Training Log Archive: Bash

Skate skiing with Bent at Hardwood Hills. I think this was my 3rd time skate-skiing, so I still felt uncoordinated about 25% of the time. I hate to admit this in public, but I've been classic skiing for 30 years (gulp!), so I expect skate-skiing will take awhile to feel natural. What amazes me is how much WORK it is compared to classic skiing. Bent described it as being like riding a bike that only has a large chain ring. That's a pretty accurate description from my perspective. It feels like I always have to push - I can't ever slack off, except on mild downhills.

When I did the Canadian Ski Marathon, I skied 160 km over two days in just over 20 hours. There is no way I could skate-ski that far (not that skating is an option for the CSM), because I can't go that hard for that long, and I can't figure out how to do a "long, slow" skate-ski.

However, for all my whinging, there is no question that we were absolutely flying compared to the speed we'd be going on classic skis, except on steep uphills where we can run up faster on classics than we can skate (at this point, anyway). It was also cool to feel that I was working different muscles than usual, and they were starting to feel stronger and more effective after awhile.

I'd be interested in hearing the experiences of other classic skiers who learned how to skate-ski.

Racing with The Laner in the Chuck Norris Orillian Adventure Fun Session for Jerks, a highly competitive event at Adidas P&L's New Year's Party. There was no map, but there was challenging navigation, plenty of clues (written as poetry), lots of questions to answer, and the same amount of bushwhacking as in this year's Beast of the East.

The Laner and I worked well as a team, in spite of meeting for the first time only a few minutes prior to the race. I handled the algebra questions and (unbelievably) the NFL clue, while he steered us in the correct direction with his understanding of the word "chicane" and also devised a clever towing system from his own jacket to increase our team's speed. Oh my lungs!!! I can't remember when I've ever run that fast, since I didn't want to let down someone I barely know!

The objective of the race was to get all 16 questions correct, then any ties would be broken based on race time. We were the only team to get all the answers, so luckily it didn't matter that Bent's team ("Recum-Bakes") beat us by 1 minute! Our Santa Trophy for 1st place was truly stunning (apparently it has been re-gifted several times), and we look forward to seeing our names engraved on it. A fun race and a great party!

I've only been logging my training since mid-March, so I can't do a real year-end summary. Still, it's fun to take a look at the end of 2005 and see what I've been doing. The totals don't reflect the correct proportion of skiing and snowshoeing, since I'll be doing a lot more of that in the remaining 10 weeks of my training year.

2005 Training (42 weeks): 488 hrs

Adventure Racing 172 hrs
Orienteering 106 (incudes a 24-hr rogaine)
Running 63
Cycling 51
Paddling 29
Strength 21.5 (pathetic!!!)
XC Skiing 20.5 (this number will increase - probably close to my cycling hrs over a 12-month period)
Trekking 17
Snowshoeing 8 (also will increase)

Tomorrow I'll log my New Year's training resolutions, and ask for abuse to be rained upon me if I fail to live up to them. :-)

Happy New Year to all!

Snowshoe running around Palgrave West. It's much colder today following two days of rain, so the ground is icy-hard. I made a clattering noise as I ran, thus there are no wildlife sightings to report today. Felt pretty good, considering that I'm carrying some extra pounds due to turkey, stuffing and dark chocolate.

Around Palgrave West on a dreary day. I had to force myself out the door, but felt surprisingly light and energetic once I started running. I slowed down and turned toward home when ThunderDog seemed to be having trouble with the thin ice layer over the deep snow. Just before we reached the boundary of the conservation area, the "poor doggie" took off like a shot through thick forest, following some interesting scent. I eventually managed to catch up after floundering through sharp tree branches and snow-covered logging debris on a steep hillside. She definitely won't be getting any sympathy the next time she pretends to be having difficulty!

Probably my most important training activity of the day was purchasing a DVD recorder in a Boxing Day sale. This means that the old DVD player can be moved to the exercise room so we can watch Bent's new Tour de France 2005 DVDs while using the weight machine and bike trainer! (I need *something* to inspire me to go down there more often.)

Leg and core strength exercises. I'm working on an appropriate New Year's resolution related to strength training, since my 2005 total time spent on strength is much lower than I would like.

Palgrave got a dump of heavy, wet snow on Christmas night, so we returned home to a winter wonderland. It's the kind of snow you see on the west coast, which unfortunately is too much for our trees to handle. Today's ski was slow because we had to keep stopping to knock snow off branches as we attempted to get bending trees to stand up straight so they won't break. Some huge branches had fallen, and we dragged them off the trails where we could. We'll need to return with saws and pruners to deal with the carnage, but it will be a major job to get all of our trails back in good skiing condition this year.

Forgot to mention that we met Rocky when we were out today! She was snowshoe-running at a good pace in heavy snow. Only in the world of Attackpoint can you run into someone you've never met and instantly guess who they are based on what you know about them from their training log! :-)

Several days ago, I went into the woods to get some firewood and managed to do an endo when my foot swung into an unseen boulder. Before landing on my face in the snow, I managed to hyperextend my right leg - the one with the injured knee. For the past few days, it's been loose and "rattly" again, although not too painful. It feels like I've undone the last 6-8 weeks of healing from my injury on Labour Day. Rats!

Merry Christmas to all! :-)

Leg strength exercises in my parents' well-equipped, but unfortunately underused home gym.

We were sorry to miss the Swedish Christmas treats this morning, but we did think of our GCG friends as we ran on a snowy golf course with the pooches.

Leg strength exercises - longer session than usual as penance for allowing 6 days to lapse since the last time. Watched Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" with special guest Jimmy Carter, who had no trouble keeping up his end of the witty repartee. Jon's first question was why, 25 years after his retirement, Jimmy is working harder than the current President? The experience was slightly marred by periodic appearances of The Canadian Tire Guy.

:-((( Our neighbours have brought loggers onto their property, and they are taking down some of the biggest, most beautiful trees I've ever seen. Several of these trees are old friends that I've been watching out my window over the years as the seasons change. Their forest is completely trashed right now, with our usual trail into the woods blocked by two fallen trees with branches over our heads. We can still get to the conservation area another way - and I'm sure they will clean it up a bit - but it was still sad to have to watch it. Our neighbours are good people, legitimately trying to do the right thing in terms of forest management, but some of those trees were so special that I would have kept them regardless of whether the forester marked them. :-(((

Night snowshoeing in the Humber River Valley near Kleinburg with Gazelle, Bent and Adidas P&L. We were running for a good portion of the time, slowing down for the bigger hills and deeper snow. I kept thinking that at any moment, I'd have to admit defeat and ask them to slow down, but my foolish pride got the better of me, and I kept pushing. If I thought my body was ready for some recovery time before, boy it could *really* use some now.

Gazelle hosted us all for the rest of the evening, tempting us with 2 kinds of homemade Christmas squares, followed by a sauna. VERY relaxing, but our arrival home at midnight made it impractical to do my leg strength exercises. First thing tomorrow morning then, and no excuses!!!

Finished scouting the course for the Jan. 7 Thomass race in the Dundas Valley. Things went much more smoothly today, with my ideas transferring more easily from paper to the field, with minimum modification required. That meant more running and less standing around rethinking strategies, but I still managed to get chillier than I would on a regular run.

I think my body is begging for some R&R, but I know that I have several days of rest and overeating coming up this weekend, so I hate to take days off now. In any case, we've got another night snowshoe expedition scheduled with some AR friends tomorrow night, so I can't take a break until Thurs.

Night snowshoeing, mostly off-trail, with P&L of Team Adidas Canada. Yup - we were training with yet another team that's going to beat us in the Mansfield winter adventure race! It was a great night to be out climbing big hills and skidding down the other side. The snow is just deep enough now that it feels worthwhile to use snowshoes. Fun!

Around Palgrave West with Bent and the pooches. Trail conditions are fast today!

Skiing all over Palgrave with Crash, Tiny, Bent and BulletDog. Beautiful sunshine, awesome snow conditions, excellent company and a brisk pace made for a great afternoon. One of the highlights was our "Crash Bar" break in a sunny clearing. Yum - those are SO good!!

I think BulletDog is actually tired now, which has almost *never* happened in her entire life.

Skiing with Bent and the pooches in dense new snow around Palgrave West. Fantastic mid-season conditions at a time of year when it's often mountain biking weather!

ThunderDog is a High Speed Hound after her spinal surgery in the summer. BulletDog, who celebrated her 2nd anniversary with us this week, is looking like she will never graduate from puppyhood. (And that's OK.)

Leg strength exercises

Watched "Saint Ralph" on DVD. A great movie for anyone who has ever run in Hamilton. I'm sure that some Raid The Hammer must have taken us to that nice waterfall Ralph ran by...?

Snowshoeing around Palgrave West with ThunderDog in a snowstorm, mostly off-trail. A fantastic day to be out in the woods! Some running, some trekking, and a lot of gratuitous hills that I ran up if there weren't too many fallen logs, since today is TNT day. The new Tubbs Catalysts are excellent for running on trails or reasonably even ground. When the terrain gets messy with fallen trees, or if there are sidehill slopes, they don't work as well as my MSR Denali Ascent snowshoes. So I will definitely continue to use both pairs, and I think I will use the MSRs for AR and the Tubbs for winter running training and for snowshoe racing (if I ever do any). Need to modify the Tubbs binding system, which is surprisingly awkward for a company specializing in snowshoes.

1st place in the Citizens for a Clean Caledon Christmas Party Christmas Movie & Television Trivia Contest. (That's the CCCCPCMTTC.)

Spiked all but one - the name of the elf in "Santa Clause".

Not much of a day for training, with many hours spent running errands around Toronto (yuck) and attending a meeting. The highlight was picking up my New Blue Bashmobile (Subaru Outback). Let the snowstorms come - I'm ready with AWD and heated seats!

Actually, there was a second highlight of the day - Santa's early delivery of a pair of Tubbs Catalyst running snowshoes! I went out for a short run under the full moon to test them out. They are small, but they were fine in 10 cm of loose, fluffy snow on top of the base. I'm not keen on the binding system, although I'm sure we can improve it. The running went really well. It felt almost completely natural - not the usual cowboy leg swinging that you need to do with some snowshoes. Looking forward to testing them out more. (Santa hasn't mentioned if these are supposed to be for Bent or for me, but hey, I saw them first.)

Skiing in a silent, sunny forest. :-)) I had my first big crash of the seaon, which I've been dreading because of my knee injury. Skiing is the most dangerous sport I do, as far as knees are concerned, so falling is really not an option anymore. I was coming downhill when ThunderDog stepped in front of me to sniff something. I veered - and unfortunately so did she, and my skis hit her hind feet before I could dive in the opposite direction to avoid hurting her. She was still wagging her tail as I lay there removing snow from my mouth, so I think all is forgiven. This has been a hard week for knees, as yesterday I plunged one leg into a snow-filled pit while running in the Dundas Valley. (After some squinting at my imperfect print-out, I confirmed that the pit was actually mapped, so mea culpa.) Anyway, my knee now feels a bit loose for the first time in awhile. It will be interesting to see how it feels when I go skate-skiing.

Leg strength training (thanks, JT) while watching the news. Top story: The American ambassador wants our Prime Minister to stop picking on the U.S. government for refusing to sign the Kyoto Accord, amongst other things. However, they are still allowed to criticize us for not going to Iraq.

Scouted the course for the Thomass National Team Fundraiser race. Some running, some scrambling up steep, snowy hills, and some standing around thinking hard. Out for three hours, but only counting two because I am the slowest course setter on earth. I designed the course at home first, but I always get different ideas in the field and want to try them all out. In this case, because it's a handicapped event, I over-analyzed the possible routes for each age group, thinking of specific people I know who will likely be there. Also, it's a bit nervewracking to think of desiging a course that will be run by National Team members and the Hott-Johansens. So... although I thought I'd get it done today, I will need to go back soon to finish up!

First time exploring the Dundas Valley on my own - I've always been in a race or doing a nav exercise when I've been there. What a great place to run in winter! Many trails are well-used - packed snow with decent traction - which made it weird and kinda spooky that I didn't see another person in 3 hours out there. Managed to get quite chilled when the sun set, and had to make a quick dash for Timmy's chili and hot chocolate.

Thomass Chase at Rattlesnake Point.
(Time is approximate until results are posted, since I don't really know.)

Nice snowy day and an excellent turn-out for the 2nd Thomass winter O race of the season. From comparing routes with others afterward, it looks like I probably ran a few too many straight lines between controls today. It would have been worth considering using trails and roads more often to get better traction in the snow and avoid thick, foot-grabbing weeds. I also did an abysmal job of marking my place on my map with my thumb, resulting in considerable confusion at control #9 when I somehow started reading the map at #6 (upside down) and lost 15+ seconds agonizing over where the big field beside me had disappeared to. Finally I noticed that my "#9" was connected to #5. Oops. Other than that, things went surprisingly smoothly today, and I hit all the controls pretty well.

Luckily, it was an age/gender handicapped event, so I was given a 4-minute head start over the M-elites and got to skip 4 controls as well. This proved to be enough of an advantage to get my first Thomass win! :-)) GHO Canada GHO members took 1st through 4th place - possibly more, not sure what happened after that. Good work, team!

Started with a loop around the Charlevoix trail with Bent and pooches. My brain felt - and still feels - utterly disconnected from my body, probably the result of interrupted sleep, since ThunderDog needed a couple of treatments in the middle of the night after her attempt at Death By Chocolate. (See comment on yesterday's log.) Fortunately, it seems that we made it to the vet quickly enough, as it is now past the time when any post-chocolate toxic effects would appear. Yikes.

We dropped the dogs off at home, then skied to the town of Palgrave for lunch. I was imagining what it must have been like in the early 1900s when the train line ended at Palgrave. Tourists would come up from Toronto and stay in one of two hotels on the main street, one of which is now Bent's dental office. People would hire guides to go out into the wilderness, travelling across the Palgrave Conservation Area and past where our house is today. David Milne, an associate of the Group of Seven, lived in Palgrave for awhile and painted the surrounding countryside. Driving around here by car today, it's hard to picture all this, but on days when we travel cross-country through forests and fields and arrive near the old train station, the old stories come alive.

And back to the present... we had absolutely awesome fresh snow conditions. What a great day! Now if only my stupid cold would go away after 3.5 weeks. I miss having my real voice and my real lungs.

Ski around Palgrave West with BulletDog and ThunderDog, breaking trail through 15 cm of new snow. Nice!

Tomorrow we've got a skate-skiing session at Hardwood Hills with Coach Ming, so I will have new sore muscles shortly. Skate-skiing is the only activity that makes me acutely aware of the muscles on my shins, whatever the heck they are called.

Leg strength exercises

First attempt at silly walks and strides, much to the confusion of the pooches. More effort than I had expected - these drills definitely work muscles that I seldom use when running. I also noticed that my right leg (the problem one) seems less flexible or less strong or something.

Snowy trail run through Palgrave West on a sunny winter day. ThunderDog and BulletDog were crazy-happy, bounding up and down hills, and stopping to make dog angels in the snow. Halfway around, I hit a leg-wrenching object under the snow and realized that I'd forgotten my knee brace for the first time in several months. It actually wasn't too bad, although I don't think I'll make it a habit. I've stopped using the arch support, and my knee hasn't had that "rattling around" feeling lately. So even though the damaged cartilage can't heal, it seems that the sports doc was right that the pain would probably diminish. :-)

Today I focused on extending the back leg, pushing off, then kicking the leg up. In the running clinic. one common mistake was for people to do a "bum kick" too early, thus missing the chance for a good back leg extension and push-off.

I'm trying to think of posture all the time, not just while running, because it needs to become more natural. It's nothing fancy, just the old trick of pretending that a string is pulling your head up, plus thinking about your back shoulder blades being pulled closer together. Barrie recommended a weight machine exercise as well, which I must figure out how to do here.

Last but not least, it's TNT hill interval day. We actually have a pretty good hill circuit on our property, so today I did loops that included our hilliest terrain. Traction wasn't the greatest, but it was excellent practice for the Thomass winter O series.

Christmas Shopping speed/strength intervals at intensity level 5. Four hours of $30 on, 15 minutes off. Total distance about 5 km around downtown Toronto without a vehicle. Plenty of upper body strength work, especially by the time I got to the later intervals.

Perhaps it was because of the extended Wallet Warmup - or maybe I was just tired of walking all day, but I purchased a car on the way home.

TNT comes to Palgrave again! After starting my parallel TNT last Tuesday, I made the mistake of skipping the TNT hill training on Thursday - and boy, did I hear about it. So today was speed interval day once again. I decided to move to shorter intervals so that I could do more of them, and hopefully keep up a faster pace. Speed *really* isn't my thing, so if the intervals get too long, I cheat and ease off, which is missing the point. So I'll have to work my way up to what the GHO Canada GHO team is doing.

Today was 6 intervals of 2 min. with 90 s off in between. I'm wondering if I should do speedwork on the road (more traction), or at least on a flatter trail. On a snowy day in the hilly Oak Ridges Moraine, parts of my speed workout were more like a strength workout.

The rest of my trail run. ThunderDog accompanied me on the part before dark, then I dropped her off at the house. I tried to keep my shoulders back and use my arms properly. For some reason, I had a recurrence of the stupid hip pain that, before today, had only ever happened at the 2005 Raid The Hammer. I don't think it was caused by improving my posture. Apparently, hip tightness in long runs can result from the opposite arm moving too far across the body - but I don't think I do that.

This was the first good field test of my new Princeton Tec Apex headlamp. I can see why Bent has been raving about it.
www.princetontec.com/products/index.php?id=2&type=...

Leg strength exercises while watching Jeopardy.

Libreville is the capital of what country? (I didn't get this one.)

First monthly GHO Canada GHO orienteering training session. Our debut was marred by getting seriously lost - sort of. Bent and I allowed lots of time to drive on a snowy day, so we got to the Hilton Falls main parking lot at 8:30 a.m. and took our time getting ready. By 9:05 a.m., it seemed *really* suspicious that nobody else was there. We fired up Richard's Treo and waited - and waited - until it finally chugged its way into the GCG blog where we learned that the session had indeed been moved to a different parking lot. Aaack!!

Instead of the relaxing start we'd planned on, we ended up chasing Icebug tracks through the snowy woods, which eventually led us to TD. She was pleased to have company and immediately passed me the map, asking me to talk her through the way I would approach the course. It ended up being a good outing, because when I am forced to talk about what I'm doing, I navigate better, and it reinforces things I should be remembering all the time. We worked on a few different skills, particularly map memorization, since we only had one map!

Hilton Falls is a great place for O practice - you really need to pay attention. The last time I practised there, it was summer, and today it was much easier to see the contours - phew! Still, I really have to squint sometimes to be able to pick out a ridge 2.5 meters high!

Nice inaugural session by Coach Sudden, with a good turnout. These are going to be fun!

Trail running portion of our outing at Hilton Falls.

After yesterday's running analysis session, Bent and I did some test runs so we could watch each other's posture. I think we now know what it is supposed to feel like when we are doing it right. Now we just need to practise, practise, practise.

Warmup/cooldown and tempo running for the camera at the C3 running analysis clinic with biomechanics expert Dr. Robert Taylor. Being an adventure racer, it never crossed my mind that people can run indoors, so I arrived in heavy tights, long-sleeved polypropylene top, vest, toque, gloves, etc. Other more savvy runners wore shorts and T-shirt. Oops!

Except for being overdressed, this was an *extremely* cool experience! First they wrote numbers on our arms, then we all warmed up on the track for 20 minutes. Then we ran in small groups while Dr. Taylor watched and took notes, and a retired CBC cameraman videotaped us running toward and away from the camera. Then we returned for a general presentation on running technique, followed by a review of the videos of all 40 participants.

One thing I learned is that virtually *nobody* is a perfect runner - even the teenager that Dr. Taylor encouraged to apply for a running scholarship. And keep in mind that C3 is a triathlon club, so the room included people who had done as many as 17 Ironman races - and there was still room to improve their running efficiency.

Dr. Taylor observed that virtually everyone there needed to work on their arm movement - keeping elbows close to the body, driving the legs forward with the arms, and not moving arms or torso side to side. Core strength and flexiblity were visible issues with many people. Posture was a problem for some people - and he pointed right at me (in a room of 40 people), and said, "You have posture issues." Gulp. I've already heard that from my Mom, my husband and my paddling coach. Maybe, just maybe, there is something to it.

He went through all the videos one by one, dispassionately listing everyone's problems (there were always a few), and showing us exercises or recommending particular types of therapy. At least 20% of the group he described as "beginner runners", i.e. people who have never done track or worked with a running coach, so they haven't been shown how to run properly. When he got to me, I was totally convinced that I'd be labelled a "beginner runner" since I have no background, and I was prepared to smile and agree. So you could have knocked me over with a feather when he said, "Now she is actually quite a good runner." Huh?!? One of the basic facts of my life (and it doesn't bother me much) is that I am a bad runner. But he claims that I'm a good runner who leans forward from the waist too much, plus I have a bit of a lurch to one side (see Hammer). This comes as quite a shock, and it's very cool to know what specific things to work on. (Other than speed, which has always been an issue.)

I took reams of notes and hope to write them up and post them to the Tree Huggers web site. Both Barrie Shepley and Robert Taylor are *very* keen on running drills (As, Bs, Cs, Strides, etc.) and suggest that we replace one run per week with running drills. They also said that most runners have far too much endurance relative to their other abilities, and they should spend more time on speed and hill work. Studies have shown that people train 80% of their time in a low HR zone, then race 90% of the time in a high HR zone. Other research has shown that people who mostly do long, slow jogs are using less than 50% of their muscle mass - and they are stunting their fast twitch fibre so they actually do worse on the "fast twitch" test than the average couch potato!

More to come in my notes. Very interesting session - well worth getting up before sunrise!

No, Bent and I did not set out to ski for 10 minutes! We have almost 20 cm of fluffy snow here, so we headed out for a loop with the dogs. Unfortunately, we kept screeching to a halt. It turns out the snow fell on relatively warm, wet ground, so there is a thin layer of slush next to the ground, insulated by thick snow which prevents it from freezing. So we abandoned our skis where we could find them on our way home.

After dropping the skis, Bent, BulletDog, ThunderDog and I went for a brief hike in Palgrave West. We were in ski boots, so it was a bit awkward, but the forest was a winter wonderland, so it was great to be out.

Trail run around Palgrave West with Crash and BulletDog (who ran 5 times the distance that we did). It's great to run with someone at a steady pace. It prevents me from cheating and walking more often than I really need to.

The best part was the post-training taste test of the new Crashbars - homemade energy bars developed by our favourite uber-athlete chef. I always figured that she could get rich from her brownies, but Crashbars could knock Clif Bars and Powerbars right out of the marketplace. :-)))

Reached 2000 hits tonight. Hello out there, whoever you are!