Training Log Archive: W

Arrived in Canmore! .... to cold weather and not great snow conditions. The schedule of Canmore is often strangely different than normalcy, and makes it usually a tad difficult to get in two workouts a day. That's okay, though, I feel like its not a bad time to spend a few days hanging out and doing almost nothing. I'm not used to doing almost nothing though, so its some anxiety-inducing times.

Anyway, eventually, when 5PM rolls around, the Nordic Centre is generally free and some of the trails are lit, so its time to go out for a nice cruise. My feet didn't really respond well to my boots, or possibly moreso it didn't really respond well to the ungodly firm-ness of the trails at the Nordic centre. All that manmade snow makes it awful firm.

The last workout of 2014! My feet felt a little happier today, and I did a bit more of leisurely cruising around the lit loops of the nordic centre. I really thought about continuing since I didn't feel particularly tired and had nothing better to do, but decided it was probably late enough that people would be waiting for me to come home and have dinner.

Did a bit of arms-only strength work in the middle as well, and got quite sore in the pecs. This is good, because it lets me know that I still have pecs.

The last workout of 2014! My feet felt a little happier today, and I did a bit more of leisurely cruising around the lit loops of the nordic centre. I really thought about continuing since I didn't feel particularly tired and had nothing better to do, but decided it was probably late enough that people would be waiting for me to come home and have dinner.

Did a bit of arms-only strength work in the middle as well, and got quite sore in the pecs. This is good, because it lets me know that I still have pecs.

Arrived in Canmore! .... to cold weather and not great snow conditions. The schedule of Canmore is often strangely different than normalcy, and makes it usually a tad difficult to get in two workouts a day. That's okay, though, I feel like its not a bad time to spend a few days hanging out and doing almost nothing. I'm not used to doing almost nothing though, so its some anxiety-inducing times.

Anyway, eventually, when 5PM rolls around, the Nordic Centre is generally free and some of the trails are lit, so its time to go out for a nice cruise. My feet didn't really respond well to my boots, or possibly moreso it didn't really respond well to the ungodly firm-ness of the trails at the Nordic centre. All that manmade snow makes it awful firm.

Another light morning run in the even colder before getting slamed again at the shop. Its not exactly plunging, but it was about -14, and tomorrow I think -19? A bit of a windchill makes it feel a mite colder too. Still, a nice day because the sun was still shining, and I can also tell because people came out and shopped like there was no tomorrow, again. And one guy got grumpy when we told him we couldn't get his skis done until next Friday.

"That's the best you can do?"

"Well, we're closed Monday, and only half-hours on Wednesday, and then closed Thursday, so that's only one and a half working days, and we have lots of skis to do."

*frown* "So, that's really the best you can do?"

......that's about the time when you decide he's getting liquid glider.

A very slow recovery ski in the evening after staying late with customers who walked right past the sign that implied we closed in five minutes. Sometimes I wish I was more willing to just tell them to bugger off!

Ho hum.

The temperature is busy tanking, so we got up at the crack of 8:30 to squeeze in a run before a ludicrously busy day at the shop. Masses of people coming in to see if we had any boxing day sales (its the 27th, but still, no), and plenty of people just coming in to get a new set of skis. Honestly, two days after Christmas is not usually the time that I decide to take up a new activity. I suppose not all people feel that the 25th is a gift-giving day, so maybe they don't feel the after effects of the rampant consumerism, but even still, I would think "everyone else is going shopping this week, so maybe I'll go for a ski instead".

But... wait, they don't have skis....

IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW.

We got a little skiff of snow overnight, so conditions had improved slightly at SWC, and the weather was certainly nicer, but for some reason, the grooming was atrocious. It must have been a new guy or something, because there were three tracks, which was unusual, and the outside tracks would keep developing a third track, with one of the tracks just disappearing into the soft snow. This created a bit of problem because then I would ski directly into soft snow without realizing it. I didn't crash, but there was definitely some near misses when I wasn't paying attention. I don't think I should have to pay 100% attention while skiing in a track. That's why you have a track.

Also, my arms are tired.

Christmas day ski at SWC, we only got going about 2 hours slower than usual! It was a Christmas miracle! Conditions are still deteriorating, and it was quite rutted and firm today. Since I love to glide and one-skate, I found myself getting stuck in ruts and nearly tipping over (its a long way down). A bit of fresh snow this afternoon and them being open tomorrow will probably mean some grooming and delightful conditions again.

Fingers cross. Can't cross my toes because I'm wearing my toe spacers. Anything to cure my feet!

Well, this was one of my train-y-er Christmas Eves I've ever experienced. Very busy, too. Got up at the crack of 8:20 to go for a morning run. Lovely day out, feet slightly less lovely. I think my new Hokas - the least weird Hokas they make - might help a little. Uber cushy, surprisingly light weight. There's a certain crunchiness when I turn corners, so that's.... less good. But lots of ice and some massage seems to work pretty well. Soon presumably I'll start popping anti-inflammatories too!

Right after work (we were open 10-2), we drove out to SWC for a short ski before it got dark. I was way overdressed, but thankfully is was also WAY COLDER out there. Really quite chilly, in fact. The conditions are deteriorating quite quickly. Also, it was around the time when the moose start emerging from the woods, although this time we only saw three. One was about 5 meters from the trail, but it just sort of looked at us, shrugged (in the way that moose do) and then went right back to munching on that tree. I suspect they're pretty unconcerned with humans with sticks now.

Which is good, because I'd prefer it if they didn't run me down.

A fine, albeit slow classic ski out at Strathcona. The conditions are good not great, there was a small skiff of fresh snow, so our kick was good not great too. So, it was kind of a molasses ski. But, I did some double poling work and it was a nice day. So.... WHATEVER!

Light evening run in the dark with sore feet. Actually, more noticable were my kind of sore shins, presumably from the classic skiing this morning. I haven't had that since racing 55km in -23 with a 5.5kg pack. And this was a 90 minute easy classic ski in compression tights.

*sigh*, I'm old.

Well, darn. Another needlessly short workout. To be fair, though, my foot is getting pretty....worse. Today was my first run in my new Hokas (Clifton, the least weird one they make) in the hope that a bit more cush might help. It did, but it didn't. The most notable part is now when I turn or am off camber, it feels kind of crunchy. I figure that's bad, but I'm not rich in solutions. My sister hasn't had time to do a little research, and some painful massage has really not done much. Its tough because we're here and we want to do lots of running and skiing, so I can't say that I'm just going to ride my trainer in the basement. That's WAY lame.

On the other hand, once I get back to the land of cloud and dark, I'm not going to have a trainer anymore, so that won't even be an option. I will have sauna, though!

As expected, my early-ish morning run did not happen nearly as early as I would have liked. Thus, I only had the time to do about an hour and ten minutes. We ran back towards Kinsmen and then my sister ran home and I turned back towards the shop. It took me about an hour until I had time to shower, but then it was actually pretty dead all day after that. AND, in a shocking twist, I actually bought Hokas.

I can hardly believe it myself.

Fortunately, being a slow day at the office, I wasn't so roasted that I couldn't get out for another workout. Again, I probably would have liked to go a little longer and a bit faster, but you can't always get what you want. And getting out was definitely better than not at all.

Although, my Polar is rarely impressed by my effort on skis. It barely has the motivation to be encouraging when I go for a 45 minute ski and my HR averages 112. I imagine its thinking something like, "Gee, why even bother?"

Gee whiz, wouldn't it be nice if the weather was warm and I didn't have to work much and I'd have lots of time to do lots of training with my sister?

Yep, that would be nice.

Instead, an hour an 5 minutes at Goldbar. This is a recurring theme over the week.

Back at the shop again for the next few days, so my time was now limited. I daresay that having family around also slows down the rate at which I can get going for workouts. So, I only had time to do an hour down at Goldbar. The conditions there are not great, I think I can use my good skis, but I'm going to have to tread carefully. I mainly just really WANT to use my good skis, since they're so, you know, good.

Headed out to do a pretty darn icy 5 peaks run through Whitemud. It was actually only four peaks because I'm pretty sure some of the steeper ones would be fully unclimbable without my icebugs. Still, after such intense climbing last week, these seemed piddly in comparison. As I run around here, I've been trying to decide if I particularly notice the altitude difference here (650 meters), and Finland (109). I'm pretty sure the answer is no, but, for instance, down the road in Calgary, its claimed that you'll never run a PB on the track there, due to the altitude (1,048m). I wonder.

You know, I thought that my arms felt pretty good after my last skate session. But today, after not too long, I really noticed some soreness in my shoulders. Like, quite a bit. I've always thought that my pole length selection is a tad long, but I was able to get used to in and my shoulders would adjust and I'd benefit from extra power on flats. So, having not done that motion in about 8 months, my shoulders were really not used to that extra length and I felt it. Still, I managed to do some laps, one of which was arms-only, one of which were legs only, the rest at cruise pace. Great evening to be out.

Re-enacted the old Fort Edmonton loop, my staple for the last few years. Unfortunately we didn't go as fast as I'm used to, so it took 1:35 instead of 1:25, but there's far more ice and unstable footing out there, so its not a major crisis.

So, apparently, somehow, a pair of Icebug Spirit 4s in my size arrived at the shop, but no one is quite sure how they got there. I had meant to e-mail Jack to get him to special order a pair, but I never did, and no one there remembers having ordered it either. Its a great mystery. But, a great result too!

I was asked to go into the shop on Monday, so instead of braving the low, low, -7 weather, I ran on the treadmill indoors instead. I started fairly brisk, and then just lightly increased the incline which I very slowly ramped up my heart rate from cruising around 130 to high-140s. That's what I like about treadmills over the great outdoors, you can do much better steady state running than otherwise. If it weren't so boring, I think it would be a fun workout to just keep that slow ramp going for a while until I hit some sort of threshold.

Evening run with the iso-sisko. I like my Polar V800 so far, despite the band being quite uncomfortable, but the more annoying thing is that its still unable to overcome what all HR monitors seem to have an issue with, and that's random high HR spikes at the beginning of workouts. Like every other, its super random for the first 5-6 minutes of the workout, spiking up to a HR of 205 and then going down to 100. This workout it took almost 10 minutes for it to level out.

And I know what you're saying, "oh just get it wet beforehand". Yes, I know that. I've had HR monitors for like, 45 years. Heck, I still have them all. I have a super old Polar [something] that with a new battery would work just hunky-dory again. And interestingly, it has quite a few features my new one doesn't have. Go figure.

I decided to head over to the shop and run from there for the morning's workout before work. The sun was out and although a little cold and breezy, it was a fantastic day.

Although I got rid of my deadsies shoes, I'm still a little stuck at the moment since I haven't found anything compellingly new, so I'm stuck with running with either my older wave riders, which are awful firm, and these speedcross. I suppose there's also my Adidas Boosts, but given the state of my toenails (its a bad state) that may be unwise.

Skiing! Actual skiing! The day I got home, it actually rained quite a bit over night, so one can never quite be sure what to expect from the conditions down at Victoria golf course. Some of the corners and underneath some trees were a little bare or icy, but on the whole, it was pretty darn good. Still pretty darn boring, also, but the groomers clearly decided to meander a little more and the loop got just a tad longer. This fall I haven't been ignoring my arm strength as much as in the past few years, so it didn't feel too difficult to get right back into using them again. They're not *quite* as stringly as they've been recently. As evidenced by the totally badass 7 pull-ups I did at the shop.

And... we're back! In Edmonton! However briefly!

Thanks to my fine strategy of staying up for what seemed for 24 straight hours, I was able to adjust to this time zone quite quickly after a solid comatose-like sleep. Woke up just in time to hustle to work for a full Saturday at the shop, then headed out for an evening run afterwards to run around the ol' loops.

I missed the ol' loops, but only a little. I like the new loops quite a lot too, especially when its super dark. It never really gets too dark here, I can pretty much run without a headlamp all the time, thanks to the light pollution. Thanks, light pollution.

Also, new watch with no battery issues! I'm now on Polar Flow rather than Garmin Connect, because what I definitely needed was another training log/training networking/whatever it is as much as I need a new chat app for my phone.

Which is to say, I don't. Why can't I just have some nice computer software? That comes on a floppy disk?

C • The prodigal son returns! 4

More airports. Too many airports.

Airports.

It would appear as though my Garmin didn't eat this workout, it just completely forgot. I remember it not eating the workout, (or maybe I was distracted), but I'm not entirely sure where it went. Oh well, no matter. Went back to the flat-ish trails, though I decided to take a bit of detour featuring some singletrack and in truth, quite a bit more climbing. It was some fun trails that skirted steeply along a valley.

Man, I wish I had that workout back. The line would have featured a lot of pretty squiggles.

This was also, tragically, the farewell tour of my Pearl Izumi N1s. Definitely some of the prettiest shoes I've ever had.

After looking at Teide for several days, it was finally time to actually climb it. I had been worried for days because its been clouded over, so there was a distinct possibility getting to the top was not possible.

HOWEVER! It was sunny and perfect today! Although the first anticipated problem was uncovered when the good parking lot was full and so an extra 1km walk from another parking lot was required. In spite of that, the hike up to the first landmark, the Refuge, was fairly easy. At first it was a wide and winding dirt road through the open volcano plain, with things called the Teide eggs, big round rocks that presumably the volcano spit out at some point.

Then eventually the trail narrowed down to a single track that switched back up quite a steep slope, but with all the switchbacks it was quite gentle, and a fairly easy hike.

At the refuge there were plenty of other people heading up to the gondola, as well as plenty of snow. This seemed hardly a barrier to me, it was your standard run of the mill spring/fall mountain snow. Kind of soft, maybe a little slippery, but nothing dangerous or difficult. Heck, I was wearing Kinvara TR shoes. I just ran a trail half marathon on those things. So, really not a concern.

Eventually came the top of the gondola, which is the last landmark before the summit. I remember reading about how agonizing the last pitch to the summit is, in terms of steepness and altitude. Uhh... yeah.... those were a tad dramatic. Honestly, its a 10 minute easy stroll to the summit. There was some slippery-esque snowy bits, but then steps were cut into a lot of the rock so 10 minutes later the summit was reached, and it was remarkably warm. This is totally not what I expected 3,718 meters to feel like in December, but it was not too windy and comfortable enough to sit down and eat chocolate for a few minutes.

The way down to the gondola was equally fun, as the snow was just right to bootslide most of the way down, which I haven't done in quite a few years.

It was at this point that I noticed a film crew was trained upwards at these bootsliding maniacs. At the time, I thought nothing of it, until we got to the bottom. See, technically, to get the top, a permit is required. And although I have a permit, there was no one to show it to at the gondola. So we just kept going. Once back to the gondola, a fellow came up and asked to see the permit, which I got out, no problem, well within our time period, etc. etc.

Then he told us to wait there a moment, went around the corner, and here comes some important looking guy and the camera crew. I seem to recall him saying in a quite joyful voice "Ah ha! Canadians!", and then in an equally pleasant (albeit Spanish) voice, he promptly said a great many things, with the camera right there getting a nice tight angle shot (of presumably, those wonderful Canadians). The ultimate conclusion of this lecture was, however, that the way down was too snowy, or dangerous, or something, and is closed, so... get on the gondola because you're not walking down.

In a sense this wasn't the worst thing in the world since the down probably would have been much tougher on the legs than up, and from discussions with people in the hostel, they also could have been much harsher. Like 1000 euro fine harsh.

The amount of snow that was there reminded me of like, climbing Ha Ling in April, so.... I'm not sure I really see the danger. But, it is a national park, and there are plenty of people in this world that are woefully unprepared, so that level of paranoia is probably on par with your standard Parks Canada policy too.

In conclusion, highest point of Spain = check. In three hours and two minutes. Easy peasy.

WOW, what an incredible recovery run.

Okay, that's a bit much. The goal was to find a yog that was less climbing and more flat, which was actually not too difficult! A short drive up the hill later, and there were a bunch of roads that snaked along the side of the hill, where it was easy to just run out and back. Although, at one point I decided to go way down into a deep valley and then run back up through town. So it wasn't all flat, but it was still pretty solidly recover-y. Again, great scenery, lovely trails, and only a few closed trails to bandit through. This becomes a bit of a theme.

WOW, what another incredible run. Drove up quite high on the road to Teide on the recommendation of the owner of the hostel. There was a lot of everything, some wide open kind of sandy volcano plain, then some super rocky stuff, and some real smooth trail, and a little extra round mountain with a spiral road I decided on a whim to run up.

It had a little bit of everything and all just under the shadow of the cloud-obscured Mt. Teide. There was such a remarkable variety of things to encounter on this run that it was definitely my favorite so far. I also think that this would be an equally fun trail on a bike. Well, except that rocky bit, that would be flat central.

WOW, what an incredible race. K42 Anagas Marathon (well, for me, K21) in La Laguna on Tenerife. My biggest concern for this race was the amount of pavement I expected I'd have to run. I gave a lot of thought to wearing road shoes instead of trail shoes, which, in retrospect, would have been a terrible idea. Like, en hyvaa idea. Although it was sunny and warm and perfect racing temperature, the day before was kind of rainy, and made a lot of the trail sections very slippery, and even my Kinvara TRs had some difficulty in places.

Anyway, I started off relatively far back from the start. There was an "elite" section that I wasn't privileged enough to get to, so I shoved my way to approximately the 5th row back. But, I knew that the course was very wide for quite some time, so this wasn't going to be an issue. I started off very, very comfortably, thinking about how long the race was and that I didn't need to get on the back of the leaders right away. I just chilled out in probably 40th place for a 1km, as the guys who are compressed to the gills and went out really fast start to suck wind and go backwards. I continued to cruise until getting into around 3rd place, when we hit the downhill/road section, and three guys blew by me once again. I knew that the downhill and road would be my achilles Morton's Neuroma, so this was to be expected.

However, soon we went up again, and I started to run back to them. Oddly, one of the guys who looked really strong, and I got close to him again, looked around, started walking, and then put his hands up in the air and sat on the curb and started sulking. That was weird. Anyway, the course started to climb in earnest, and it might have gone better for me if we hadn't started catching the 42k runners who started 30 minutes earlier. It was tougher to run when passing all these people on a very narrow section of the course, but I figured that everyone in front of me would have to do the same thing, so I didn't worry too much. Just be polite!

I actually couldn't tell for a while what place I was in, though I knew it was either 3rd or 4th, and every now and then I would catch a brief glimpse of the guy ahead of me, and it wasn't until we got back on the long downhill road section that I got an idea of where I was. I felt I was too far back of 3rd, but began to hear 5th blasting down the hill behind me. Fortunately, before the final final downhill into the finish, we still had one long climb. In that time, I managed to pull back about 30 seconds on third and find myself right on his shoulder.

Although I tried like the dickens to hang onto him on the downhill, he just slowly pulled away again, putting on 20 seconds by the finish. I'm not sure what I can do differently about that, but it was disappointing.

However, my climbing was definitely not disappointing, I ended up 2:30 ahead of the guy who was right on my tail at the start of the climb. I REALLY wish I felt like this at the World Mountain Running Champs, because I felt really quite good on the climbs, and I think I could have performed much better there were I not sick.

In all, a great race. I felt good, the course was fun, people were very nice, and I won a giant tube of physio cream for being 4th overall, and a shout out in the local paper. I think this would be a great destination race for anyone, and the 42k course is even more crazy scenic.

And probably very tough.

WOW, what an incredible run. Started at basically sea level, and climbed up this long valley on a trail cut into the side of a steep hill that followed along the side of the hill. Also, it was pouring, pouring rain. So, not only was it cool, it was pretty damn cool. The scenery would have been even greater if it was possible to see further than 50 meters in the distance, but there was the occasional moment when it cleared up enough to get a great photo.

I kept climbing and climbing, mainly because I wanted to get to a specific place, and I did, eventually hitting this small village-ish thing, or, at least a little community center and mini-stage in the middle of nowhere in particular. Then it was time to prance back down.

This would be the second time before my race that I was moderately painfully reminded that all this downhill running was a bad idea. The hamstrings were getting pretty dang tired by the bottom. Upside was that I ran this in my road shoes, so I learned that trying to do the race in those road shoes would probably be a terrible, terrible idea.

(retrospective update: yep, it would have been a terrible, terrible idea)

First run on the island of Tenerife!! Since I went for this running directly from getting off the plane, there was no chance my Garmin would maange to stay alive for this entire run. I picked a traril that was on the way to the hostel, but didn't quite expect it to be quite as climb-y as it was. The first part was on the road and it went very, very steeply up, and eventually did gentle out a little once hitting the forest. Then it was plenty of switch backs until it opened out into some black gravel in front of a large volcano. I really wanted to get to the top of that, but there were several signs that sternly said - I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE THINKING, DON'T DO IT. So, I didn't. Instead, after a bit more jaunting up this gently climbing road, I bombed it straight down through the really nice open forest and eventually back to the car.

That last part was extremely unwise, given the race coming up in two days. And I was even warned to take it easy. Duh.

Sometimes, though, I just can't help myself.

*phew*, relieved to manage to squeeze in a quick run between a Finnish exam, packing, and then walking to the bus station (which takes an irritatingly long time). Just jaunted out to the Mustalampi and a quick lap around, nothing too special.

I also had to spend a while cleaning my apartment, since I'll now be away from it for over a month, and there was a great many debacles I could think of that I didn't want to deal with when I get back! Although, as I write this, I can think of things I forgot to do, so... here's hoping that doesn't come back to bite me in January!

A light jaunt over to the Laajavuori with my usual suspect of up and down to the top. Since it was light out I decided to try a single track trail I've noticed multiple times. Its good fun, but obviously causes me to run quite a bit slower than if I'd stayed on the main trail. So, the question is, if I'm going for an easy run, is it best to stay on bigger trails to maintain a good pace, or jump on the single track and end up running slower, but with a bit more technical running, and arguably a bit more fun? I think I need to improve my technical running speed, but I also need to improve my running speed!

A light evening jaunt as well in some light rain/snow. Although my foot is getting a little bothersome these days, its not too exceedingly bothersome, and when I have this kind of time, I really don't want to miss out on getting some bonus time. Then I popped over to the field and did some drills. Yes! I do drills! Its my made of collection of ideas I've seen on the internet.

Which is a concept that pretty much sums up my entire current training regimen.

Dynomite light jog that included more single track than usual, also in the dark. It was snowing a little so there was times when really all I could see was the snowflakes flying in my face. Those are pretty swell running evenings if you ask me!

Now, if only there were MORE flakes. And bigger ones. And lots and lots of them.