Training Log Archive: Bash

Volunteered at the Caledon Kids of Steel triathlon today. So much fun! Especially when I get to play bike goalie for the 3-5 year olds.



Thumbs-of-Death's daughter is a tough competitor like her Dad. She should be in the 3-5 year old category, but she raced up a category to get more challenge from the 6-7 year olds!

The most joyous event of the day was the fairy tale wedding of Bender to Venus. Beautiful ceremony and fun celebration at the wonderful Piller Stonehouse Farm. All the best to the happy newlyweds! :-))

And the 2nd most joyous event of the day was the Sulphur Springs 25K Trail Run! 'Bent burned up the course in 1:55, finishing just a few minutes behind Tarno and a few more behind Almageddon - 12th of 141 racers overall.

And I broke 2:30, which was entirely unexpected after my test run earlier in the week. I ran all the hills until close to the end, which was not de rigueur in my part of the pack. Actually, I think most racers thought I was a little crazy to do it. But I just tried to visualize the way that Slowrunner dances up hills on trails. I think it helped me to run, since I'm slower relative to other runners on the flats.

The race got off to an exciting start with Mrs. Gally's water bottle bouncing on the trail - and Dee Rispolie bouncing herself on the trail after hitting a metal post hard. But they both recovered and finished strong in the 50K along with Audrey.

This was the first time in a long time that I've run very far without a Camelbak. I decided to experiment and see what it was like to depend on aid stations. It worked OK, and I never felt thirsty or hungry, but the jury is out on what I'll do next time, since it does take some time from the race. I did learn one important thing - never take 2 fig newtons away from the aid station and try to eat them on the run when you have nothing to drink. Especially if there is a rule that you get disqualified for littering, and there are people running right behind you. After choking down as many dry bites of fig newton as I could, I casually let my hand drift into a bush as we rounded a corner, dropped the remaining cookie, and - so far - have not been DQed.

I managed to screw up my Garmin Forerunner shortly before the start. I pressed some random buttons in an attempt to fix it, and it seemed to be OK. I'd hoped to watch my minutes per kilometer pace, but that definitely wasn't what I was seeing. Without being able to squint too closely at the fine print, it appeared that I was seeing my elapsed time and miles, but no pace. That was better than nothing, so throughout the race, I was constantly converting miles to kilometers and vice versa, and things were coming out about right, with just a little error, so that helped me with my pacing. When I finished the race and looked closely, I realized that it was telling me that I'd burned 1630 calories - not run 16.3 miles! Oh well, it worked out...

As someone who isn't a great natural runner, I was excited to finish 4th of 21 women in my age category, 10th of 55 women overall, and 58th of 141 runners. (Nothing compared to Dog Runner's amazing race this weekend, but I'm still darned happy.)

Congrats to MrPither on an awesome 2nd place finish!

Not sure if it's a shortage of sleep, but I felt lousy today. Definitely dehydrated going into tomorrow's race. :-(

It's been a big week for adventure racing babies! Gazelle & Gazette started the trend with the birth of Justin on Saturday. Then Lawrence & Trish had a son on Monday, and John Yip's son Jackson is coming next Tuesday. These three guys are going to be an awesome AR team!

Power Yoga DVD. It's been far too long - I really needed this.

Biked over to Palgrave with 'Bent and Hurtn for tonight's MTB-O training night with the Caledon Navigators.

MTB orienteering training night - thanks to Jeff and Keith for putting this on. Hurtn and I did this one together, and after the first few controls, he took over the navigation. As an artist, he's got terrific map memory and a good feel for how that translates to the terrain. We got to the right spot every time - although a couple of the controls were a wee bit off. Great group of people, nice evening light - fun!

I just got this photo from Monday. 'Bent, Knobless and I were hiking in the area where the forest fire burned last year. Our ecologist friend Knobless told us that morel mushrooms like to grow near dead elms and in burnt areas. And apparently, he was right! This was a first for me - I've never eaten mushrooms that I've picked. But according to my mushroom book (and Knobless and 'Bent), it's almost impossible to screw up morel identification. They were yummy in garlic and butter!

All of these activities were part of 8.5 hrs in the Barrie area today, setting the course for the Navstock Raid. Times are approximate and greatly reduced to account for time spent standing and thinking, or driving to the next location.

Whose idea was it to put on a marathon-distance adventure run?! It was fun, but I am soooooo tired tonight. Amazing that I went for hours on end without seeing anyone else in the woods. I've had cold rain on my last two trips up there, and I hope that I'm taking the brunt so that the racers will get awesome weather. At one point, I couldn't change into my big bike gear because I'd lost too much dexterity in the cold - yikes.

It's going to be a fun and demanding course (I hope). I'll know better after BobTheNavigator tests it. And we still haven't added in Hammer's patented cruelty section.

For the first time in a long time, I stopped in Barrie and allowed myself to have a Lick's Homeburger with cheese. That's right folks, cheese! So much for fitting into that new dress for Bender's wedding.

Ran the red trail in Palgrave East starting from the Hwy 50 entrance and going counterclockwise so that the roller coaster hill section was saved for the 2nd half. Perfect cool temperature and sun - nice! I had my Forerunner 305, and I was trying to run at the pace I would need to go to break 2:30 in this Saturday's hilly 25K trail race. I just missed the required pace on a run of 8K, so unless adrenaline counts for a lot more than I think it will, my goal seems a little ambitious. Yes, I know that 6 min/km (9:40/mile) would be slow for a *real* trail runner, but I'd be thrilled if I could pull it off.

Just realized that we've got plenty of time to squeeze in our first trip to the Sulphur Springs 25K trail run before Bender's wedding next Saturday. Yay - a last chance to shed a pound or two before wearing a dress (gasp) in public!

Hard Core Monday

'Bent and I started out on a trail run, but turned around due to high winds. Given that the nearby forest is full of dying trees post-forest fire, it felt a little kamikaze.