Training Log Archive: Bash

'Bent, Hammer, Etoile, AdventureGirl! and I snowshoed along a spectacular route through deep snow in the forest and on steep, snow-covered rocks beside Georgian Bay.

I won't name names but I'm not sure everyone was clear on the concept of snowshoeing.





There should be some video forthcoming from the new Dontgetlost.ca GHO-Pro camera. 'Bent was the videographer today.



I hope he was nearby when this happened... You might not recognize Hammer after this little swan-dive-into-hip-deep snow incident. Snowshoes didn't really help much!



Heavy snow falling, beautiful scenery, cold toes, warm company. It was great to see 'Bent and Hammer running together without knee pain in the soft snow.

While watching Colbert and an amazing Daily Show where Jon Stewart talked to 911 first responders with cancer who are aren't getting the treatment they deserve by the U.S. media or political system.

'Bent and I went up to Parry Sound for some winter fun with Hammer, Etoile and AdventureGirl!





Snow fell the entire time we were there - nice! We skied at the Georgian Nordic club - the first time for 'Bent and me. We were on classic skis while the Wadds were skate skiing, which meant we got a good workout! I carefully charged the battery for my little waterproof camera then left it at home, so there isn't much photographic evidence of this expedition - *except* on Hammer's GoPro head-mounted video camera. Check out Hammer's log to see the video of his major wipe-out on the Bunny Trail!

Went for a snowshoe tour on and around the Wadd Squad's beautiful new property beside Georgian Bay. This included 10 minutes to get around the Gula Stigen loop, which as far as we know is the record on snowshoes. AdventureGirl! was leading the way and probably did it in 9:58 so the record is hers.

BulletDog and I did a sunset loop through Palgrave West. Sky was purple, pink and dark blue-grey, and everything in the forest was coated with blobs of fluffy snow. Spectacular. Would have liked to stay out longer but pre-Christmas tasks are temporarily getting in the way of real life. On the bright side, I've made it through all the parties except for Christmas itself without gaining any weight so far. Booyah!

Hard Core Live with Caron - shorter version due to Christmas class

Special Christmas yoga class with live keyboard music by Patrick Dilkie. Fantastic! I was paying so much attention to the music that I messed up a sun salute but I got better at multitasking as the session went on. We had cookies and drinks afterward and convinced Patrick to play and sing "Hallelujah" as an encore. I had a good debrief with Sean Bechtel on his first Salomon Dontgetlost.ca adventure run. (His team won the Half Raid.) It turns out he's good with maps - he credits his geography classes at McMaster.

The New York Times on the benefits of exercising before breakfast - one of my training goals this year.

From a physiological point of view, it appears that the benefits are more health-oriented than sports training-oriented. They don't talk about the psychological benefit here but I feel like the Queen of the World when I get back from a pre-breakfast workout and the rest of the day seems more productive. Apparently, my muscles would be less marbled with fat if I did it more often - although I might not get as much benefit from my workouts if I did it too often.

Shredding pow in Palgrave West! We got 10-15 cm of new snow in the past 24 hours; it just doesn't get better than this. I wanted a hard workout so I put on the Atlas Race snowshoes and ran while breaking trail in deep, fluffy snow. I normally can't get my heart rate that high while running - holy crap, that's hard work!

Aaack - no time to train today.

Today's cultural note... I went into Winners in Bolton to buy a gift certificate and found their new Diversity Gift Certificate display. (I think that was the name.) There were dozens of gift cards saying Happy Diwali, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Hannukah, Happy New Year and some cards with no text - just photos of flowers and babies. I asked the cashier if they had any Merry Christmas gift certificates. They did not but I could have their one remaining torn Happy Holidays card. In principle, this is a great idea but Diwali and Hannukah are over until next year. And at least in our little town, Winners might want to rethink their strategy of ordering the same number of Kwanzaa cards as Christmas cards.

Racers in Abu Dhabi must be bitterly disappointed after training in the off season to prepare for a 129 km paddle. Another big wind is predicted for mid-day so organizers have announced that racers will just paddle from Corniche Beach to Lulu Island and back three times. On the satellite map, it looks like the island is about 600 m away from the beach - but it's a big island so maybe they'll paddle to a point farther along its length. Not exactly an epic race leg - not that it's anyone's fault.

***Update: They are now describing it as a 33 km loop around the bay, which is better, if not wildly exciting.***

GUATS has finished 8th in Abu Dhabi less than 5 minutes ahead of Poland's Speleo Trail Team. Congrats, all!

I hope Frankenjack's feet aren't too bad. (He referred to them as "trashed" after the desert trek.) Coast to Coast is less than two months away so he'll be back to training soon. At least all his paddle training for Abu Dhabi will come in handy in NZ even though he didn't get to paddle much in AD.

Everything I was supposed to do today got postponed till tomorrow because the roads were bad.



With snow falling and blowing, I skied to Palgrave East and went around the old Red Trail loop, keeping my effort up since this was taking the place of a run in my training plan. It was easier said than done since the Conservation Authority is allowing the northeast part of the Red Trail to regenerate due to concerns over summer use in the wetland. (Skiers are still campaigning to get it opened seasonally in winter.) I broke trail in snow over my boots most of the time with occasional faster sections when I happened upon half-buried tracks that were several hours old. At one point, the snow piled up to my knees. In the northeast section, it was like using awkward 185 cm snowshoes, scrambling over shrubs and through tall weeds. My binding was pulled open and there was a disconcerting moment when I couldn't see my ski deep in the snow - like losing a shoe in mud! I almost skied onto the thin ice of the Humber River since the trail beside it was impossible to see and even the river wasn't that obvious at times. Awesome!











The sun came out right at the end.

Skied around Palgrave West on and off-trail, scrambling over fallen trees and ducking as necessary and doing a little bushwhacking. Winter is here! :-)

Made it to the bitter end of "Gone With The Wind". And oh, it was bitter indeed. It turns out that, frankly, Rhett Butler didn't give a damn. Alas, Scarlett, you blew it.

I'll have to find some other long trainer movies. It is time to reassemble Princess from the bike box and start training in the nasty, uncomfortable road biking position. I'd hoped to take her on the road one more time to make sure I put her together properly but given all the snow we've had, that might not happen till NZ.

After the 2-day desert trek in the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge, Team GUATS Adventure appears to be in 9th place. (Not sure if the leaderboard has been updated to take into account the optional CPs.) Most teams missed optional CPs on the trek and a number of teams - or individual team members - have missed mandatory portions of the course over the first 4 days. GUATS skipped the final optional CP after at least one team member threw up at the final mandatory CP. It is very, very hot and a lot of racers are having trouble. Last stage is a 2-day sea kayak section with a mandatory overnight stop on an island. It'll start tonight in our time zone. The SPOT tracking has been great but the optional CPs make it hard to follow these long sections.

Meteor shower tonight - possibly the best of the year!
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/12/10...