Training Log Archive: Bash

By late afternoon, I had a head cold. Hope that explains the light-headedess and queasiness I felt for most of the day. I'm wondering if yesterday's slightly-expired Boost may have contributed too.

Feel like I might be coming down with something. Maybe I shouldn't have done this.

Much, much worse, I just heard about a friend's wife who was diagnosed with brain cancer less than a week ago and passed away a few days later. :(((

Beautiful, sunny run in Hockley Provincial Park! Main Bruce Trail plus all the side trails. It's a good thing I was there because 'Bent has apparently never run the side trails before the main trail, and his navigation was questionable. Just warning you, Mr. and Mrs. Gally...

For those who are wondering, Hockley - and most of the trails up here - are only suitable for Microspikes. The trails are coated with thick, hard ice or else they are bare - but mostly they are icy.





However, the spikes worked really well on flats, uphills and gentler downhills. It was a fun run. AdventureDog was awesome on his longest run to date.





The steeper downhills required some creativity - bushwhacking away from the trail and/or dangling from saplings. In a couple of places, poor AdventureDog lost his traction and did a luge run down part of a hill. This was the only hill that 'Bent had to carry A-Dog up.



We met a few groups of hikers, few of whom seemed to have spikes but most had ski poles. I would not go on those trails with only ski poles!

As always, 'Bent ran "farther" on his Garmin - probably half a km more if we exclude extra running that he did. If I ever want to become a faster runner, I'll just go back to my Garmin. :) This is the result of a different error correction algorithm that mostly affects twisty trail distances on the Ambit. It's not that the Garmin is necessarily more accurate - just different and almost always longer.

'Bent is training for a couple of 50Ks in June and July but I'm training for a couple of 100Ks so I couldn't stop at 2 hours. So he dropped me off on Coolihan's Sideroad on the way back and I ran the rest of the way home on the Bruce. There was more ice and snow than in Hockley but the Microspikes did the trick. Ira Glass kept me company.

Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour! It always makes me restless but in a good way.

Fabian Cancellara broke 2 vertebrae today! :(
http://www.trekfactoryracing.com/news/e3-harelbeke...

Another Microspikes run - this time in Albion Hills with AdventureDog, whose built-in microspikes did a great job. It was mostly icy - mostly *very* icy - but I had good traction. I actually preferred the ice to bare ground since I felt obligated to run beside the trail if it was soft so I wouldn't damage it. However, there were bike tracks made by people who don't care - grrr.

My big mistake was forgetting that even a Subaru with all-wheel drive and snow tires does *not* have Microspikes. As I was driving into the north end of Albion, the car started to slide sideways on smooth, hard ice toward the (shallow) Humber River. I made it the rest of the way up the hill to the parking area but seriously wondered if I was going to get back out OK. Obviously, nobody else was going to be showing up to help! It was a slow downhill exit as I aimed for a narrow strip of crusty snow with my left side tires and tried not to do a 360 or land in the river. (I knew JayXC would make fun of me.) Yay, Subaru!

Birkebeiner race report is posted now on March 21.
http://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/per...

Tom Hanks reenacted all of his movies in 7 minutes with James Corden, host of The Late Late Show.

Around Palgrave East in Kahtoola Microspikes - mostly glare ice with some mud and soft snow. Fortunately the spikes did the trick but I was still overly cautious on the steeper hills.

Our ski season officially ended with the Birkebeiner so it's time to start cramming for upcoming ultras! I went for an expanded "around the block" run on country roads and rail trail. The surface was a mix of dirt, gravel, mud, snow, ice and pavement - mostly gravel. I carried Kahtoola Microspikes in my pack but only would have needed them for a few short stretches so I just lived dangerously.