Training Log Archive: Bash

Congratulations to Ken Walker Jr. (Mr. Attackpoint) for winning the Orienteering USA Silva Service Award!

"The Orienteering USA Silva Service Award is given annually to an orienteer who, along with being a member of Orienteering USA, has demonstrated outstanding service to orienteering in the United States over the past five years. The recipient need not be a terrific orienteer, and orienteering skill is not considered in determining the award winner. The essential quality of every winner has been service to promoting and sustaining orienteering, to making the sport work in this country, and in helping to build the organizations needed to make orienteering successful."

(Note that Ken actually *is* a terrific orienteer. I took this podium pic at the 2012 North American Orienteering Champs.)



If you wish, you can stop by this discussion thread to offer your congratulations and thanks to Ken for providing Attackpoint to the orienteering and adventure racing communities.

To thank him in a concrete way, we can donate to Attackpoint. Ken is a busy young Dad with a day job and deserves our support for the hard work he does on our behalf. If you've ever written him with a question or problem, you know how dedicated he is to making Attackpoint great.

A minimum annual donation of $25 U.S. gives you access to the pro features . If you think you're getting 48 cents of value from AP each week, please support Ken.

OK foot, that's all the coddling you get! UTMB is five weeks away so the next two weeks are the last real training I can do before the taper starts.

I can't do UTMB with an ankle brace except in an emergency since it will give me blisters over two days. Also, I think the restricted mobility involved in wearing a brace causes problems at the same time as it prevents them. So I did a hilly route today with about 6 km of uneven trails and the rest on gravel roads or shoulders of paved roads to give my ankle a break. I met 'Bent and Goose coming toward me on one of the trail sections.

I've been doing a variety of physio lately, borrowing ideas from Achilles and plantar fasciitis injury treatment - stretches, rolling balls under my feet, icing, strengthening, night splint, arnica cream, etc. I don't know if any of it has helped yet or if it was the week away from running but my gimpy foot felt closer to normal than it has in awhile. There were occasional twinges of pain but they didn't hang around too long.

My bad ankle started to turn when I hit a rock, and some combination of brain, ligaments and scar tissue stopped it before there was any damage or pain. Progress! When I iced my foot *after* the run however, my bad heel was excruciating, and the pain stuck around for an hour. Weird.

Today's podcasts included CBC's Rewind with fun interview clips from cultural anthropologist Margaret Visser, Best of Q with Paul Anka and K.D. Lang (with an amazing performance), and Distance Obsessed. If you haven't heard of DO and you live in Ontario, check it out for local content. They've interviewed Attackpoint running luminaries Spaff, JohnnyM and Keith Iskiw.

I was testing my new water resistant sound system for running - the Lifeproof iPhone case (thanks, Spaff!) and sport headphones with remote switches for volume, pause/play and skip forward/back. All went well, and it turned into a really good test when I was hit by torrential rain 2 km from home. One minute I was being sprinkled by light droplets thinking, "Oh, this feels so nice on a warm day." The next minute, WHOMP. And the minute after that, a cheerful text from 'Bent in our dry house hoping my gear test was going well.

A very short test of Hansel's awesome new Epic V12 surfski at the Mississauga Canoe Club.

To start the story at the beginning, Hansel is moving next week and decided not to take his old K1 with him. It needs some TLC and repairs, and he generously offered it to 'Bent, who loves to fix stuff, especially boats. So it was an N+1 Day in our family - always a reason to celebrate! :)



I always thought that K1s were difficult to paddle because there is no final stability. But it's actually because there is no seat - just a screw with a wing nut in the middle of the cockpit. The mind boggles, imagining exactly what you are supposed to do with that.



[OK, OK, there *used* to be a seat. Hansel even had most of the pieces!]

This section of the Credit River is laced with goose poop and the occasional dead fish so nobody wanted to go swimming from a tippy boat. 'Bent forgot the PFD we were going to use so it would be actual swimming if we went in. Under the circumstances, 'Bent paddled first, trying the K1. Hansel helped him get ready to set off.



Then we both stepped back and exchanged a smile while I focused the camera on 'Bent to catch the inevitable splash. But it didn't happen! 'Bent stayed up! To say we were disappointed would be an understatement. ;)



Then it was my turn and I took out the V12, thinking it would be easier to paddle a boat that felt like our V8. I didn't find it super easy to balance but I didn't swim either. When I briefly got my nerve up to paddle a little harder, it felt like the boat could fly! The V12 is beyond my level (unless I had lots of time to practise) but I can see the appeal. I think I could get comfortable in a V10 though. We'd need a bigger garage - hmm. :)

'Bent tried the V12 too and also stayed dry. He said the K1 was tippier. I decided to wait until we're in water where I'd enjoy the swim.



Then Hansel, who has been paddling tippy boats since he was in diapers, hopped into the V12 with iFo on his lap as if it were as stable as the Queen Mary.





They went for a couple of paddles and didn't swim even though iFo really wanted to! In the end, he settled for being allowed to steer the boat while Daddy paddled.



Looks like this was super fun!



Thank you, Hansel, for setting 'Bent up with an interesting project and for giving us some exciting future adventures! :)

As country bumpkins on a rare trip to the city, we couldn't resist stopping by Burrito Boys and Starbucks. Yum!

Well, I've made it through a week of not running, plus or minus a few hours. I sure hope my foot is grateful.

I consulted Thumbs-of-Death today. Before he started torturing my rotator cuff, he gave me an anatomy tour of my foot, which was easier than interpreting all the diagrams I've been looking at.

Status report #1: My rotator cuff and everything connected to it remain a mess. That isn't new; it started in 2011 around the time of Coast to Coast in NZ. What *is* relatively new is the tingling in the 3rd and 4th fingers on my right hand that has persisted since Tierra Viva in late March. The numb fingers on my left hand and my numb big toe resolved fairly quickly but my right hand is getting worse. I think the long and extremely rough bike rides caused some nerve impingement. The silver lining is that the numbness is disturbing enough that it's forcing me to go for super painful treatments on my shoulder and arm that I should have been getting anyway.

Status report #2: Yes, my foot is still a little gimpy after my ankle sprain(s) but the heel pain (the worst of the gimpiness) is in a non-worrisome location. It seems to be connective tissue, not Achilles or plantar fascia or anything else major. It should be OK to run and ice it later- so I will. Anything I can do to stretch my heels so they rotate out to the side would be a good thing since the medial side of my foot (like most people's feet - especially ankle sprain veterans) is too tight in comparison to the lateral side.

I'm feeling rather chuffed after arranging B&B accommodation with Leanimal's neighbour in Annecy - by e-mail en français! I may need to find a pain au chocolat to celebrate.

Easy ride on the home trails west of Duffy's Lane. I'd considered meeting FB and accompanying him on his rail trail ride back to Palgrave until I learned that his work day consists of every hour that has "o' clock" in it. I hope his employers appreciate him!



My foot is enjoying the rest and I'm getting some great advice from friends who are health care providers or have worked through their own injuries. Let's hope it doesn't regress too much when I start running on it again.

In other news:

I'm still giving my foot a break from running but I had to get into the forest on such a beautiful day. BazingaDog accompanied me and was a perfect gentleman until we encountered 'Bent and BulletDog on their way to work. It all went to hell after that with me nearly getting dragged face first through a patch of raspberries. So... I got an upper body workout too. Not to mention some fine raspberries.

Worked the foot a little harder today; hope it doesn't get too sore later. I want to be running!

Extremely cool - from the Globe and Mail.

A wide-angle camera on NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured Saturn's rings and planet Earth as a tiny blue dot 1.5 billion kilometres away.
http://tgam.ca/DtIJ

Photo: NASA/Reuters

Rodney Yee Yoga for Flexibility

Trying to give my gimpy foot a few days off from running to heal more completely. The jury is still out on whether it will capitalize on this rare opportunity.

Up and down Mont Blanc in less than 5 hours breaking a 23-year-old record - just another day at the office for Kilian Jornet. I guess he wasn't feeling energetic enough to run all the way around it like we have to do. ;)