Training Log Archive: Bash

Mansfield Outdoor Centre used to be a great mountain biking destination but they closed for biking years ago because insurance costs were too high. Event organizers could still rent the venue and provide their own insurance, as I did in 2009 when I organized my first mountain bike orienteering race for the Caledon Navigators club.

I'm not sure how insurance is handled now but partway through this season, they re-opened for biking in partnership with the trail maintenance group for the Dufferin County Forest tract next door. 'Bent and I headed over to check it out today.

Plenty of other activities have continued at Mansfield. We've been there for orienteering races, winter adventure races and cross-country skiing. We've biked in the adjacent tract of Dufferin County Forest. So it felt very familiar but the trail builders have done a ton of work to improve the network so it also felt like exploration.



The red trail is for novices, blue and white are intermediate, and the yellow trail is expert. The trails connect to Dufferin County Forest to the north and east. We've been doing a lot of rocky-difficult riding since we got the place in Kolapore but this was difficult in a completely different way - quick, steep down/ups on narrow trails on side slopes, hairpin turns and off-angle roots. The consequences of falling at Kolapore are high because of all the rock. At Mansfield, the major risk was poison ivy - and not everywhere.

We saw almost no other riders in 2 hours but we *did* see Eugene Mlynczyk hanging ribbons for an upcoming orienteering event, the Turkey Trot. We stopped to chat for a while. We haven't seen him in real life since the pandemic started so it was great to catch up! He took this photo.



As we chatted, we noticed that my bike computer sensor had been torn off so when we left, we returned to the start of the blue loop to see if we could find it. It had stopped measuring distance at 0.74 km but that didn't turn out to be as helpful a clue as we had hoped.

Looking at this photo closely though, I see a more important item missing from my front pack pocket that I hadn't noticed yet - my phone. If I had thought to take a photo of Eugene, I would have noticed earlier! As it turns out, I got very, very lucky. When 'Bent phoned me to see whether my phone was in a different place in my pack, a woman answered my phone. Lori was out walking her adorable German Shepherd puppy when she noticed my phone on the trail. We chased them around the loop and I repaid her by taking some nice Mom & dog photos and sending them to her. Sooooo grateful!

We stopped for a snack at the lookout.



There were very few vehicles in the parking lot and a day pass is only $15 + tax so they're not making much money. If you're in the area, go! These are fun trails - we'll definitely go back.

I haven't been running because of my right Achilles insertional tendinopathy but I wanted to test whether the rest and physio have been helping. The doc did say I could run a bit. So I did a 1-minute on, 1-minute off run in Palgrave Forest. I'll know tomorrow whether my foot was happy with it. Regardless, Coach LD and I will do some running in Storm The Trent next week so I may as well remind my body how it's done.

First Tour de Palgrave Forest in a month. I felt surprisingly comfortable with technical riding after a long break, probably because Kolapore is so much harder that my most significant challenge at Palgrave is avoiding the abundant poison ivy. I've been hearing a rubbing noise and because I have my first AR since 2019 next week, I stopped to try to figure it out. After removing the front wheel, I identified it as "Weirdly Jiggly Front Brake". I shortened my ride because it didn't sound healthy. I have referred the patient to 'Bent for differential diagnosis and surgery.

I've finally caught up on the last few weeks on AP including a video of 'Bent and Coach LD leaping into Georgian Bay on Sept. 6, the tornado warning that wrecked our 25th anniversary dinner out on Sept. 7 and my journal of our Lake Superior Coastal Trail backpacking trip. The trip journal is too long to read unless you're interested in that part of the world but there are lots of photos if you're curious to skim through. It's a wild, beautiful part of Ontario that doesn't see a lot of visitors in the backcountry compared to more popular and accessible areas. I especially recommend this backpacking trip for Crossfitters, who would have found it easier than I did!

Here's the full trip in reverse chronological order because that's how my AP log is set up:
https://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/pe...

Or here's the day-by-day version for people who like chronological order:

Fri. Aug. 27 - Drive to Agawa Bay https://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/pe...

Sat. Aug. 28 - Gargantua Bay to Warp Bay https://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/pe...

Sun. Aug. 29 - Warp Bay with day hike to Chalfant Cove https://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/pe...

Mon. Aug. 30 - Warp Bay to Rhyolite Cove https://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/pe...

Tues. Aug. 31 - Rhyolite Cove to Beatty Cove https://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/pe...

Wed. Sept. 1 - Beatty Cove to Baldhead South https://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/pe...

Thurs. Sept. 2 - Baldhead South to Robertson Cove https://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/pe...

Fri. Sept. 3 - Robertson Cove to Bartlett Island https://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/pe...

Sat. Sept. 4 - Bartlett Island to Agawa Bay https://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/pe...

I was back at the Caledon East COVID-19 vaccine clinic today after a few weeks away. What a difference a mandate makes! It's not crazy busy like it was in June but it's busier than August. About 40% of our clients were walk-ins and a significant proportion of them were getting first shots. People asked how the vaccine passport will work and expressed concern about how long they'll need to wait to get their 2nd shot, not to mention the extra 14 days until they're fully vaccinated. Suddenly they're in a hurry because they have plans to travel or attend a social event at a restaurant.

These people aren't anti-vaxxers; the anti-vaxxers won't be coming in. These are people who didn't make vaccination a priority until the mandates were announced. Maybe they have busy lives, maybe they were worried about side effects, maybe they need it for work, maybe they think they're too young to get really sick from Covid, maybe they figured it wasn't necessary because the rest of us had gotten vaccinated.

Nobody expressed anger - not like the people who swore at clinic staff during the Pfizer shortage. In the early months, vaccine clinics were filled with happy, excited clients. Now the people are pleasant but if they were excited about getting vaccinated, we would have seen them a long time ago. We try hard to make them feel good about coming in - definitely no embarrassment about waiting so long. As always, my goal is to make every client smile if I can.