Training Log Archive: Bash

An inspired running route around western Caledon, designed by Browner and tweaked a little with my local knowledge to avoid a bit of road. Our group was rounded out by Browner's friend Yumi, a friendly, fit road marathon runner who is getting more interested in trail running. She was a *really* good sport as she ran outside her comfort zone in road shoes (Hokas, no less).

We did a little road, a lot of trail, a bit of unintentional bushwhacking (my fault), some mud, some ice and a bunch of hills including the gruelling Devil's Pulpit climb 2.5 hours into the run. I could see that Browner's hill training at Kelso has been paying off!



Lunch at the Inglewood General Store was soooo yummy. Next time we need to find a route that finishes at Spirit Tree Cidery so we can enjoy their wood-fired oven pizza and a flight of ciders.

Happy Birthday, 'Bent!

I had to sneak over to Gourmandissimo to get chocolate truffle cake and deliver it to BGY's house for the birthday feast, so I didn't join 'Bent's group run. I went for a run around Glen Haffy afterward. Snow would be nicer but I love running in the cold. I listened to Randy and Kyle's podcast about ARWC, which was enlightening.

A little outdoor running, jumping and ski bounding in the dark - some cardio mixed with strength.

I'd planned to go out longer but just as I was leaving, I got an agitated phone call from 'Bent. As he started to run home from work along Hwy 50, AdventureDog was startled by a revving truck, yanked his head backwards out of his collar and ran away. 'Bent was pretty sure he saw ADog take the underpass beneath the highway, which is their usual route home. From there, it is more than 4 km to our place with a number of choices to make in the trail network, as well as a golf course and two more roads to cross. AdventureDog had never done it alone, certainly not in the dark. Yikes.

By the time he phoned me, 'Bent had already gone more than 1 km along the commute route while calling AdventureDog's name. (Which is "Logan" when he isn't on Attackpoint.) No sign of him.

I was dressed to go out training so I pulled on some extra layers and grabbed a whistle. I couldn't go too far from the house in case the poor pooch somehow made it here but he would hear my whistle if he was nearby. 'Bent and I have been through this kind of thing a few times with our four dogs over the years and we've had occasional differences of opinion regarding appropriate collar tightness. My head was spinning. I was thinking that I would really miss him - and the dog too. ;)

Luckily, 'Bent found ADog about 2 km away from where he had disappeared into the darkness without a collar. He had crossed a busy highway (using an underpass), navigated from a trail network up a steep hill onto a golf course, crossed another road and located the small opening in the fence to get into Palgrave Forest & Wildlife Area where he made the correct turns on the trails to get himself almost to Duffy's Lane before 'Bent finally caught up. Phew!!!! Our little boy is paying more attention than we think - thank goodness.

Hard Core Live with Caron.

One of Caron's infamous Hard-Harder-Hardest classes.

After pretending to be patient to make sure my bronchitis was truly gone, I took the plunge and did a twilight trail run at Glen Haffy with AdventureDog. It was a gorgeous day and tomorrow doesn't look as nice.

I have a 50K next weekend and my only real training for it was the 50K I did a month ago - and I was very poorly trained for that. So...

The first half of the run was 50/50 snow-ice and wet leaves, which turned out to be great because the footing was so uncertain and slick that I had to go easy. I tried to run slowly up all the hills but I also ran slowly down. The Dingle trail was mostly bare; the valley must be a little warmer.

I made the rookie error of typing "sunset Palgrave" into Google and failing to check the date - not to mention that I failed to consult my own memory from yesterday. I now have two things in common with Rory Bosio since I had to finish the last 2K of my run by the light of my iPhone. (The other thing Rory and I have in common is that she entered UTMB both years that I did, however, our commonality diverges there since she won both times! At least my light never failed.)

AdventureDog isn't supposed to run off-leash in the dark but he stood out in his anti-hunter orange vest and came back whenever I called him.

So far my lungs seem OK with it but if they're going to protest, it'll be tomorrow. It felt amazingly good to be back on the trails.

Caron's boot camp with 'Bent. We were suspicious when the circuit training was only 4 stations X 4 minutes with 1 minute transfer time. After we finished that, she revealed her evil plan - Tabatas for the rest of the class. How can 20 seconds seem so long? The killer for me was the set (8 sets, actually) of fast partial pushups with elbows tight against the body, isolating triceps. I just collapsed on my face for the 10 second breaks. It's ski poling season so having some triceps would come in handy.

In the words of Commander Cristina (or whatever her rank used to be), I may have unsicked myself at last. This was the first time in the past month that my head and lungs have felt normal all day. Fingers crossed...

First ski of the season!!

'Bent, AdventureDog and I headed out the back door into Palgrave West and K-Bash Woods. It was the kind of ski you would never do in spring after being spoiled by several months of gliding along rolling trails and wading through backwoods powder. But in November, we're happy to head into the forest and ski on sticky, wet snow with occasional leaves, pine needles and grass. We'll take whatever winter we can get! We did some bushwhacking and trail clearing. Awesome. :)

O Cup Kick-Off - the start of another fun winter orienteering season. We even had snow!

Thanks to the Stars (and to their childcare providers) for putting on three events in a day for the price of one - two O Cups and a training session in between, all at different locations. It was truly above and beyond.

The first and longest race was the Kick-Off at Homer Watson Park. It's not a huge park but there's a wide variety of terrain and some of it is really hilly since this is the edge of the Grand River Valley.

I mostly had a good race although I oriented my map like I'm supposed to, then proceeded to read an upside-down 9 as a 6, so my route was: 5-9-6-7-8-9. I wondered why Nick Duca didn't follow me when I bushwhacked down that hill!

I ran at a very moderate pace since the last of my bronchitis is still not gone. The real test will be how I feel tomorrow. Last week I felt like crap for a few days after running on Saturday.

I won a pair of socks as the top woman. Good thing AdventureGirl! wasn't there. ;) I left a big bottle of rum on the prize table, which was scooped by the junior winner.

Sadly, my Ambit failed to record the middle part of the course; I guess it hadn't found Kitchener yet. It seemed to record altitude OK. I've tried to guess distance from someone else's track.

Memory-O Training at Breithaupt Park

This was a fun exercise and a great way to use a small area. At the start there were a few copies of the map but we couldn't take them with us. There were about a dozen control circles. In addition to the start/finish, two of the controls were marked "M" and you would find a copy of the map there instead of a flag.

The idea was to visit every control, finding it by memory. If you could, you would try to remember the controls on the way to an "M" control, then you could check the map again and try to remember a few more. Fun!

O Cup #2 - Starry Nights - the first-ever Night O Cup
McLennan Park

So much fun! We were running around a hilly area, mostly open, sometimes through vetch (thanks for the ID, Outdoorsmama) that grabbed our shins and tried to fling us onto our faces. I only went down once but I caught myself a few times. I made a note today to tell Caron how much yoga helps with balance during orienteering races.

We also ran on grass, through open woods, through playgrounds and parking lots and around a school.

I made a 1:30 error near the beginning when I somehow thought I was running past #6 on my way to #1. So confident was I that I didn't even deviate 2 meters to check the code. But it *was* #1, which should have been obvious in hindsight. On the bright side, it meant I got to run through more vetch.

There were lights bobbing around everywhere and a lot of smiles. I think Hammer accidentally stumbled upon a new slogan for the O Cup Series. ;))

As soon as I finished, cold rain mixed with wet snow started pummelling us, which made the drive home an adventure.

Thank you, Stars!

Hard Core Live with Caron.

I felt strong and flexible - which is something positive at least, given that I'm feeling the loss of cardio fitness.

I've switched from the 50 miler to the 50K race in two weeks. Funny how that seems like takin' it easy. We'll see - I may switch to a lower distance.

I'm slowly "unsicking" myself.

Antibiotics don't seem to be the solution - no big surprise. But we tried.

Good News: 'Bent is home!

Possibly other good news: I've started on antibiotics, which may help although bronchitis is usually viral. No running for now. :(

Planned a strength workout on this beautiful day but I've got a sore throat again and the best training is probably no training - ugh. It's now been 3 weeks although the cold only became bronchitis after running 50K. On the bright side, it felt easy to run 22 km yesterday so my body hasn't forgotten how.

Gary's 11th Annual Trail Run near Milton

Gary Black puts on this fun, informal get-together for Ontario trail runners on the 2nd Saturday of November. I've never been able to attend before, usually because Raid The Hammer has fallen on the 2nd Sunday of November, so I was excited that the schedule finally worked out. We would start in Speyside and run over to the Hilton Falls Side Trail, heading into the park, then joining the main Bruce to return along the escarpment, making it a 25 km outing.

I looked forward to being committed to a loop run and meeting more of my fellow trail runners. My lungs aren't ready for something as intense as the Hockley Loop but this area isn't hilly at all. At this time of year, it's a sea of wet leaves concealing slick, mossy rocks and roots so I knew the pace would be slow in the midpack. You people who live in Milton must develop awesome proprioception! I half-turned both my ankles, even the good right ankle, which rarely wavers.

I was behind about 20 runners, and Gary had warned everyone to be careful at the start to catch both of the required turns onto side trails. I assumed that the runners who led the way knew the area or were watching their maps extra carefully. Damn, I really ought to know better! :) At the crucial turn-off, a gentleman went into the woods for a nature break on our right; the rest of us averted our eyes, which prevented us from seeing the small single track turn-off we should have taken. We were all watching our feet carefully and chatting as we ran past our junction without noticing it.

When we arrived at the white Bruce Trail markers, Steve Hunter and I stopped because that definitely was wrong. I looked at the map and realized our error. We turned back, which added close to 5 km to our run. Steve texted BGY who checked his Bruce Trail app and turned around; apparently, he couldn't convince the rest of the group who were heading straight back to their cars. Apparently, there were other wrong turns by other parts of the group, and only Steve, BGY and I ended up doing anything close to the original plan! I assumed that I was at the very back so I took the suggested shortcut along 6th Line rather than hold the rest of the group up. As it turns out, everyone invented their own run and I was alone for half of it so I may as well have gone into Hilton Falls and enjoyed it!

I did meet some friends near the end and it was a lovely group run on a November day, even though a lot of it was solo. Now to see how I will feel tomorrow...

Caron's Hard Core class is baaaack!

C3 Class.

"Back in 1977, when Peter “Stoney” Emshwiller was 18 years old, he sat in front of a camera and began lobbing questions to an invisible future self, recording what could be called one side of a time-travel talk show. Now, 38 years later, Emshwiller has decided to finally sit down and answer those questions, and the result is an intense, uncanny, and surprisingly moving interview."

Warning: it finishes with a fundraising request but it's still a cool concept, especially if you imagine yourself in the same situation.

Leonard Cohen's powerful reading of "In Flanders Fields" on its 100th anniversary. Lest we forget.

Easy test run in Palgrave West with AdventureDog, keeping my HR low. I think there's some progress because last night's boot camp didn't cause a setback but I'm not improving very quickly.

The Edmund Fitzgerald went down 40 years ago today. You're welcome for the earworm.

I tried Caron's boot camp to see whether it makes me feel worse or whether I continue to feel like I'm on the mend. Over the past two weeks, it seems that any physical activity sets back my recovery by a couple of days. Fingers crossed. P.S. This boot camp is hard!

In bed just before 4 a.m. - yikes. First the plane had a computer problem. (Please, take your time with that.)

Then after 2:30 a.m., I got trapped in the discount airport parking garage, which is conveniently operated without the presence of humans. There are two slots in the new parking payment machine. One says "Insert Parking Ticket" and the other says "Visa, Mastercard/..." and has a number pad above it to enter the PIN. Unfortunately, if you put your Visa in the Visa slot during a couple of failed attempts (because the Visa slot is a mere decoy during a machine upgrade), your parking ticket gets blocked. I seriously considered taking a run at the parking gate but didn't want to scratch my pretty Subaru - or get arrested for failing to pay the $100 I owed them.

Yawn. I still have bronchitis but it's improving slowly. I need to be patient and keep limiting my activity. The Banff Festival was fun and inspiring, and it was great to catch up with Myka, Amik, Flight and Slice.

Myka finished work at the same time that the daytime Book Festival presentations finished so we met for a hike up Tunnel Mountain. Myka would normally run but I downgraded it to a trek since I am really, really, really sick of being sick. It was beautiful and the company was excellent!

I had breakfast with Slice, then the Book Festival all day, then the final weekend of the Banff Film Festival started tonight and I got back to Myka's place at midnight. It's like an AR!

After I got back from a fun day at the Book Festival, Myka and I went for an interval training session with the Bow Valley Dirtbag Runners in Canmore. Slice was there too! It was dark, a little snowy and almost entirely flat.

The workout was 8 repeats of 3 minutes hard followed by 2 minutes of rest - either walking or light jogging until the group got together again. I shouldn't run until my stoopid cold goes away but how could I miss this? I was worried that I would become a mountain lion's dinner but there was usually a runner or two around my pace - although most of them were crazy fast.

Then we came back home for a nice dinner with Amik. They are living the dream in the Rockies!

I just teleported myself into winter (Canmore).

Bad cold, bad sleep. Sorry, 'Bent.

Annual Fall 50 for Coach LD's birthday! We missed the biking and running legs because we were still tired, sore and (in my case) sick from yesterday. We joined the group for the scenic Humber River paddle and an unexpectedly long portage with heavy boats. Great people, yummy dinner, lots of fun. Thanks, all. :)