Training Log Archive: Bash

Beautiful ski around Palgrave West with 'Bent and the pooches. I feel a little tired from yesterday, but nothing hurts or felt stiff. There's about 15 cm of fresh, fluffy snow on the ground, and big flakes were coming down as we skied. We were happy to meet up with Crash and her three dogs for a big pooch party on the trails. ThunderDog and BulletDog are snoring by the fire now after all the excitement.

Caron's Power Yoga DVD #1. I was going to follow up with some upper body strength, but it was clear from the yoga push-ups and one-armed side planks that my arms were tired from using poles yesterday. So I did some more work on my gear list for the Rock & Ice Ultra instead.

Today was my very first Salomon Dontgetlost.ca Snowshoe Raid - what a blast! Bob Miller had designed an interesting course with 45 controls. When I saw that it stayed north of Horseshoe Valley Rd, I was convinced that some team would get them all, but I was wrong. In fact, the winning team (Sudden & Turbo) didn't even enter the Matrix, earning just 1220 of 1450 pts. Kudos to Bob for pulling this off - that's the way a rogaine-style race should be designed. It's one of the few events I've done where you would run into people, then head off in different directions, then run into each other again later on, having done completely different things. There were that many ways to approach this course.

A wild card was the "walk the line" section that wasn't marked on the map - just an "X" at the start and an instruction to head north and follow a marked trail for 1.3 km. There were 100 pts available, so it was worth doing, but it meant that we didn't know where it would take us, so some of our route planning had to remain a little fuzzy.

Hammer is one of my longtime navigation heroes, so I was looking forward to this race - but with some trepidation. (Backwoods is another one of my heroes that I've raced with, and she shares her brother's calm confidence with a map.) Hammer and I had divided up the roles so that I was in charge of planning, and he was in charge of execution. It worked well, since I love planning a rogaine map; we did the fine-tuning of control sequence together. On the course, I monitored distance (until my Forerunner stopped) and time while running on a tow line for most of the race, trying not to lose my balance as we skidded more or less in synch down some very steep, sapling-covered hills. Hammer found efficient routes for us and kept a nice pace at the front of the tow rope. I'd wondered if it might drive him crazy to not be able to run his natural pace, but if it did, he was very polite and patient about it.

Toward the end, we were running short of time, and we had to decide how to approach the finish. Hammer convinced me to do one more control than I would have done on my own. We finished with a mad dash to the finish line, crossing it exactly at the 3-hr mark. Woo hoo!

Comparing notes with 'Bent, we realized that we'd scored the exact same number of points!! But he and Eugenius arrived a few minutes before we did, so they won the Masters division (not entirely unexpected), and Hammer and I were proud to take a close 2nd place - and 7th overall out of about 85 teams.

Big congrats to Sudden & Turbo on the win, Tiny & Hotshot Lawyer for an awesome 2nd place, Nick & XCDan for 3rd, Tarno & Riddler for 4th and Dee & Harper for 5th (and 1st Coed). Congrats also to Slice & Leanimal for taking their usual win in the Female category and to Rocky & Crash for roaring into 2nd place in their adventure run team debut! AdventureGirl! & Etoile also took 2nd in the Family category, and Mr. & Mrs. Gally took 2nd in the Coed category, so it was a great day for our friends all round.

It was great fun to hang out afterward at Coach Trayling's beautiful home and get some extra time to catch up with Slice, Leanimal, Phatty, PhattyJR, Kari and Kona.

Yahoo - nice fluffy snow to ski in! It's not a lot, and it won't take long to wear down, so I wanted to get out skiing while I could. We leave for the Rock & Ice Ultra in a month, and we probably won't be skiing around here as long as that, so every snowy day is precious.

I should be doing an upper body strength workout today, but decided not to because I'm feeling fatigued and a little food poisoned. Instead I just used my poles more emphatically than usual in hopes of getting a bit of an arm workout. Now it's time to taper until the Snowshoe Raid when I will need to be ready to chase Hammer as fast as I can.

The local pit bull was just here again - half a kilometer from home. I phoned the owner, and she yelled at me. If I wanted to talk about the dog, then I had to call her husband at 6:30 p.m. When people yell at me, I either yell back or get overly polite, and fortunately it was the latter this time. But that didn't stop her from yelling and refusing to discuss it. I won't be near a phone at 6:30, so I'll just print the relevant legislation and leave it in the mailbox with a covering note for her husband. The local laws apply equally to our Labs, who can't wander free on other people's properties without permission. The provincial laws for pit bulls require a few extras like tall fences and muzzles.

Once again, it's the dog owners who are idiots, not the poor dog, thus I'm not calling Animal Control yet, because that would punish the dog more than the people. I'm told that pit bulls seldom attack humans - unlike their reputation - but they've been genetically engineered to fight other dogs, and that's where I draw the line. ThunderDog and BulletDog should be able to wander around our yard without worrying about that.

Rodney Yee's Yoga for Flexibility. Just trying to keep up with Zoolander. I wonder if he's able to imagine that his toes are buds ready to burst into blossom in springtime? I always have trouble with that one.

Not much time before a meeting, so only saw half of the Colbert Report. Legs are starting to feel a little stronger. Unfortunately, my right lower back/hip region is hurting for some unknown reason, and neither yoga nor strength exercises made any difference. Gotta be healthy for my first Salomon Dontgetlost.ca Snowshoe Raid!!

My legs were fatigued after a great weekend, so I promised them nothing but yoga today. But then 'Bent e-mailed me after running to work and deciding that he would like a vehicle to drive to Bolton for a knee treatment. I had an errand near his office, so he generously suggested that I could leave the car at his office and run BulletDog home along his commute route. Well, it's not that long since Valentine's Day and Family Day, so how could I say no? [Note: An hour after I got home, he e-mailed sheepishly to say that he couldn't get a knee appointment tonight after all, so he will be leaving the car at the office and running home too. That's if he's not too embarrassed to come home!]

My run was OK. It was a good reminder of why I don't like to run cross-country at this time of year. Goose's accident has sensitized me to the ease with which a little ice can deprive someone of many months of fun outdoor activities. I ran the first part on the rail trail, which was mostly glare ice, then a block on road through Reddington, then on trails through Palgrave East and West, where the crusty snow is so hard that snowshoes are no longer needed.

On a side trail in Palgrave West where I rarely see anyone other than Crash or 'Bent, a nervous-looking woman was hurriedly putting a dog on leash as I approached. I put BulletDog on leash, then asked if her dog would be OK if we came by. She said that he didn't like other dogs, so she would just take him into the forest. As we passed them, she was leaning back and hauling on the leash with all her might while some very muscular dog - either a boxer or a young bull mastiff - was attempting to leap at us like a charging stallion. It was clearly not the time to stop and chat with her about whether she planned to bring this beast off-leash into our woods on a regular basis, but I toyed with the idea of running back after taking BulletDog home. Why do stoopid people with unfriendly dogs inflict them on the rest of us - and why wouldn't he have been on a leash *before* she saw me if she is so scared of what he might do to another dog? I'm not that worried about dogs attacking me, but I *am* worried about our dogs getting hurt. If I see her again, we will need to talk.

In honour of Family Day, we looked for a family to spend the day with. The Wadd Squad generously agreed. 'Bent and I loaded up the van to drive to Horseshoe with Etoile, Hammer, AdventureGirl!, ThunderDog and BulletDog.

In case anyone is worried about the effect of the recent thaw on next weekend's Snowshoe Raid, the snow is still chest deep, as you can see.

We skied on the West Trails with the Wadd Squad. It was so slick that I did a lot of double poling and skating instead of classic stride. That's OK! We headed into a field to ski AdventureGirl!'s name in the snow. (Her shorter non-AP name, that is.) Bluebird day!

We took the pooches for a walk that turned into a Skijoring experiment with BulletDog pulling AdventureGirl! - FAST. Hammer also took a turn, and he was even doing slalom turns. It went surprisingly well until her leash clip broke. Wish we'd taken more video!

Hammer and I had a team practice for next weekend's Snowshoe Raid, and we graciously allowed 'Bent to join us. I made Hammer do a lot of towing, just to keep it realistic. I made him do all the nav too, although I got to pick most of the controls we visited - which is supposed to be my one contributing role in the race if I can keep track of where I am while I'm trying to keep up with this speedster! (He was actually very good about slowing down for me. Good thing - he's going to get plenty of practice!)