Training Log Archive: Bash

This is a Big Day at our house. Since March 15, 'Bent and I haven't had any planned, in-person social interactions but we decided that we're ready for some limited outdoor interactions. Today 'Bent's immunocompromised friend, who is retiring from dentistry because the risk from Covid is too great, arranged to stop by during his motorcycle ride. The two of them are sitting 4 meters apart at our new campsite and they wore masks until they sat down. After a brief hello, I'm staying the heck away. This is a guy who really must not get sick. It was an unusual choice for our first visitor but at least he knows about avoiding risks so it's not all up to us. And I'm sure he needs to talk.

Correction: I realized after I wrote this that it was only *my* first planned, in-person social interaction. I was forgetting about 'Bent's first back yard get-together at his Mom's house last week.

I took a week off running after the Limitless Vertical Challenge to give my heel a break. There's nothing like climbing a bunch of hills to get back into trail running after Achilles troubles! But honestly, it's a bit sore after I go biking and *really* sore after I go grocery shopping or do housework. So I may as well do some running.

I was going to run the Oak Ridges Trail to Centreville Creek Rd. and back but when I got to busy Gore Road, I couldn't face running along it to the next section of trail. Some nice person had mowed most of the grassy trails in the block of conservation land between Humber Station Rd. and Gore Rd. so I ran there instead. I didn't see a soul and I'll bet there's very little traffic at any time. I came home via the Oak Ridges Trail through our block of land.

A quick test of the Pandemic Gumby Trail at 'Bent's request so I could give feedback on his latest work. It was my first time around the loop without putting my foot down so things are trending well.

'Bent and I got out for a great ride on a busy day. Now that Albion Hills is open for biking, Palgrave Forest is fairly peaceful again, even on a sunny Saturday afternoon. We'd had some rain earlier that may have scared people off.



When we got back to our property, we rode the Pandemic Gumby Trail** so I could show 'Bent the spots where I was sliding down the hill. Most of it is fun and rideable now. Maybe a few less branches to the face would be nice but I could fix that myself. This view is just before the trail entrance.



**The trail name is just a working title for now - a combination of 'Bent's name and Super's name. As a reminder, here's what it looks like, including the loop back to our house.



Now that I see today's route to and from the conservation land of Palgrave West including the Pandemic Gumby Trail, I'm calling it the Tasmanian Devil Loop.

For a change, here's something that is easier because of the pandemic. 'Bent did a 4-hour course on Biomimetic Dentistry organized by a centre in Melbourne, Australia, featuring an expert in New Zealand, attracting an audience of 225 dentists from around the world. Normally, he would have to fly to the U.S. or Australia to take this course. The only down side: it started at 7 pm on a Saturday night.



The mosquitoes came out and it got chilly but he stuck it out on the patio.



The other thing that's easier in a pandemic is updating our wills and powers of attorney. We can do it by video without going to a lawyer's office. Yay!

Today was 'Bent's first day back at work since Ontario dental offices were shut down on March 15. Apparently that stresses me out; I couldn’t fall asleep until almost 4 am. There are dozens of new guidelines and procedures so today he and his staff planned how it's all going to work. Everyone will be masked and trying to stay 2 meters apart as much as possible, which will make it harder to work together.

It won't be business as usual. They won't be doing every kind of procedure or treating every kind of patient. There aren't many hard restrictions. Each dentist can choose their own level of risk tolerance for themselves and their patients, and use that to determine which types of appointments they think should happen right now.

‘Bent and his staff got professionally fit tested for N95 masks today so now they know which models to buy if they can find any for sale! Luckily, they don't need N95s for every procedure so they'll still be able to move forward.



Although the provincial reopening gives the impression that we can all be less careful now, Ontario is really not doing well. The good news is that hospitalizations and ventilator use are steadily declining.



The bad news is that the daily new cases have been stuck around the same level for the past month. Ontario flattened the curve and established criteria for different phases of reopening, then proceeded to reopen even though we didn't meet the criteria. Even Québec is doing better. :(



With 'Bent returning to work, our family's interactions with the outside world have been greatly increased so to balance it, we'll try not to expand our non-work world too much until the case numbers drop.

'Bent and I built the fire pit for our back yard campsite today. There was a fire pit back there years ago but it had grown in so we got it bulldozed recently. We have a ton of bricks that were used in the original fire pit so we just had to choose the design and exact location.



'Bent and AdventureDog are standing on the main tent site. There is a mountain bike trail leading from the tent door.







Next I need to buy a fire permit. The final challenge is finding a way to deal with the thunderbox situation. Hmm...

It's official. Wilderness Traverse 2020 has been cancelled. Stoopid pandemic.
https://www.wildernesstraverse.com/so/20N9-vtW_?fb...

I think le Purr de France may be my next virtual race: 21 days of biking out of 23 days in July. They're raising money for Bikes without Borders, and the entry fees will also help to support the Ontario race directors of the 5 Peaks Trail Running Series. I haven't done 5 Peaks races in a long time but the current RDs seem like super nice people who volunteer for an animal rescue organization in between planning events.

Participants can choose one of 5 challenge levels ranging from 4 hrs 15 mins of riding each week (spread out over 7 days) to 12 hrs 30 mins. They'll assign different challenges for each day to keep it interesting (hills, speed) but it's pretty casual. It's OK to ride indoors or outdoors. I may just sign up for a low level so I'll feel motivated to ride more often.
https://raceroster.com/events/2020/31931/the-purr-...

Steve Walker of the Nottawalkers AR team, a friend of Chris Laughren's, phoned last night to see if I would look for his son's favourite mountain bike gloves, which he'd left on the bumper of their truck before they drove away from Albion Hills yesterday. I searched up and down Duffy's Lane and rode east on Patterson Sideroad most of the way to the traffic light. No gloves. I think someone found them.

I was glad to have the excuse to ride before the day got too hot. There is now a sign asking bikers to enter Albion Hills through the main entrance on Hwy 50 so they can control numbers. In the past, they've always had a policy of allowing people to enter the park without an entry fee if they arrive on foot or bike so I didn't worry about it. They might start ticketing cars but I don't think they'll care about locals riding in the back gate.

I rode all the singletrack and most of the double track in the northwest quadrant, then I took the rail trail to Palgrave village and rode the sidewalk to Palgrave Forest. There is a nice trail in the centre of Palgrave East that usually becomes unrideable due to poison ivy right around now. I rode it for the last time until October then went home and scrubbed my legs with dish soap! The trail isn't too bad yet but the vegetation is just starting to get lush.

'Bent did some more work on our back yard bike trail so I gave it another shot. I was able to ride most of it this time but it was hard to get traction on the loose soil in the first section.

Zoom Boot Camp with Mrs. Gally, Browner and Lynn. Tough, fun workout as always. It's nice to see familiar faces.

Bad news - she's upgrading to the pro version of Zoom so now there won't be a 40-minute time limit, lol!

It's going to take a while for organizers to verify and finalize the results of the virtual Limitless Vertical Challenge but it looks like the top runners have been confirmed. The overall winner, Sean Nakamura, took the sneaky approach of uploading all his results on Day 7. He crushed the event with over 150,000 feet of climb on a treadmill in a week. Impressive but I would never, ever, ever, ever want to do that.



Two runners climbed over 100,000 feet, including James Blandford who did it all outside - the hard way. He spent all his time climbing and descending two different hills in Pennsylvania, one of which was only 80 m tall. I think they said they would create a different category for outdoor-only runners. That's my category too.

The Level 6 Double Everest goal of 58,058 feet was reached by 77 runners - wow. Almost 1,000 runners took part. At the moment, I'm 244th of 374 women, not that ranking means much. I'm not going to do many virtual races but it gave me some variety, motivation and connection to the running community while supporting a good race organization. So that's good. :)

Late yesterday, Ontario dentists received guidelines for the reopening of dental offices for all procedures. They've been closed since March 15. There will be some revised, science-based protocols and standards to ensure safety of patients and staff. Most dental offices won't be opening just yet; they'll need a little time to get ready.

A few hours later, 'Bent learned that his claim for Pandemic Outbreak coverage has finally been approved - only two months after we really could have used the money - woo hoo! Apparently, they had to think about it. It only covers two weeks of wages but that's something. We're moving forward into the New Normal.

Truth be told, we're both a bit bummed this happened before 'Bent finished the bike trails or perfected his homemade pizza crust. If there's one good thing to come out of the pandemic, it's that 'Bent's longstanding fear of boredom during retirement has vanished. Every evening he looks at me incredulously and says, "The days are just packed!" And that's while we're staying around home and not seeing friends. Of course, we'll spend a lot less time applying for government assistance and meeting plexiglass vendors during retirement. At least, we sure hope so!

Normally, I wouldn't log this but this was my first attempt to ride our new home mountain bike trails. They are scenic but several sections feel risky on my bike compared to 'Bent's bike, which is almost impossible to fall off. They'll be nice once the soil isn't so loose and the trail has less camber. Yesterday's photo shows the area. This is what it looks like on a map. Our new visitor campsite is at the north side of the forest, downhill and out of sight of the house. We need to get working on the fire pit.

Mrs. Gally had asked Dee, Browner, 'Bent and me to take part in a Zoom yoga class for her final exam after 200 hours of yoga instructor training. Unfortunately, her Internet was having a really bad day so she eventually gave up on the idea of recording the class for her submission.

She taught us the rest of the class anyway and it was fun - lots of hip openers. 'Bent and I set up our mats on the patio under a beautiful sky. We watched clouds swirling and saw a heron fly overhead. When we designed the patio, I asked for it to be expanded so I could exercise out there. That really needs to happen more often.