Training Log Archive: Bash

Energized hike to the Metcalfe Rock area with the pooches. I think I finally tired our puppy out.

Kolapore Wilderness Trails 50th Anniversary - Geology Hike

We've been putting on a series of "Heritage Hikes" this year as part of the 50th Anniversary celebrations. I sold a few more of our fundraiser toques before the hike.



We were privileged to be guided by Beth Gilhespy, the former longtime CEO of the Bruce Trail Conservancy, who is now the Executive Director of the Toronto Zoo. She trained as a geologist and recently wrote a geology-themed hiking guide for the Beaver Valley Bruce Trail.



The route was the Duncan Escarpment Provincial Park loop, one of our favourites, so it was cool to see it from a different perspective. I learned that in Kolapore and Pretty River, we've mostly been mountain biking over an ancient coral reef that is very irregular and broken apart. No wonder I like the Palgrave trails better! I also learned that there's an important archaeological site across the road from us. They think indigenous people travelled here to collect chert for arrowheads from the cliff at the end of our road but they probably didn't live here full time.

There are some fossils. This used to be a tropical ocean area, hence the coral reef.



It was a beautiful day and there were lots of great people to chat with.









I had to bail a little early to rescue Stephen from his crate so I ran home 1.7 km. I've deducted an hour for stops but it's just a guess. It was not a speed hike!

Kolapore short loop. I'll call this running because it partly was, thanks to a certain puppy. Also, that will cover the last part of today's hike - the run home to let the dogs out. Time deducted for a chat with our neighbour Tom, who was on his way to rock climb in the Swamp with a friend.

This was Stephen's longest hike yet and he's not as tired as he should be. It will be interesting to see whether it affects his limp. The surgeon didn't recommend limiting exercise since his leg has completely healed.

Sadly, he is no longer off-leash now that he's built up his confidence and fitness. He has a strong prey drive that we'll need to work on. He wants to chase everything - not sure what he'd do if he caught them. I'm also not sure whether he'd find his way back to us. Luckily, he's cute. We had this issue with BazingaDog too.

On Sunday I kept checking Ironman Live to see how our local friend Bob Knuckey was doing. Really well - that's how he was doing!

Bob is 75 years old - a kind, retired teacher with a great sense of humour. He started as a pure runner. He won a marathon in Toronto almost 50 years ago; his PR is 2:28.

In his late 50s, Bob met Barrie Shepley who said that if Bob started training in multiple sports rather than just running, he would reduce his chance of injury. Bob didn't know how to swim but that made sense to him, so he became a triathlete.

The year he turned 65, he won his age group in the Ironman 70.3 World Championship. A couple of years later, he did it again. At 70, he went to the Ironman World Championship in Kona and won the 70-74 age group, breaking 12 hours.

For the past year, he's been training for the Ironman World Championship in his new 75-79 age group. A monkey wrench was thrown into his plans when Ironman moved the 2023 men's World Championship to Nice, which is a much harder course with a hilly 180 km bike course that doesn't always have guard rails by the cliffs. So he trained a little differently and continued working hard.

Bob was at the C3 Quarry every weekday morning at 5:45 am - not just to swim but to open the facility for other members. When he went to Tucson for winter training, he shared the long drive from Caledon with Barrie. He trained hard and volunteered hard. His preparation was a community project for the C3 club. We all followed Facebook posts of his journey, donated funds toward his training and cheered him on.

In NIce this past weekend, the weather was hot and the hilly bike course gave trouble even to some pro racers. Bob came out of the 4 km swim in 1st place in his age group and also in the age group beneath his own. He stayed in that position for the first 90 minutes of the bike course, then a youngster in his early 70s passed Bob. He finished the 180 km bike ride with a strong lead in the 75-79 category. After Bob had been running for a while on the 42 km course, he learned that no other racer aged 75+ had made the cut-off. Only two men in the 70-74 category made the cut. So he "just" had to run a marathon to win - which he did, in just under 15 hours.

So exciting!!! It couldn't happen to a nicer guy and he worked really hard for it. Well deserved :)

Short loop with unintended high intensity intervals at the same frightening pace as a leashed Stephen, who fortunately slowed down to smell the roses in between. AdventureDog, who is trustworthy off-leash, egged him on. I should have put Stephen's harness on to keep him from pulling on his neck, so we circled back home.

A few of Caron Shepley's 10 Minutes 2 Zen videos.

This was Stephen's longest hike so far. He loves the smells of Kolapore. I think I may have found a couple of piles of bear poop yesterday, which can only make it smell more interesting.

Course planning.