Training Log Archive: OutdoorsMama

It is a miracle! No knee pain after miles of hill scrambling! Maybe I have figured out the right combo of strength and stretching exercises.
Or maybe I just jinxed myself.

Fast walking through picturesque snowfall to stretch out my hill-weary leg muscles.

Event: Michigan Adventure Race: Winter Edition
 

Event: Frozen Beaver Rogaine
 

JustMe and I did the drive to southern Ohio and found SPRING! Essentially no snow in the woods, sunshine, temps in the high single digits C/close to 50F, very little wind......

The folks at NSF Adventures did their winter rogaine at a different state park this year. I had taken a look at a topo map before we went, and yup, there are hills there.

Just Me and I signed up separately, but raced together. That meant we each had our own map, which was handy. More than once that second interpretation of the map/surroundings really helped with the navigation. We planned a route on the west side of the park, using mountain bike trails and the park road to get us from point to point. I estimated about 2 miles/hr as a net travel time to use as a guide. We planned out a route, with 2-3 bail-out points if we needed to high-tail it back to the start due to time constraints.

By the 6th point, we were doing better than expected for time so added in a 60, 70 and 80 pointer. This brought us to the northern end of our originally planned route. We struggled a bit with a 60 pointer (but ironically had almost been on top of it on the first pass). We skipped a 30 pointer, having overshot it and facing a long hill climb to get back to it.

By now I was watching the time very closely, and was fighting tired legs and calves that kept trying to cramp. We were pretty sure we were at the top of the right re-entrant for a 60 pointer, but if we were wrong, it was going to be a lot of climbing for nothing. After we decided to pull out and head back to the next CP, we met a couple guys coming out of there, and it had been the right re-entrant. For the first time in my life, I got "cliffed out". Yes, there were sheer rock cliff drop offs there. That would be very scary at night!

We hoofed it back to the main road and caught the 80 pointer and a 40 pointer near the lodge/start/finish line. In hindsight, we could've gotten that 60 pointer we bailed on and skipped the last 40 pointer. Or if I hadn't been fighting calf cramps, added in a 30 pointer near the road on the way back. But for a couple of flatlanders, this was an epic amount of climbing.

I drank 2L of water, had 2 gels, some e-caps and e-tabs, and a couple granola bars. We jogged the down hills. I had too many clothes on (hard to wrap my head around going from -15C to 0 to +8 C) so stuffed a fleece and windbreaker in my backpack. As usual, I need to do more hill training.

All in all, a beauty of a day with a great race partner. And my Speed Cross shoes were awesome!!!

C • Sounds awesome! 2

C • Wildlife report 2

Found my antique iPod and my collection of yoga podcasts.

I think we climbed Boyne Mountain. Twice. Biked through some peanut butter mud when we got to the top (or so I told myself).
Then sprinted for a long time.

C • When... 2

A bit of a fail on some of the leg exercises (a bit rubbery from spin class).

Technically, I was XC skiing. We have lots of snow. And there are a pair of water retention ponds near the arena. So I thought I would head over there and ski around them. But it was more like floundering my way through knee deep snow with boards strapped to my feet. We have a lot of snow. It was quite tiring.



Hike-a-ski to and from the retention ponds not logged (ski where there was snow on the road, carry them on the streets had been ploughed).

D and her husband R were game for a moonlight ski on a windless night. We met at the Arner and headed back towards Kingsville on the Greenway, I wore my old 3 pin skis as I wasn't sure how much gravel would be showing on the windswept parts of the trail. I didn't have to worry about that too much. About 200m of the trails had been violated by snowmobiles (they are not allowed on the Greenway) and about 200m was windswept, but the rest was either knee deep snow or drifts that needed some careful footwork to ski over. We formed a paceline, taking turn breaking the trail. About halfway along we came across some dog/coyote tracks and tried to follow them for a bit of relief, but they sure didn't go in a straight line. Then a few hundred metres from the McCain we found a set of ski tracks where someone had gone out and back probably just before supper. After the golf course there were snowshoe tracks that we followed to the road where we decided to turn around.

I hadn't put any antifreeze in my hydration pack and hadn't tucked it away under my jacket so the hose had frozen. 15 minutes inside my fleece fixed that. Silly -15C temperatures.

Return trip. Much faster, heading back in our tracks.

Absolutely a perfect moonlit night.

C • absolutely perfect full moon 1