Training Log Archive: Bash

When not taking photos, I was on the other strap, helping to drag the new treadmill from the garage around to the back of the house and into the basement. It weighs a hundred gajillion pounds and folds itself into origami shapes if you accidentally tap it in certain ways. Big thanks to 'Bent who risked injury to help me even though he will likely never use the thing. We were so zonked and frazzled after an hour of sketchy equipment moving (which included getting the equally heavy broken treadmill out of the basement, up the hill and into the garage) that we put off the long assembly process for another time.

Later we found the note saying that severe injury may result if you remove the treadmill from the box without following the assembly instructions. We couldn't agree more.

New Rockies Ride DVD with 'Bent. Good workout but it'll be much better next time when we mute the annoying soundtrack. Fun to watch and influence cadence and power.

Surreal moment of the weekend: seeing our faces 6 meters tall in a video projected on the side of a community centre.



This was part of the Woodbridge Earth Hour celebration and they'd filmed several of us talking about our experiences with renewable energy. In a surprise move, they added my name to the Green Hero award they'd announced for 'Bent, so I got no photos since I was busy shaking hands with the Mayor and councillors of Vaughan! Very cool (downright cold, actually) experience. I felt sorry for the young trumpet player who led us in "Oh Canada". Her lips must still be frozen to the instrument.

Today's cool moment was at the McMichael Gallery where artist and former adventure racing teammate Cory Trepanier gave a presentation on his painting expeditions to the Arctic. We wished that Mr. and Mrs. GHOSLO's exhibit was still at the gallery but it's been replaced with paintings by some Norman Rockwell guy. ;)



For wilderness lovers, here's a quote from Emily Carr that Cory used to open his talk:

"It is wonderful to feel the grandness of Canada in the raw, not because she is Canada but because she's something sublime that you were born into, some great rugged power that you are a part of."

Dontgetlost.ca Hard Rock training event. Over 100 people signed up, 50 of whom registered for the free "mini-nav clinic" beforehand. Wilsmith did an awesome job of introducing the basics of orienteering to the group while Katta, 'Bent and I wandered around to answer questions and show people things on their maps. I'm always impressed by people who can explain orienteering to total novices in a non-confusing way - that's not one of my skills. I think I'm good with intermediates but I'm lousy with beginners.

I headed out at the end of the start window and had an amazing time. It's rare that I can focus on navigating if I have an event day volunteer role so I often just mess around but today I ran well and my errors were relatively small. It was a morning of brilliant sunshine, snow, wet feet in frigid creeks, steep climbs, open forest and lots of people in the woods with big smiles. 'Bent felt that he ran quickly and fairly accurately, and he finished about 2 minutes ahead of me. Normally that would mean that I "win" given his faster trail running speed but I had to award him the win because Garmin says he did the course in 340 m less than I did!

Banff Film Festival - always inspiring although I doubt I'll try anything I saw tonight. My favourite film was Crossing The Ditch, winner of the "Best Exploration and Adventure" award. It told the story of two inexperienced young guys who were the first to make the 2-month, 3,300 km kayak journey across the Tasman Sea from Australia to New Zealand. There were some very honest human moments, lots of humour, even a few tears.

There were two different films of guys who climbed the North Face of the Eiger solo without ropes. One of them speed-climbed it in 2 hrs 47 min and the other carried a parachute in case he fell. We saw him use the chute a number of times but not during his Eiger climb. He jumped off on purpose after summiting. This is the same area where we'll be racing during the APEX event in May.

Went for what will probably be my final snowshoe run of the season in KBash Woods. With only 10-15 cm of snow on the ground in most places, I could have easily run in shoes alone but it occurred to me that due to the weather swings, this would be a fun time of year to see how many different Attackpoint activities I could do in a 7-day period. Lots of colours for my bar graph! (No, it doesn't take much to amuse me - but it doesn't take much novelty to motivate me in my training either, which is good.)

Mostly hill climbing, including 8 X Lookout Hill. Trying to simulate the Alps in May so I'll need to do more of this sort of thing in the coming weeks. We won't know whether we will need snowshoes until closer to the event.

More of the Daily Show. I enjoy strength workouts - why can't I fit more of them in?

Rodney Yee for Flexibility

If you're planning to improve your standing in the OARPS Series by doing the Salomon Dontgetlost.ca Giant's Rib Raid on April 9, check out the Dontgetlost.ca Hard Rock Enduro training event in Waterdown this Saturday - 10K, 5K and 2.5K (kids) courses. Lunch afterward, anyone?

After our early spring paddling yesterday, we had another change of seasons today.



School buses were cancelled as were various other events and appointments. A bunch of us, including the full Goose/Coach LD family, were going to Highlands Nordic for a fundraising dinner for their junior racing team; otherwise I wouldn't have gone out on the roads. As it turned out, the storm conditions ended north of Mansfield but fortunately there was still 10 cm of new snow at Highlands. They didn't groom today and it was slooooooow going - like an exercise machine with the resistance turned up. I pushed up a few hills but mostly took it easy and used the quiet time to think about things.





The fundraiser was a Quebec-style maple syrup-themed dinner, complete with fiddlers in red and black checked lumberjack shirts.The idea was to put maple syrup on everything you were served - in your soup, on your veggies, etc. You name it - we put syrup on it. I won't ever need to eat again.

Frankenjack, Getawaystix and I hooked up for a weeknight whitewater paddle on the Bighead River in Meaford.



Go ahead and laugh at me, I still have my Coast to Coast sticker on my helmet. They give you a bazillion stickers that are mandatory to put on just about everything. I haven't had the heart to remove them all yet.



At this time of year, this section of the Bighead is class 1 and 2 with a few wave trains big enough to splash you hard in the face with very cold water.







Obstacles included a few sweepers but not as many as on the Credit. The water tonight was higher with a bigger gradient than the Credit.





We had to stay alert for partially submerged rocks and small ledges. If the water were much lower, this section might not be much fun. I missed seeing one rock mid-river and ran up it like a ramp till I was mostly high and dry. Then I think I may have done a wee boof. Not sure if that counts as one.





In one of the biggest rapids, I hit a rock that spun me around so I ran part of the rapid backwards until I got turned around again. Not pretty but I stayed upright. We all made it to the take-out point without incident - but then, foolishly, I thought it would be fun to play in the final rapid. Fail! I think I was peeling out when this happened. I *know* I wasn't leaning hard enough in spite of getting lots of practice earlier in the paddle.



The boys were there when I surfaced from my wet exit, preparing to either rescue me or start trash talking, depending on how I looked. I made a grab for my paddle, having seen how quickly they travel. Frankenjack took my boat while Getawaystix offered a rescue tow. He was pretty disappointed when I discovered that the water was just over my knees so I could walk to shore.

Frankenjack had been pulled into the next rapid and both guys had to head after my boat, which had escaped and was taking on water and getting heavy because - as I'd been warned when I borrowed it - it had no air bags. Right around now, I realized that my idea of carrying iPhone, wallet and car keys in a dry bag in the back of my boat might not have been such a stellar idea.



There was a happy ending. I went 100 m along the shore and found Frankenjack emptying my boat. Note all the big chunks of ice from the recent break-up.



Dry and cheerful post-paddle.



The *real* purpose of our training mission - dinner, drinks and half-price appetizer night at the Leeky Canoe.

I started counting backward and got excited at the possibility that I might have paddled outside in each of the past 12 months without consciously trying to do so. But believe it or not, I did no paddling whatsoever last June - not even on the trainer. WTF? We were in Scotland more than half the month but still... that is just wrong. I will easily hit the 12-month paddling milestone this June but it's not too difficult when the last 3 months are April, May and June!

The Tacx trainer came out of its box today and I spent over an hour reading fine print translated from a language other than English, connecting weird-looking part K to bolt C, wiring stuff up, attaching things to my bike, etc. This is not really my thing. When I was still working in engineering, I did calculations, drew diagrams, wrote reports and designed software. I wasn't an engineer who did useful things in the real world like Urthbuoy. I was more like Tiny - in his old IBM job, anyway. ;) So I was pretty excited when I turned the trainer on and it worked.

After that adventure, there was only a little time for a workout before dinner. After a brief warm-up, I picked 160 watts as a random number to hold for a short ride. I looked it up afterward and that is supposed to be at the top of my Endurance Cycling range but still well below Tempo. Or using a guesstimate for the time trial test Carbon uses, that would be at the lower end of E3. So I guess it's OK that it felt like work!