Training Log Archive: Bash

Congrats to Getawaystix on winning the Ultimate XC Challenge 3-day stage race at Mont Tremblant. Awesome job!

When ultra-running legend Laurie McGrath was unable to continue pacing Charlotte Vasarhelyi on the Bruce Trail today, Goose and I stepped in. OK, technically, the only reason Laurie couldn't continue was because she had to get back to the city to do something with her family. But anyway...

We started at Mono Centre and came down through Hockley Valley, then across Airport Road and south to 5th Sideroad. Char was a total rock star. She has run approximately 600 km in 9 days with 394 km to go. Her knees don't bend very far and her feet are blistered but she just keeps on trucking.

Goose was an awesome coach and motivator, pacing 5 meters in front of her and encouraging her to run whenever the trail was good. I stayed a short distance ahead of them. My job was to read the map and watch for blazes to make absolutely certain that we didn't make any wrong turns. 894 km is far enough and Char doesn't want to do any more. I also provided updates from the Garmin data, e.g. "3 km till we see your support crew". Thunderstorms swept in and we got thoroughly soaked. Lots of hills, roots and mud and even some stinging nettles. Can't think of a finer way to spend an afternoon! :-)

Busy day of watching other people involved in sports events:

- 'Bent managed to squeeze in an MRI on his knee while doing the 24 Hrs of Summer Solstice mountain bike relay with ThreePinJim. His first lap was 1:02 so he's doing fine. I also checked in on 2-Min and her faithful support crew, PhattyJR. Unfortunately, a rude biker knocked her over on her first lap; fortunately, he went down as well. Just missed seeing Crash but she was leading the Women's Solo category after 3 laps so I've got my fingers crossed for her. The race started 2 hours late due to heavy rain and will only be a 22-hr event this year. The trails looked pretty slick - hope everyone stays safe.

- Charlotte Vasarhelyi and support crew are here for the night during their Bruce Trail run and will be back tomorrow night for base camp once again. Lots of activity, food, tasks, blister repair, massage, laundry and planning. Char is doing very well for someone who has run over 500 km in 8 days. It's awesome having Trav and Baloney here to share their ultra experience with the team and roll up their sleeves to help out with whatever needs doing.

- Thanks to Dee, I'm also keeping an eye on the tough competition in the Ultimate XC stage race in Quebec. Going into tomorrow's challenging 100 km mountain bike race, Benoit has a 1 minute 25 second lead over Getawaystix. Benoit was ahead on the paddle and Getawaystix was ahead on the run. Relentless and Harps are up with the leaders too and M&M finished 2nd female in today's 56K trail run. Lots of great racing by our Ontario friends - hope tomorrow goes well for all!

It's exciting as Charlotte V. gets closer to our place in her bid to set a new speed record for running the Bruce Trail. By this evening, she should have completed about 500 km of the 894 km trail in 7 days. (The length is constantly changing due to trail re-reroutes.) Base camp was going to be here tonight but it has been postponed to tomorrow night since she will be closer to Creemore when she stops today. Looking forward to welcoming the crew and cheering her on!

Around Palgrave West with BulletDog. It felt like a nice pace I could maintain for awhile. I did some out-and-back segments to avoid poison ivy patches. Dogs can bring PI home and share the joy so I kept an eagle eye out for the stuff. I have tiny patch of it on my shin now, probably from Saturday's "Why Just Run" event. Amazing it's not worse, given how much PI there was. 1L had a very impressive case!

Gulp. The initial plan seemed to be that the Bruce Trail running team would pass by our place on Friday night and bring all their own favourite food. It now sounds like it may be Saturday night and the previous base camps have been serving feasts worthy of a professional chef. The problem? 'Bent is our household cook and he has a 24-hr bike race on Sat/Sun. You can't get food delivered where we live. Can I learn to cook by Saturday night?! Doubtful.

While watching the Colbert Report.

Was that an earthquake? (1:45 p.m.) The house really shook. Freaky.
[Edit - Yup, apparently it was an earthquake.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/repor...]

As of this morning, Charlotte Vasarhelyi had run 322 km of the Bruce Trail in 4 days. With trail re-routes, her total distance will be about 900 km. Looking forward to seeing her and the crew this weekend!

Rode to Albion Hills and met Coach LD and Leanimal (and a brief guest appearance by Phatty) for a ride around the 24 Hrs of Summer Solstice race lap. It's nice and flowy; the trails at Albion are great this year after all the improvements! With Leanimal 14 weeks pregnant and her bike lacking a functional granny gear, I was able to hang onto her back wheel for once. I'll enjoy it while I can! I felt good physically but haven't done a lot of technical riding yet this year, and it showed. Yesterday's heavy rain made the trails and tree roots greasy in places, and my semi-slick tires weren't biting. I stayed rubber side down until the last bit of trail when the others had headed home, then the tires slid out on a banked turn and I crashed hard into the dirt on my right side. No real harm done but considerable soap, shampoo and laundry detergent were required to deal with the situation.

This morning's Globe mentioned something new (to me) - Powerpoint Karaoke. At last, a competition in which I could be a serious contender, thanks to my past jobs. Phatty would be good too.

Love it! The Gettysburg Address reduced to 6 banal Powerpoint slides.

I know, I know - treadmill, bleaaghh. I wasn't wimping out of running in today's downpour (at least, that's not the only reason!) I can't cheat with intervals on the treadmill so it forces me to do what I hate. Listened to a couple of interesting Radiolab podcasts on mathematics. Thanks for pointing me in their direction, Urthbuoy!

Interesting new thing learned while running today: Benford's Rule:

"Most people intuitively believe that in any string of numbers of a naturally occurring data set each digit, one through nine, has an equal probability of being the first digit. Benford’s distribution showed that this intuition is incorrect. It is this belief and practice of the fraudster that all digits should be regular that creates data sets which evoke suspicions of fraud."

"...Benford’s probability distribution (in percent) of the first digit of any number within a database that meets the criteria described above should be as follows:
1 = 30.10
2 = 17.61
3 = 12.49
4 = 9.69
5 = 7.92
6 = 6.69
7 = 5.80
8 = 5.12
9 = 4.58"

What this means is that the first digit of a person's bank account balance is far more likely to be 1 than 9 - and this rule applies to many kinds of numerical databases. Even the IRS uses it to look for financial fraud, e.g. fake tax deductions. Cool. (And a little geeky, I guess.) (P.S. Fellow geeks should click here.)

While watching The Daily Show.

Ran from our place to the main Bruce Trail at Glen Haffy and back. It's mostly Bruce Trail side trail with a "lollipop" loop in the Dingle. I took the Lookout Trail up K2 - weeds up to my neck in places. The trail got so unrecognizable that I was looking for the position of the sun and wondering if I'd made a wrong turn. I took the new Bruce Trail side trail back down K2 - really nice. I didn't push but it felt like a decent effort (as Harps might say) due to the heat and humidity. It was cool in Scotland and I need to acclimatize to summer in Ontario. Wildlife report: one deer and lots of very musical hermit thrushes.

First time wearing my new Salomon Exo calf compression sleeves. The only negative was that they added warmth but otherwise they felt great and I really like that they're not compression socks, which feel funny on my feet. They also fend off weeds and poison ivy and, of course, they make me look almost as cool as Phatty.

Today was a test run to see if I will be able to help pace Charlotte Vasarhelyi in her attempt to break the Bruce Trail solo speed record. She's aiming for 11 days - the previous record is 14 days, 10 hrs. The base camp is at our place on Friday night. She has (hopefully) just completed her 3rd day of running 80-90 km/day.