Training Log Archive: Bash

Rain, rain go away!
Three 10 Minutes 2 Zen videos: Sun Salutes, Happy Hips, Low Stretch

Here's a chance to catch up if you missed the U.S. news this week. ;)

Since Monday was the start of 12 weeks of training for a mountain stage race, 'Bent and I headed north to Georgian Peaks and pretended we were in the Alps. The morning was hot and humid with a few ominous clouds and a rumble or two of thunder. Hill repeats are mind numbing but I listened to podcasts to pass the time. I hiked up using poles and did easy runs down. On my 5th ascent, I noticed 'Bent taking a fork to the left so I explored a grassy trail to a different peak, which was at a lower elevation and gave me itchy legs. The main road is the way to go. A few other people, including WandAR, were doing hill workouts today but it wasn't crowded.

Before heading home to the dogs, we had a yummy pizza lunch at Pie accompanied by lemonade spiked with raspberry vodka and peach schapps, and lots of water to rehydrate. I'll need to do a lot more of this over the next while (hill training *and* nice lunching).

Too. Hot. I got most of my exercise for the day at the Caledon Craft Beer & Cider Festival.

A group of us met at Albion Hills for a two-wheeled celebration of Wilberto's first half century of life. The riding was fun with great company and gratitude that we are able to do this. We went to Stratenger's in Bolton for lunch and conversation afterward. Terrific party. Happy Birthday, Wayne!



(Bike computer distance)

The Orienteering Ontario AGM was tonight in Dundas so I did my first Dontgetlost X-League race beforehand. It's a 30-minute score-O and I learned that I'm lousy at planning for 30 minutes. I finished early since the only remaining controls were too far away to pick up within the time limit. Fun anyway and it was great to see some Hamilton friends!

Running fail. I'm still sore from almost 2 hrs of boot camp and TRX on Monday evening but I assumed I would loosen up as I ran. I didn't. My glutes and upper hamstrings hurt too much to run even my normal slow pace. I bailed early since there really wasn't much point. Wow, I knew my body had broken down a little after several long races in a month but strength workouts don't usually affect me this much.

I "ran" an out-and-back to Centreville Creek Rd. via the Oak Ridges Trail. Parts of the trail are nice but other sections had grass and weeds up to chest height hanging onto the trail. ORTA may mow it down at some point but for now, I'm going to avoid this part of the trail. I couldn't stop thinking of ticks - yecch!

2017 has been a fun year for "training" and racing with lots of variety.

Early in the year, I prepared for the Transgrancanaria 82K mountain run in late February. I did some running but didn't follow a program. I just tried to stay generally fit by skiing, snowshoeing, strength training or whatever.

March was a confused taper/recovery month before I ran the Zion 55K in early April.

After that, I had to prepare for three big races in four weekends in different sports - the Storm the Trent Trek Elite adventure race, the Big East River X 40 km canoe race and the Mohican 100K mountain bike race. So I had an excuse to do pretty much anything and call it training. I liked that.

Now it's time to get more focused for a few months. Ultra Tour Monte Rosa is in early September and I will need to be able to run and climb hills - lots of them. It's going to be four marathons in four days with an average of 3,000 m elevation gain per day. Eeeek. There's some hard work ahead but I'm looking forward to it.

Foothab etc. I am surprisingly sore from last night's workouts. Boo, Caron! ;)

The Western States 100 is approaching fast so I'm catching up on films about the race. Today I watched "Life in a Day", Billy Yang's film about top women in the 2016 WS100. It motivated me to run, which isn't easy on a treadmill!



We saw another good Western States short film at this year's Trails in Motion Film Festival: Thirty Hours. This one made me cry.

TRX class. After a month of racing and being hard on my body, it's time to rebuild.

Caron's Boot Camp. Ditto.