Training Log Archive: phatty

My Bobkitten beat me unmerciful on the trail this afternoon. Now I'm broken and tired. Advantage, FB.

C • How much is that Bobkitten in the window? 1

We'll call this '4' ride the "FB Buster". Leanimal set a torrid pace and when we hit hills, she would encourage me to go faster with comments like, "Come on, there's no way that FB could climb this fast, he's on two new knees!", and "Push harder, that's FB speed!". Tough love but it will all be worth it in the end.

Swam this morning too...

Oh that's right FB, more than one LR&S'er was on the water today - except I was in my raceday boat. It's a bloody miracle I didn't tip!

C • Race Day Boat 5

Finally, a run around B-Town. Felt fatigued still but better as the run went on.

C • hey, what's the deal? 1

MrsGally and I headed toward the rope assist, not knowing what to expect as the TA staff really knew nothing. We found the flagging tape, dropped our bikes, and began to climb the steep slope in the pitch black. Steeper still, we started to wonder if we were doing this properly. Nope, we decided, and began to descend to the start. Then we saw some lights to our right and realized that we were to use the ropes to climb...duh. How sleepy were we!?! It was pretty sketchy at night but we made it to the top, scrambled to the fire tower, and then hit the ropes again for the way down. We were instructed to not use the ropes to descend and routefind our way back down. It bike shoes, pitch black, lots of loose rock...I said phuck the rules, we're going down the safe way. So I grabbed my ATC and hooked MrsGally into the line. I followed after her using a biner hook up. We got down safely and admittedly, a little shaken.

We biked on to the Land Rover trials loop and I began to get frustrated and very ready to be done. I could hardly make out the route on my map, our pace was extremely slow because riding wasn't possible, and I was worried that we'd miss the WP. MrsGally, as chipper as ever, talked away and kept my spirits up. Luckily, we found the WP and got the heck out of there. Now speeding toward the finish, the loopiness set in. We were yelling and singing away, and I even thought MrsGally looked like Bent for a while!?! Anyway, we hit the line 3rd and did the whole course. Not the result we were lookig for but that's racing. We later found out that MrGally had broken his right fibula!?! Unreal!

Big congrats to PhattyJR and Leanimal for being selected to represent Canada in Jan of 2009 in the LRG4 Challenge and to DogRunner for the big win.

C • She looked like 'Bent?! 4

...the dreaded AR injury happened to MrGally - slipping on a wet branch in bike shoes and over he went on his ankle. Yow, that must have hurt. After a little rest, he told us that he was good to get going because we're not stopping here. MrGally spun with a badly infalted right ankle, unwavering in his focus to continue. We hit the rest of the WPs (one with a bit of difficulty as we went right by it - as each were 8.5x11 sheets of laminated paper hanging from whatever). We rode into the bike to trek TA in 2nd still (incredible given our situation) and managed to get some trekking poles for MrGally. Off we went toward some more unmanned WPs, each at non-discernable features with no desciption (just UTMs). We managed to hit the first two pretty quickly but the third was not so good. In fact getting to it was agony for MrGally. He was in considerable pain and we had to descend from quite a height in the bush...but he pressed on. Eventually, we found the 3rd WP and made our way to the paddle. Gally was still keen to press on, so we did, now in 3rd. No problems here for us and we managed to stay pretty close to our nemesis throughout. It was pretty sunny out and you could feel that it would be a hot one. The last part of the paddle was a couple of short portages. It was here that Gally realized that this was no longer a question of wanting to keep going through the pain, it was just too dangerous. We hit the TA to the big trek and talked about our situation. We had about 25k of trekking ahead with lots of ups and downs and and unkown amount of challenging bushwhacking. We left the call to him, and we believe he made the right choice to retire from the race. A very wise decision in my books. I could see it was killing him to stop which only confirmed to me his mettle as a racer.

The three of us pressed on and gave chase to 1st and 2nd place. We quickly caught up to 2nd but made a different nav decision and parted ways. I think Leanimal's squad had the best overall route choice for the day. I considered it but changed my call in the end. For the next while, we made our way through countless patches of raspberry bushes, over rock, along swamps, and in the bush. We nav'ed cleanly but the heat was a lot to take. Unfortunately, we lost HotShotLawyer right before the rappel...so MrsGally and I continued on as he got transpo back to the TA. The sun set while we rappelled and then we ran the 10k to the TA. She was particularly brave on the rappel as she's a self professed scaredy cat when it comes to heights.

All that was left now, was a bike, rope assisted climb, and a bike to the finish...

C • You forgot a couple zeros o... 1

Got the Quest for a Cure going with the usual flurry of activity just to get things set for the start line. First up was the white water raft followed immediately by a zip line (aka bottleneck). So we (the Gallys and HotShotLawyer) gave it everything we had to hit the zip in first. After some wicked fun in the crazy rapids, we did just that and started things off well. We legged it down to the canoes for a trip on the Ottawa and eventually got caught by Leanimal, PhattyJR, DogRunner, and TheHammer. Damn, the race was on. We portaged to the TA, did a quick run, and then were off on the bikes, chasing our nemesis. We caught them before the first waypoint but then traveled with them for a while. Then it happened - POP!

Lovely road ride to work. While getting up in time to do this sucks, there's nothing better than the endorphin kick that starts the day.

C • Any update on the race? i'm... 1

With the King of the RtN regular course 2002-2003, I rode around Caledon hitting road and trail. Gears shifting like butter for once.

C • Phatty totally schooled me ... 3

Not tonnes of distance as I went exploring around the trails alongside the Humber, south of B-Town. The bugs are out now. Was going to hit Chico's new trails at Cold Creek but my seat broke so had to bail. Nice to be not working today!

C • I will make no comment on h... 4

Took off from the hotel (likely the nicest place I've ever been - Nita Lake Lodge) and hit the cart paths for an early AM session. Whistler is like a picture book type of place - everything's immaculate and almost not quite real.

From my hotel in the XXX region of downtown Vancover, hit the waterfront to Stanley Park and back. The world ITU champs were going on which was cool to see. The park had a few areas where the devastation from that massive storm hit hard. Love being amongst such massive trees.

Quick run after work and after I had the frickin lazerbeeems and current zapping the shin splints - good as new!

Commute to work via road bicyclette - so much faster than the MTN bike. Legs were a little sluggish to start but felt better nearing the end.

Good road ride route throughout Caledon with Leanimal and Goose. My legs felt pretty fatigued from the session on Friday night but gave it on the hills to fully deplete what was left from my energy stores.