Training Log Archive: Bash

After an afternoon of violent thunderstorms in Palgrave, I finally headed to Waterdown to check that flags were still out for tonight's GHO training session. The woods were soooo wet, and as I skidded down one steep, slick, rock-strewn slope, it occurred to me that I'd broken the rule I'd established after Danelle Ballengee's accident. 'Bent didn't know where I was nor whom to ask about it, and after last week's poor attendance at the training night, I didn't even know if other orienteers would be coming. It wasn't an issue this time, but I'll have to remember to be smarter in future. (And yes, orienteers DID show up for the training night. But only seven of them.)

A fun, sunny morning of single track in Albion Hills with 'Bent, Suze and Eric. I met Suze at STORM The Trent a few weeks ago. She beat both 'Bent and me on the paddle, and she is a strong biker. I only finished ahead of her because the navigation section went better for me - phew! I've given her some info on orienteering clinics though, so she'll probably crush me next year.

We met Eric in the woods today and invited him to ride with us. He turned out to be a patient of 'Bent's, our teammate Angus' violin teacher, guitar teacher to Rocky's son and former harmonica teacher to Crash. (I think I got all that right.) Small world!

One minor note of excitement occurred when the other riders heard me yell and crash onto the forest floor while simultaneously yanking my helmet from my head. A wasp or bee had smacked into my temple through my helmet, and suddenly I felt fire on my scalp. My only thought was to get the helmet off, since I couldn't brush off the insect. What a great idea to remove my helmet during my fall to the ground! It feels OK now, so hopefully I interrupted it partway through the act of stinging me - and luckily I didn't land on my head!

We are going to start doing Wed. morning group bike rides in Albion Hills. I'll contact folks who are most likely to be able to arrange their schedule around it, but for people reading this, we will meet outside the Albion Hills Chalet at 8:45 a.m. for at least the next few weeks to see how it goes. We'll probably ride about 2 hours, and we'll figure out ways to accommodate different speeds.

I am officially declaring my ESAR Poison Ivy Watch to be over. There might be a new bump or two that could be attributed to PI, but it's nothing like I'd feared.

OK, I've put it off long enough. Time to pack for Yellowknife.

More of the new ankle turn preventive routine while watching the Winnipeg Comedy Festival. I finally got around to trying a new exercise that K/O had given me. I'm supposed to pick up 10 dog kibbles with my toes and place them into a cup. Then do the same on the other side, then repeat on both sides. Obviously, K/O doesn't have two Labradors, because I never would have gotten past the first kibble! I looked for 10 small pebbles in our driveway today, and I'm using them instead. The dogs came running up when I put the stones on the floor, and there was a brief moment when I thought they might eat the stones too. But they sniffed a lot, then walked away in disgust - phew.

It's been almost 60 hrs, and so far no poison ivy. Hard to believe. I don't want to get my hopes up too high, but maybe I escaped the worst of it. I wasn't so lucky last weekend. In case you didn't know, poison ivy CAN get you through your bike shorts.

My race recovery consisted of 9 hours on my feet volunteering at the C3 Caledon Kids of Steel Triathlon - the largest KOS in the country. What a fun day! Some of Canada's top triathletes did the morning duathlon, which was awesome to watch. Then I staffed the bike/run transition for the age 3-5 category - 110 entrants. I removed their helmets, grabbed their bikes, and told them to run with Mommy to the finish line. After that, the older age categories went on the road for varying distances, but we had to watch the little kids carefully because some of them couldn't follow traffic cones, read big signs or count laps. Heck, some of the adults had problems with all that. In addition to lots of arm waving and shouting, I had to fix a 6-year-old's bike chain mid-race and talk to a 10-year-old boy and hold his hand as he lay crying in the road, waiting for medics. (Road rash - he was OK.) I came out of the day with no more desire to DO a triathlon than I'd had going in, but I admire the athletes who do it, especially the brave little kids pushing their limits. I'd volunteer again for sure.

Event: ECCO-Emergency Services Adventure Race
 

Each spring we look forward to the well-organized Emergency Services Adventure Race (ESAR), put on by our friends Mr. & Mrs. Flatfoot, with big help from Sherpa and Vin. The race always includes some unexpected twists and turns that add to the adventure. Most of the participants are police, firefighters, paramedics and military, but they allow a few of us civilians to race too.

My usual all-female team couldn't make it this year. 'Bent won ESAR in 2005 and 2006 with teammates who weren't available this year either, and he was looking for ringers to go for the 3-peat. Meanwhile, I signed up Angus, a first-time racer and coach of our high school adventure racers. Realizing the futility of attempting to compete with us, 'Bent joined Team Tree Huggers / Bullfrogpower.com.

Ninety canoes started on the relatively narrow Nottawasaga River, which was splashy, exciting and a bit scary! Although less-experienced paddlers had been advised to seed themselves by staying out of the front rows, I guess some teams didn't realize that they were inexperienced paddlers until they started weaving back and forth across the river in front of the advancing hordes. That made for some fun collision avoidance - and occasional bumper boats. We paddled at top intensity for 5 minutes to get clear of the melee. With three in a canoe using kayak paddles, it's already tippy, so we didn't want to get hit too hard. Even Beowulf, a top AR team, managed to capsize today. We'd made it to 3rd place, just behind our friends, Canadian Outback, drafting them at first, then finally pulling past them on a curve, ironically aided by their strokemaster JZ calling out a good cadence: "One! Two!". Angus was a great captain in the stern, calling out commands to paddle on one side or another, rather than wasting energy on J-strokes. Impressive for someone who's never adventure raced before, let alone paddled a canoe with a kayak paddle. Like most experienced racers, he managed to clock me hard in the head with his paddle once. I should probably just wear a bike helmet in races where I sit in the middle seat, since this is a regular occurrence.

Now in 2nd place, we transitioned from canoes to a trek through the Minesing Swamp at the height of bug, poison ivy and stinging nettle season. As long as we kept moving, we barely noticed the bugs. My tights were insufficient protection against stinging nettles - OUCH - and I even got one in the palm of my hand. The poison ivy... well... I usually don't see a rash for 48 hours, and it hasn't been that long yet - yikes!!! I went through a LOT of PI during the day, and I fell in some at one point, cushioning myself with my right hand (argghh!) My fingers are crossed, but I'm worried that I could have a bad case coming up soon.

We swam across the river, then headed east to meet a north-south trail. It was tough going through the swamp, and we meandered a bit on our bearing, allowing a couple of teams to pass. We had visions of doing several kilometers of trail running, but that didn't work out for us, since the "trail" was really just a long, straight opening in the forest filled with knee-deep, sloppy muck of uneven depth, containing roots and branches. 'Bent asked a couple times if I wanted a tow. Oh yeah - it's very helpful to get yanked on the waist when you're fighting for your balance while stumbling through a sea of mud.

We finally emerged, then skirted the edge of fields to a trail. We passed a volunteer who mentioned that he was the CP for ESAR Lite, the short version of the race. "I'm the CP at the bridge," he said carefully. We dashed on, then I said, "Well, we should be looking for a creek really soon." 'Bent said, "You mean like the one running under the bridge back there?" Um, yes, exactly like that. So we turned and forged uphill to follow the ravine where we should find our CP. We looked carefully and didn't find it. There were several good navigators in the area, including Beowulf and Numsi, and none of us was having any luck. Then we saw a police team run by smiling, so we ran back to a part of the ravine that we'd passed before, and the volunteer was quietly tucked partway down the hill. We ran to CP4, meeting a couple of teams who'd almost got there, and were now coming back for CP3.

Onto the bikes next - a mixture of dirt roads and fun trails. The first section was marked with yellow tape, and we needed to be vigilant. 'Bent missed one turn-off, and we had to call him back. I later heard that a number of teams missed that turn, so we were lucky to catch the error early. For the final leg to Fort William, we took the longer road route, since we would be coming out the same way, and also because we suspected that it might be slower to go up the stairs from the rail trail. Where the routes split, a police team went on the rail trail, and we followed the road. We arrived at the CP in 1st place just before them, so it worked.

At CP6, with our hearts beating wildly, we were asked to assemble a 100-piece children's puzzle! It felt like biathlon - an instant switch from hammering hard on the bike to dividing up puzzle tasks between three of us. "OK, you look for ALL the edges, and I'll assemble the Big Bad Wolf while 'Bent looks for parts of the Three Pigs." It was fun listening to the other teams as they arrived and started working.

More riding, including a long descent on the sandy Ganaraska Trail to the base of the ski hill. We rode around to the snow tubing station, where we were asked to shoot a crossbow at a target. As the day wore on, they only asked one teammate to do it, but all three of us had to hit the target before we could move on. With no shooting background, I was rather chuffed with myself when I hit the target. It wasn't until after the race that 'Bent told me I'd hit the target adjacent to the one I was aiming at!

From there, we headed off with a 1:10,000 base map from 1983 that we'd just been handed, and we were aided by the ski run map. We had a steep slog uphill to CPA, then a nice trail run around to CPB. It was exciting as we jostled for position, and after CPB, I should have insisted on taking 30 seconds to look at the maps carefully, but instead I winged it, and we eventually ended up at the bottom of the ski hill past the point we were aiming for. We were heading for the top of the half-pipe, which meant a bit of backtracking and a steep climb partway back up the ski hill. I'm disappointed with my feeble navigation from CPB to CPC, since we could have won the race if I'd kept my head on straight. We should have followed a sidehill route along to CPC, but at worst, it wouldn't have taken much longer to just plunge to the bottom and run along the ski lifts looking for the half-pipe sign, then run up its small lift. The lead team was with us in this section making the same mistakes, and we hit CPC right behind them. They handed in their passport first, which sealed their victory.

From there, it was an all-out run down the ski hill and across the grass to the finish - oops! - more special tasks. First, we hit a climbing wall. Unlike poor Silence Beckons, with their team of two people similar in height, we were blessed to have Blastin' 'Bent and Big Angus. Next it was the traditional stretcher carry. On my female teams, we've struggled to carry a teammate over the finish line, but this year, I planned to ride through the finish arch like the Queen of Sheba. Wrong. Not that it wasn't a great ride, but it wasn't the end of the race. Into the inflatable fun house we went! It seemed to go on for a loooong time. We slithered under tubes and hauled ourselves up vertical sections with ropes and small inflatable footholds. Finally at the top, we slid down, grabbed our fetid shoes and backpacks, and ran across the finish line.

Fun race!! And a good one for us, too. In spite of my silly nav on the final CP, we were 2nd overall out of 90 teams, only 40 seconds out of 1st place. The winning team consisted of 3 muscular policemen, so fortunately they weren't in the Civilian Coed division anyway! I would have bet a considerable sum of money that our team had no chance of winning our division because of the tough competition. But I guess we minimized our mishaps, which enabled us to sneak past some faster racers.

'Bent, Angus and I worked well together as a team, which doesn't always happen the first time together - especially with a first-time racer. But no one would have guessed that Angus hadn't raced before - he's a very quick study. And of course, I always love racing with my hubby 'Bent.

It's been a fun month with Frontier Huntsville, STORM and ESAR. I sure am glad that I didn't retire from training for AR last fall as planned. No adventure races on the horizon until Raid The North in two months, but there are a few single-sport races for variety.

Interested in helping kids have fun with sports? Consider volunteering at the Caledon Kids of Steel Triathlon this Sunday in Caledon village. There will be 700 kids, including over 100 racers in the age 3-6 category. (They use water wings to do one length of the pool.) C3 needs 200 volunteers, and they're still a little short. Contact Luisa at ltruby@rogers.com.

Rode from Caledon East to Inglewood for a meeting. The morning ride was pretty good - not too warm, and the air along the rail trail was scented with lilacs. The afternoon ride was stinking hot, and the Air Quality was terrible. As of 4 p.m., we have poor air quality everywhere in the province except for Thunder Bay. Scary. You can exercise tonight, but please don't inhale.

Had a nice ice cream break with Knobless at the Inglewood General Store before hitting the trail for home.

Another smog day, so I rode my bike to a meeting at the Town of Caledon, but tried not to inhale. I was soooo close to Gourmandissimo's fine food shop that I had to stop in afterwards to get some crab cakes with sundried tomato aioli, dark chocolate biscotti and orange walnut salad dressing. Yummm.. Since all that food made my pack heavier, it was better training too.

Leanimal and I had a beautiful day for G-TNT on the Humber Trail. After struggling last week, I felt lighter on my feet today, and Leanimal felt more energetic too. It was a few degrees cooler and much less humid today, which undoubtedly helped. I coveted Leanimal's cool, new, red, next-generation Salomon shoes - but not her mini-socks, which were conspiring to give her a blister only a few days before the 4-day MIX adventure race in Michigan. Hopefully we stopped running in time!

The Forerunner measured 376 m in elevation gain this week, compared to 454 m last week for the same run. Hmmmm... The distance didn't change, fortunately.

Hard Core DVD with BulletDog, who has great abs. 'Bent and ThunderDog managed to escape to eat cheesecake with his Mom for Shavuot.

Worked on my gimpy ankles while watching Jon Stewart make fun of all the different times George W has said that he's "looking forward" to something, when he is obviously NOT.

'Bent and I met up with our teammate 3PinJim at one of his favourite local haunts, the Puslinch Tract in Cambridge. Nice challenging single track with some fast sections in the pine forest and some more technical rock/root riding sections with short, steep, twisting uphills and steeply plunging (but relatively short) downhills. 3PinJim is a fast technical rider! There was a LOT of poison ivy in the woods, including thigh-high woody shrubs with poison ivy leaves on them. We went to the 401 rest stop to wash our hands and legs with soap after the ride, but it may have been too late.

Nice to see Phatty & Leanimal when they dropped by during their training ride today. I think we might have been a bad influence. (Can you say "Mike's Hard Lemonade"?)

STORM results are out. Most of all, I'm proud and excited for 'Bent, who finished 1st of 80 teams in all divisions. I'm happy (and surprised) about my ranking in the solo division: 2nd of 22 racers, 19 of them male, most of them younger than me. (Sadly, that pretty much goes without saying.) 'Bent was the only solo who beat me, and since he's usually at the front of my tow rope, that's exactly how I want it to be! For some unknown, bewildering reason, biking and paddling continue to be the disciplines where I do best relative to other racers this spring. For anyone wanting to know my training secrets, you should only paddle during actual races, and you might as well take 6 months a year away from your bike. Yup, throw away your trainer and watch TV without all that annoying sweat and background noise. The one discipline I *have* been training through the winter - trekking/running with navigation - is not really working out for me lately, so my new strategy is to avoid sport-specific training. I'll probably go back to curling in the winters, just to keep a safe distance from any AR disciplines where my performance might be impacted negatively by actual practice.

I was 8th of 80 teams overall, and one of the higher-ranked teams consisted of our Raid The North teammates, 3PinJim and LoTox - yay, more people for the front of my tow rope! If I'd just followed the marked trails in the regular section instead of trying to be cute by using my compass, I could have saved 10-15 minutes on the two misplaced CPs and moved up a few places. But c'est la vie. 'Bent and I each won our choice of Keen shoes, and we were allowed to select from all their styles online - a very nice prize indeed, so I can't complain (too much).

Moving on to the BAD news... I followed up on Hansel's comment about the Backroads Map Book showing the road between CP4 & CP5 at the Frontier Adventure Challenge two weeks ago. I remember using the map book to review several legs of the race, but apparently I spaced out and somehow neglected to check that leg, because as soon as I looked at that part of the map today, I realized that I'd never seen it before. And ohhhh yes, that road is RIGHT there near the start of the trek and would have saved us a ton of time. Dumb, dumb rookie mistake. Well, I got what I deserved for being careless, and hopefully the lesson will stick. (Oh, and uh, sorry 'bout that, guys.)

Ordered some books for our trek in the Dolomites. Getting excited! Anyone know any fun places to rent mountain bikes and go trail riding between Innsbruck and Vienna?

'Bent, BulletDog and I headed north on the Bruce Trail from Hockley Valley Road with the plan of doing a 21 km loop with a side trail that we've never done. I've been in Hockley Valley before, but somehow I still had the illusion that we would run uphill out of the valley, run east along the top for awhile, then come back down to the road. Then we would run up the other side of the valley, run west along the top, then come back down to our vehicle. But how it actually went was: long uphill, long downhill, long uphill, long downhill, long uphill, long downhill... repeat until you miraculously get to the top of the valley, then repeat some more. So when we made it back down to the road, I wimped out and suggested that we take the road back to the car, rather than climbing up the other side of the valley to follow the trail. We've got another race next weekend, so this isn't the time to do a 3.5 hr run!

In case it sounds like I didn't enjoy myself, I definitely did. It was absolutely beautiful in the woods with a carpet of trilliums, jack-in-the-pulpit, violets and lush greenery of all kinds. The forest views and countryside vistas on this section of the Bruce Trail are incredible - one "wow!" after another. And if anyone wants to do hill intervals without repeating the same hill over and over, this is the run for you. We think we finally might have tired out the invincible BulletDog, which is saying something.

Dropped off my bike at Caledon Hills Cycling. 'Bent managed to make the worst of the scary, squeaky metallic noise go away, but I'd like to see it ALL go away.

A wonderful, cool evening in Albion Hills with 'Bent. The trails are in fantastic shape, and the forest floor is covered with greenery. Because of all the rain earlier this week, I would have been better off with knobby tires in a few slippery places, but with all the adventure races in May, I'm just leaving the semi-slicks on.

My bike was making some disturbingly loud squeaky metal sounds. I remember them starting to get distracting partway through last Saturday's race, and I should have done something earlier this week, since I didn't ride at all. 'Bent thinks he might have solved the problem by removing some gunk from the headset, so I'll test it in the morning. Otherwise, we might be spending part of our holiday weekend in a bike shop.

Other than that, it was an awesome, relaxed ride. Two deer ran across the trail right in front of us, but otherwise it felt like we had the place almost to ourselves. Much nicer than fighting holiday traffic, as we had originally planned.

First time I've taken the Forerunner out on our own trails, and it was a surprise to learn that this little run in Palgrave West is over 5 km. I pushed harder than usual for a training run, just to see if I could. I've been worried about how fatigued I've felt over the past ten days, including during Storm The Trent. My legs still felt tired today, but the cold air was so wonderful that my lungs felt great. Poison ivy is THRIVING.

I was looking for a 45-minute loop that I could use as a benchmark and try to improve on. Apparently this one is too short! Route was long way to Thinker's Hill, down Hawk Hill to Bruce Trail, then cross-country to counterclockwise Charlevoix Loop, then Bruce Junction, Raspberry Hill and home the long way through F&M's. (This won't even make sense to Crash, who lives on the same block of land, but I'll be able to figure it out if I want to repeat the run.)

Gotta lose a few pounds. My Christmas weight is still there - arggh.

Mostly this was a new set of exercises for my ankle, which K/O gave me this morning in hopes of making me into less of a gimp. I'm motivated!

No training in today's rain. The closest thing to an outdoor activity that I did was screech to a halt when a beaver scurried out in front of my car. (Yes, this really is Canada!)

Finally had time to review the Frontier Adventure Challenge race results. Surprisingly, our best discipline compared to the lead teams was the bike. (Even with Richard's handlebars snapping in half!) We've had some decent splits on technical bike sections in the past, but we've almost never placed well in road sections. In this race, we did both. I definitely owe that to 19-year-old Pate at the front of my towline on the uphills! :-)

For a change, our worst section was the 2nd half of the trek. We passed teams enroute to the first trek CP, but then we bushwhacked most of the way to the 2nd trek CP while most top teams found roads and trails. Our split was 80 minutes vs. 40 minutes for the lead team. OUCH!!

Nice to meet up with Leanimal for G-TNT after a couple of weeks where we took turns being sick. Before we hit the trail, she treated my ankle, and it hurt enough that it just HAD to be doing me a lot of good. I didn't feel any pain or instability during our trail run, which is great. Just in case though, I ordered another Active Ankle online this morning.

Wow, where did spring go? It was full-on summer when we went out around 11:30. There is something unsatisfying about taking in deep breaths of warm, humid air. I was embarrassed at how slowly I was moving, but Leanimal was nice enough to say that she felt sluggish in the heat as well.

The Forerunner GPS numbers are a little suspect, because we did an out-and-back run, and the elevation isn't close to a mirror image. Also, we were in some thick cedars, and I noticed that our pace changes weren't being picked up. Anyway, we do this run often enough that I'll get another chance to try it. Interestingly, this is a shorter run than the Albion Hills 5 Peaks, but there is more elevation gain - and I think there is actually more ascent that didn't get recorded. No wonder we moved faster in Albion Hills! Good training though.

Hard Core Monday with 'Bent is back. It sure was obvious that I haven't done serious core exercise for the last few weeks. We talked back to poor Caron a LOT today. Something's gonna hurt tomorrow...

My bad ankle is painful in a couple of specific places where I damaged soft tissue, but it didn't swell up, and there is no bruising after 48 hrs. So I'm turning off the injured flag, and I will train normally, using the ankle brace for everything I do on foot. (Sigh...) After reading my log, K/O has offered to give me a strengthening program to fix my "girlie ankles". Thank you, K/O! I'll also be asking Leanimal or Thumbs-of-Death to use some of their magic to help with the healing.

After helping with Hardrock registration, 'Bent and I went out on the Rocky Ridge map for some nav coaching. Rather ironic, since this is the terrain that has messed most with my mind in the past. The main thing I observed was that he wasn't following his bearings well. But he suddenly got better, and when I commented on it, he acknowledged that he had just changed his technique. The bad news is that I turned my stupid ankle again (an "inversion", according to Slice). I just stepped off a rock onto a hummock - I wasn't even running. It was a year ago today at last year's Hardrock that I did the major damage, and I was under the illusion that my recovery was almost complete. Wrong. Apparently, my proprioception still stinks. I wonder if it will ever recover, or if I am doomed to wear an Active Ankle off-trail forever. Not sure how bad this is going to be, but hopefully a bit of ice will improve it quickly. I'm not limping, just sulking.

Event: Storm the Trent
 

STORM The Trent - 1-day Trek adventure race. The well-organized STORM weekend consists of two 1-day races, the longer Trek and the shorter Hike. There is also a concurrent 2-day stage race with support crew, which we would like to do, except for the support crew part. In all STORM events, much of the race course is marked, with the exception of paddling sections and the advanced section. Thus the weekend attracts a large number of participants compared to other ARs around here. It's a great race for newbies, and also a great race for experienced racers who want to put their heads down and push hard on a fun multi-sport course.

We started off with an 8K paddle on Rice Lake. There was a stiff breeze, and we started with 2K into the wind, followed by 4K downwind, then 2K back upwind. The boats all lined up in the water for a mass start, then we took off into the wind. Since paddling involves so much upper body, I don't look to compete with guys, but I guess today's conditions were perfect for a relatively small, Trayling-coached person sitting low in the water in a long kayak. To my surprise, I was one of the first boats to the first CP - even ahead of 'Bent, then I turned around for the 4K downwind stretch. It was no longer helpful to be small and low in the water, so I waited for the crowds to pass me, but only saw 'Bent's kayak and Dave Zietsma's coed canoe (which I drafted for awhile as we chatted). After getting the 2nd CP, we turned back up into the wind. Just to be able to say I did, I pulled ahead of Zietsma's team about 400 meters before the finish. However, he was the first of several boats that passed me on the 350 m portage to the boat corral - one of the disadvantages of being a solo woman.

Next we biked south on fun country roads with great views, arriving at the Northumberland Forest, where we did a nice stretch of single track. My energy level had been pathetic since the start of the race - perhaps because of my cold last week - and in this section, I realized that I was holding it together today entirely through skills that I've put time into learning - paddling in the first section, climbing hills on my bike and now single track where I could pass some people who were walking. Nice to see that it actually helps.

So I was looking forward to the upcoming trek section. The regular course followed winding marked trails to 4 CPs, and I would take this opportunity to use my compass to bushwhack and cut corners to save time over the faster trail runners. ***Sigh*** The first two CPs were misplaced in such ways that someone navigating off-trail like me, with only a trail map to work with, could only find them through extensive wandering and pure luck. The people who simply followed the longer marked trail route were led to the CPs in their wrong locations. Overall, I gave up 13-15 minutes on the trek section because of this, and ended up surrounded by teams I'd been well ahead of - grrrrr. The other two regular CPs and the three advanced CPs (without marked trails leading to them) were placed perfectly - yay.

From there, we rode our bikes through some nice Oak Ridges Moraine hills, rocks and sand, leading to dirt roads and finally hilly paved roads. I'm not usually a happy road rider because of the cars-coming-too-close-to-bikes factor, but even I really enjoyed this road ride. In fact, virtually all of the biking we did today was as fun as any biking we ever do, which is unusual for an adventure race. (Except ESAR, which is run by keen bikers in areas with good bike trails.)

We had an off-road bike orienteering section at the end (very fun!), then a quick ride to Golden Beach Resort, where 'Bent awaited with the amazing news that he was the very first person across the finish line!!!! Considering that his bike handle bars snapped in half last weekend, and he had two flat tires this morning, it was quite a victory for him to be able to ride in first on his recumbent.

I'm very proud of him!!!!!! I'm not sure how many teams were between us, but I was the 2nd solo overall this year. I'm happy about that, of course, and I had a fun day playing outdoors, but I'm not happy about my low energy or the misplaced CPs. I like each race to be a positive learning experience though, and today's main takeaway was that working on sport-specific skills can save my butt on days when I don't feel strong physically.

Just getting ready to head off to Storm The Trent - looks like fantastic weather. Let's hope I get my sunscreen right this time (sigh). As much as I tried not to inhale during yesterday's 90-minute bike ride, it appears that some of that fetid air managed to slip into my lungs, so they're feeling less healthy today. Still one more day to recover, and we plan to get to Golden Beach Resort early, and maybe have a sunset paddle.

I was recently telling someone that when I first started using clipless pedals (Time Atac), it was sometimes hard to get out, but now it is easy, and now I feel uncomfortable NOT using clipless pedals. Well... yesterday, because my bike shoes were already packed for the race, I got my shiny new identical pair out of the box. It turns out that my clips have worn down over the years, and THAT's the main reason I find it so easy to get out of them. I didn't have any major incidents yesterday, but there were a few panicky seconds of frantic twisting before some sudden stops I had to make. Interesting to know. I still love clipless pedals though - and this is coming from a person who suspected that my husband bought a huge life insurance policy on me at the same time he bought me my first clipless pedals.

Now I'd better get out to the garage and practise changing a bike tire. In team races, it is never my job to know anything about bikes, but in these rare solo events, I suppose I should learn what to do with those heavy mandatory bike tools I have to carry. (You might think a Masters in engineering would help me with such things, but you would be wrong.) In my defence, I have never had a flat tire on any bike I've ridden in my entire adult life, which is, um, quite a few years. So my ignorance hasn't really been an issue. Besides, on our team, we usually have more exciting bike problems to solve, like 'Bent's handlebars snapping in half or (my personal favourite) the time his bike seat snapped off his bike just as darkness fell before a long snowmobile trail section in a 30-hour race.

Enough rambling - time to go find those tire lever thingies.

We realized to our shame that we had not used our kayaks since last year's Storm The Trent, so we headed out for a nice sunset paddle.

It was one of those ridiculous days when I avoided contributing to the smog by riding a bike to my meeting, which meant breathing suspect air all the way. Adding another layer of irony, this ride was a test to see if my lungs are functional, now that I'm starting to emerge from the cold that hit me on Sunday. I guess if my lungs can suck up a whole whack of particulates and ozone without sending me into coughing spasms, then I've probably recovered sufficiently to do Storm the Trent on Saturday. All the same, I did my best to ride hard without inhaling. Quite a challenge. Fantastic to see all the trilliums!!!

By the way, I got a nice follow-up note from the Dad of the student adventure racer. He's happy with the way the situation was handled ultimately. He enjoys seeing his son's enthusiasm and will definitely be supporting him in future adventure races. As he said, "I always would have supported him. I was just frustrated when I wrote the e-mail that day." When this Dad says "support", he's not just talking about moral support. He drives groups of kids all over the place, volunteers at their events, pays entry fees, hotels and meals - and in a couple of years, I'm sure he'll be sitting out all night in remote bush as a Raid The North support crew! So I'm glad he's onboard.

Another - and hopefully final - chapter in the high school adventure race saga. Turns out that the results spreadsheet had a couple of errors, including a recorded time that was off by 1 hour, resulting in a surprise victory for the team that ought to have been 13th overall. With the corrected times, the Mayfield team that reached the finish line first has now been declared the winner of the race after all. The math makes a lot more sense now, given their 10-minute lead at the finish line, most of which was gained on the final bike ride. I'd been planning to double-check it when the results were published. So the kids will get all the prizing they should have received, and the other kids will get to keep their prizes too. Good news for Mayfield, because now our teams are #1 and #2 overall. But it's a shame that they couldn't have enjoyed their moment in the sun - in front of all those high school GIRLS.

Still have a nasty cold. With luck, it will go away just in time to taper for Saturday's race.

More news from the high school race - mostly good. It turns out that the situation was handled very badly, which compounded the impact. The awards ceremony was held 4 hours after the leaders finished the race, and nobody informed them about the change in standings. So the kids learned that their victory had been taken away when they were called up in front of several hundred people to accept 3rd prize, much to their shock. Apparently they were gracious about accepting their medals (unlike some adults in the similar Bon Echo debacle), but obviously they were confused and disappointed, and it all happened in a very public forum. No wonder the Dad was upset. Someone should have taken them aside earlier to break the news gently.

But the good news is that the kids and their coach had a great time anyway. The race leaders want to try an adult race later this year, and they're already figuring out their list of things to work on. They've asked for advice on practising paddling and navigation, and they've got one guy who's going to work on technical biking and another guy who's going to get faster on roads. In other words, they sound just like an adult team who finished their first race and can't wait to try another one!

The coach enjoyed himself too, and I'm sure he'd be willing to take students into a race in another year. In fact, he's doing his first race at ESAR with 'Bent and me on May 26.

So it sounds like the many positives of this event outweighed the negatives for these students, and they're going to give the sport another chance. That's lucky. But let's hope we don't have to depend on that sort of luck in future!

My cold is really bad today, but I'm feeling much sicker after hearing about a massive screw-up in yesterday's high school adventure race. The volunteer crew failed to get to CP4 in time, so the organizers removed CP3-CP5 from the results, i.e. most of the trek/navigation section. This changed the rankings so that our #1 team came 3rd overall, and our #3 team came 2nd. There is no good way to solve a problem like a missing CP in the bush, and it is simply inexcusable in a race for high school students.

This has come up in adventure races before. The same arguments always arise, and there is no fair way to resolve the problem. The best navigators are confident when they're in the right place, so they spend less time looking for the missing volunteer crew. Other teams waste a lot of time, or perhaps they stumble on the volunteers waiting at the wrong location. After that point, the lead team works hard enough to stay ahead of the other teams, but doesn't realize that they need to work much harder, because their speedy trek time is not going to count.

We just received an e-mail from a disillusioned parent who was tremendously supportive of this race and will no longer be involved if his son wishes to continue in the sport. Argggghhhh.

Some light running as we chased "our" kids from Mayfield High School around their adventure race course today. Phatty and Leanimal had taught an AR clinic for the students and their coach, Angus (our ESAR teammate). Then last weekend, Leanimal, 'Bent, Angus and I took them out in Albion Hills to practise their navigation. They were keen! They'd borrowed gear, they'd asked lots of questions, they'd reviewed the course carefully. Then today we proudly watched as all three Mayfield teams smoked the field, finishing 1st overall, 3rd overall (2nd All-Male) and 4th Coed in a field of 60 teams. WOW!!!

After days of trying to fend off a cold, I've finally given up on preventive measures. I feel awful today, and I'm hoping that it will go away in a few days so I can feel ready for Storm The Trent!

Event: Fronteir Adventure Racing - Adventure Challenge
 

Raced a very fun, long figure-eight course out of Deerhurst Resort on a perfect cool, sunny day, with 'Bent and Pate, our 19-year-old secret weapon. As the Tree Huggers get older, we're seeking out younger teammates to bring our average age down to, oh, about 35. Since Pate just learned that he will be a nationally carded XC skier next season, I guess we were racing with a professional athlete. Hope that's legal!

We started off on bikes with a wonderful hilly ride through some cottage country and ATV trails. I took more bike towing than I usually do, since the terrain lent itself to towing - and also, I wondered if I could tire Pate out. (I couldn't.) We were thrown off by a misplaced CP1. The last time I raced out of Deerhurst, we DNF'ed because we didn't find CP1, so I had a few demons haunting me there. I should have just kept going, but I couldn't help wondering if the CP staff were hiding just off the road, so we went back up the correct hill to look a 2nd time before continuing on and finding the misplaced CP. After that, we had a fun bike ride through a beautiful landscape.

Next we made good time bushwhacking to MacArthur Chute on the Big East River, followed by a slapstick crossing of the river, slipping on slimy rocks of all sizes. We headed off on a bearing to intersect a promised snowmobile trail. We found one so soon that I assumed it must be a different one from the one we were looking for, so we followed another trail that ended up turning south. At that point, I realized that the first trail was probably the one, but the easiest thing to do at that point was just take a bearing and go cross-country. We lost time doing it that way, since most teams had a road run for most of this trek. We had some road running at the end, but we dropped from 6th to 9th. Boo.

We headed out for an awesome 2-hour paddle, starting with a 3 km lake with a good tailwind, then paddling down the Big East River, with a few portages and fun rapids. We couldn't see anyone on the lake when we started, and we knew it was unlikely that we would pass anyone on a river, since teams tend to move the same speed. It turned out that we did pass two teams there, but one of them leapfrogged in front again when we unknowingly went around an extra oxbow shortly before the TA. One of our portages turned into a bushwhack when we got off the faint trail - sorry 'bout that, 'Bent! 'Bent and Pate were awesome paddling partners, and it was very efficient as 3-in-a-canoe experiences go. We had 3 kayak paddles and 2 canoe paddles that we passed around, depending on the rock and rapid situation. The only bad thing was that the splashing kayak paddles got me soaking wet, so I was mildly hypothermic when we hit the TA. I sealed the deal by getting out of the canoe into neck-deep water, having been fooled by the ease with which our bowsman hopped into shallow water just ahead of me.

Fortunately, we had missed the cut-off for the Advanced Section by almost an hour, so I knew we were close to the finish. Thus I didn't bother borrowing a dry shirt or doing anything else, since I figured that the bike ride would warm me up, and it wouldn't be that long anyway. But then the TA staff mentioned that a team had just headed out on the Advanced Section a few minutes ago. What?!? It turns out that the cut-off had been extended by an hour. Oh crap. So just as we were leaving the TA, we learned we were doing the Advanced Section. Yes, I suppose we SHOULD have been grateful, but I was so cold it was hard to tie my shoes.

It wasn't long before we caught the other team, then we all got sucked too far down a hill because I was riding behind the 5 boys and couldn't look at my map without stopping due to the rocky, rutted ATV trail. When we got to the bottom, I had to make the sad announcement that we were turning around and riding back up to a turn-off we'd blown by. (It had a big "Private - Hunting" sign, so I'd wanted to go a bit further to see if a more public trail appeared. But not THAT far.)

From there, it seemed that things should be fairly straightforward for the rest of the race - until 'Bent's handlebars snapped in half. The right side stayed attached to the stem, while the left side dangled uselessly. Over the next half hour, there were several repair attempts with sticks, duct tape and a zip tie as we rode gingerly along the muddy, rutted snowmobile trail. The more frequent stops meant that I had to change my top clothing to a warmer configuration, since I was really chilled. Finally we hit the paved roads and had a fun, energetic, hilly ride to the finish line. We didn't know if the race finish time had been extended by an hour when the cut-off was extended, so we made a desperate dash to finish in 8 hours. We missed by 1 minute, but luckily, the race deadline had been extended - phew.

A very fun day of playing in the Muskokas! Pate was an awesome teammate - very strong, skilled and positive. And 'Bent was strong as always, and very resourceful when his bike literally fell apart on tough trails. We finished 7th of about 34 teams, which was 4th Coed. Some very exciting news was that the overall winners were Phatty, Zoolander and Tyson! And the speedy female team of Leanimal, Slice and Trish were in 4th overall, just half an hour back. Awesome work, all of you!!

Not sure which of my many cold-repelling techniques worked, if any, but I feel 90% better. I planned to do yoga, but ended up spending most of the day dealing with UPS, trying to get 'Bent's bike part here after a shipper addressing error followed by a UPS error. Since the chain keeps falling off 'Bent's bike because of the broken part, we've been eager to get the parcel before leaving tomorrow for the Frontier Adventure Challenge.

This morning I would have said that we'd never use UPS again. But in the end, I dealt with enough employees who actually cared about the problem that I have to commend them. Astoundingly, the final supervisor I talked with at 4:30 p.m. was so concerned that she talked HER boss into driving to our place on his way from their office in Stoney Creek to Kitchener where he lives - about a 2-hr detour. So the package got here at 7 p.m., and they knocked off most of the COD. Pretty impressive when a business goes the extra mile (or in this case, lots of miles) to provide excellent customer service. I gave the boss a couple of bottles of wine for himself and the supervisor.

Oh, and the bike part? The U.S. bike store guy who thought that it would be sufficient to send the parcel to a street address in Ontario, Canada without including a city... well, it turns out that he's not so good at understanding bike part numbers either. However, 'Bent thinks he can make it hold the chain in the right position until the right part arrives from somewhere else. Some day. Maybe.

A very efficient use of time! 'Bent and I needed to test our various 3-in-a-boat configurations with teammates for two different races, Angus and Pate. All of us converged on Lake Albion first thing this morning with a collection of kayak paddles, canoe paddles, PFDs, straps and back supports. We went out for a short paddle with each team grouping, practising strokes, trying different paddle combinations and seeing how to balance our weight. Angus is an expert canoeist, so we're not going to get him to switch to a kayak paddle in his first adventure race, and I don't think it will hurt us. With Pate, we put 'Bent in the stern and paddled with 3 kayak paddles. Unfortunately, I'm going to be the monkey in the middle in both races - oh well. It felt good to be paddling again - first time since September.

'Bent, Angus, Pate and I switched to bikes to do a tour of Albion Hills single track in brilliant sunshine. It was fun and challenging to ride with these speedy guys! Pate was 4th in the Tuesday Night Albion Hills Race last night. His XC ski coach had forbidden any high-intensity exercise in April, so he was excited when May 1 arrived!

I didn't want to push it too hard today. It seems like my impending cold might not hit as hard as I'd feared. I went all out with the preventive measures yesterday, trying Vitamin C, tea and honey, mega-hydration, Advil Cold & Sinus, overly warm clothing, echinacea and lots of rest. Angus mentioned that ColdFX works well for him, so I started on that today. Fingers are crossed, but I do feel better than yesterday, so maybe I'll escape the worst of it. I have weird aches and pains like the flu, but my throat is much improved.

It's the 1st of May - our busiest adventure racing month of the year - and I have a sore throat and fuzzy brain. Not enough sleep last week as I worked to meet a magazine deadline while moving forward on several volunteer projects, then I went out pretty hard in our two events on the weekend. Boo, hiss.