Training Log Archive: Bash

Our friend Knobless wanted to classic ski at Mansfield, so we seized the opportunity to do some Ovangelism. I asked him to pack his compass and we packed copies of the M-Elite map from last weekend's Canadian Ski-O Champs - a course we hadn't done. We took turns leading to different controls, making sure to give Knobless the hardest ones. It was his first time orienteering and he was flawless!

We followed the same rules as last weekend plus an additional rule that we had to ski the correct direction on one-way groomed trails, which made the snowmobile trails more attractive as route choices. They were actually in great shape - less slick than the well-used main trails, but still pretty fast if you didn't mind the odd stick in your eye. As an additional level of challenge, we had to rely on memory and guesswork since there was nothing on the map to indicate the one-way directions of the trails. That mostly went fine with the occasional "oops!" moment that forced us to make new route choices along the way, including some bushwhacking.

Given Gorgeous' recent slam-dunk victory on the Thomass Caledon Novice course, I think we need to convince the two of them to try the Salomon Dontgetlost.ca Snowshoe Raid together.

While listening to the "marathon mix" on my iPod. I've got to find uses for it 'cause I sure won't be doing another marathon! (But a 50K on trails? Hmm, that's different. I probably will. Maybe even this year.)

VO2Max skied up to our front door this morning - quite a surprise since we thought he was in Canmore. He had a day at home on his way to Europe for a few major XC ski races. He's got fire in his eyes - I'm predicting some good results before he comes home to kick butt at the National Champs!

Spent much of today in the woods, first with humans and later with dogs. Beautiful, chilly sunshine! 'Bent, Phatty, Leanimal and I hiked into Hilton Falls for Hansel's surprise 35th birthday picnic, flawlessly organized by Ms. K.



Yummy sandwiches, cookies and hot chocolate by the fire. A large group of mountain bikers went by, and Andrew Reeder stopped to chat during his long run.



I think there may be some rule against anyone other than Hammer posting a waterfall photo on AP, but I guess I'll try it and see if I get away with it. For sure, my waterfall pics aren't in that league!

With 'Bent, while watching the first part of the (good) movie, "The Visitor". Less time than planned after 'Bent gallantly offered to take apart and rejig my trainer flywheel to increase its resistance, but neglected to take note of the correct positions of the many parts. It went back together - but possibly not as good as new. Some follow-up googling may be required.

While watching Colbert, then into the city because *someone* had to be the last person in the world to see Avatar in 3D. (Sadly, the IMAX show was sold out.)

Yikes, I hate to find myself on the same side of any issue as this guy...
New bin Laden tape blasts U.S. on climate change

Uh oh, I see my weekly bar graph is not trending well. While I'm trying to do something about that, check out the Strange Maps blog.

Brittany Webster was 5th in the 10K classic at the Under-23 Nordic Ski World Champs in Germany today! Best-ever Tree Hugger finish at a world championship - so far. :-)

With 70 kph wind gusts reducing visibility outside our house to zero at times, I wasn't expecting to go outside today - especially since the trails are still icy. But Coach LD convinced me to go to Mono Nordic for a ski and it turned out to be wonderful! They had 5-10 cm of fresh snow from today's squalls and it was powdery enough for a terrific classic ski. I'm soooo glad she dragged me off to play hooky!

Hard Core Live with Caron

Yoga class. 'Bent was there tonight and his knee let him do almost everything.

This Friday marks the one-year anniversary of turning our geothermal system on. It still seems downright magic to feel warm air blowing from the vents, knowing it has come from the chilly 9C soil in our back yard. I'd wondered if Superior Propane would miss us now that we are only using propane for cooking (but not baking) and for the final boost in our hot water tank, which the geothermal system pre-heats. A confused propane truck driver finally knocked on our door last week wondering if we had a different propane tank hidden somewhere else, because he couldn't figure out why the big 1500 L tank out front was still nearly full. Woo hoo! BTW, we eventually got about $16K from five different grants for this project, so there's a lot of support for home owners to move to geothermal.

While watching Daily Show/Colbert Report and sprinting on the commercials.

Happy Australia Day! A few (OK, quite a few) years ago, I had a consulting assignment in Sydney that took me Down Under for 7 months. Every once in awhile - like rainy January days in Ontario when I can't ski - I think fondly about my daily commute across Sydney Harbour by ferry, the excellent camping and hiking in wild scenery, and the thousands of fruit bats that flew past my balcony every night on their way into the city. Hope the Aussies enjoyed their national holiday!

Treadmill intervals due to yucky weather. I thought it would just be speed intervals, but apparently the program included hill intervals too because it cranked up to an 8% incline at one point. I'd programmed the maximum speed for my fastest interval assuming that I'd be on the flats, so this was a better workout than expected. Even a little scary on the fastest interval, wondering whether I would get flung next door into 'Bent's workshop.

Rodney Yee A.M. Yoga - except I did it in the P.M. "Standing Poses" workout. It's a new DVD that might be a little too relaxing to be worth it. I'm used to his Power Yoga workouts and this workout was a good stretch, but not too challenging. There is a different workout for each day of the week, so I guess I'll do all five, then probably give it away if they don't get harder. Oh well...

While watching the Daily Show

While watching the Colbert Report

Boo, I learned today that the Laurentian Rogaine will only be presented in 6-hr and 8-hr versions for the foreseeable future. Too bad - that was a fun event, but too far to drive unless it's 24 hrs.

Canadian Ski-Orienteering Championships at Mansfield. I'm hoping that GHOSlow won't mind me using his pics here, especially if I start with a photo of his cute granddaughter AdventureGirl! on her 12th birthday. :-)



This was so much fun! Mansfield is a great place to ski and it is a terrific place for ski-O with all its trail intersections and links between trails. The weather was funny today - warm and hard to wax for. Luckily, the rain held off till the drive home. We were only able to skate on the skate trails, so I opted for classic skis, and when the wax got fussy, I chose my new waxless skis - a decision I hadn't expected. They certainly didn't have the glide of my other skis, but I could skate on them if needed, and I never had to fight to climb a hill. I used skating poles to help with double poling and occasional skating, and that worked out really well.



I made a few inefficient route choices, but always knew exactly where I was except between #5 and #6 where I lost my mind. Luckily, when I decided to stop and relocate, I couldn't have found myself (and I really did have to *find* myself) in a better place - the very recognizable top of the first big hill above the chalet at Mansfield. I saw Nick there and said, "Oops", then headed back in the direction I was supposed to be going. My mistake seemed to last forever but probably only took a few minutes extra.

After that, I thought I'd blown the race but kept pushing hard as a mental toughness exercise. As it turned out, it was good enough. I won the Canadian championship in the small Female Masters category. Nice-looking medal! It looks like I probably could have done a decent job if I'd braved the Female Elite category, where they raced 8.7 km compared to our 7.7 km, and the winning time was 1:14 compared to my 1:02. Live and learn!

I was really proud of 'Bent, who had a great race after a circuitous route to #1. He became the Masters Male Canadian champ with a big lead over 2nd place.



Leanimal came 2nd in Female Elite by a narrow margin. There was a GHO sweep in Male Elite with Tarno, Sudden and Hammer filling the Canadian championship podium. (There were a few Americans mixed in there too, but not eligible for the championship.

Another interesting race course thanks to Nick's hard work, with solid support from Stars volunteers. Thanks again!

Stars Winter Adventure Race with 'Bent at Wasaga Beach Provincial Park. For the first time, Nick gave a couple of breaks on the course to Masters and Coed teams - and since we counted as both of those and we were racing against some very strong Male teams, we were not too proud to take them! :-)

After a bus to the start, teams split up to run separately to A and B on the way to #1 where we were handed 1:7500 Score-O maps. Here was the Masters/Coed advantage on the snowshoe course - 'Bent and I only had to split up to find 6 nearby controls instead of all 9. We were the first to do it in 8:55. Hammer & Griz found all 9 controls in 10:04! Getawaystix & Logo must have had an extra adventure there because their split was almost 17 minutes.

After that, we travelled through some nice terrain, slogged through tiring snow and ran on hard-packed trails to find the remaining controls. I wasn't feeling great, but 'Bent was patient. The final long trail run to the ski chalet seemed to take forEVER, although it was nice to meet two groups of snowshoers cheering, "Yay, first woman!" We arrived in 5th place behind a bunch of speedy male teams - Griz & Hammer, Tiny & Nosnhoj, Getawaystix & Logo and Mick & Alin.

Part 2 of the Winter Adventure Race. Although I'm logging this as classic skiing, and I used waxed classic skis, I was able to do a fair bit of skating too. All teams had to find a particular control first, then there were 6 score-O controls (Masters and Coed teams only visited 4) to visit in any order, then all teams had to visit the two farthest controls last before skiing to the finish. It was fun meeting other teams and ski-O participants all over the place as we all headed in different directions.

We had a good ski - wouldn't change a thing about our route all day. I'd forgotten how much fun ski-O is! There was a long skate to the finish after the final control, and I only had classic skis and poles, so it felt even longer - but fun in the sunshine. It was an awesome surprise to cross the finish line and see only Getawaystix and Logo there. Tiny & Nosnhoj showed up a few minutes later. Griz & Hammer hadn't seen the prescribed control order on the map, so they ended up skiing much of the course twice. So we finished 2nd overall with a good lead in both the Masters and Coed categories. I've gotta be happy with that!

Great job by the Stars in putting together a fun, challenging and interesting race course on a new map. Thank you!

Wanted to try my new, supposedly faster, waxless skis. Normally, I would never consider waxless skis for the types of races we're doing this weekend, but given that Sunday's forecast is +7 with rain, I think I'll need to be flexible! Also, the snow here is hard as a rock with some deep ruts, and it sounds not much different at the ski centres where we will be racing. The skis worked quite well in iffy conditions. They're the "shortcut" style and it's hard to get used to having so little ski in front of me. Only one fall - just as I was sailing down the big hill toward our house. In fluffy snow, it wouldn't have meant anything, but it was like landing on concrete. Luckily, no twisted joints, and that's the important thing. Stars Winter Adventure Race at Wasaga Beach tomorrow!

Woke up with a strange new lower back pain, just above left hip. Maybe it's tightness from a twisting exercise in yesterday's strength session, although it's funny that I didn't feel anything all day yesterday. Thought yoga might help, but that just seemed to spread the pain around, so I bailed after 20 minutes of "Bryan Kest - Tone". It was the first time I'd tried that DVD, and under normal circumstances, I think I'm going to like it. This is not good timing with two races this weekend.

Wish I could be at this, but we'll be doing the Stars Winter Adventure Race...

If you want Dufferin-Caledon MP David Tilson to know that his government’s decision to prorogue parliament is NOT okay, then come out this Saturday, January 23 and tell him.

Starting at 1pm, rallies will take place in front of Mr. Tilson’s constituency offices in Bolton and Orangeville. Join the crowd and help Green Party candidate Ard Van Leeuwen, Liberal Party candidate Bill Prout and former Liberal candidate Rebecca Finch win their wager.

Van Leeuwen has wagered that he can draw a larger crowd to the protests than attended Tilson’s victory party following the October 2008 election. This demonstration is part of a nationwide rally.

The Orangeville demonstration will take place at 229 Broadway and the one in Bolton will be at Hopcroft Plaza, 12596 Highway 50.

For those who haven't noticed him yet... Getawaystix, aka Bob Miller, is back on Attackpoint.
http://www.ar.attackpoint.org/log.jsp/user_7034

Skied around Palgrave West with BulletDog, testing my ski-O map case, which I haven't used in awhile. I brought an O map of Klondike State Forest, where I've never been, featuring a "Long-Difficult" course which was not a ski-O, so I was planning very different routes from what I'll be planning this weekend. (Does anyone know where Klondike State Forest is? I have no idea. Bonus points if you did that race. I think an American orienteer gave it to me as a piece of scrap paper - possibly Eric Smith.)

It felt like good practice, if not the fastest ski I've ever done. BulletDog covered three times the distance that I did - there were some fascinating smells out there today. I could feel my lower back, but it didn't feel precarious. Snow conditions were mostly rock-hard and rutted - glad I didn't fall and test my back more than it was ready for.

While watching The Daily Show and a bit of Colbert.

Aaaaagghhhhhh!!! Hydro One and OPA must both have very active "Discouragement of Green Energy" departments. As they have changed their residential solar power generation program for the 3rd time in 6 years, they are doing their best to throw up barriers. No, they can't just use the information they have on file about our solar system from my last two successful program applications - information that has been sufficient to allow us to generate power onto the grid through their company since 2004. Oh no, I need to send them all kinds of technical details that they already have, plus some I've never heard of. Is my inverter self-commutated? Who the heck knows? And once they get this form? Well, *then*, they're going to send me a "package" as the next step in my application process. It's not like I haven't been through this crap many times before, but my fuse is getting awfully short. I would hate to be the customer service rep that has to deal with me.

Last night I wrapped up my 2-week food diary and completed one New Year's resolution. Now it's time to focus a whole lot harder on the others!

The diary was intended to help me understand what I eat and how to make the most impact by changing my habits - but without feeling deprived, because I love to eat. Although I also need to lose 10 lb, the food diary was, in theory, an independent project. But of course it wasn't, since there were some things I did not eat simply because I didn't want the burden of documenting and analyzing them in terms of fat, protein and carbohydrate grams. It's only been a few hours since I stopped doing that, and I am NOT missing it.

The results:

Average calories per day: 1846 (target 1800 for weight loss)
Fat % = 23.6 (target 15-20)
Protein % = 17.4 (target 20)
Carbohydrates = 57.4 (target 60-65)

Weight lost since Jan. 1 = 8 lb.
Body fat % decrease = 3%

Since you're only supposed to lose 1-2 lb/week, I'm going to try to hang out there for awhile, then push to lose the final 2 lb in February.

The good news is that I apparently created a big calorie deficit by aiming for 1800/day, so I'm going to be able to eat more now - yay!

Interesting article in the Globe about how people are better at losing weight than at keeping it off, and how important it is to plan a small permanent diet change to help maintain the target weight. For most people, this means about 100 calories less a day, and they give some concrete examples to show how easy that is for most of us. For example, I've found myself drinking much less juice because it's 120-150 calories per glass, and I can get more nutrition by eating fruit directly. So that could take care of my 100 daily calories right there. There have been other lessons learned, and maybe I'll write them up here later to avoid losing them.

Although we still have snow, we haven't had much new snow for awhile, so I made a rare decision to go running instead of skiing or snowshoeing. Ran to Gore Rd. and back on the BT at a good pace. I am soooo exhausted from lack of sleep over the past week.

Phatty and I met at Forks of the Credit when it was still pitch dark to put out the final controls for Thomass Caledon, then I started setting up the registration area while Phatty vetted yesterday's controls.

The Caledon Navigators club has an awesome group of volunteers. It started with Goose, who gamely carpooled with Phatty at 7 a.m. even though there was little he could do for the first hour because he was racing. Scooby brought an awesome tent with walls, a nice complement to Phatty's Salomon registration tent with its displays of next year's shoe styles. (A number of people asked me if the shoes were for sale. One woman in particular seemed very disappointed, "Don't you have ANYTHING for sale here?") Rocky's big wood fire in the metal firepit put off a surprising amount of heat - really nice.

Racers started to pour in. We had about 65 participants, including a surprising 18 race day registrations, ably handled by George and Janet. Nobody had registered in advance for the Novice course, but a bunch of them showed up on the day. My friend Gorgeous, who had done an hour of intro navigation with me over the Christmas holidays, aced the Novice course. She finished so early that I assumed she must have hated it or found it too difficult on her own, but she phoned me that evening to say that she loved it, and she would go orienteering every weekend if it were nearby. Another competent Novice was LeanimalMom, who looked nervous at the start but seemed to do pretty well.

Phatty had the course designed two months in advance, so we had lots of time for final tweaking based on the latest snow conditions and course test results. He may be the first person ever to use Excel so extensively in designing a Thomass course! We aimed for particular distance ratios for the different handicaps in hopes of achieving a mass finish. It's difficult to design a course at Forks of the Credit because the most interesting terrain is far from the parking lot, but Phatty did a great job of ensuring that every handicap level got to explore some of the coolest parts of the park.

I loved the opening race leg. The racers gathered at a bridge at one end of a long kettle lake, and when Phatty said "Go!", we hoped they would fan out on either side of the lake. I had an aerial view from the parking lot, and it was great to watch it happen exactly as we'd hoped, with runners snaking along both sides of the lake. To our surprise, the runners on the east side of the lake arrived first. In our own tests, we both liked the west side better.

After that, I got some water boiled, then settled down to the task of entering rental SI info and the race day registrations. I'm not sure why - maybe the cold weather - but the PC was excruciatingly slow, even though our SI team got it to work when they tested it at home. I would click my mouse on the SI field, then wait 30 seconds for the cursor to appear so I could start typing, then I'd do the same thing for the racer's name, course and rental SI status. Hmmm, I started to panic that I wouldn't finish before racers started arriving, and sure enough, MrPither sailed in at 52:13 in 1st place. We were excited to see him, since that was right around the winning time we'd expected, and he ought to do well if the course had been designed fairly.

The top 5 racers had 4 different handicaps, and about half the racers finished within the first 15 minutes. Congratulations to Phatty for achieving a textbook Thomass mass finish on his first time out!

Meanwhile, none of the real SI people were back yet (I was just babysitting), and I made the horrifying discovery that downloading a single SI card was taking about 5 minutes to process, and I could only do one at a time. We still don't know whether the borrowed PC was too slow or whether it got too cold or whether CN's serial download unit is too slow, but there was some factor that caused it to blow up on race day.

Not to worry, we'd arranged alternatives. Plan B was that Sid had brought his laptop with the same SI software - but when he saw CN's serial download unit, he shook his head and said that it was probably our problem. In spite of many tries, his PC wouldn't recognize the download unit via the serial to USB converter - it needed a driver. Plan C was to use the OOA splits printer, but it refused to print. By this point, my blood pressure was through the roof. Hammer calmed me a little by reminding me that our SI team could download results from the controls if necessary. Then fortunately, SI-Clive finished his race and discovered a tiny, secret switch on the splits printer that convinced it to print. Yahoo, we got print-outs from all the SI cards. Fortunately, the only racers to leave by then were Tiny and Pixie, who had left their SI cards with me.

Even though we knew we would have results now, I still had a nasty job reviewing the printouts manually against the registration list to figure out if anyone I hadn't seen was still out on the course. By the time I determined that one SI card was still out there, I emerged from the van to find most racers gone and the husband of the missing racer (actually a Mom and daughter on the Novice course) talking to them on the phone. When Phatty went out to pick up the final controls, they were still heading off the trail to look for flags even though they'd been out for 3 hours and knew that the course was closed! So on the bright side, I guess they had fun.

I was sad that I missed the fun part of hosting an event - the opportunity to get a hot chocolate and chat with friends and hear about their experiences on the course. But other than me, it appears that everyone else had fun. Gunda Herzog made her amazing veg chili again and planned quantities perfectly for 70 people. The world famous Crash brownies were a huge hit as always. Salomon provided three beautiful toques as prizes (I was soooo jealous). Crash/PGB was the top woman (yahoo!), and AdventureGirl! was the top junior after an unfortunate error that made her climb up and down the escarpment twice. The Shed Coffee Bar in Belfountain gave us draw prizes. (You could "buy" up to 3 draw prize tickets by showing that you'd brought your own map case, reusable mug and/or bowl and spoon for chili.) Afterward, The Shed offered 50% off any beverage to anyone who showed them an orienteering map, and when I dropped by, the manager said that 28 people had stopped by, including us, and they would gladly support another orienteering event in future.

I was strung out when I got home and was really glad to find 'Bent home from California. I'm sure that last night's 3.5 hrs of sleep didn't help my mood. Then I read Hammer's log and actually cried (note: see the part about 3.5 hrs of sleep) in relief that other people didn't perceive it as a disaster. Then (joy of joys), Goose figured out how to download results from the Finish controls and sent me a spreadsheet of finish times. (Cue the Hallelujah Chorus.) He and Phatty are going to put together results with splits, and all will be well - just a little later than we'd hoped.

Thanks to all the amazing volunteers - from CN and other clubs - who managed the busy registration table, served food and drink, put up tents, picked up controls, kept the wood fire burning, worked on our SI problems, and much more. Special kudos to Phatty for putting together such an interesting race course his first time out. It was great fun to work with him. And thanks to all the racers for your patience and for sticking around to make the post-race social time lots of fun. See you at the next Thomass Caledon!

Interesting and sobering page that lets you look around Port au Prince and compare satellite images before and after the earthquake.
<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/haiti/be...>

Mr. & Mrs. Flatfoot did a great job organizing tonight's Adventure Racing Wrap-up and Season Kick-off Party. Great company, outstanding burritos and interesting adventure slide shows from around the world. It's an event that deserves to take off and grow in future years. Thank you!

Phatty and I headed to Forks of the Credit to put out SI controls for tomorrow's Thomass event. I've put out SI controls in winter before, but it was darned near impossible today! With a few exceptions, the ground was frozen like rock -probably because we've had so little snow compared with other years. So we had to double-tie every control stand to a tree, which required slight relocation of a couple of controls. Good times! I think conditions are as fast as we've ever seen them at Forks - but pretty slippery going down the Escarpment. We stopped by The Shed Coffee Bar in Belfountain afterward for a skim latte, and they gave us 3 sweet draw prizes. They're giving 50% off any beverage to everyone who stops by tomorrow afternoon and shows their orienteering map. Nice!

IceBreaker Score-O at Rocky Ridge operated by the high-powered volunteer team of BobTheNavigator and STORM. Big turn-out - over 80 people, many of whom came early for the introductory navigation clinic. It was fun, although my mind started out elsewhere thinking through all the things I need to do for tomorrow's race. After messing up my first control, I got back on track and had a decent run. I was cutting it very close for time when I came up behind a hobbling Hammer. Given that it was just a training event, I decided it would be a good time to catch up, so we just did a walk & jog back to the finish where I arrived 7 minutes late and lost over half my points to the penalty. Oh well!

When 'Bent is away... the mice will play! I've found 3 dead mice in traps over the last 24 hrs - an unusually high number, probably due to the warmer weather. Our marriage "contract" states clearly that 'Bent does all the cooking and takes care of any mice (preferably at very different times). But while he's off learning dentistry in sunnier climes, it looks like I'll have to revive some of the skills I used to have when I lived alone in a very mousy log house. Ick.

First trainer session in a long time. It's 3C out and our beautiful snow is getting mushy - boo. While watching The Daily Show.

While watching the Colbert Report

Our new high-efficiency clothes washer arrived and got hooked up. I cannot imagine that NASA used a more complex piece of equipment to land on the moon! So many lights, buttons, digital displays and whirring sounds that stop and start. I *think* I've figured out how to make the clothes come out clean...

'Bent (currently enroute to sunny California) wishes to report that he has lost 4 lb so far as a result of my food diary!

He also reports that he had to go through two separate security checks at the airport, including pat downs, and is now sitting in a very small, restricted "No Starbucks" zone on a day when he'll be arriving in a time zone 3 hours earlier. Oh, the joys of travel.

I thought I had coined the term "aggressive hospitality" but some googling reveals that it's a fundamental principle of Walmart employee training, e.g. the smiling greeter passing you a shopping cart. They want the customer to view it as a good thing, but I use the phrase differently. Someone wants to celebrate my birthday (5 months ago) by taking us to a very nice restaurant. Definitely a generous gesture! None of the restaurants within a reasonable driving distance of our place is good enough, apparently. It must be a special restaurant chosen by this person, and travelling time from our house via the person's place to the dinner table will be over 2 hours. This means planning a weekend around this gift since we will have to start getting ready by mid-afternoon and will likely arrive home late enough to feel less than 100% the next morning. And now I've just been given a deadline to provide a date, since I've been avoiding commitment. There's no argument that this person is generous, and I hate to seem ungrateful, but at some point it gets hard to perceive some "gifts" as gifts. Hence, "aggressive hospitality". (Sorry, I just needed a good rant.)

Hard Core with Caron

Tough yoga class using Caron's tricky new toys - flat disks that you put under hands or feet so you can do slidey things. Felt great afterward, but couldn't resist scarfing down a big dinner at 9:30 p.m. when I got home. I've set myself up for a lot of research for the food diary - sigh. And probably gained back half the weight I've lost!

Day 9 of the New Year's Resolution Food Diary and I am looking forward to wrapping up on Day 14! It's not that I'm feeling super-deprived; it's just really time consuming to try to be accurate about it. When 'Bent is preparing dinner, I'm hovering at the sidelines writing down "1 tbsp sesame oil" and weighing grams of tofu - even though I know it's a healthy meal that I wouldn't worry about if the diary weren't a factor. Also, there are times when I would like to just take one cashew from a bowl without thinking about the obligation of researching its Nutrifacts. The flip side is that I'm not taking any cashews from bowls; the work involved in updating the diary is a huge deterrent to mindless grazing.

Although I have a separate New Year's resolution to lose 10 lb from my Jan. 1 weight, the intended purpose of the diary was just to provide some baseline diet analysis. However, the spreadsheet has had the impact of making me aim for 1800 calories a day with 65% carb, 20% protein and 15% fat. I've been successful with the calories - less successful with getting protein up to where it should be. Interestingly, my diary also had the impact of getting 'Bent to watch his diet more closely, and Leanimal started a food diary too. FB mentioned that he lost 10 lb over 2 months of keeping a food diary, even though he also just intended it to be observational. So yay for food diaries.

Results? Today's weight is down 8 lb. from Jan. 1, which is actually too much in two weeks and probably isn't stable. Body fat is down 3%. I was joking that yesterday's blood donation was another weight loss strategy, but maybe it's not such a joke! I was down over 2 lb today even though my clever scale tells me that I'm well-hydrated. I think they take a pint of blood, which has to weigh at least a pound. I suspect I'll weigh more tomorrow when those super-heavy blood cells start regenerating. ;-)

Interesting article by Runner's World writer on the minimal science available on running injuries and barefoot running.

For anyone who didn't notice this in the main discussion forum, here's a really good idea!

"So, it appears that we are about 10 days away from the 10th anniversary of the launch of Attackpoint. Why don't we all thank Ken by donating at least $10 each? It's a small token to thank him for 10 years of hard work. Let's see how many AP members we can get to donate in the next 10 days.

Thanks Ken!"

Ken is really low key about it, so a lot of people don't even know there is a suggested donation of $25 US/year for users of Attackpoint, and this would be a great time to take care of 2010. Your contribution gets you a few extra features too, so it's a win-win!

Today's goal was: "Out of the Comfort Zone". I went up to Highlands to do my favourite route - the Red trail with all 3 extra black diamond loops, plus an extra loop of Orange trail around the summit. I figured that by the time I got to the point where I didn't feel like skate skiing anymore, I'd be so far away from the chalet that I'd have no choice but to keep going. It worked.

It turned out to be a super-slow day for skating - lots of fresh, fluffy snow still falling as I skied. I ploughed through 10-12 cm of new snow in some places, sometimes as the first skier of the day. I even had to pole to get down the downhills if they weren't steep enough. Couldn't ask to be much further out of my comfort zone!

One of the reasons I wanted to go up there is that people in Duntroon and Collingwood have been waxing poetic about the Currier and Ives Christmas card scenery. They sure have had a LOT of snow and it was draped beautifully in big tufts on the trees. Spectacular, even though I had to work pretty hard for it.

I decided to get my skate skis professionally waxed in case I decide to use them for the Canadian Ski-O Champs next weekend. (However, from talking with Nick, I'm starting to lean toward classic racing skis that I can skate on as needed.) While that was happening, I went out around the Yellow trail on classic skis. I didn't have a lot of grip, but it was wonderful to have glide after not having it on skate skis, so I just used more upper body and toughed it out. I was totally within my comfort zone. Not such a bad thing sometimes.

ThunderDog and I went for a short lap in the woods so that she could take care of some urgent sniffing projects and make a few dog angels in the snow. Still galloping at 13 years old! :-)

Ran in Palgrave West and focused on running hard up the hills along the way. I went back for a second helping of Raspberry Hill and Thinker's Hill, the toughest ones on the route. Man, that is hard, but in both cases it was easier the second time up - a sign that I should be doing this more often.

Great news from the Thomass Caledon event this Sunday at Forks of the Credit. In addition to Salomon generously sponsoring prizes for the category winners, the Shed Coffee Bar in Belfountain has also stepped aboard with additional prizing. Also, they will give racers 50% off any beverage if you show the barista your orienteering map this Sunday afternoon. All that and you get to try out Phatty's first-ever orienteering course - a masterpiece in course planning using Excel spreadsheets and raw guts. Not to mention Mrs. Scooby's yummy vegetarian chili and PGB's world famous Crash Brownies. If you're not there, you will be forced to read about what a great time the rest of us had, so come on out!

Don't forget the Dontgetlost.ca IceBreaker on Saturday at Rocky Ridge, with two great race directors behind it - BobTheNavigator and STORM. If that's not enough to do, there's also the Adventure Racing Wrap-up and Season Kick-Off Party in Milton Saturday night. It's going to be a fun weekend!

Thomass TOC at G. Ross Lord Park. 'Bent and I carpooled down with Gazelle (recently returned from Tajikistan for a break) and Phatty (recently returned from the brink of disaster in Hockley Valley). Nice chance to catch up! There was a good turn-out of friends and lots of time to chat pre-race in the chilly sunshine. Great to see MrPither back in southern Ontario and as an added bonus today, The Kempster and sister Molly were there, so we knew the competitive level would be high.

I was having an average but not spectacular race when MrPither and Runit cruised past me on the way to #6. We all zeroed in on the same re-entrant and were convinced the control was misplaced. Others showed up and eventually it was located in a differently-shaped re-entrant about 50 m away. I'd been passed by so many people there that I totally lost my race focus, and on two occasions found myself following the wrong line on the course because I'd mentally checked out. Oh well, it was still a fun day for a run in a park that has lots of variety.

The eventual consensus on #6 was that the map wasn't totally accurate in that area, but the control was in the circle. The course setter expected everyone to take the trail to the control, which worked fine. There were some other features, e.g. a big fence and a vegetation boundary, that weren't quite right in relation to the control, plus the re-entrant isn't nearly as deep as shown. So that was confusing for those of us who navigated using different features. Anyway, if I'd taken the trail instead of trying to be clever and not trust trails (normally a safer strategy), I would have been just fine!

This afternoon we attended the Olympic send-off party for Brittany Webster, our first Tree Hugger teammate to be selected for the Olympic team! Nice to see her and other friends, including VO2Max, Mr. Corner, Goose, Coach LD and Gosling.

Testing Phatty's interesting Thomass course at Forks of the Credit on a beautiful day. Good workout in the deep snow off-trail! I'd recommend snowshoes for those who like them and cleats, spikes or trekking poles to help get down the slippery escarpment. You might want to practise grabbing saplings and tobogganing on your bum too!

Dropped my compass somewhere out there today - before I'd had a chance to use it even once - so went back out to look for it in the snow. 'Bent joined me partway through after finishing his Thomass course test. No success. :-( I'm pretty sure I dropped it on the main trail, so one of the hikers we saw probably went home with a $100 compass and won't appreciate it as much as I did. To be honest, I can't believe it's taken me 4 years to lose it!

Day 4 of the food diary, which is inspiring me to eat less, even though that wasn't officially part of the deal. Glad it's only a 2-week New Year's resolution - it's a lot of work to tally calories and grams of fat, carbs and protein for everything, including foods with no Nutrifacts where I have to make an estimate from first principles. I guess most people could benefit by just writing down what they ate, but I love my Excel analysis, and that makes it onerous.

Weight and body fat % are slowly decreasing. I was ravenous at the end of Day 2 and scarfed down a huge dinner, but otherwise it's been OK. As I'd guessed before, most days I'm not getting enough protein, even with the Hawthorne effect. No wonder I can barely do girlie push-ups! This results from being a non-vegetarian married to a mostly vegetarian cook, and not sharing his commitment to consume lots of soy and other vegetarian protein throughout the day. The vast majority of the protein I get is from dairy, and I'm not anti-dairy, but that can't be good.

Other lessons from the food diary: No problem getting 65% carbs, which is my target. Fruit and veggies are almost "free", as long as you don't overdo the ones with lots of carbs. Full-strength juice uses up way too many calories for the nutritional benefit - and it's bad for your teeth too. Whole wheat bagels have a ton of calories - but they have a lot of protein, so they're OK if I eat more lightly during the rest of the day. And last but not least, milk chocolate is a source of protein!

'Bent and I went to Mono Nordic. He was on classic skis while I skate-skied, which kept us relatively even at hard effort except on hill climbs, where he zoomed away from me. I could zoom away from him on flats and slight descents - not on the steep descents though, since I have an irrational love of my menisci, and the skate skis don't have much of an edge. It was a pleasant surprise to run into Leanimal and ski a short lap with her. We'll have to get out skiing together more often - although I'm still not sure I'm ready to skate ski with someone else - I'm sooooo slow this year.

On the way home, there was considerable excitement at the normally quiet country intersection by our place. 5 police cars, 2 school buses, an ambulance and a tow truck hauling a car with minor damage. We weren't allowed to turn and drive the few hundred meters to our home, and as we turned away, we noticed PGB being waved away as well, so we pulled over and said hello. It turns out a school bus driver had come up behind a car and found a woman passed out behind the wheel, so the police were investigating for possible drugs.

Hard Core Live with Caron. 'Bent returned after time off due to injured knee and ribs - not that he's fixed or anything. He did pretty well, but crunches hurt him. Luckily, Caron has many other nasty tricks up her sleeve!

Yoga with Caron. BulletDog (aka Mocha in her non-Attackpoint life) came with us because it was her birthday and we didn't want to leave her home alone - the thing that upsets her the most. (Our class always has a dog or two since there is an optional outdoor run before yoga.) B-Dog is quite experienced with yoga because we do DVDs at home, so she fit in just fine. The instructor was *very* impressed when she demonstrated a perfect downward dog. I can't believe my little puppy is 7 years old! She still thinks she's a puppy too, and she's still faster than a speeding bullet.

Day 2 of my food diary, and it is interesting to see how things add up - even for someone who reads Nutrifacts religiously in the grocery store. About 1800 calories yesterday, and down 3 lb today from my New Year's Eve midnight benchmark. The decrease is going to slow waaaay down now that the holiday treats are mostly in the past.

Tarno said that endurance athletes should aim for 65% carbs, and yesterday's unplanned food choices worked out to exactly 65%! As suspected in our mostly vegetarian household, my protein was a few grams lower than I'd like. Thank you Phatty and Leanimal for bringing that nice shrimp ring over for last night's hockey game, or else I would have received a D+ in protein! Fat was 15% of calories. Fat, Protein and Carb percentages added up to 95%, demonstrating that the Nutrifacts people do some rounding, but it gives me an idea.

And then I read this article about deep-fried macaroni and cheese in the Globe. Not an ounce of irony, nor any mention whatsoever of health concerns associated with this trendy new "food". It's unfair that some people have genetics that allow them to eat this crap for years without major adverse effects!
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/...

Great ski around Palgrave West - about 25% trail breaking, the rest on slick tracks that were fast even on waxless skis. It's awesome here, but it sounds even more amazing and snowy up toward Collingwood. I think we'll need to go north for a ski over the next few days.

Ah, the power of a New Year's resolution to affect my behaviour on Jan. 5! If only it could be so influential in, say, April.

#1 - I did 2 hrs of training today - a step toward the 450 hrs/year goal.
#2 - I started my 2-week food diary. So far it's working the way I think it's supposed to work, i.e. I skip eating something because I don't want to enter it in the diary. In my case, this is mostly due to my geeky need for exact numbers, so I'm avoiding the food in our house that I don't have Nutrifacts for.
#3 - I did an hour of strength training.
#5 - I did it before breakfast.

So... looks like I'm just about done for the week. Time to dig out those Christmas chocolates, pour a big glass of calorie-laden red wine, then put my feet up to watch the Canadian junior hockey team defeat the U.S.

I might have lasted longer, but 'Bent had some silly action movie recording on the basement VCR, and I didn't want to disturb it, so I had to work out with no TV in order to avoid puking at the swashbuckling evil men with swords and the underdressed gorgeous woman with the jewels dangling around her belly button. How do boys watch this stuff?

While watching the first Daily Show of the year. A good one!

Slowrunner left her Boston Marathon jacket at our place the other night and wanted to pick it up before I started wearing it around town. (Which would be a lot easier than qualifying for that stoopid race.) So we combined it with a snowshoe run through the quiet woods of Palgrave West. Beautiful temperature, fluffy snow, hills, and a lot of trail breaking since the trails were mostly not packed down. Great workout - faster than I would have gone on my own - and excellent company!

Yesterday I reviewed my 2009 training summary, and there are a couple of observations to add. Specifically, I am slower than I was a year ago (says my Garmin Forerunner), and I weigh more too (according to my fancy body fat percentage scale). Statisticians will correctly point out the likely correlation between these two facts. Anyway you look at it, it ain't "progress"!

As per tradition, here are some New Year's resolutions to prod me in the right direction. For a change, I'm including a couple of non-training resolutions, since writing things down on AP makes me feel more accountable. On the other hand, the fact that I'm repeating a number of resolutions from last year proves that it doesn't work that well! But optimism reigns eternal. Of the list below, the only one I did in 2009 was #1.

1) 450 hrs total annual training
2) Lose 10 lb. from New Year's Eve midnight weight. Keep a food diary for 2 weeks in January. Find yummy, low-cal chocolate chip cookie recipe (any suggestions? does such a thing exist?)
3) Strength training - min. 1 hr/week. Leg, core, upper body.
4) Do speed and hill intervals regularly.
5) One training session per week before breakfast.
6) Related to the above... in bed by midnight at least 4 days/week. (Tonight won't be one of them.)
7) Do a mountain marathon and a rogaine. And maybe a 50K trail race?
8) On a totally different subject... learn 5 pieces each on guitar and piano well enough that I wouldn't be embarrassed to play them in front of a non-family member - not that I'll likely go that far!

One thing I really enjoyed in 2009 was racing with so many different people, including friends I'd never raced with before. Fun! Thank you, Hammer, Shifty, Rocky, Hingo, Mrs. Gally and - of course - 'Bent. (Hope I didn't leave anyone out!) Already in 2010, I've registered for races with Coach LD, 2-Min, Shifty and 'Bent, so this excellent trend will continue.

Skied around Palgrave West as sunset faded into dusk. Hardly anyone had been out since the snowfall, and it was lovely to be in the woods. I saw a lot of animal tracks including a surprising number of coyotes, if I'm reading them right. The only animals showing their faces were a couple of deer who moved on to a quieter part of the bush.

I now have Attackpoint info for 2006-2009 plus over 9 months of 2005 - enough data to make a geek quite happy!

My 2009 training summary is here. A few observations:

My training increased to 455 hrs in 2009, about 30 hrs more than last year but considerably less than the 530+ hrs I did in 2005 and 2006. The decrease is largely due to reduced adventure racing hours - and that's a result of the lower number of overnight and multi-day races in Ontario. I did plenty of single sport races such as XC skiing, orienteering, mountain marathon and trail running, but only one overnight race - the North Am Rogaine Champs. Too bad - I love overnight racing! But I don't love travelling long distances with all my AR gear, which is why we have focused on single sport events when we've travelled further afield.

My top 5 activities (and hours) this year were:
Orienteering (88) + Snowshoe Orienteering (17)
XC Skiing (76)
Running (63)
Cycling (55)
Trekking (50)

Adventure racing has been my 1st or 2nd activity most years, but it dropped to 6th this year. (!!!) Kinda weird when I still consider AR to be my primary sport. After doing very little orienteering in 2008, I got out a lot more this year and felt like I started to get the hang of it again. Last year's Tucson Marathon inspired me to do almost 50% more running in 2008 compared to this year, when I did the lowest amount of running since starting on AP. On a more positive note, I spent a record number of hours XC skiing in the terrific snow of 2009 and did a lot of backpack trekking in Sweden. I only spent 10% of my time skate skiing (probably because of training for the Rock & Ice Ultra), which explains why I'm not getting more comfortable with it. Cycling hours remained about the same, but that's because we bought a second trainer so that 'Bent and I could bike together in the basement in the off season. My outdoor cycling hours went down because the wet summer softened the trails, making them susceptible to damage from riding.

Other activities on the list included yoga, strength training, paddling and snowshoeing - all about the same amount as in previous years.

Next step for tomorrow: set some goals for 2010.

Beautiful, wintry day, mostly spent with friends arriving at different times (not to mention cleaning up before friends arrived!) 'Bent, ThunderDog, BulletDog and I went out for a quick spin around Palgrave West, on and off trail. It wasn't our plan to take ThunderDog that far, but she was having such a great time that we didn't have the heart to go back to the house to drop her off. It was fun playing in the snow all together!

Rodney Yee Yoga for Flexibility. I still felt a little stiff by the end, so clearly a lot of work is needed.

Baloney and Trav had the great idea of a Waterfall Challenge to kick off the New Year. They asked Hammer to design a trail running loop from their (gorgeous!!) home in the Dundas Valley, visiting the maximum possible number of waterfalls in 2 hours. Over a dozen of us headed out on a very chilly morning - and what a fantastic time! I don't run much in winter, but it wasn't too painful. As expected, I only caught occasional glimpses of the main group of runners after the first 10 minutes. I met up with them after taking a shortcut (thanks to Hammer for the great map that allowed several shortcuts!), then Baloney and I ran together until I suggested that she and Trav go ahead at their speedier pace to prepare for the lunch crowd that was about to invade their place.

It was a beautiful day with excellent escarpment scenery followed by delicious bagels and soup, terrific company, and mugs of dark roast, fair trade organic coffee - yum. I was happy that 'Bent and his recovering knee were able to stay in the front group of runners; only 3 of them made it to all 32 waterfalls. (Interesting fact: In preparing for this event, Hammer discovered two waterfalls that were not on the City of Hamilton's Waterfall Map, and the City is now going to add them!)

The frontrunners didn't meet the 2-hour target, however - they ran 40 minutes overtime, so technically I think the judges would have to DQ them. Since Etoile was the only person to finish a shortened version of the course in under 2 hours, I guess she is the Waterfall Challenge record holder for now. Yay! There is now talk of a Waterfall Century run...

Thanks, Trav and Baloney! :-)

Course vetting for Phatty's Thomass Caledon course on Jan. 17. It's going to be a good one, kids! Better start your hill training now though. I did some fast hiking, some running, some slogging through crusty snow, some very steep climbs and descents, some wading through thigh-high vegetation, some explorations in different directions to ensure that control placement was accurate - and had lots of fun. Big snowflakes were falling the whole time, and even though the temperature was up near freezing, the wind made it surprisingly chilly. 'Bent and BulletDog did the "handicap 2" version of the course, then went back to get the final 3 controls that they'd skipped. Yes, that's right - 3 controls! In a tricky twist, Phatty is allowing every racer to drop one control *plus* their handicap number of controls. And that's just the twist in the *first* Thomass Box. Be there or be square!