Training Log Archive: BashIn the 7 days ending Aug 14, 2011:
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Sunday Aug 14, 2011 #
Note
It's been a month since 'Bent and I lost Tobler and we miss her a lot. Fifteen years is a long time to share your life and home with someone. There will always be a gap in our family without her.
One thing we hadn't realized was the different dynamics of a single pet family vs. a multi-pet family. When Mocha arrived on the scene almost 8 years ago, things changed around here and it turns out we changed too. It feels weird to just have one pet. It's been cool that our dogs had distinct personalities and a relationship with one another that didn't involve us. When we went out, they hung out together. Mocha spent a lot of time alone in her puppyhood before she joined us and she loved having a big sister.
So Richard and I wanted to find a dog in need of a home and share some more doggie love. Tonight we welcomed Brody to our family. He's a 4-month-old Lab mix from a rescue organization.
<http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/20475515>
(We changed his name slightly.)
He hasn't been mistreated but he's been moved around a lot in his short life so he needs stability and training. It's too early for him to run but he looks like he'll be a great training partner when his muscles and joints have matured. He is already housetrained and pretty well-behaved - although he has lots of crazy puppy energy, which we'd kinda forgotten about over the years. I'll be taking some nice long early morning walks in the forest over the next while in order to tire him out.
Attackpoint name TBD!
One thing we hadn't realized was the different dynamics of a single pet family vs. a multi-pet family. When Mocha arrived on the scene almost 8 years ago, things changed around here and it turns out we changed too. It feels weird to just have one pet. It's been cool that our dogs had distinct personalities and a relationship with one another that didn't involve us. When we went out, they hung out together. Mocha spent a lot of time alone in her puppyhood before she joined us and she loved having a big sister.
So Richard and I wanted to find a dog in need of a home and share some more doggie love. Tonight we welcomed Brody to our family. He's a 4-month-old Lab mix from a rescue organization.
<http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/20475515>
(We changed his name slightly.)
He hasn't been mistreated but he's been moved around a lot in his short life so he needs stability and training. It's too early for him to run but he looks like he'll be a great training partner when his muscles and joints have matured. He is already housetrained and pretty well-behaved - although he has lots of crazy puppy energy, which we'd kinda forgotten about over the years. I'll be taking some nice long early morning walks in the forest over the next while in order to tire him out.
Attackpoint name TBD!
Saturday Aug 13, 2011 #
6 AM
Adventure Racing race 8:28:13 97.16 km (5:14 / km) +672m 5:03 / km
shoes: Salomon SLAB-3 XT Wings
Bruce Peninsula Multisport Race
Frankenjack has been dreaming and scheming about this ambitious event for months - a race from top to bottom of the rugged Bruce Peninsula, from Cabot Head to Wiarton.
Approximate splits from Garmin:
Bike 1 - 1:50
Run 1 - 2:15
Paddle - 1:57
Bike 2 - 1:26
Run 2 - 0:37
Transitions total: 0:23 (could still use work!)
It was awesome to see the event come together this weekend. The local support was incredible - 119 volunteers ranging from rescue kayakers to videographers to physicians. There were numerous links between the event and local businesses and organizations. The community spirit in the area is terrific and we all felt very welcome. The publicity was so good that almost everyone we encountered along the route knew about the race. There were people cheering for us on lawnchairs in front of their cottages early in the morning, and I noticed some of the same people again further along the course. So cool! I hope this event will keep running and evolving for years to come.
The Bruce Peninsula is a beautiful place where I've spent very little time so I was looking forward to travelling its length by bike, foot and paddle. Because it's not a navigation-style race, I didn't feel any pressure to do well - although I absolutely did *not* want to DNF. Beforehand, I was worried about making one of the time cut-offs so I didn't race with a camera, which is a shame given how beautiful the course was - not to mention that I was nowhere close to missing any cut-offs. Because the spectacular scenery was a big part of the day, I've scavenged a few nice photos from websites with the caveat that I don't have permissions or credits but I am very grateful to these talented photographers. On the main BPMR race website, there are some excellent photos of the short course including this awesome helicopter shot of the kayak start - one of the best race pics I've seen in awhile.
The long race course was just short of 100 km point-to-point. Working backwards, that meant a 3:30 a.m. alarm (and a lot of espresso) before a 4:30 am. race briefing. You may think this picture of the race briefing is blurry but the fact is, the entire *world* is blurry at 4:30 a.m.
Then we had a long bus ride to get to the 6:30 a.m. start at Cabot Head Lighthouse.
As usual, I had trouble falling asleep the night before and ended up turning a short sleep into a near-non-existent sleep. Arrgh. As much as I hate to do it, I think it's time to look into the sleeping pills that Baloney told us about last year - the ones that some ultrarunners use at stage races. I can't keep going into big races feeling exhausted at the starting line.
After the race briefing at the Wiarton Arena, we loaded onto the bus. The first part of our trip was dark, then the sky brightened with streaks of pink and blue. As we picked up our bikes and gathered in front of the lighthouse, the sun snuck above the horizon. Gorgeous!
The first part of the bike course was about 38 km, starting with some fast gravel roads, then entering some ATV tracks and rough, partially overgrown forest trails.
There was a 1 km section of rocky Bruce Trail on private land where we had to dismount and run with our bikes, monitored and cheered along by volunteers from the Bruce Trail Association. Much of today's course crossed private land, and the landowner agreement prohibits any maps of the race course from being published. So those of us with Garmin Forerunners were asked not to post our routes online. It is remarkable that a first year event was able to get access to trails on so much private land, so we definitely don't want to cause problems for future editions of the race.
Videographers filmed the bike section from their motorcycle and uploaded it immediately to the website - just like the Tour de France. :)
We made our way past Dyer's Bay and Cape Chin, eventually arriving in the village of Lion's Head, where we dropped our bikes and grabbed our running gear. At this point, I was the 2nd place woman - and incredibly surprised. I guess all those years of bouncing around rough trails on my bike have done some good. There are no photos but the videographers got a few clips of us here, including Jokeysmurf (FJ's little sister) and me.
I'd decided to use a different pack for four of the five legs of the race. (I used the same one for the two bike legs.) Each pack was set up with a pre-planned amount of food and water or sports drink, so I didn't have to fuss with refilling water or mixing up drink powder or checking to see how much food I had left. I did have to move my mandatory gear from pack to pack at the TAs, but I'd packaged it up to make it easy. It felt like this saved some time and energy along the way since there was virtually no thinking to be done at the TAs. Frankenjack is the master of races like this so I was inspired to try new ideas.
We left the village, cheered on by residents who had come out to watch. The next part of our route took us around the edge of Lion's Head Provincial Park Reserve, following the Bruce Trail for almost the entire 16 km run section.
Lion's Head is a well-known, extremely technical section of the Bruce Trail. It is very rocky and there are foot-eating potholes and crevices in the limestone, as well as small cliffs to scramble up and down as part of the trail. The trail twists and turns and climbs up and down - you have to watch the Bruce Trail blazes very carefully. On top of all this, the trail frequently meanders near the edge of a 200' cliff overlooking Georgian Bay.
On race day, some of the rock was covered with a light layer of mossy slime from the recent rain, adding to the challenge. We'd been warned to watch for venomous Massasauga rattlesnakes - no problem since we needed to look down a lot. We'd also been warned to keep an eye out for bears but there were many times I could have walked right into one since I was watching my feet so closely. Even so, my left foot slid sideways into a crevice at one point, and my right knee (the one still hurting from the canoe-trip-mouse incident) smashed down onto the rock. I decided that if I totally ignored the pain, it wouldn't swell up - and I got lucky. :) Another time, I caught my toe and did a swan dive but even though my arm was dirty and bloody, I avoided both rock and poison ivy as I landed, so it was no big deal. (I'm still waiting to see if I'll get P. Ivy somewhere though. I've rarely seen so much.)
To a fast runner, this trail probably sounds terrible. For me, it was great news because my slower running pace is best suited to technical race terrain. In a multisport event, I know that most of my competitors will be strongest at running, so anything that slows them down on the run gives me a chance to make up time on paddling and technical biking sections. I ran quite a bit in this section to avoid losing too much time but other than my two crashes, I was super cautious. I knew JayXC would not enjoy pulling an injured teammate up all the hills for 24 hours straight at the CNYO Rogaine in two weeks!
Early in this section, I met a small group of fast-looking guys including Mr. Logie who had lost the Bruce Trail and looped back. I pointed them in the right direction and they dashed off. This was a long section - over 2 hours - and I expected to be passed by fast runners whose technical mountain bike skills were a little weaker. There wasn't much action and I probably passed about the same small number of guys that passed me but I was waiting to see one woman in particular. After about 9 km, there she was - Jokeysmurf, FJ's younger sister. She is a local who knows how to run like the wind on the rugged Peninsula trails. I was happy to see her pass me and felt that the order of the universe had been restored now that she was ahead. I knew one more woman was ahead but I didn't know who it was. It turned out to be Ang, and Jokeysmurf passed her later in this run. Ang caught her later in the second bike section so they had a healthy rivalry.
Finally, the trail spit us out onto road and we headed into Barrow Bay to pick up our kayaks. I was excited to paddle Jake, my downriver racing kayak from New Zealand that had never been used in a race. I wasn't sure Jake was the right choice for Georgian Bay but I figured I would find out and know better for next time. Things turned out really well. I haven't seen splits yet but I'm sure this will turn out to be my best split relative to other racers. I caught and passed 4 male competitors, including the top Masters male, from quite a distance back. Sometimes my crazy adventure race training is useful for something! (The Masters male champion passed me in transition and finished the race 6 minutes ahead - easy come, easy go!)
There were rescue kayaks stationed at different points in open water along the route - so nice! These were friendly volunteer kayakers who would chat with us as we passed, making sure we felt OK and offering a silent reminder that the rules specified that we couldn't go too far from shore.
The bay was beautiful - like glass at first, then some ripples as we rounded Cape Dundas and entered Hope Bay into a light headwind. (These pics aren't from this section of shoreline but it looks very similar.) We couldn't have been more fortunate. There's a reason that Georgian Bay is famous for its shipwrecks! There was an alternate paddling course on a river so we would have been fine in bad weather.
We came ashore at the sandy beach at Hope Bay after about 16 km on the water. I would have loved it if the paddle had been twice as long because I was having such a great time out on the Bay. When I got in, volunteers told me that I was 7 minutes behind the 2nd place woman. That never changed over the next two hours of racing (although the 1st and 2nd women changed places), which is cause for celebration in my world.
The next bike section was about 20 km and more technical than the first section. Rocky horse trails, excellent single track, open fields and a bit of gravel road. I rode as much as I could since I figured that many racers would get off and walk sections so it was to my advantage to push my comfort zone when I could stand it.
I made a wrong turn in this section onto Slick's Trail - a wrong turn taken by enough racers that we should campaign to get it added to the official course! Unfortunately, the trail crew had used orange flagging tape, the same route marking used by our race, although it was suspicious from the start since the tape looked older and shorter than the regular route markings. Some people continued on from the end of Slick's trail and pushed through a field to the road, which was about the same distance as the real course. I didn't see flagging tape so I went back to the main route and got back on track after riding 11 minutes out of my way on bumpy single track. It was fun riding even though it was wrong, but now a group of guys had caught me after making the same wrong turn but not going as far as I did. I called out, "It's this way!", then pedalled off as fast as my legs would go. I kept looking over my shoulder until the end of the race but they didn't catch up.
'Bent was stationed between fields at a farm gate, which he would open and close while advising racers to watch for the cattle and "friendly bull" in the next pasture. Ironically, he had exchanged his green volunteer shirt for a red shirt signifying that he had first aid training. After that, he had to go into the field with the bull to flag part of the course. He started a small - but friendly - cattle stampede. He took a pic as I passed.
Earlier, he took a pic of Mr. Logie who had stopped to get some water.
In the section after that, I ran into Mr. Logie for the second time in the race - and let's face it, I should never see Mr. Logie after the starting line so he wasn't having a good day (trouble with course markings). He had a look of resignation as he changed a flat tubeless tire with goopy Stan's all over everything. I expected and hoped to see him again but the repair took awhile and I'd forgotten. Then he passed me on a double track so fast that I nearly jumped out of my pedals. *Nobody* in my part of the pack ever passes me that fast! It was cool to see, once my heart was back in my chest.
After dropping our bikes by the water in Colpoy's Bay, we headed up a hill for a final 6 km run on the Bruce Trail. I started out feeling good then suddenly felt a severe burning pain in my lower right abdomen unlike anything I've felt while running. There are lots of potential explanations for such things in a long race but naturally, my mind gravitated to the most spectacular possibility - an inflamed appendix. I knew that Frankenjack's big sister Dr. N, a physician, was at Bluewater Park working as Chief Safety Officer. I imagined how interesting I could make her day if my appendix ruptured right at the finish line. (In long races, your mind can wander to crazy places.) Although my legs felt fine, I decided to slow down by 1 min/km which got the pain under control. With only 5 km left at this point, it only meant a few minutes longer and hopefully I had that much time to play with. [Edit: Looking at the Garmin, it appears that I only did this for 2 km.]
The trail remained technical and we descended into Wiarton by a long spiral staircase that I think is connected to a ruined mansion on the escarpment. It felt appropriate to do Frankensteps as we approached the finish line of Frankenjack's race.
We ran a little farther on loose, rocky trail until coming out onto the road and running past the Wiarton Marina into the back entrance of Bluewater Park. Another 800 m on flat trail to the finish line - yahoo, 8 hrs 28 minutes and I didn't DNF!!
It was great to see friends after the race. Eco and WandAR were there. WandAR had an awesome race in the short event. (She is doing WT next weekend so no long race this time.)
Mique and his teammate John won the relay event on the Long course.
Katie and Jaxson were there too. Look out, Jaxson is going to be taller than Dad!
The solo winner with an hour's margin over 2nd place was my rogaine teammate, JayXC! Do I know how to pick 'em or what? Congrats, Jay!
JayXC's friend Angela won the female title. That's the last time we invite foreigners to our race. They take home all our medals! ;)
I was top Female Masters (congratulated by a police representative in this pic) and 3rd woman overall, about 8 minutes behind 2nd place (Jokeysmurf) and 33 minutes behind the female winner. This vastly exceeded my pre-event expectations and I am happy. The course was more technical than I'd expected and that helped a lot.
Congrats to Frankenjack, Leigh and the huge team of volunteers for pulling off an impressive first event. They are already making lists of improvements for next year but they did a great job the first time out.
The post-race party was at the Wiarton Inn. JayXC had won a $100 gift certificate for the restaurant so we craftily wangled an invitation to dine with him, Ang and Vincent. Turns out they didn't use up the entire $100 so he covered most of our dinner too. Who could have foreseen that? Merci! :)
Local singer Coco Love Alcorn performed for us. I'll leave you with my favourite song of the evening, an ode to many adventure racers and orienteers I know and a nod to my type of guy, "Intellectual Boys".
Frankenjack has been dreaming and scheming about this ambitious event for months - a race from top to bottom of the rugged Bruce Peninsula, from Cabot Head to Wiarton.
Approximate splits from Garmin:
Bike 1 - 1:50
Run 1 - 2:15
Paddle - 1:57
Bike 2 - 1:26
Run 2 - 0:37
Transitions total: 0:23 (could still use work!)
It was awesome to see the event come together this weekend. The local support was incredible - 119 volunteers ranging from rescue kayakers to videographers to physicians. There were numerous links between the event and local businesses and organizations. The community spirit in the area is terrific and we all felt very welcome. The publicity was so good that almost everyone we encountered along the route knew about the race. There were people cheering for us on lawnchairs in front of their cottages early in the morning, and I noticed some of the same people again further along the course. So cool! I hope this event will keep running and evolving for years to come.
The Bruce Peninsula is a beautiful place where I've spent very little time so I was looking forward to travelling its length by bike, foot and paddle. Because it's not a navigation-style race, I didn't feel any pressure to do well - although I absolutely did *not* want to DNF. Beforehand, I was worried about making one of the time cut-offs so I didn't race with a camera, which is a shame given how beautiful the course was - not to mention that I was nowhere close to missing any cut-offs. Because the spectacular scenery was a big part of the day, I've scavenged a few nice photos from websites with the caveat that I don't have permissions or credits but I am very grateful to these talented photographers. On the main BPMR race website, there are some excellent photos of the short course including this awesome helicopter shot of the kayak start - one of the best race pics I've seen in awhile.
The long race course was just short of 100 km point-to-point. Working backwards, that meant a 3:30 a.m. alarm (and a lot of espresso) before a 4:30 am. race briefing. You may think this picture of the race briefing is blurry but the fact is, the entire *world* is blurry at 4:30 a.m.
Then we had a long bus ride to get to the 6:30 a.m. start at Cabot Head Lighthouse.
As usual, I had trouble falling asleep the night before and ended up turning a short sleep into a near-non-existent sleep. Arrgh. As much as I hate to do it, I think it's time to look into the sleeping pills that Baloney told us about last year - the ones that some ultrarunners use at stage races. I can't keep going into big races feeling exhausted at the starting line.
After the race briefing at the Wiarton Arena, we loaded onto the bus. The first part of our trip was dark, then the sky brightened with streaks of pink and blue. As we picked up our bikes and gathered in front of the lighthouse, the sun snuck above the horizon. Gorgeous!
The first part of the bike course was about 38 km, starting with some fast gravel roads, then entering some ATV tracks and rough, partially overgrown forest trails.
There was a 1 km section of rocky Bruce Trail on private land where we had to dismount and run with our bikes, monitored and cheered along by volunteers from the Bruce Trail Association. Much of today's course crossed private land, and the landowner agreement prohibits any maps of the race course from being published. So those of us with Garmin Forerunners were asked not to post our routes online. It is remarkable that a first year event was able to get access to trails on so much private land, so we definitely don't want to cause problems for future editions of the race.
Videographers filmed the bike section from their motorcycle and uploaded it immediately to the website - just like the Tour de France. :)
We made our way past Dyer's Bay and Cape Chin, eventually arriving in the village of Lion's Head, where we dropped our bikes and grabbed our running gear. At this point, I was the 2nd place woman - and incredibly surprised. I guess all those years of bouncing around rough trails on my bike have done some good. There are no photos but the videographers got a few clips of us here, including Jokeysmurf (FJ's little sister) and me.
I'd decided to use a different pack for four of the five legs of the race. (I used the same one for the two bike legs.) Each pack was set up with a pre-planned amount of food and water or sports drink, so I didn't have to fuss with refilling water or mixing up drink powder or checking to see how much food I had left. I did have to move my mandatory gear from pack to pack at the TAs, but I'd packaged it up to make it easy. It felt like this saved some time and energy along the way since there was virtually no thinking to be done at the TAs. Frankenjack is the master of races like this so I was inspired to try new ideas.
We left the village, cheered on by residents who had come out to watch. The next part of our route took us around the edge of Lion's Head Provincial Park Reserve, following the Bruce Trail for almost the entire 16 km run section.
Lion's Head is a well-known, extremely technical section of the Bruce Trail. It is very rocky and there are foot-eating potholes and crevices in the limestone, as well as small cliffs to scramble up and down as part of the trail. The trail twists and turns and climbs up and down - you have to watch the Bruce Trail blazes very carefully. On top of all this, the trail frequently meanders near the edge of a 200' cliff overlooking Georgian Bay.
On race day, some of the rock was covered with a light layer of mossy slime from the recent rain, adding to the challenge. We'd been warned to watch for venomous Massasauga rattlesnakes - no problem since we needed to look down a lot. We'd also been warned to keep an eye out for bears but there were many times I could have walked right into one since I was watching my feet so closely. Even so, my left foot slid sideways into a crevice at one point, and my right knee (the one still hurting from the canoe-trip-mouse incident) smashed down onto the rock. I decided that if I totally ignored the pain, it wouldn't swell up - and I got lucky. :) Another time, I caught my toe and did a swan dive but even though my arm was dirty and bloody, I avoided both rock and poison ivy as I landed, so it was no big deal. (I'm still waiting to see if I'll get P. Ivy somewhere though. I've rarely seen so much.)
To a fast runner, this trail probably sounds terrible. For me, it was great news because my slower running pace is best suited to technical race terrain. In a multisport event, I know that most of my competitors will be strongest at running, so anything that slows them down on the run gives me a chance to make up time on paddling and technical biking sections. I ran quite a bit in this section to avoid losing too much time but other than my two crashes, I was super cautious. I knew JayXC would not enjoy pulling an injured teammate up all the hills for 24 hours straight at the CNYO Rogaine in two weeks!
Early in this section, I met a small group of fast-looking guys including Mr. Logie who had lost the Bruce Trail and looped back. I pointed them in the right direction and they dashed off. This was a long section - over 2 hours - and I expected to be passed by fast runners whose technical mountain bike skills were a little weaker. There wasn't much action and I probably passed about the same small number of guys that passed me but I was waiting to see one woman in particular. After about 9 km, there she was - Jokeysmurf, FJ's younger sister. She is a local who knows how to run like the wind on the rugged Peninsula trails. I was happy to see her pass me and felt that the order of the universe had been restored now that she was ahead. I knew one more woman was ahead but I didn't know who it was. It turned out to be Ang, and Jokeysmurf passed her later in this run. Ang caught her later in the second bike section so they had a healthy rivalry.
Finally, the trail spit us out onto road and we headed into Barrow Bay to pick up our kayaks. I was excited to paddle Jake, my downriver racing kayak from New Zealand that had never been used in a race. I wasn't sure Jake was the right choice for Georgian Bay but I figured I would find out and know better for next time. Things turned out really well. I haven't seen splits yet but I'm sure this will turn out to be my best split relative to other racers. I caught and passed 4 male competitors, including the top Masters male, from quite a distance back. Sometimes my crazy adventure race training is useful for something! (The Masters male champion passed me in transition and finished the race 6 minutes ahead - easy come, easy go!)
There were rescue kayaks stationed at different points in open water along the route - so nice! These were friendly volunteer kayakers who would chat with us as we passed, making sure we felt OK and offering a silent reminder that the rules specified that we couldn't go too far from shore.
The bay was beautiful - like glass at first, then some ripples as we rounded Cape Dundas and entered Hope Bay into a light headwind. (These pics aren't from this section of shoreline but it looks very similar.) We couldn't have been more fortunate. There's a reason that Georgian Bay is famous for its shipwrecks! There was an alternate paddling course on a river so we would have been fine in bad weather.
We came ashore at the sandy beach at Hope Bay after about 16 km on the water. I would have loved it if the paddle had been twice as long because I was having such a great time out on the Bay. When I got in, volunteers told me that I was 7 minutes behind the 2nd place woman. That never changed over the next two hours of racing (although the 1st and 2nd women changed places), which is cause for celebration in my world.
The next bike section was about 20 km and more technical than the first section. Rocky horse trails, excellent single track, open fields and a bit of gravel road. I rode as much as I could since I figured that many racers would get off and walk sections so it was to my advantage to push my comfort zone when I could stand it.
I made a wrong turn in this section onto Slick's Trail - a wrong turn taken by enough racers that we should campaign to get it added to the official course! Unfortunately, the trail crew had used orange flagging tape, the same route marking used by our race, although it was suspicious from the start since the tape looked older and shorter than the regular route markings. Some people continued on from the end of Slick's trail and pushed through a field to the road, which was about the same distance as the real course. I didn't see flagging tape so I went back to the main route and got back on track after riding 11 minutes out of my way on bumpy single track. It was fun riding even though it was wrong, but now a group of guys had caught me after making the same wrong turn but not going as far as I did. I called out, "It's this way!", then pedalled off as fast as my legs would go. I kept looking over my shoulder until the end of the race but they didn't catch up.
'Bent was stationed between fields at a farm gate, which he would open and close while advising racers to watch for the cattle and "friendly bull" in the next pasture. Ironically, he had exchanged his green volunteer shirt for a red shirt signifying that he had first aid training. After that, he had to go into the field with the bull to flag part of the course. He started a small - but friendly - cattle stampede. He took a pic as I passed.
Earlier, he took a pic of Mr. Logie who had stopped to get some water.
In the section after that, I ran into Mr. Logie for the second time in the race - and let's face it, I should never see Mr. Logie after the starting line so he wasn't having a good day (trouble with course markings). He had a look of resignation as he changed a flat tubeless tire with goopy Stan's all over everything. I expected and hoped to see him again but the repair took awhile and I'd forgotten. Then he passed me on a double track so fast that I nearly jumped out of my pedals. *Nobody* in my part of the pack ever passes me that fast! It was cool to see, once my heart was back in my chest.
After dropping our bikes by the water in Colpoy's Bay, we headed up a hill for a final 6 km run on the Bruce Trail. I started out feeling good then suddenly felt a severe burning pain in my lower right abdomen unlike anything I've felt while running. There are lots of potential explanations for such things in a long race but naturally, my mind gravitated to the most spectacular possibility - an inflamed appendix. I knew that Frankenjack's big sister Dr. N, a physician, was at Bluewater Park working as Chief Safety Officer. I imagined how interesting I could make her day if my appendix ruptured right at the finish line. (In long races, your mind can wander to crazy places.) Although my legs felt fine, I decided to slow down by 1 min/km which got the pain under control. With only 5 km left at this point, it only meant a few minutes longer and hopefully I had that much time to play with. [Edit: Looking at the Garmin, it appears that I only did this for 2 km.]
The trail remained technical and we descended into Wiarton by a long spiral staircase that I think is connected to a ruined mansion on the escarpment. It felt appropriate to do Frankensteps as we approached the finish line of Frankenjack's race.
We ran a little farther on loose, rocky trail until coming out onto the road and running past the Wiarton Marina into the back entrance of Bluewater Park. Another 800 m on flat trail to the finish line - yahoo, 8 hrs 28 minutes and I didn't DNF!!
It was great to see friends after the race. Eco and WandAR were there. WandAR had an awesome race in the short event. (She is doing WT next weekend so no long race this time.)
Mique and his teammate John won the relay event on the Long course.
Katie and Jaxson were there too. Look out, Jaxson is going to be taller than Dad!
The solo winner with an hour's margin over 2nd place was my rogaine teammate, JayXC! Do I know how to pick 'em or what? Congrats, Jay!
JayXC's friend Angela won the female title. That's the last time we invite foreigners to our race. They take home all our medals! ;)
I was top Female Masters (congratulated by a police representative in this pic) and 3rd woman overall, about 8 minutes behind 2nd place (Jokeysmurf) and 33 minutes behind the female winner. This vastly exceeded my pre-event expectations and I am happy. The course was more technical than I'd expected and that helped a lot.
Congrats to Frankenjack, Leigh and the huge team of volunteers for pulling off an impressive first event. They are already making lists of improvements for next year but they did a great job the first time out.
The post-race party was at the Wiarton Inn. JayXC had won a $100 gift certificate for the restaurant so we craftily wangled an invitation to dine with him, Ang and Vincent. Turns out they didn't use up the entire $100 so he covered most of our dinner too. Who could have foreseen that? Merci! :)
Local singer Coco Love Alcorn performed for us. I'll leave you with my favourite song of the evening, an ode to many adventure racers and orienteers I know and a nod to my type of guy, "Intellectual Boys".
Friday Aug 12, 2011 #
Note
Packing up for the Bruce Peninsula Multisport Race tomorrow. 100 km of biking, trail running and paddling along the beautiful Bruce, organized by our good friend Frankenjack! It's a lot like planning for Coast to Coast - five race legs and I need to think about which bag I'm going to see when, and which shoes and hats I'll need in that bag, and how much food and water for each leg, etc., etc. I am soooo much less stressed when I'm packing for a race where I don't have a chance of being competitive. (This will be a speedy hammerfest with no nav - not my forte.) But I don't suppose that is a good enough reason to change my focus to events where I'm expected to do poorly!
Wednesday Aug 10, 2011 #
Note
Cool! Got my 100,000th AP log hit today. Wish I knew as many people in real life. Thanks for stopping by. :)
9 AM
Note
In the "better late than never" department, here's our Algonquin Park canoe trip report. Lots of photos and a surprising amount of legit training. All three of us (including BulletDog) needed to rest after our vacation!
11 AM
Power Yoga 23:00 [1]
Rodney Yee Power Yoga for Flexibility - Very, very rusty. Wow.
12 PM
Running (Trail) 35:00 [3]
shoes: Salomon XA Pro Grey
Just a quick run to make sure all the body parts are working. It's too late to improve my fitness for this weekend so I'll just have to make do with what I've got. BulletDog and I went around Palgrave West; she was totally in her element. We tried to sneak out between storm cells and almost succeeded.
Monday Aug 8, 2011 #
Note
" A ship in port is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. Sail out to sea and do new things. "
Admiral Grace Murray Hopper
U.S. Naval Officer and inventor of the first software compiler
Admiral Grace Murray Hopper
U.S. Naval Officer and inventor of the first software compiler