Training Log Archive: Bash

Not even remotely inspired to do anything active today! Salomon AC results were published. Only 25 of 45 teams finished the race within the 8-hour time limit, so this was a tough race by SAC standards. Our team was tied for 12th overall, and was the 2nd female team. Our paddling needs practice, and we had a few moments of confusion when we got separated while biking, but otherwise we had a consistent, clean race. Great start to the season!

Event: FAR SAC Adventure Race (8hrs)
 

Bob Miller set a long and interesting course for the first Salomon Adventure Challenge of the year, based at Fenelon Falls. Crash, Gazette and I raced as the Tree Huggers in the all female category, where the competition was really for 2nd place, due to the presence of the mighty Adidas Divas. 'Bent, Gazelle and The Padre raced all-male as Team Hunger.

The race began with 25 km of mountain biking, much of it on ATV trails meandering around a powerline - lots of hills, rocks, mud and some stretches of knee-deep water. We deliberately held back at the start to avoid getting caught in the crush of people biking too fast. We could catch them later when they slowed down. Things started out reasonably well. Actually, the race was going much better than we knew, since most of the top teams had taken a wrong turn away from the power lines onto a private road, and many of them went quite a way before realizing their mistake. Going the correct direction at the fork in the road took us directly into a hike-a-bike section through knee-deep water, so I guess it didn't look like a trail to everyone. But then we messed up with a rookie error. I'd been saying from the start that our biggest risk with a mass bike start was getting separated on technical trails - and that's exactly what happened. Most of the time we rode with our teammates in sight, but with a twisting, technical, rocky trail, you had to watch where you were going, and teammates were bound to spread out a bit if one of them rode a hill while another walked, for example. It was easy for a teammate to get out of sight for a minute. At one point, I came down a tough hill and mentioned to Crash that we should wait for Gazette, but she thought Gazette was ahead. Since we didn't know which direction to go, we stationed ourselves so we could see up and down the trail, and waited while teams streamed by - including some top teams like the Adidas Divas, who had retraced their steps after their wrong turn. Argghh! Then we saw people who knew Gazette, who said she was going backwards about 400 m back. Just as we were getting set to go back to find her, she realized that she must be behind, so turned around and found us. Apparently she had been ahead, but pulled over to the side to wait. Somehow we didn't see her as we rode past, nor did she see us. It felt like it took forever to reunite our team, but it was probably only 8 minutes or so. Rats.

After that, our day went very smoothly. We got to the first bike CP and learned that we were ahead of 'Bent and the boys. We had a good ride through a beautiful forest on rocky, muddy snowmobile trails, then had a fast road ride to the TA. The trek was in an area where the map was almost devoid of features, so it was a matter of holding a compass bearing and tracking time/distance travelled. At the time, I was thinking it was going to be tough mentally for some teams, because the bush was often thick and the ground was swampy in places, and it took confidence to believe that you were going to find what you were aiming for. As it turned out, there were teams that spent a long time in there, some of whom never found the first trekking CP. We found it, and managed to get quite wet in the process. I'd aimed off to be sure of which direction to turn when we hit the creek, and that meant some scrambling through beaver territory, where we ended up wading through waist-deep water at one point. There was more bushwhacking toward the Ganaraska Trail, and just before we left the bush, we ran into Team Hunger. We stayed close behind them for a road/trail run of 4-5 km, with Crash towing me to keep the speed up.

Then we had a beautiful paddle down the Burnt River with 3 portages around rapids. We'd missed the cut-off for the advanced section, but only 6 of 48 teams made it, so that was OK. Most of the final bike ride was on rail trail - almost an hour. Crash towed Gazette, and I led the way, watching for traffic at the intersections.

We finished in 6:35 on the Regular course, not far behind 'Bent and the boys at 6:07. That got us 2nd in the female category - yahoo! Team Hunger was 3rd in the all-male category, which was a great recovery after a couple of early nav errors. The major news of the day was Tiny's team, The Pink Guard of Nero, who finished 2nd overall and 1st coed - just 20 minutes behind Team Simon River Sports, and ahead of Team LSN, who were leading until a surprising rail trail nav error near the end. Congrats, Tiny!!

A preliminary check of results showed 19 teams out of 48 who didn't complete the course within the 8-hour limit, so this was a tough race. I enjoyed competing with a strong female team. Next weekend, it's a solo race with virtually no nav, so it will be completely different - I'll need to push harder. Should be fun too.

OUCH - I awoke with such a toothache that 'Bent immediately gave me one of those big dental needles. That and some Vitamin I got me through the final stages of race packing, then we met 'Bent's assistant at the office on her day off for a complicated, 2 1/4 hr emergency root canal. Definitely not the best pre-race preparation you could ask for, but 'Bent did a great job, and hopefully I should be able to focus on the race tomorrow, which would have been impossible otherwise.

Tapering for the Salomon Adventure Challenge on Saturday. I might have gone for a short run, but my tooth, which is scheduled for a root canal on Tuesday, went crazy-painful today, so I didn't feel like doing much of anything. Looks like I'll need some emergency pre-race dentistry tomorrow - sigh... Exactly the timing I was hoping to avoid.

GHO Adventure Nite - event organizer

Checked flags for tonight's training event, taking the controls out of sequence so it wouldn't seem too familiar. ThunderDog expressed a marked preference for Trail-O, making some less direct route choices and insisting that I follow. At least she always ran along trails heading approximately in the right direction, so her map skills must be improving. It was very warm, so we also had to make detours to visit all the ponds and creeks on the map so she could go swimming. All ribbons were present and accounted for, and I took down a couple of controls that I'd elected not to use.

The race went reasonably well - tight competition at the top with just 80 seconds separating Sudden (1), Griz (2) and MrPither (3), and the next competitor 14 minutes back. Unfortunately, more than half the racers did not see my ribbon in a small Flying Pig-style dry ditch, so I've learned a lesson about control visibility.

Really nice night to be outside! Although the black flies have been swarming lately, they gave us a reprieve.

Humber Trail near Bolton with K/O, whose e-mail ID is "Slowrunner", but I have officially raised the bar in that department - or lowered the bar, as the case may be. Actually, it was great to have someone set a pace a bit faster than I would choose for myself, but not totally out of reach. I could almost keep up most of the time. K/O will laugh to see that it was a level 4 for me, but it really was! It was no surprise that she is awesomely strong, given that she has completed the mountainous 125 km Canadian Death Race and is preparing for a 50-mile trail race in a few weeks, amongst other accomplishments. Lots of fun today, and a good workout.

Beautiful day, marred only by some early inattentiveness when I was staying close behind K/O for conversational purposes, and thus couldn't see the upcoming trail surface. My left foot caught a small root, and I did a heavy swan dive and slide on a concrete-hard, gritty trail. I landed on both forearms and my right kneecap (the bad one). I stopped sliding just before a wooden trail bridge, which would have knocked my head hard, so there is a silver lining. I've got some big, nasty, painful scrapes, but at least it's all on the surface. I'm icing my knee now, since it is swelling a bit after landing so hard on it.

I rewarded myself with a DQ hot fudge shake on the way home. After all, I'm carb-loading for the weekend, right?

Short Bruce Loop with ThunderDog as a warm-up, then some cooldown after the hill workout.

Repeated hill climbs and descents - visited four nearby hills of different height and steepness, some running on trails and some off-trail.

Another beautiful spring day, although it will take awhile to get used to the heat. Our first trilliums are blooming, which is always a highlight. I also saw lots of trout lilies, spring beauties, bloodroot, downy yellow violets and Dutchman's breeches.

Hard Core Monday. 'Bent tried to postpone, but I'm lending the DVD to K/O tomorrow, so he had no choice!