jul 18, 2016 #
Note
Here's some of the latest info on what you can and cannot bring into the 4.4 square kilometre event area surrounding the U.S. Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio - the area where protests and other gatherings will take place. The potentially serious consequences of open carrying whole fruit and non-plastic containers are so significant that they will override the individual freedom to choose a nutritious lunch. I would have thought that the only thing that could stop a bad guy with a banana would be a good guy with a banana.
2 PM
Running intervals (Trail) 1:09:38 10.02 km (6:57 / km) +127m 6:32 / km
slept:8.0 shoes: Salomon S-Lab XT 5 Softground
Another 30C day and we didn't get the big storm that was forecast so the grass is crunchy dry again. It's been ages since I've done any Bash 'n' Crash 500 m intervals on our usual rolling trail section in Palgrave West. I've done very little speed work this year so expectations were low.
After a 3 km warm-up, I did the first few intervals at what was supposed to be a 5K race pace. I usually try to do B&C 500s all out but it was sooo hot.
2:37
2:36
2:30
Wow, that's slow. I tried two more intervals where I pushed as hard as I could.
2:24
2:22
Wow, that's slow too. I think my PR on this section of trail was 2:05. Maybe I should make this a regular thing. Not that I have any idea what I'm training for.
After a 3 km warm-up, I did the first few intervals at what was supposed to be a 5K race pace. I usually try to do B&C 500s all out but it was sooo hot.
2:37
2:36
2:30
Wow, that's slow. I tried two more intervals where I pushed as hard as I could.
2:24
2:22
Wow, that's slow too. I think my PR on this section of trail was 2:05. Maybe I should make this a regular thing. Not that I have any idea what I'm training for.