Training Log Archive: Bash

The Summer Scavenger Hunt is encouraging me to put more thought and creativity into my runs. For the 1+ hour Podcast Run, I ordered lightweight, waterproof bone conduction headphones after noticing a random Aftershokz sale online. I haven't done much shopping for fun things lately, unless you count chocolate - and yes, we should count chocolate. I've only used the headphones once but I like them so far.

I planned to listen to the first half of Billy Yang's long interview with the inspiring, articulate mountain athlete Adam Campbell, who is a former fellow member of the Salomon Flight Crew and a friend of our Canmore friends, so we've spent a little time with him. Their conversation was so genuine, deeply emotional and engaging that I had to listen for another hour to the end of the podcast after my run was over. Luckily, I had lots of yard work and veggie garden weeding to do.











[A GPS watch I haven't used recently messed up near the start. I reduced the distance since I know how far it is to one of the early landmarks.]

Wilberto (aka Wayne Leek) and Eva were passing through our neighbourhood and arranged to meet us at Island Lake for a paddle. 'Bent, Eva and I were on SUPs while Wilberto used his pack raft in true adventure racer style.





Island Lake isn't renting watercraft right now so there weren't many other boats on the water. They warned us that the yellow flag was up and recommended that we stick to the east arm of the lake where there would be less wind.









There was still plenty of wind! I never felt unsafe but I did wonder whether our forward progress might slow down to the point where we'd want to get out and carry our boats back to the parking lot along the shoreline trail. Luckily, it didn't come to that. We ducked behind islands as much as we could as we made our way upwind.













Really nice to see W&E and enjoy a distanced catch-up!

Single track ride around Palgrave East, which is growing lush poison ivy around several trails that usually stay rideable all summer. The north half of the park is almost poison ivy-free, luckily.

The hardest part of the ride was the short section of Finnerty Sideroad back to our house. They're doing some road work and I ended up walking my bike for part of it because the gravel was so loose.

I may as well claim the Summer Scavenger Hunt Cross Training badge today - 30 minutes of a non-running activity. This was never going to be a big challenge for me since I'm pretty good at not running!

Just to get y'all in the mood for Canada Day!

This was a day of wildlife sightings, starting with a couple of animals who were eager to help me start my day.



When I was leaving for the farm market, I saw that the #&*@!! gypsy moth caterpillars have almost finished eating all the leaves on our 3 pyramidal oaks, and they continue to work on a number of our other trees. Grrrr.





This guy spent the day hanging out in our front yard. After our double-skunking earlier this month, I'm really hoping our pooches keep their social distance.



He moved to a different tree later and demonstrated that he has no fear of heights.

Everything is slower and more complicated in a pandemic so I ended up with a small window for a workout. The Summer Scavenger Hunt Fastest Km/Mile badge is perfect for a short run.

The only rule for the challenge is to run 1 km fast. They'll award bonus points to the fastest and slowest people to do 1 km. For me to compete in a Slowest 1 Km Runner contest would be unfair to the other participants - like taking candy from a baby - so I ran my kilometre "fast" and I'm pretty sure I lost.

I ran on our country road so I had the additional challenges of new gravel, hills and a few vehicles raising dust. I did 1 km warm-up, 1 km "fast" run and 1 km cooldown. Then it was dinner time.

I may try this challenge again later in the summer. My hamstrings were screaming from Mrs. Gally's boot camp yesterday, which didn't help.

Eco-Challenge Fiji 2019 is coming to Amazon Prime on Aug. 14, airing as 10 episodes of "World's Toughest Race". Check out Bob and Hansel of Team Canada Adventure at 1:42 in the trailer.





We'd planned to get some people together for a watching party but I guess it'll have to be virtual.

Zoom Boot Camp with Mrs. Gally - lots of full body exercises built on squats, deadlifts and lunges. Now that she's a certified yoga instructor, the cool down is based on yoga, and she says yoga-ish stuff like, "If it's available to you, do X", where "X" is hard. She leads a tough workout and mixes it up each week. I've never been big on driving to the gym but this works well. I'll keep this class on my schedule post-pandemic if she keeps doing it.

Before the next storm arrived, I did the Trash Talk badge for the Summer Scavenger Hunt. This is a run of 35+ minutes where you pick up at least 5 pieces of garbage. I'll admit this wasn't my favourite challenge to do in a pandemic. You can tell the RDs are in B.C. where the situation has improved a lot!

But it was easy enough to take precautions. I saved the trash collection for the last 1.5 km of my run (Lap 2 on my GPS track). I tied a grocery bag to my waist belt and kept my hand and forearm covered with a newspaper bag while picking up trash. (I didn't want to waste a real glove.) Everything I picked up was food packaging and drink containers.

To be honest, I had to go out of my way to find litter. When most parks were closed, visitors flooded into Palgrave Forest and left coffee cups behind but those people are mostly gone now. Mountain bikers are too busy staying upright while bumping over roots to mess up the forest. So after 5.5 km of trash-free trail running, I went out to the Finnerty Sideroad parking lot and found garbage, as expected. I ran home along the gravel road and found a few more pieces for my collection. I left an empty cardboard Coors box in the middle of the road since it was too big for my little garbage bag.

My foot may have been a little less sore today. Or maybe my standards are just getting lower.

So here's what the kids do these days: submit a resume on the weekend, book a Zoom interview less than 24 hours ahead of time, then don't show up (or phone or email). We'd been warned about this phenomenon by other dentists. I guess there's still a chance that she had a family emergency or a serious car accident but it's entirely possible that she won't get the job.

On a happier note, 'Bent tested negative for Covid-19. He only got tested because he works in health care; he had no symptoms. Anyone want a hug?