Training Log Archive: Bash

DontGetLost Raid the Rib
Albion Hills and Palgrave

I drafted two new Tree Huggers! Charlotte Vasarhelyi and I have talked about doing a Raid for several years. She warmed up last weekend by setting two national ultrarunning age group records - 48 hr and 72 hr (228 miles)! Trent Dilkie is an Ironman friend who is a regular in our Boot Camp, yoga class and SUP yoga.



It's always fun to plan strategy for a "choose your own adventure" navigation race. It's *extra* fun to be racing at home. And by "home", I mean that a control was on the hilltop in our front yard! (Poor BazingaDog and AdventureDog were beside themselves with excitement for hours. So many people to bark at! When we got home, our couch had been repositioned by two meters from all the jumping on and off.)

We decided to pick up a few controls in Albion Hills on our way up to Palgrave Forest, where there was an E=MC2 challenge at the aid station. I made the other two do the Climbs while I did the Mud, which involved a risky barbed wire fence crossing, a cold puddle and a cameo appearance in 'Bent's GoPro video.

We'd heard we would get a bonus map at the aid station, and we had every intention of ignoring it until Bender and Griz decided to add 250 bonus points for completing that map. There were only 3 controls - all high value, all near trails - on the block of TRCA land west of Humber Station Rd. We did some quick math and decided to go for it, knowing it would mean giving up some of our planned controls in Albion Hills on our return trip.

I've set a bunch of orienteering courses on the Albion and Palgrave maps and have also done lots of off-trail wandering around here so I definitely had a local advantage. Still, I had to watch my compass carefully to find 62, I didn't know about the cool ruin at 68, and I lost several minutes at 51 for no good reason.

Char and Trent are stronger runners so they both took a turn towing me on roads. Trent was in charge of calculating point values for different map areas and Char was in charge of control descriptions. Our favourite was when she announced, "Southwest edge of Corpse". Glad we didn't find it. ;)

We got all the controls on Maps 2 and 3 but my bobble at 51 meant that time was tight. Char is like a diesel engine and she was fully warmed up when she attached me to the tow rope at the 3:40 mark of the race. On our way north, we had kept a moderate pace, walking up hills and chatting. On our return trip, it was a mad, anaerobic dash to the finish, doing regular time checks. It was soooo close but when we saw the finish line in the distance, we had 30 seconds left before a 25-pt penalty kicked in - and we took 42. It was very intense but probably really good training. It took two beers at the pub before Trent decided that he'd had fun. ;)



We got 2175 pts, which was 1st Masters and 11th/26. There were a lot of excellent teams in the event and I don't think we could have done anything differently to do better. Our new team worked very well together and there was a lot of laughter and story telling on the race course. Huge congrats to Harps, Hansel and Wokitoki on their win. Congrats also to Gally, DD11 and Julie - the only other team to clear the course.

A few of us went to the Toby Jug in Bolton afterward. So nice to have some relaxed time with friends outside the crazy race atmosphere.

Thanks to Bender, Griz, Meghan and other volunteers for all the work to put together an interesting race course and a super fun day!

Arthurd and Olga arrived for a pre-race evening of Italian food and Boundless ARWC Costa Rica!

Some days you have to be a good daughter-in-law and let your training slide.

AdventureDog and I went to Albion Hills to check out the ice storm damage 'Bent saw while running with the guys on Saturday. There are trees down in a few places, especially in red pine managed forests, but the damage isn't severe enough that I would choose different routes to CPs - at least, not based on what I saw on the trail. Off-trail could be a different story. Hockley Valley was in much worse shape when we ran there last week.

The temperature is going to be at or below freezing for all but a few hours between now and Raid the Rib so we will be running through some snow. Today was a few degrees above zero and it was a mix of wet snow, deep watery slush, soft mud, big puddles and a bit of dry ground.

I'm still not feeling 100% but better than I was. One of my teammates, Charlotte Vasarhelyi, set two national ultrarunning age group records on the weekend for 48 hours and 72 hours. Her distance for 72 hours was 226 miles so it's fair to say that she's not tapering for RtR. :) She'll be totally fine though. AdventureDog was full of energy as always. He's put in more training hours over the past week than either 'Bent or I.

Still not feeling quite right so took one more day off.

Restless sleep with a headache all night. I seem to have a bug - not too bad but enough to keep me home from Boot Camp tonight. Blah.

For anyone familiar with the Barkley Marathons but not following the event, the next few hours promise to be exciting. (Twitter #BM100) Jared Campbell and Gary Robbins are both out on Loop 5 and need to get back by 10:43 p.m. to make the 60-hour cut-off. They travelled together for the first 4 loops but the rules require them to go in opposite directions for the final lap.

If Jared finishes within the cut-off, he will become the first 3-time Barkley finisher. If Gary finishes within the cut-off, he will become the first Canadian finisher. Gary is going counterclockwise on the final loop, which is considered the more difficult direction. Gary finished Loop 4 first but allowed Jared to choose his preferred direction for the 5th loop since the veteran Barkley racer had helped him get to that point. Unfortunately, Gary was spotted at a checkpoint later than expected and it is felt by some that he probably can't make the cut-off now. He was reported to be hallucinating. But it's not over till it's over!

John Kelly also started Lap 5 but returned.

Jennilynn Eaton got partway through the 3rd loop. She was the last woman to drop from the race this year. No woman has ever completed it.

Rhonda-Marie Avery of Ontario was there. The first blind runner to attempt the Barkley was guided by a veteran racer. They completed part of Loop 1 in a very impressive effort.

Nicki Rehn (Nicki on AP) was there as well. She is another veteran Barkley racer. Although she was out of the race yesterday, she said this is the best weekend of her year.

UPDATE: As of 5 minutes ago, Gary has dropped. He said he was hallucinating like crazy. :( So Jared is the only one left.

We have 15 cm of snow so I had to go skiing instead of running.



AdventureDog joined me again. He didn't even have the decency to pretend he was tired after running more than 4 hours yesterday. (I sure am.)



Although it was beautiful, the ground beneath the snow was warm and damp so my skis picked up bricks. It was a lot of work without much progress. There are still trees across the trail from the ice storm, so there was also some awkward scrambling. Still, any skiing in April is bonus!







AdventureDog was unimpressed with my slow pace and did a lot of coaching today.