Training Log Archive: Bash

Caledon Navigators urban adventure night designed by Prez Rocky. It was a miserable rainy evening so it was great to have some peer pressure to get me out the door in running clothes. The start/finish was at the Black Bull Pub and we were sent out to run up and down the hills of Bolton, taking all sorts of little paths between streets and seeing neighbourhoods I'd never visited. At each checkpoint along the route, we found an envelope and selected a playing card which was sealed in half so we couldn't see its value.

Phatty and I met up after a few checkpoints and ran most of the course together. You might think that would be an advantage but we got chatting and sometimes got a little slack with our map and instructions. Also, he kept trying to push me into a picnic table because it worked so well to neutralize the competition on Sunday. ;-)

The every-wiley Goose snuck past us and arrived at the pub first - only to learn that the winner would be determined by a Snakes & Ladders game using the playing cards we had collected. Of course, Snakes and Ladders using random cards is entirely based on skill, not luck, so it was no surprise when I crushed the opposition and took the victory.

Nice to see Leanimal completing the course just 17 days before her due date! 'Bent and Coach LD joined her for a slightly slower Tour de Bolton. Leanimal was not in last place - there was another group that didn't finish the course. At this point, I think it's safe to say that she'll never be last place in anything!

Paddling in the Everglades was cool but the very best place in the world to paddle is our basement. At least that's what I'll have to keep telling myself because I need to do a lot of paddling between now and February! I got the new cordless headphones working so now I can commune more closely with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert while I train.

Today is 'Bent's birthday so instead of the Thomass Kick-off (where he would have to walk on his bad knee while watching other people run), we went to Hardwood Hills for some craptastic early season skiing. There were only 4 cars in the HH parking lot and the fee had been reduced to $10. After recovering from the initial shock of seeing customers walk in the door, they recommended waxless classic rock skis since it was +3C and 5 cm of wet snow. Great news - our short classic ski didn't bother 'Bent's knee at all. However, the new MEC in Barrie provided much better entertainment than the skiing. Missed seeing our friends at Thomass though!

Got home from Florida after 2 a.m. in blowing snow. 'Bent and I hit the trails this morning with Dave and Melissa from Belleville, who had learned about 'Ben'ts recumbent mountain bike through the adventure race grapevine and also noticed some of our crazy hobbies on Attackpoint.

Like 'Bent, Dave has a neck problem that makes regular bikes too painful, so he has been riding a recumbent road bike for years. Melissa is a strong mountain biker who would love to get him out on the trails. So the four of us headed out on snowy single track in Palgrave East and West with Dave on 'Bent's extra bike. We started out on easy trails, then kept increasing the degree of difficulty as Dave met the challenges of today's tough conditions. It's always great fun to get to know people who love outdoor sports as much as we do!

Rest day after a super-fun warm weather training week. Hung out with my folks and brother in Miami. Now waiting at Fort Lauderdale airport to fly home to 'Bent and our pooches. Someone in our house who rides an unusual bicycle will be celebrating a birthday on Sunday! :-))

Miami Turkey Trot 10K - Tropical Park. Over 4,000 (!!) runners came out on the morning of U.S. Thanksgiving to run 5K or 10K to burn off calories before their big meal.



It was a fun atmosphere but a bit of a zoo with all runners for both distances starting together on a single lane park road and staying together for the first 4K. I was midpack in the starting corral and it took me almost 2 minutes to get across the line! Luckily, this turned out to be a race where they ranked us according to chip time rather than gun time. It took several kilometers before I could just run without constantly weaving back and forth around people who had started out too fast. It wasn't the kind of race where anyone would get a PB unless they started at the front.

It was amazingly hot and humid for a 7:30 a.m. race but otherwise I felt decent in spite of the 270 km multisport warm-up over the past week. The only bad moment was when we entered the stadium and ran under an arch that said "Finish". I was confused that there was no timing mat then realized that we were supposed to keep running. I'd turned off my Forerunner and had to turn it back on (hence a slight discrepancy with the GPS track). I'd relaxed out of race mode when I saw the arch and it was hard to get back into it. I kept looking for the *real* finish arch and it was all the way around the track in sweltering sunshine - a little farther than 10K. Oy!

I finished in the top 10% of women but didn't achieve my goal of top three in age group. Looks like I should stick to long trail runs instead of this road stuff! Fun way to start the day.

I drove to Miami yesterday afternoon to meet my brother Dave and his partner Tim, who live here in winter, and my parents, who are visiting. We went to a theatre to see a show that Dave directed and Tim designed the sets for. Since then, it's been a lot of eating, conversation, eating, walking and eating! I got Princess packed up for the flight home tomorrow night. It was much easier the second time I put her in a bike box.

Daniels Parkway/Treeline ride with Getawaystix.







Fort Myers is probably a scenic place but I'm not really sure because this was my view. (P.S. Thanks for the draft, GStix!)



I've updated the pics and report below for Everglades kayaking Day 2.

More Everglades kayaking with Getawaystix. Today's route made better use of the tides and we spent less time in shallow water. Navigation was trickier since we purposely aimed for some narrow, hard-to-find channels before heading out to the Gulf side of the Ten Thousand Islands. In some ways, it was like navigating in the Thirty Thousand Islands in Georgian Bay. Click on the little globe to see the route, then switch to satellite mode.







GStix planned a complex route but got lazy after a couple of hours and handed the map to me. ;-) It was very cool.



Our lunch stop was on an awesome sand spit that curved around and led to a small island. Most of this would be completely underwater at high tide.



The beachcombing was excellent. GStix pretends to have no interest in gathering seashells. He's lying.





We walked a long way down the spit until we couldn't see our kayak anymore.



This turned out to be a mistake. I'd brought all my stuff with me from the kayak but GStix had opted to travel lighter than me (as usual). He lost some of his best food to a gang of birds who taunted him and pooped on his kayak seat.





The paddle back was fun and fast as the tide rushed back in. We spent 10 minutes watching a dolphin feeding.





We did a hard interval to see if we could get our speed over 15 kph. We topped out at 15.1. Yeehaw!





It was fun and interesting to paddle through this area for a couple of days but we agreed that we wouldn't trade it for paddling in northern Ontario. We're really spoiled at home.

Kayak paddle from Everglades City with Getawaystix.



We put in near low tide so we had to drag our boat out through shoe-grabbing mud.



GStix had mapped out a cool-looking 50 km route that involved going up and down a couple of rivers then paddling back through some islands in the Gulf.





Turns out our time estimates didn't work because they were based on Ontario paddling. With the tide, river current, wind and shallow water working against us as we headed upriver, we were crawling. It seemed smarter to turn around and head into the islands in the Gulf.







We stopped for lunch on Rabbit Key. Great place! There were a lot of huge seashells on the beach.







No alligators but we saw one dolphin, a bunch of jumping fish and birds absolutely everywhere.





After paddling, we drove to Turner River Road where the hotel had assured me that I would see my first alligator in the wild. This wasn't exactly true. We actually saw *21* alligators in about 2 km before we figured that was enough! There were also some cool birds along the Turner River.

TampaRaces.com X-Country
http://www.tamparaces.com/X-Country/index.htm

30 km trail running race in Alafia River State Park east of Tampa. Alas, no photos. On the way there, I almost became one of those Google Map Darwin Award stories. I'd printed out the instructions at home and at 6 a.m. in pitch blackness, I was directed down a rough, narrow, foggy road. It twisted and turned and became rougher. When I got to the place I was supposed to turn next, there was a street sign marking the "road", which had been ploughed into deep sand and was now blocked by a gate. Fortunately, I already suspected that I had been googlemapped, so I didn't turn at the sign and get stuck. My iPhone saved the day and got me to the park just before the gates opened - phew!

There were multiple distance options - 5 km, half-marathon, 30 km and marathon. The 30 km was the least popular but the half-marathon wouldn't be enough training and the marathon would be too much after riding 100 km yesterday. The trails were mostly grassy double track with sandy sections and hidden tree roots to keep things interesting.

Holy Humidity, Batman! I felt great for the first half of the race when the temperature was cool but started to fade as it warmed up to 80F. The last 10 km were tough so I stopped aiming for any particular time and just tried to hold my position. My last 10 km was a minute/kilometer slower than the earlier part of the race but nobody passed me so I guess I wasn't alone in feeling rough.

It was a little stressful since most of the race course signs just said "RACE" in order to accommodate all the different distances. The first "30K" sign I saw was at 28.5 km when I was starting to worry that I might end up doing a marathon by mistake - yikes!

Surprise ending... somehow I got the Female Masters win. I don't think it was a big field but the trophy is a nice piece of art.

I'm down in Everglades City now. Getawaystix has planned an epic 50 km paddle for tomorrow that covers most of this map. I'm taking a headlamp just in case!



A cultural note: We had gator nuggets as an appetizer tonight.

Ride Without Limits - Tampa Bay

Charity ride benefiting United Cerebral Palsy. I did the 62 mile (100 km) course. They also offered 35 and 100 mile courses but:
(a) My longest road bike ride to date had been 43 km, and
(b) I'm doing a 30 km trail running race tomorrow.



Well-organized event. We met at Crews Lake Park - a mysterious-looking place for a Canadian. I kept expecting a dinosaur to stroll out of the woods.







Breakfast was provided by the International House of Pancakes then we lined up at the start around 7:30 a.m. Nice temperature. I actually wore arm warmers for the first 15 km, which I hadn't expected down here.





It was my first experience of riding in a "peleton" on the road. Very fun and cooperative - lots of hand signals and shouting out important info. "CarrrrrUP!" "Slowing!" "Railroad tracks!"

Note the great bike club name - Grupetto. Motto: "No one left behind." They were actually good riders.



The point of this trip is to get some good training in so I hammered to stay with the front group. By the 30 km mark, there were just six of us. At the 50 km aid station (the only one we stopped at), three of us left together and rode as a group till the end. Pete and Alan are strong bikers who made me work. I took my turn pulling a few times but they were merciful and took much longer turns than I did. I was paranoid that I'd touch one of their wheels while drafting so I didn't get any pictures while riding with them. In the last 5 km, they could smell the finish line and were holding 38 kph at times but when I started to fall back, they kindly slowed down.



As we entered the park, the guys insisted that I ride up front so that I could cross the line first, hence "winning" the 62-mile charity ride. I told them that as an adventure racer, I'd rather cross the line with my team but they made me do it! "Not many women can hang with us." (Not that I actually could, since they could have dropped me easily if they'd wanted to.)



Really nice post-race pasta lunch with Caesar salad and garlic bread, catered by Carrabba's Italian Grill. Little kids gave us medals with artwork hand-drawn by kids with CP and thank you cards signed by kids with CP. That was pretty touching but I saw the best thing as I was leaving - a young boy with a huge bouquet of flowers standing at the side of the road holding a big sign that said, "THANK YOU, MOM". Gulp.

I'm pleased that my back didn't hurt any worse for 100 km than it hurts for 25 km - in fact, maybe it was a little better. And my new bike seat rocks - very comfy.

Average 30.8 kph in the wind. No wonder I'm tired now!

There was an Ehrlich Road exit on the way to the event today. :-) And there were other reminders of absent friends.



I went for a seashell-hunting expedition along the beach as a recovery session.



And watched the sunset again. Yes, I know - repetitious photos. But I just can't help myself.

Arrived at my brother's beach condo in Indian Rocks, about 40 minutes west of Tampa. Dave isn't here - this is a rental property. I'll see him in Miami for U.S. Thanksgiving.

It's quiet and the view is pretty sweet.





My top priority was to re-assemble Princess. The good news was that both the bike and the kayak paddle I'd snuck into the bike box were intact. The bad news was that I hadn't had time to practise putting the pieces back together once before the trip.



I brought her around to the porch on the west side of the building so I could enjoy the sunset while I was swearing and fumbling with Allen keys.









You may be wondering... What about that top priority project? Why all these sunset photos and no pics of Princess re-assembled into a working bike?

Answer: It got dark and I was still making small adjustments. At last, as expected, I hit a brick wall - a badly rubbing brake that I wasn't able to fix with my limited bike mechanic skills. Fortunately, I'd anticipated this and had the coordinates of the three closest bike shops. I dashed into one shortly before closing time and a nice older gentleman adjusted the front brake for me. It took him 5 minutes with two tools; I was glad to see there was some challenge in it! He refused to accept any money.

Reward: A take-out slice of "the best Key Lime Pie in Florida". Yum.

So we'll find out tomorrow if I lined everything up right and tightened all the screws sufficiently. If I did - and if my body is willing - it will be my first 100 km road ride. Previous record was less than half that distance but I've done longer rides on mountain bikes.

Made it from parking lot to check-in to Customs to luggage drop with oversized baggage that weighs almost as much as I do. Phew. Rewarded myself by picking up lunch at Starbucks for the plane. Sandwich + brownie + juice = $18!! Will not be able to afford lunch again for the rest of the trip.

'Bent, don't forget to check your texts.

Got home from Wiarton at midnight then BulletDog and I were up early to meet Crash and Skyerocket on the trail for some pre-breakfast intervals. It wasn't the easiest day to force myself out the door, given the slate grey sky and cold raindrops that morphed into huge, sloppy snowflakes. It's been awhile since we've been out and we felt like sacks of potatoes: 2:16, 2:18, 2:15, 2:16 for 500 m for me. At least this proves that it matters whether or not we do intervals. And nobody in the Palgrave Conservation Area got a better workout this morning! ;-)

Packing for Florida now. 100 km charity bike ride on Saturday and 30 km trail running race on Sunday. I will taper on the plane tomorrow. The only thing I'm really worried about is whether I'll be able to re-assemble my bike on my own. I am spoiled having 'Bent as my personal bike mechanic!

First trainer ride of the season on a cold, rainy day. Company was good so the time passed quickly. I was up in Wiarton to chat with Frankenjack and support crew (his sister and brother-in-law) about logistics for New Zealand. This is going to call for a complicated spreadsheet - Phatty would be so proud.

2010/2011 Banff Film Festival World Tour Trailer - their trailers always make me want to go off and have an adventure RIGHT NOW.

I'm building up to another high volume training week next week so I didn't taper for Raid The Hammer and I didn't get to rest today either. I took Princess out for a spin on roads around Tottenham. There were a couple of nice, quiet paved roads but most of the roads were stressful - way too much traffic consisting almost entirely of SUVs, trucks and school buses. I'd imagined it to be flat over there but there are some good hills - a little more work than I'd planned for my legs after yesterday! That's it for road riding till Florida. Princess goes into the bike box now.

Salomon Dontgetlost.ca Raid The Hammer 2010

Tree Huggers at the start line: Crash, Bash and Hingo



Wil Smith getting focused at the start line:



This was another fun, challenging, well-organized Raid The Hammer. I'm so grateful to all the sponsors and hard working volunteers who make this possible! It may have been the longest and hardest RTH our team has done. The wet weather gave us lots of slippery leaves, mud and rocks to negotiate.



We started with a Matrix. Crash unfortunately lived up to her nickname by smashing her face into a rock in the slippery reentrant where she was the 4th person to punch control E. I found my controls (A & C) easily but lost some time when my attempt to knock GHOSlow out of the way at a control was unsuccessful. (Oops - sorry 'bout that!) We were one of the early teams out of the Matrix.



And... we promptly blew our race on the second map when we thought CP2 was in a different location, which made the interesting bullseye map impossible to use. Once we finally stumbled on the real CP2 (just flagging tape, not a control we needed to punch), the other controls went just fine. This section took us 63 minutes compared to 24 minutes for the fastest team and the only good news was that we were not alone in screwing it up. In fact, Winsplits didn't even identify it as an error for us, which is a little scary. We figured that the whole world must have passed us in this section but the results say we only dropped 8 places.



After that, the rest of our day went well albeit with a couple of slower route choices, in particular an ill-chosen (by me) sidehill route to CP5 in the halfpipe. The wet leaves and muddy slopes were so slippery that we and the racers around us had numerous wipe-outs. Hingo in particular is going to have some sore joints tomorrow. I crashed on my good shoulder there and heard a crunch so I'm hoping it'll be OK for paddling.



We were running better than the Tree Huggers usually do and I was glad to feel good late in the race, given that I'm training for a 17-hour race. Crash was following the map quite well by the end and was often the first to spot a control at a distance. It was a fun race with an awesome couple of teammates!



Alas, we couldn't overcome our early screw-up but we moved up and finished 7 minutes behind the winning Masters team Lost Bearings, who were leading us by 18 minutes after our disaster. (Please, nobody point out how many minutes it took me to take all these photos - and more. Remember: we thought that our only remaining hope for a prize was the photo contest.) We were 12th overall out of 68 teams and 4th coed team behind MBR, Untamed and Jackson Triggs (although not officially ranked as coeds). So we are happy with our recovery.







There were some beautiful places.





Lots of tricky terrain.



We saw less cheating this time. Most teams around us had each teammate touching the control flag. I took this photo of Crash punching a control, then Hingo and I touched the flag. Although we didn't realize it until afterward, a volunteer was quietly watching for this. I see now that his knee is sticking out from behind a tree trunk at the left of this photo!



While we were racing, 'Bent was working the CP3 aid station with Funderstorm. As teams came through, he tried to get photos. Some people stopped their race to pose.



While others, like PhattyJR, just stopped to punch.



M&M didn't even stop - but she touched the flag as she screamed past the aid station.



As a favour to me, 'Bent got the leading Masters team to stop and pose for a photo. He also did a mandatory gear check with them, "Can you show me your bicycle pump?" It didn't slow them down enough but at least he tried.



Trav didn't have his bicycle pump either.



Pixie and the Wonderbroads had dressed with the plan to pose for photos.



Thanks again to everyone involved!

'Bent and I headed to the Nottawasaga River to test some sweet full carbon kayak paddles that I've borrowed from Mike Fekete of http://www.Kayaksport.net.

We'd planned to go north, heading downstream from Nicolston Dam, but with the RV park closed, we had to put in on the south side of Hwy 89. 'Bent talked me into heading south so we didn't have to portage around the dam. This led to an important discovery: the reason why people normally paddle north from Nicolston. It turns out some of the fairways on the Nottawasaga golf course cross the river. Given how careful I've been about wearing bright colours during hunting season, it would have totally sucked to be taken out by a golf ball. On the bright side, it was a great opportunity for some Level 5 intensity paddling intervals as we hightailed it out of their way. I'd have to say that none of the golfers seemed too concerned about our welfare!

Other than the exciting Shooting Gallery Section, the river was scenic and quiet with enough water for a good paddle test. I was amazed at how much nicer these paddles are than my SRS 5-piece carbon paddle. Unfortunately, this probably isn't the right paddle for the whitewater in NZ but it would be awesome for kayaking on Georgian Bay or just for training on Island Lake.

The iPhone4 takes surprisingly good photos!



I gave the one above a little Photoshop Lightroom treatment but the original pic straight from the phone was quite acceptable. It's a 5-megapixel camera.

Waiting for the fog to clear so I can go for a road ride and see if all those expensive bike-fitting changes have made Princess comfortable to ride. She isn't as pretty anymore so I'm hoping she's functional!

Sunny and 14C in mid-November! If we can't have snow for skiing, then this is an excellent second choice. Took Princess for a tour of some rolling country roads in the Hockley / Cedarville / Rosemont area. There are some big improvements after the bike fitting. Best of all, I can imagine sitting on this new saddle for an all-day ride. The women's handlebars make the bike feel more manageable and put my arms in a better position, e.g. now I can haul back on the bars when I climb.

As for the pain in my lower right back... well, it took a little longer to show up. I guess it's just my body's preference for the mountain bike position vs, the road bike position and whatever that means about my anatomy, core strength or whatever. I did a lot of arching back and forth trying to find a better position and I'll need to do a lot of forward bends after I ride. Boo.

I'm not so happy with the tune-up but 'Bent showed me what I can adjust. Normally, he's my Bike Guy but I'll be on my own when I take Princess out of the bike box in Florida next week so I'm trying to learn the ropes.

My new iPhone has become unexpectedly useful in my training lately. I find that headphones change the outdoor experience in a way that I don't really like - not to mention the safety issues. I sometimes run trails with an iPod but I almost feel like I'm in a separate world, out of touch with my surroundings. However, I'm quite enjoying the speakers on my iPhone. I'm primarily tuned to all the outdoor sounds and sensations but a little background music or a podcast can increase the fun, depending on what I'm doing and how I'm feeling. An hour into today's ride, I needed a boost so I turned it on and the speed went up.

Hard Core Live with Caron. There was some trash talking in class between members of three different Raid The Hammer Half-Raid teams. Apparently, the more experienced teams are planning to slip magnets into the pocket of Sean Bechtel, who is one of Canada's top triathletes but a newbie at navigating. His teammates, Karsten Madsen (rising tri star) and Claudia Johnston (sub-10 hr Ironman in Kona this year) are no slouches either.

Just my luck... In the same week that I overdid the push-up challenge while trying to get in some kayak paddling hours, Caron designed tonight's class with a focus on upper body, particularly shoulders. Enough already! I've been sufficiently punished for stepping outside my push-up comfort zone! 'Bent, of course, thought this class was easy due to the low amount of knee strain. He's finding the push-up challenge easy too. Phooey.

During today's Grand Tour de Markham-Scarborough-Toronto-Port Credit, I stopped in at MEC to pick up the spare tube I'd promised to get for 'Bent's trainer tire. That little detour cost me $348!! It's always risky when I go into MEC... What amazes me is how often I discover a piece of outdoor gear that I didn't even know existed - and it becomes an instant necessity. Today's surprise new product was "padded kayak shorts" - for people whose bums spend too many hours on hard little kayak seats, such as the time I'm spending on our kayak erg. Brilliant idea. I tested them tonight and they're great. 'Bent could even buy a pair to use as a shammy for his recumbent bike!

Rode around Palgrave East and stayed out past sunset by mistake. Daylight Savings Time is sooooo last week. Gorgeous, crisp November day - it doesn't get better at this time of year.

Next stop: Caledon Navigators Orienteering Club Annual General Meeting. In a brilliant stroke of planning by our club president, we are meeting at a pub with good food.

Apparently, Climate Change hasn't been fixed yet.

Saturday's Hockley Loop counts as both a Long Run and a Hill Run, so today had to be a Speed day. For a change, I did three long intervals on a hilly trail loop about 1 km in length at what I imagined to be my 5K race pace. (I can only imagine because it is doubtful I will ever do a 5K race!) I also ran trails for warm-up, cooldown and recovery in between the intervals.

About 5 minutes/interval.

I could *really* feel muscle pain and weakness from last night's sets of push-ups and it prevented me from paddling for as long as I'd planned. So I'm going to be the shortest-lasting participant in Push-up Challenge history... I'm quitting after just one session. I do push-ups (considerably fewer) as part of my regular upper body routine and it doesn't interfere with my paddling. I might come back to it some time but I really need to get more paddling time in and I can't be messing with that until after New Zealand. Yes, you are welcome to scorn me. I've earned it. (Head hung in shame...)

OK, I've finally given in. My cell phone is turned on and nearby most of the time, and I can get text messages, e-mail and voice mail. If you have my cell #, I've probably told you not to bother using it because it was almost always turned off, but now it's a good way to reach me. If you don't have my cell # and would like it, I'll be glad to send it (but I'm not posting it online!)

Lots of people did the Push-up Test last week and I hope everyone remembered that the training program started on Monday! 14 13 12 10 with 60-80 seconds rest between sets, chest touching the floor between push-ups. OMG, I can't imagine doing this ever again - let alone increasing the number of push-ups on Wed.

Good news and bad news. My road bike, Princess, has been painful to ride so I took her into Gears for a professional fitting. I was expecting a few adjustments here and there but almost immediately, the guy said the frame was too big for me and he wasn't sure whether he could make the bike work at all. (Argghh, I *did* buy it new from a bike shop who checked the sizing.) After a full hour of playing with every variable from cleat position on my shoes to a new saddle and women's handlebars, it looks like Princess will fit me just fine. It'll take a few days in the shop (and a few dollars) to get her sorted out but it feels like it should make a huge difference. I've been getting low back pain from riding less than 2 hours, which has never happened on a mountain bike, but the new riding position is much more comfortable.

Only 12 days till my first 100K ride. I think I've officially abandoned the idea of the 100-mile option, given how little I've ridden this bike. Also, it seems a shame to be out riding all day when I've got a free place to stay on Clearwater Beach. :-)

So... I just looked at the Coast to Coast results from 2009 and now I'm feeling queasy. 145 racers finished out of 189. Of the 145 that finished, only 16 were women. 16!!!! And every single one of them was younger than I am. Aacckk!!!! A finish time of 16-17 hours would be the target - if I'm able to finish at all. Looks like there's a cut-off before the 7-hr paddle. Note to self: must do more paddle training.

2nd Annual Bolton Fall 50 in honour of Coach LD's birthday. Goose designed a paddle/bike/run course that would take us approximately 50 km around Caledon. Guests were Phatty, Leanimal, Rocky, Chris, Mike, 'Bent and me. The only rule was "no racing, be social".

We put our boats into the Humber River at Duffy's Lane.



At 8 months pregnant, Leanimal had trouble doing up her PFD.



Paddling was good without too many shallow spots. Miraculously, I managed to keep my feet dry. There were some obstacles though.



The obstacles were a little harder for the pregnant members of our group.



Goose paddled a kayak and got a little wetter and chillier than the rest of us.



The feeling of wilderness was amazing so close to - and even within - the town of Bolton.







Mostly 'Bent paddled with me.



But he and Phatty decided to take a run at a good-sized beaver dam together. It was a nailbiter!





At TA1 (the Goose Nest), we picked up our bikes for the ride north to TA2 (Chez Bash 'n' 'Bent) via roads and trails.





We locked up the bikes at our place, leaving them in the care of our ferocious guard Lab ThunderDog, who had knocked some of the TA food off the counter while we were away. Then we took BulletDog and headed out onto the trails in the sunshine. Note the (substantial) side view of Leanimal.





Like yesterday, there was a hiking group. (Phatty was nursing a minor injury.)



And a running group.





We returned to our place to pick up our bikes for the ride back to Bolton and birthday dinner. We rode trails through Palgrave, then passed through a new subdivision, then took Mount Hope back to Bolton.









Finished and ready for a big, yummy potluck meal!



Garmin Totals 53.3 km, 407 m climb, 6:09:55

Hockley Loop trail run with a great group of friends. From left to right: Mrs. Gally, Hingo, Crash, Bash, Andrew, M&M, Tiny, Dee, Phatty, Patty and Logie.



And zooming into the parking lot just in the nick of time... FB!



There was also a hiking group who stayed out in the sunshine even longer than we did: Amber, Wanda, Funderstorm, 'Bent, BulletDog and Leanimal. Salomon has been very successful in the hiking demographic.



Fun run, excellent weather, great company, a little snow on the ground and a terrific lunch at the Black Birch with some of the folks afterward. Not often we get 17 people and a dog out for training... must do this more often!

(GPS info assembled from two different tracks because I messed up! Time deducted for major stops.)

Did the 100 Pushups Training Test

Managed 16 full pushups - although admittedly, the last one wasn't pretty. That makes me "Average" which was a happy surprise. I was expecting to be "Weak" and had serious worries about falling into the "No Power" category. The bad news is that now I have to start on Week 3 of the Pushup program. Looks like I can procrastinate till Monday because that's how the program works. Phew.

While watching Daily Show/Colbert. It's a sad week for us Democrats (by which I mean most Canadians).

Leanimal is not your typical expectant Mom and she wouldn't want a typical baby shower, so Coach LD planned a surprise urban adventure race followed by delicious food and fun at Annette's place. Two teams - Braveheart & the Blondes (us) and Husky Plus (them) - competed. As with anything involving Phatty or Leanimal, it was essential that this shower have winners and losers. (BTW, Phatty ended up going away on business so he's the only *real* loser of the evening.)

We ran on trails, through parks, down suburban streets, into playgrounds and around schoolyards, reading the clue poems and carrying out our appointed tasks, which usually involved taking a photo or two to prove what we had done. As the evening progressed, we had to get a photo of a baby change table, find the aisle at Zehr's where Huggies are sold, ride in a shopping buggy, count the number of baby/child/parenting words on the clue sheet and write a new poem using those words. In spite of all that and a few other things that should have raised Lee's antennae, she didn't realize this was her own surprise party until we were making a team pyramid on Annette's front lawn. At that point, Annette, Rita and Stephanie came out to yell "Surprise!"

Even though our team was clearly superior, the shower was, unfortunately, ruled a draw. The other team wrote the better poem using baby/parenting themed words - although it is surprising that a great poet like Kevin would try to claim that "porn" is the only word that rhymes with "born". Oh, and that line - "Now Pete will have to fix his thing" - might be premature. But I digress... Our team had the best - in fact, the *only* - printed photo of the evening from Zehr's, as required to obtain bonus points. Those photo machines were just too complex for the other team. ;-) Tough call for the judges and I have to respect their decision.

Another fun evening with this crazy but wonderful group of outdoor-loving friends we're so lucky to have in our community. And big congratulations to Phatty and Leanimal!

Note the pregnant woman on top of the human pyramid. You don't see that every day! Not to mention the guy at the bottom of the pyramid who just had knee surgery.

Hockley Loop trail run this Saturday - friendly people are welcome and we'll undoubtedly split up into groups of different paces. (Alas, my pace is *particularly* different.) On the list so far: Dee, Logie, Tiny, M&M, FB, Mrs. Gally and me.

Leaving at 9 a.m. from the Bruce Trail parking lot - marked as the start/finish point on this GPS track of the Hockley Loop.
http://www.attackpoint.org/sessiondata.jsp?session...

Cruisy road ride from Hockley Village out into Adjala and New Tecumseth. Reminder to self: thinking about road riding on a cold day (5C) was much worse than doing it. Kudos to Salomon - my new windproof tights seemed like they might be too thin as a single layer but they kept my legs toasty.

Next time I should either ride a loop that I've driven before or else do an out and back. I started out by making random turns on nice, quiet-looking paved roads until I discovered - to my surprise - that I was in Alliston. After that, I was stuck on not-very-pleasant roads as I extracted myself and returned to Hockley. The problem is that I don't know which roads are paved until I get there and Princess isn't much fun on gravel.

I made a few stops to adjust my seat and seat post. Princess may be pretty but she sure isn't comfortable to ride compared to a mountain bike. After making a few adjustments, today was the first ride after which I didn't feel like someone had attacked sensitive body parts with a carving knife. I still got pain in my right lower back though - maybe I should get a professional bike fitting to see if that will go away. Core strength training will be important too.

Two weeks from Saturday, I'm doing a charity ride where I can choose between 60 km, 100 km or 100 miles. I need to start building up time so I don't wreck myself. Today was a milestone: I have finally ridden Princess farther than I will be riding in Coast to Coast (155 km). Baby steps...

End-of-month report card on 2010 training resolutions:

The GOOD:
1) 450 hrs total annual training - I'm at 508 hrs so far this year, yay! With two months left in 2010, I'm already ahead of my total hours for 2007, 2008 and 2009.
2) Lose 10 lb from Jan. 1 weight - Holding steady at minus 16 lb.
7) Did a mountain marathon, two rogaines and a 50K trail race.

The BAD:
4) Do speed and hill intervals regularly - Some of my workouts end up being interval-like but I've stopped doing structured intervals since Crash started working early mornings. Apparently I need peer pressure.
5) One training session per week before breakfast - Ditto. I'd started doing this but now I'm not. As above, I blame Crash. ;-)

The UGLY
3) Strength training - min. 1 hr/week. Sounds ridiculously easy but I've averaged less than 30 min/week this year - same as every frickin' year.
6) In bed by midnight at least 4 days/week - Nope.

This winter is going to be weird for training with the Coast to Coast paddle/bike/run race to prepare for in mid-Feb. I've just finished a high-volume week and I'm planning a warm weather one in late November. Paddle training is complicated since I don't want to paddle alone in cold water and we don't currently have a lightweight kayak that I can lift onto the car anyway. There's still time for more road biking but I'm the queen of excuses when there's windchill on the pavement. In truth, I can always find an excuse to avoid road biking. At least it will be easy to do trail running through the winter. Too bad that's only 33 km of the 243-km race!