Training Log Archive: Bash

Event: Stars W.A.R.
 

Ski on narrow snowshoe trail to start.

Time excludes a 9:17 transition since it was off the clock.

Stars W.A.R. (Winter Adventure Race)
Wasaga Beach

This event is worth doing just because it has an awesome name! :) Also, Nick and the Stars always put together a great event featuring skiing and snowshoeing navigation on detailed orienteering maps.

'Bent and I teamed up today. Both of us had sore muscles from yesterday's running strength session (quads for him, hammies and adductors for me), and we could still feel the long trail-breaking ski we did on Friday. So we had a great chance to practise pushing hard while fatigued - excellent training for UTMB and Tierra Viva. Although I sure didn't feel zippy out there, I don't think the fatigue made us too much slower; it just made it seem like harder work.

We started with a group ski along a snowshoe trail to a starting point, then the race continued along that snowshoe trail. From there, we joined the main Wasaga Beach nordic trails and skied on skate trails, classic trails and snowshoe trails. 'Bent and I had chosen waxable classic skis after seeing the course but the two teams ahead of us in this section were on skate skis - Getawaystix and Frankenjack, and the Tarnos, who were towing. I wasn't in a competitive enough mood to ruin one of the most beautiful ski days of winter by going on tow in this section.

It was an interesting course with mandatory controls and supplementary controls that could be done in a somewhat flexible sequence. The course was age/gender handicapped, meaning that 'Bent and I could skip a certain number of the supplementary controls. We had a great time whipping around the ski trails on a perfect sunny day, cheering on our friends as we met each other in odd places. We finished with a long ski along a snowshoe trail, then across the road and across the field to the sports centre where our snowshoes awaited. We saw GStix and FJack snowshoeing across the field as we came in, and we met the Tarnos in transition.

We switched to snowshoes and headed back into the woods. This time I went on tow so I was running faster than I wanted to. It was hard to find time to sneak glimpses at the map or to eat or drink. I had to pick one so I went with reading the map whenever I could. Nick had carefully timed the handicap options and they seemed to work well, as we kept seeing the Tarnos and GStix and FJack for much of the race. The boys shot ahead for good after #3 on the snowshoe map but we kept seeing the Tarnos until the end, which was good inspiration.

The snowshoeing was tough going, especially whenever we decided to break our own trail. There were three boxes in the snowshoe section where we could drop most of the controls but GStix and FJack had no trouble staying ahead. We did a lot of bushwhacking and trail breaking in deep snow in the second half but it paid off, and we squeaked in to the finish ahead of the Tarnos in 2nd overall (thanks to our handicap). We chatted with them afterwards - the four of us need to race together some time.

What a spectacular winter day! Sunshine, fluffy snow, great trails, a fun race course, good friends. Thanks to Nick, FunRun and the other Stars who did so much work to put on this event for us. We had hot pizza and came home with 4 bottles of wine after chatting with friends. This terrific event deserves more racers next year!

1 hour of 5-pin bowling at Barrie Shepley's 50th birthday party, not logged. Thumbs-of-Death was on our team and he is a talented bowler. I thought that as a former curler, I'd have an advantage. I thought wrong. I am *really* terrible!

I can't believe it. Sore throat yesterday and today, and now a fuzzy-feeling brain. The one good thing is that this may explain why I felt so horrible on Thursday. I thought maybe my body was reacting to the greater-than-usual amount of high intensity training over the past week but maybe it was just telling me, "Haha, you've got a cold again!"

Today was our running-specific strength and drills class with Sheldon Persad. It turns out that he focuses on different things in each session, and today was the lower body. Some of the drills were the same ones Coach LD does with the Bounding Babes, e.g. balance on one foot with eyes closed while a "friend" pokes you repeatedly from different directions. There was even some bounding! On my own, I rarely work to develop more explosive power, e.g. knee drive, so those exercises were interesting.

I think my agility, strength and balance were pretty good from other things I've been doing. My power stinks, of course, and I know that my running technique needs work. Based on a jump test, we learned that my left leg (with the gimpy foot) is considerably weaker than my right. Another recurring theme is that my left elbow doesn't come back as far as my right, which isn't good since the arms drive the legs.

It was fun. We can go in for a video analysis, which would be interesting. I don't think they offer any coaching similar to what the Carbons are getting but we could incorporate some of these drills into our training.

Big news in our family! My little brother Dave will be directing Toronto's first all-Canadian production of Cats since the original show 28 years ago. It will open in June at the Panasonic Theatre. He has directed four other Canadian productions of Cats but this will be his first time working as a director at a Mirvish theatre. I think the last time he was on a Mirvish stage, he was a young performer kicking over his head as a dancing fork in Beauty and the Beast, 8 days a week for 2 years. (He did get to do other things too!) As his sister, it would be more fun to watch him on stage but it's kinda a big deal to direct a Mirvish show so I'm very proud of him. :)
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/stage/2013/02...

It's snowing! It's really snowing! At least 30 cm and it's still coming down.



The Globe is describing this as the "worst" winter storm in five years. We are thrilled. Pat-hectic, too bad you are missing this!

We put on our touring skis and went for a tough, slow Tour de Palgrave. We were breaking trail through dense snow and as we plowed along, the snow piled up against our shins.





BulletDog only went for the first loop since she skied home from work with 'Bent yesterday.



'Bent hooked up BazingaDog to his skijoring harness. He pulled like crazy on the downhills but now that he's wised up to 'Bent's game, he just sniffs around for rabbits on the uphills instead of pulling.





We went to the trail junction where I traditionally snap a photo of VO2Max's house and text it to him out west. He'll be sorry he missed this!



'Bent had an appointment in town so we split up as we went into Palgrave East. I explored in there for a little while. I was going at a snail's pace and loving every minute. No one else had been in there today. It was magical!



I paid a visit to BridgeZilla, which appears to be almost complete. They've built 4 steps to get up to the high bridge platform, so now people can more easily cross the 1 m wide creek on the 10 m bridge span. Unfortunately, this trail is designated for skiing and biking - activities that don't lend themselves to climbing steps. As soon as the workers are gone, we're going to have to throw some planks across that creek again.

I'd brought along some overgloves that I'd bought for Patagonia, and I purposely waited until my hands were cold enough that my dexterity was poor, then I tried to put them on. I figured that would be a good simulation of a race situation. They failed miserably. I struggled for 3-4 minutes to get the overgloves on so they are officially off the packing list.



What an amazing winter day. I could have wandered around out there for hours but with a winter adventure race on Sunday, I guess I'd better save a little energy. Tomorrow's running strength class will undoubtedly leave us with sore muscles so Sunday is probably a lost cause anyway!

You may need to be logged into Facebook to see them but they've been posting some great photos from the Boundless TV series.
http://www.facebook.com/BoundlessTV/photos_albums

Leave it to Dee to shake things up. I've been thinking of UTMB as a difficult 100-mile ultrarun so I've been thinking that I should do an "easier" 100-miler first to get that distance under my belt. A few days ago, I just about pressed "submit" on the Sulphur Springs 100-miler, which is two months after Tierra Viva and three months before UTMB. A masters runner in Ontario did a 100-miler every month last year so this didn't seem too crazy.

But Dee says that UTMB is not like a 100-mile ultrarun. It's more like an adventure race with an expected 40-hour finish. Regular 100-milers involve more running and less mountain climbing (and descending). So if I want to do specific training for UTMB, I should do AR, AR course testing, a 24-hr rogaine, Killarney Loop, a long weekend in the mountains, etc. Interesting perspective and now my head is spinning! :)

Woke up with super tired legs. Aackk, what's wrong? Then I looked at AP. In the last week, I've done:
- 4 hrs of running, some of it up hills with 14-15 lb on my back
- 3 hrs of biking, most of it fairly high intensity
- 2 hrs of XC skiing, most of it skate skiing which I hadn't done for two months
- 40 minutes of leg strength training, doing several exercises to failure

Hmm, I guess the tired legs probably aren't a symptom of illness or lack of fitness but clearly, my plan for a long run today was misguided.

Yet another day of hanging around the house, waiting for contractors who needed to be let inside but never showed up. They'd mentioned that if I gave them a deposit yesterday, they could get going today. I guess they meant to Mexico.

Today's podcast was Adventure Race Radio with Mark Arnold and Simon Donato (Zoolander) talking about Boundless, the Copper Canyon Marathon, Micah True's death, nutrition, Zoo's oatmeal company and more.

RIDE Milton Computrainer - Escape from Alcatraz

Very different from last week's session. Hard work but fun. Some very steep hills that lasted quite awhile and a long, flat section in the middle. DoubleDown_on11 crushed the course with Mr. Funderstorm in 2nd. Mrs. Tiny was the female champion. Funderstorm and I fought back and forth for 2nd but she took a decisive lead in the final stretch, leaving even Hingo in her dust. Simpy was missing his usual Wednesday night date; BugsinTeeth was needed for Daddy Duty at the last minute.

An adventure travel company e-mailed me to promote a hike and kayak trip around Reine, Norway. Wow, this is a place I need to visit some day!

After 32 days, I'm finally declaring this upper respiratory infection to be over. It was two separate colds that gave me the one-two punch without a break in between. For the rest of the winter, I'm planning to steer clear of sick people. I've had enough of sneezing!

BulletDog and I took my bag of golf balls out for another trail run today, adding another few hundred grams of weight to the pack. After a 2 km warm-up loop, we ran up and down Raspberry Hill. I'd never thought about it before but there are 7 different trails up this small hill half a kilometer from our house, some of them easier than others. I made sure that we ran up the hill on every trail at least once, then we would run downhill and over to a different trail as our rest. BulletDog usually thinks I've lost my mind when I do hill repeats but she liked the variety of this session.

Feet, calves, shins, hammies, quads, hips, adductors, abductors, glutes and a bit of core. I finished off with 20 teapots on each side in honour of Coach LD's recent completion of 100 Days of 100 Push-ups.

Boundless - starts Feb. 17, 9 p.m. on the Travel and Escape Channel. We were lucky to preview an episode and it was awesome. Seriously. I sometimes get bored watching films about outdoor activities instead of doing them myself, but this was really fun.

Great stuff, Zoolander and Turbo!

Boundless from josh eady on Vimeo.

Time to take things up a notch pre-Tierra Viva. I went into our outdoor gear room, grabbed a big pack and looked around for something heavy to put in it. Hmm, it turns out we've taken great pains to ensure there's almost *nothing* heavy in our outdoor gear room! :) I finally found my big old bag of practice golf balls - perfect! I got the pack up to 6.5 kg (14 lb for my non-metric friends) and wore it for a run around Palgrave West on a chilly day. It felt pretty good!

Today's podcast was CBC's "And The Winner Is" where they replay radio documentaries that won awards. This doc from 1998 was about Hamilton's Plastimet fire. Man, I'd forgotten how horrible that was.