Training Log Archive: Bash

Bent and I started with some single track at Albion Hills to warm up. (Does one really need to "warm up" on a day when it is over 30C in the shade?) The delicate fragrance of lilacs throughout the conservation area was a pleasant distraction. All the wildlife was way too smart to be out on a day like this.

Bent and I moved to the rail trail and some hilly gravel roads to increase the effort.

This would be a nice day to return home to central air conditioning, but we just can't bring ourselves to use that much electricity after installing our solar panels... (Which are working really well, by the way.)

Trail run with Bent - Bruce Trail to Glen Haffy, a hilly loop around there, then back home on the Bruce Trail followed by a short loop in Palgrave with the pooches. The darkened sky threatened a thunderstorm, but never followed through.

Wildlife: 2 deer and many birds. Bent is good at identifying their calls.

Rode with Bent to Albion Hills and had a fun and relatively easy ride, although you can't get around a place with the word "Hills" in its name without some bursts of hard effort. Thanks to a late spring, my classes, illness, injuries and a lot of racing, this was my first opportunity in 2005 to do a good ride on the Albion Hills trails. Wow, the new single track that Chico has built in the northeast section is awesome! Technical enough to be fun, but not so technical that you can't get up some speed for a good workout.

I haven't been able to do much bike training yet this year - other than the 125 km mostly-off-road bike section in Appalachian Extreme, which was a heck of a way to start my biking for the season. So... I was pleased to get out today and find that my non-bike training seems fairly transferable - everything felt good. I have never, ever climbed Sugar Shack Hill successfully on the first attempt of the year - until today. I guess I was too young to do it before. ;-) And HR was only 87% of my max at the top of that hill, which is a new low.

Now I just need to get my nerve back for those steep single track downhills. I climbed those hills as fast as I descended, due to the Fear Factor!

Trail run around Palgrave

To get ready for the Canadian Orienteering Champs in July, I need to:
(a) Run. At all. Sounds simple, but my training program has been sporadic since I got sick in mid-April.
(b) Run in hot weather. As a true blue Canadian gal, this is the hard part. I love the winter and my cardiovascular system would prefer to hibernate from June to September. But that doesn't fit with my plans, so when the mercury hit 27C on the shady side of the house, I headed out the door.

My legs still feel like they can go forever. Lungs felt good for the first hour, then said "whoa, that air is HOT" and went on a work-to-rule campaign in the sunny sections.

Wildlife Report: 6 painted turtles, all suntanning, and a wild turkey. Best day since the two moose at Appalachian Extreme.

Vegetation Report: Scads of forget-me-nots and a few final trilliums. Looks like a healthy crop of poison ivy this year, unfortunately.

Sprained Ankle Report: Very colourful, but not so painful anymore.

Blonde Eureka Moment: Hmmm... why do I have this headache? I'm well-hydrated. Maybe I need more electrolytes. Potassium, I'll bet that's the problem. Oh, wait a minute. Let's try loosening my hat. Ahhh, that's it - headache gone instantly. Feet expand on hot days and, apparently, so do heads.

Things are looking up, injurywise. I stopped wearing my arm splint today, except for sleeping. Thumbs-of-Death checked out my ankle and it is continuing to heal. He says that oddities like the accidental dog-kick-induced goose egg are common in the first few weeks after a sprain. My ankle is just looking for opportunities to swell up at the slightest provocation, so that's what happened. So... lots of ice, but it's OK to go running. My arm is recovering well enough that I can probably do single track. VERY happy about that.

First baby step back toward a normal training program after 6 weird weeks with bouts of illness and injury, interspersed with lots of racing. Today was supposed to be a gentle trail run with ThunderDog, but she decided that we would spend a lot of our time off-trail. Sprained ankle was crunchy-sore, but otherwise felt great - legs were strong and lungs felt bottomless. Apparently, there is nothing like a 30-hr trek to train me up for a 30-minute jog.

My ankle needs more help from Thumbs-of-Death tomorrow. He used some ancient torture device to put the joint back in place yesterday, and it was looking pretty good after the appointment. Then somehow BulletDog managed to kick me, bone-on-bone, while I was watching TV last night. As I watched in disbelief, a brand new goose egg sprouted on the front left of my ankle. I've been icing it on and off and waiting for T-o-D's opinion when he gets back tomorrow.

I've actually been injured for 10 days but have been too busy racing to think of myself that way. Went to see Thumbs-of-Death (my chiropractor and occasional teammate) today to get treatment for my sprained ankle and forearm tendinitis. It was pretty funny - the patient before me was Luscious, my ESAR teammate, and the patient after me was Hound Dog, my AppX teammate. If it weren't for me and my adventure racing teams, I doubt there would be enough sports injuries in Caledon to keep Thumbs-of-Death busy all day! ;-)