Training Log Archive: Bash

Today I'm feeling the body parts that get exercised less than others in classic XC skiing. Hello lateral forces!

Easy rail trail recovery ride with 'Bent from Palgrave to the outskirts of Tottenham. The other reason for our ride was to check all our bike gear for this week's ride in Sedona. I haven't been on a bike - not even a trainer - in five months so I needed to test things out and remind myself what I need to pack!

It was 17C - our first really warm spring day. Compared to Toronto, it wasn't crowded but we saw more than a dozen people hiking or riding, which is a lot by Palgrave standards. The first 5 km of the trail was dry and mostly clear, if you don't count horse poop. Given that we could see the new Pan Am Games equestrian facility from the trail, I guess that's to be expected. North of Hwy 9, we hit some muddy areas where the snow probably just melted in the last couple of days.

At our turnaround point, we ran into Crash - so nice! She was finishing up a 6-hour training ride since she's getting ready for another solo 24 hour race at Chico's 24 Hrs of Summer Solstice. After last year's Tour Divide, it will seem short! We rode and talked all the way back to Palgrave.

Event: Raid the Rib ADVENTURE RUN
 

Raid The Rib with Dee and Virginia, who was doing her first nav race. The organizers had ordered up a beautiful, cool, sunny day with some mud slogging, swamp wading and slippery rock hopping but no ice - yay! Some of the trails were strangely dry - what's *that* all about?

As always, it was great fun to strategize with Dee. It was a 4-hour rogaine-style race with twists including controls that were only available early in the event, Walk-The-Line and a Matrix where only one teammate needed to visit controls. We decided to ignore Map C and focus on the other two maps. After getting a few controls in the northeast of the main map, we wanted to get as far south as possible to get big points from Walk-The-Line, Bermuda Triangle and a couple of valuable controls. Then we'd keep an eye on our watches as we ran back to Rocky Ridge Ranch for the mandatory Nav Roulette Relay that we needed to start between 1.5 and 3 hours into the race.

Our plan worked pretty well for us. Virginia had never seen an orienteering map nor used a compass before, however, she is a strong runner so I hooked a tow rope to her for a few stretches of trail and road. Dee and I watched the map, and we all looked for flags and trails. When Virginia was the first on our team to spot a flag for the first time *ever*, she whooped and hollered in joy and did a little dance on the mossy rocks. Dee and I high-fived her and explained that you're allowed whoop and holler when you find the first control of your life. After that, however, you have to be quiet and sneaky. ;)

We cut it close on the way back to the Nav Roulette Relay, arriving 1-2 minutes before the deadline - eek. We were handed three maps, each with one control. Each team member would need to go out once, and we needed to do the maps in the order provided. It was OK to send teammates out together. The first map said, "A Bit Tricky" so I headed right back out and left the other two maps behind so the others could plan.

When I returned, Virginia went out and we made the mistake of sending her alone. We soon noticed that after the primary navigator ran the first relay leg, many teams were sending teammates out in pairs. Virginia's "Easy Short" control was less than 2 minutes away but she ended up putting in some extra distance as she lost contact with the map and eventually punched both the "Easy Long" *and* the "Easy Short" control. Dee and I took full responsibility for our error in not accompanying her. It's impressive that she made it back! :) Mostly, we didn't want her to lose her newfound enthusiasm for navigation sports because of a stressful experience. The trail network south of Rocky Ridge Ranch is extremely complicated; it can make you feel like you'll never return to civilization. Fortunately, she came out with quite a story and she still had a smile on her face!

Dee ran out to the Easy Long control, then we headed out again. Because our relay ran long, we just picked up four more Matrix controls and called it a day. Before the race, we'd switched from Female to Masters to have a better chance to win a bottle of wine. With 1400 pts, we would have been 2nd in either category (alas, no prizes for 2nd) but we were just 60 pts behind the Masters winner, Lost Bearings, so I made the right guess. Next time! :)

Great team, fun day, always a treat to introduce someone new to the sport I love. Nice to see so many friends although there is never enough time to really catch up. Maybe it's time to think about another Adventure Racing Party!

Did most of the workout Slowrunner gave me this week, omitting the forward/backward lunges to help my legs survive Raid The Rib with two strong teammates. I also omitted the part where I nearly passed out after 20 standing long jumps. Phew, I was really hoping that wouldn't become a regular thing.

Sloppy gravel road run in the pouring rain - great weather to test layers for mountain races! I haven't done any speedwork for a long time so I tested the waters (literally, in today's weather) with 5 X 300 m intervals at 5K pace with jogging rest in between.

Exhausted - poor BazingaDog has been quite sick this week.

After nearly passing out yesterday evening, it didn't seem like a good plan to head off into the woods alone like I usually do. So yoga it was - with enthusiastic assistance from AdventureDog. If my problem was caused by dehydration, it should be cured after a long day of drinking (H2O, that is). ;) Now I just need to get a decent night's sleep.

Bruce Side Trail run up Caledon's K2 to the Glen Haffy stile at the main Bruce. Looped through the valley to the south, back to the stile and returned home the way I came. On the Bruce Side Trail, there is less than 10% ice now and it is mostly easy to negotiate although there are still a couple of marble-hard, off-camber bits. There is still plenty of mud but it is starting to dry up.

It was a different story once I got up to the main part of Glen Haffy. More than half the loop in there was ice, and the rest was goopy mud. The exceptions were a couple of places where I broke through ice and landed in goopy mud. Slowrunner tells me that if I'd turned north on the BT, conditions would have been much better. Next time!

I was running a little late on the way home and did my first tree-root-tripping-induced Superman dive into mud of the year. One of the first signs of spring. :)

[Some trouble with GPS signal so I'm using the distance I usually measure on this route.]

Training session with Slowrunner - a weird one. I felt great at the start but my head started to spin halfway through. It felt exactly like the time 6 years ago when I really *did* pass out after stopping to chat with a neighbour during one of the first warm-ish trail runs of the season. I wasn't overly warm on today's run but I *was* too warm in the upper floor gym where we were working out. Also, I'd had a quick turn-around after the run before driving to town. No cooldown, no food or drink. Hopefully, that's all it was. I still don't feel too energetic now, even after a pre-dinner trip to Dairy Queen. (Medical emergency!)

Around Palgrave West in a T-shirt - equal parts ice, dry ground and goopy mud. Spiked shoes worked well; I'm putting away the Microspikes until next season!

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- Number of people who drowned by falling into a swimming pool
and
- Number of movies Nicholas Cage appeared in

- Divorce rate in Maine
and
- Per capita consumption of margarine in the U.S.

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