Training Log Archive: Bash

Thomass Eliminator - 3 sprints in Palgrave East and West using Thomass handicaps. Top 16 from 1st sprint compete in 2nd sprint. Top 8 compete in 3rd sprint. All participants can do all 3 sprints but only the top group in each sprint is competing for the win.

Holy CRAP, it is hard to do a 12-minute forest orienteering race - let alone three in a row with only a few minutes off in between. You can't afford to rest physically or mentally, and there's no time to think your decisions through. I suppose this is what orienteering is always like for people who can run quickly. Going at my pace, I usually have time to think.

Loop 1 was in Palgrave East and went fairly smoothly. It was in the area where 'Bent had set up his contours-only training in December, so it was familiar ground. Loop 2 was in Palgrave West behind our place and - ironically - it's where I did the stupidest stuff. I ran past #2 because I was looking in re-entrants, not on spurs. (No time to read control descriptions.) I only had about 20 seconds to review the map before we started and I see now that I made a really silly choice of which two lettered controls to visit. I was lucky to squeak into 8th place, just making it into the 3rd round.

Loop 3 started with a road run to the start flag that looked as long as the rest of my course. Because we had some strong runners in the group, I was certain that I would place 8th in this round, even though Nick gave us 10 seconds of advance start on the road run for each handicap point. Sure enough, I fell from 1st to 8th place long before we finished the road run, but I did pass one guy on the final steep hill before we turned into the conservation area.

Luckily, I could hit my two lettered controls along the same stretch of trail, which made the O course quicker. I met several people at the 2nd last control and had to stop to rescue my new Salomon toque after it was torn off by a branch. So it was a happy surprise to run over the last hill and into the finish valley to find Nick waiting for the first racer to arrive. Yahoo! Leanimal placed 4th, so the local ladies did our part today. 'Bent volunteered at the race with BulletDog instead of further damaging his knee. Big thanks to Nick for putting together a fun event for us, even though he injured his knee recently too. And thanks to Sid for managing the SI - he's become quite a guru over the past couple of years!

(Time is approximate pending results.)

Rodney Yee Yoga for Flexibility

Caledon Navigators training session focusing on attackpoints. Thanks to Phatty and Goose for putting up a fun course for us. I actually saw a place in Albion Hills that I've never visited before, and that doesn't happen very often!

I was coaching our new club member, Dorothy. She was educated as an architect and did a lot of hiking with her parents as a kid, so she picked up the skills quickly. She was very polite when I slid on a muddy downhill and just missed landing on my bum on a dead porcupine. Dorothy has no interest in orienteering races - she just likes to orienteer. I wish we had a better way to market the sport to recreational orienteers, especially in Caledon where so many of our club members have no interest in doing O races but just want to learn to navigate.

We'd planned to ride to Inglewood on the rail trail today but snowflakes were falling and 'Bent's cold wasn't improving, so we decided to ride the trainer and watch "Rachel Getting Married". I don't remember why I put this film on my Zip.ca list. I often cruise through the Awards section of the website and look for unusual movies for our ZipList, but we sometimes don't get them for 2 years so I was surprised when a wedding movie arrived in the mail. We haven't finished it yet but it is definitely *not* a girlie romance flick. Much darker than the title suggests. Phew.

P.S. Was the trainer *always* that boring? I didn't use it much this winter.

I dragged 'Bent into a leg strength session too. Gotta work on that knee of his. When it comes to upper body weights, I probably use 25-30% of the weight he uses, but I made him beg for mercy with my leg strength routine. Ha!

I don't run much during winter sports season but it's just a few weeks until the 25K Salomon Dontgetlost.ca Giant's Rib Raid - eek. Most of my racing this year will be on foot so if I can avoid injury, I'll be aiming to do more running than in past years.

Today's workout was inspired by Crash - a trail run to the stile in Glen Haffy where the Bruce Trail meets the Palgrave Side Trail, then back again. Up via the Lookout Trail and down via the Bruce Trail Side Trail. (Forerunner measured equal distances but I'm guessing that it missed some of the twisty turns on the side trail.) Given that the trails were a mix of snow, gloopy mud, puddles and dry earth, I'm happy with my pace at this point in the season. (Even though I have many friends who would slit their wrists if it took them an hour and a half to run 14K on trails.)

Following Slowrunner's good advice, I ran up all the hills. Following Dee's good advice, I told myself, "I love hills". I'd be hard-pressed to say that I was attacking the hills, as per Cristina's good advice, by the time I got to the top of K2. But I tried to do it most of the time!

BulletDog and I ran around Palgrave East - a mix of goopy mud, slick ice and a few nice dry trails. I accidentally locked my key in the house so I needed to run until I was pretty sure 'Bent would be home from work. Not a bad training strategy although it would have been more effective if I'd started running at noon instead of 4:45! (As it turns out, I still beat him home - doh.)

Recent interview with Ian Adamson. I'm hoping the video portion is a little less recent, since it calls him the "Tiger Woods of adventure racing". Ouch.

Thomass Eliminator - 3 short orienteering races in Palgrave this Sunday. Great format for beginners since they don't have to do all races. It's a fundraiser to help cover the hefty maintenance costs on the SportIdent timing equipment we all use. Attendance could really use a boost! Registration is open till Friday night with race day registration available for $3 more.

Congrats to VO2Max, Canadian XC Ski Championship bronze medalist in the 15K Free!

Hard Core DVD - inspired by Phatty.

OK, I am finally done posting reports and photos from Quebec. Because our trip started more than 7 days ago, it's easier to see the 6 days of reports if you use this link (for those who enjoy that sort of thing).

http://www.ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920...

Ran with BulletDog in Palgrave West. Winter is over. Muddy dog foot season is here. :-(