Training Log Archive: W

Its probably the first time in many years that I actually went mountain biking with someone else. Went with Nev on a little tour of Mill Creek and some of the classics.

Looking forward to Nev mastering the clipless pedal, then we'll start punishing him with the technical difficulty!

C • Clipless 1

Trailcross event at Terwilligar Park, amusingly, my second event called Trailcross in two weeks. This was more like ski sprinting, a bunch of elimination rounds followed by a final. The organizers were giving away a lot of entires over the weeks before the race, which is never a good sign. And, unsurprisingly, there weren't very many people registered. A couple of legit runners, though, so at least the final would be a bit of a race.

Thankfully, the organizers decided to cut it down to only three rounds, so the final had 9 people, and we didn't have to be there all day.

After the rather painfully obvious false start, I was back in 6th place when we entered some singletrack. Tom was smart and hammered to the front to get ahead of the crossfitters who have some solid 60 meter speed until they basically shuffle the other 1540 meters. The other decent runners managed to get by him when it got kind of wide, and I was trapped until we came out to where it was wide again. At that point I managed to get myself into 5th place. Tom continued to pull away at the front. In the next wide bit I managed to claw another place back, and then jumped into third on the steep climb.

Hung out behind dainty track star until he strangely took a wide line when we did a right turn, and left me a gap to run through. Maybe he forgot where he was going, or was just giving up the place? I'm not rightly sure. I'm always baffled by people who get lost in a multi-lap race. So that put me into second, with Tom out of sight up the hill. I wanted to run strongly uphill because I thought dainty track star would be flying downhill.

So, all that was left was to attempt to reel in Tom on the way back down. Seeing as how I'm a sprinter and he's 2:30 marathon, I actually thought I couldn't do it (how's that for warped logic?). But, its a long gradual downhill, and I tried to just extend my stride and let myself fall downhill, and I found myself slowly reeling him in. With 300m to go I had the belief that I could get side to side with him.

I've been thinking a lot lately how my finishing sprints in orienteering have maintained a "fast running" form, rather than a sprinting form, a la, how I might do when I sprint for a ball in soccer. And I had resolved myself to have a more driven sprint at the end of races, and this was the perfect time to inject that speed. With 50 meters to go, I felt I converted my technique from a running sprint to a sprint sprint, and I could feel a great surge of acceleration happening. It gave me a shoulder width lead for the W.

And then I won some sweet prizes from Fast Trax Run & Ski Shop.

....yippee...?

Met up with a buddy in Bragg Creek to go for a run around Moose Mountain.

Problem #1: We couldn't find Moose Mountain.

Well, at least, we were on the wrong trail. We ended up on this road that we followed for a while, which wasn't bad, and actually eventually found a really awesome section of single track called Moose Packers. When we got back we realized we just went a little too short of the turn we were looking for, but that was okay because that one section we ran was really good. Lots of Switchbacks, up and over a big ridge until we hit the moose mountain trail again. Definitely a long run for another day is to get to the top.

Canmore's Highline Trail. Classic! A must run for everyone.

Ride around Rundle with Adrian. Got a lift up to the Goat Creek parking lot and then bombed down and then back on rundle Riverside with a bit of a detour to do some trails at the Nordic Centre. Oddly enough I've never really ridden at the Nordic Centre. That World Cup trail just below the day lodge is crazy fun.

Today was just some tennis. Hot day, just some tennis. That was a good choice.

Despite being pretty damn shattered still from DR, I joined Adrian and Dal for a run up some of Goat Creek in Banff. I was suffering from about 2k in. Crazy to see the bridge on the river 20 meters downstream smashed into a bank. Still crossed it though!