Training Log Archive: OutdoorsMama

20 seconds seated climb, 20 seconds still seated climb but faster, then 20 seconds as fast as you can. Repeat. And repeat. Etc.

Unsportsmanlike behaviour is uncalled for.
Anywho, back to our day jobs.

I thought we should do a longer ride today. After lunch, we headed into the wind West on the Greenway then got a bit of a break as we headed north. Then dead into the wind as we headed SW on the new stretch of trail towards Amherstburg. I did an extra mile or so to the very end of the trail as Paul wasn't feeling as good as I was so turned around to head back. I scurried to catch up with him again..... That's a math question:. If Paul is riding at 10 mph and I add an extra 1.5 miles to my route, will I catch up to him before he gets to McGregor? :)
We finished as the stars were popping out.

C • How far to McGregor? 2

Half marathon cheater busted

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-...

C • busted running cheater stories are fascinating 4

Bit of everything. Including sweat.

I do need to do this more often Jacob's ladder, hamstrings, bocu ball, free weights.....

My intended ski trip with my son was a no-go. So we put on our summer riding gear and headed to Point Pelee. Parked at the marsh boardwalk and rode north on the new (fun!) Centennial trail extension, then back South to the Point. Then back again on the newer DuLaurier trail extension.
Followed by a walk on the marsh boardwalk. The Canada Geese were getting a bit grumpy with each other as they establish their nesting territories.
Temperatures of 15-20C.....Oddly warm breezes off the lake (despite the odd iceburg). And more than the occasional burst of sunshine.
Also need to ride my mountain bike more often.

C • Hanson Hills 2

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/sports/olymp...

A fellow from Venezuela tackles XC skiing.....

Short but vigorous (I.e. found all the hills and grassy areas in town) ride before supper while it was still shorts weather.

For the first time in years(?) I listened to my iPod......I have a caché of Vinyl Cafe episodes to keep me laughing and tearing up for a few miles yet.
I didn't have to worry about slipping on the ice. 10-12 C tonight after supper. I am worried about the peaches.

Intervals and hills. What more could I ask for?

C • More hills!! 2

Rode west to check out my older step daughter's new place.

Paul and I met up with JustMe and co. for an escorted lap of the Waterloo Grit and Gravel course. Yes, there were hills. And mud. And sunshine! And more unreasonably mild temperatures. There was a bit of ice on the marshes in the woods though. Those of us not on SS listened to our bikes squawk and grind for a bit after riding through some very sloppy stuff north of the jail, but no derailleurs were lost. We took a snack break about 3/4 of the way through (where I sloshed some water on my rear derailleur). A very good ride.

Almost a tie with the ratings for the bean burgers, craft beer and Celtic music at the Chelsea Alehouse afterwards :)

Down to the park to catch the last bit of the sunset.

One long and steep mother of a hill.
Not bad for Essex County.

I wore shorts! I put SPF 30 on my legs and face. It was that kind of day.
Strong SW wind. We headed west on Road 2 ( the Greenway was too soft .... Did not want to leave tracks). Then Road 4, so lots of put-your-head-down and bike time. We paused to watch a bald eagle soaring overhead. We saw him/her again a couple miles later. Or maybe it was his/her partner. Pretty cool!
Zigged and zagged up to Essex then along South Talbot Road, finishing up with the nice paved shoulder south on Division Road.....Sort of into the wind to finish off the ride.

Then after a glass of chocolate milk, I rode to the library which re-opened on Thursday after being closed since June 25 due to a labour dispute. I picked up Across America by Bike (2, 50-something women biking across the US, unsupported) and a book about back roads in Scotland. Bless libraries.

Two Creeks on the way home from work. New bridges!

To the gym

Mixed bag but sweaty regardless.

Home again, home again. Jiggity jog.

The Old Man of Coniston was on my bucket list before there was such a thing as a bucket list. I did clamber up it last September and would like to do it again on a clear day. Unfortunately, two people had a bad (or very bad) go of it recently.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/768304/Walker-fig...

Woo hoo! Set the iPad up right in front of me and within a few minutes I had both hands on the handle bars. Two brief pauses for wardrobe adjustments (this is in the unheated bunkie, so the toque, sweatshirt and ski gloves eventually came off).
The calorie counter on my Garmin (based on heart rate) was a wee bit less than after a heavy duty spin class.

That was one long, steep hill.

Around the 'hood after spin class. Lots of stars.

Around the block in the last bit of sunshine.

Never gets easier.

We found a group ride for this morning. As expected, they were very fast guys, and I assured them we were OK with being dropped. We set off on the general route we started yesterday and then turned left at one of the places where we had turned right yesterday. About 8-9 miles in they hammered up a hill that we were just happy to be able to ride up, and were outtta sight.
We looped around clockwise like yesterday, but on a smaller diameter loop. We went down a hill that was barely fit for four wheelers. Not interested in wearing my brakes out unnecessarily, I actually walked the steepest stretch. The other guys had gone a different way at one of the forks in the road and came UP that hill! I had noted that the leader had something like a 42 tooth ring on his cassette. He might have used it on that hill.
After pushing our bikes along the side of a river (it was a very rustic "road") we eventually came out on another road we had ridden yesterday. This time we knew that Tom Patton road was code for Thompson Road, so we headed that way. Tom Patton must be Tennessee slang for "this road is only fit for high clearance pick ups and crazy cyclists". 4-5 water crossings later (each one 15-30' wide), our feet were no longer dry (at least it was unseasonably warm). I declared this The Best Ride Ever.
Then at another fork in the road, we opted not to take the road to the right as it had another creek crossing. So we took the road to the left that had 6-8 creek crossings. We seriously lost count. It was simply awesome riding....picking lines through the creek beds wasn't as fast as just riding on a road, but it sure was fun! The creek valley was through a gorge with occasional splashes of daffodils along the side of the road or at houses/vacant properties. The guys were doing 2, 25 mile loops which I doubt included these creek crossings. Their loss :)

Then it was time to poke through some antique shops then check out the town museum and enjoy some southern BBQ.

I got orthotics last month and have been wearing them a bit more each day in my hiking boots I wear to work/snowshoeing. I put them in running shoes for the weekend....I will say the jury is out right now. I know it can take a while to get accustomed to them so I will persevere.

This is our 10th wedding anniversary weekend. We had decided to drive south until we found "spring" and ride our bikes a bit. Et voilà, there was spring, and there were hills! And dogs. And many empty tall boy cans in the ditch.
No, we weren't riding near where I grew up......We made it to Tennessee. Paul had found a 65k route on Strava and put it on his Garmin. When we were almost back at the starting point after 15k, I knew something was amiss. So we set off again, and I suggested we go right, into the boonies, at the bottom of a hill where we had gone left last time. I have never had the Garmin on my bike so I don't know if it is 'Garry" or Paul, but we seem to have trouble with directions when those two get together ;) Anywho, we got going on a nice big loop in the warm, glorious sunshine.
Cool rock formations, many creeks, many hills (up and down).....I walked up the hill on School Road, but made it up the others.
And cemeteries! There were many small cemeteries along the way. By chance, we saw a headstone for a fellow who fought in the War of 1812. Lots of beef cattle and horses, and dogs of all sizes. One big black one was sitting on the road ahead of us so I gave my sternest "Go Home", and it put its tail between its legs and crawled over to the side of the road. I could hear Paul say "It's OK, good dog" when he got to it. Poor dog probably has a complex now.
Awesome gravel riding and tremendous hill workouts for these flatlanders.

And a very good woodfired pizza, salad, beer and homemade ice cream float to cap off the day.

After supper

Warm but windy and rainy. Jogged to spin class.

It has been a while.....Pyramid night.

Next week we'll do better.

Skating always helps to stretch out muscles that I used more than usual on the weekend.....many, many short quick steps up hills on XC skis are not in my usual routine down here in the flatlands, even if we had snow.

The couple I met at the Lookout on the snowshoe trail yesterday mentioned Kivi park as a place to go skiing and snowshoeing in the south end of Sudbury. Holy cow! What an awesome place! They started trimming the trails this fall ( they are very well marked) and have assembled a wonderful network of XC ski and multiuse trails. And no charge to use them!

8-10cm snow fell overnight so I was pumped to be the first to explore the snowshoe trails. I got there at 8 am and most of the snowshoe trails had been groomed! They are also for fat bikes and walking (with or without a dog). So an ATV dragging some tires had already been along most of the trails. Like yesterday's trails, they were icy under the new snow so the grips on the snowshoes were much appreciated. I could see where walkers were literally sliding down hills ahead of me. I followed the red trail that goes over the higher elevations of the area and only two sets of footprints were ahead of me (too knarly for the groomer to tackle by himself, the fellow at the entrance to the park told me). They were sliding down some spots (likely rock faces) on their butts. I eventually caught up to them.....A couple women without Yaktraks, out for their morning walk while drinking coffee. These Sudbury folks are up and at 'em early!

I took a few pics of the nice vistas and of the frozen waterfall. I even felt motivated enough to jog a few stretches of the trail.

There was a fat bike demo day here last weekend and over 100 waivers were signed! I only saw one set of tracks as I was finishing the trail. 5-6 different trails, looping off each other, to give hikers a wide variety of distances and difficulties to choose from. If I am back up here in April at the end of the semester, I hope I can rent a fat bike and explore them from a different perspective.

I had a date with my son to go grocery shopping, but I couldn't leave without skiing. Super. Just super. Different degrees of hilliness but nothing crazy. All rolled for skate skiing and trackset for my shuffling style. The groomer even made another lap of already-groomed trails as I did one more side trail.
The parking lot was getting pretty full when I left. And rightly so!

My son rented skis and we got outfitted with trail passes at the Laurentian University "ski chalet" (aka a spot under the stands at the track and field stadium). We skied all the trails except for Sophie's as I had hoped to ski on a connecting trail to the conservation area. But that trail wasn't open (Closed. Use at Own Risk) so it will have to wait for another time. The Sun came out and it was glorious. Then we got caught in a snow squall that you wouldn't really want to drive in. Then the sun came out again.
Milton had trouble with the fresh snow sticking to his skis when we went on an ungroomed section so I offered to trade skis. But the bindings/boots didn't seem to be interchangeable. We stuck to trackset sections after that.
Then, since I try to be a good mom, I packed my gear away and took him out for a late lunch, even though Sophie's trail was calling my name. I may have mortified him with a hug in his residence hallway before I headed south.

Windy Lake Provincial Park--Onaping Nordic

I skied all the trails this time. The most challenging one (that I didn't do when I was here with my son last month) was knarly enough for this flatlander. The downhills were steep and twisty and most weren't trackset (as a testament to their steepness and twistiness). I haven't snowplowed on XC skis in a long time, but I certainly did a few times today! Needless to say, there was a lot of herringboning happening too.

I added a bit of wax to the kick area of my skis for the last bit and it helped as the tracks were slick enough from use over the last few days.

Beautiful forest.....And very nice people at the chalet. A fellow asked if my wax had been OK for the conditions. Then he told me about skins. And when I checked his skis out later (someone was trying them at that moment), sure enough, he had fake fur stuck to his kick zone. I had heard of putting skins on downhill skis for hiking up the mountain, but this was new to me.

I only saw 2 people out on the trails, despite the parking lot being almost full.

C • Wonderful day! 2

The snowshoe trail on the west side was built as a Katimavik project in the 80's. But as it is too knarly for even the most enthusiastic skier, it got a new life as a snowshoe trail. However, with the mild conditions in the last couple weeks, it is hard as a rock. Slippery, but hard. So the crampon-like grips on my snowshoes were needed, since I didn't bring Katoolas with me.

This trail is 4k long and I met a retired couple at the lookout who were using Yaktraks and poles. Yes, the snowshoes were overkill, but I needed extra grip!

Back at the parking lot, I ventured down to Windy Lake. I found an old set of tracks along the lake and followed them. They did not go out on the ice, nor did I. Although there were ice huts out on the lake, I had no idea what ice conditions would be along the exposed shoreline. I didn't have a map so I wasn't sure when the trail would come out into civilization. But eventually it came out at what must be a cluster of walk-in campsites. I followed a snow covered road for a bit, then another slippery, steep trail up and down some good hills.

No Whiskey Jacks materialized before my eyes. I even stopped by some open water at a spring, but no luck. There are 4 yurts at Windy Lake and I suspect they are all booked for the weekend. The nearby outhouses are heated!!!!! Between skiing, snowshoeing, ice fishing and enjoying a bonfire for a few hours, one could have a great few days here.

The exam is done and if I don't speak of it again, please don't ask :)
I am grateful I don't need to drive from Brantford to YYZ every day around 5-6 pm.

Ms E and I snowshoed around about half their farm before sunrise. Therefore we did not see our shadows.

We were encased in a snowsquall after supper, and suddenly it was calm and the moon appeared. If you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes.
I walked over to the storm water retention ponds then made 3 laps on snowshoes. The snow had compressed today with the sunshine and above freezing temperatures but it was still snow!