Training Log Archive: 'Bent

Spaff would like me to do the tempo run on a flat trail if possible. Good luck finding one of those! GPS track to follow, but I heard it lose signal often in the bush.

Note- rolled my good ankle on a root, but it seems OK.
Hitched a ride home as the "good" right ankle was sore 7 hours after rolling it. Gonna need a full body ice pack suit soon.

Slept in until 7:30 and woke up feeling sluggish.

Quickie workout- Pulldowns, balance-board pushups, shoulder stuff.

Palgrave doubletrack on the Omega. Supposed to do 2 hrs but reduced it to protect my knee, and I felt like a bucket slugs anyway. Better once I was out on the bike.

Easy scoot home. No pooch.

Easy run to work. Looks like more construction will make my route less fun, and less off-leash for the pooch.

Knee fine while running but a bit sore after, probably from the weekend. Sigh.

C • Knee 8

C • Route 3

Easy run back. The hills seem higher and steeper than usual.

Made a point of warming up well before the first few laps especially.

Second night lap after rain- slippery roots and tired legs.
Phats had to get back to Mari, so after throwing in 4 great laps, including 2 back-to-back at night, we were down to 4.

Last lap. Spun the granny up the hills to save my knee, and HR stayed down as the legs didn't have all that much left.


We brought our ringer for the second-last lap- 11 year old Skye-fly put in a 1:03. She will put us all to shame in 2 years or less.

On the other Team Sloan (Sloan Stedde) 3-pin put in amazing 47 min laps on his singlespeed no-suspension 29er.

Crash got in 20 or maybe even 21 laps solo!!!

Fun times, and some good weather, on a technically easier course than usual. Everyone put in pretty consistent laps, with Tom amazingly under 53 even at night. We were 10th in our division, out of 40 or so.

24hrs of Summer Solstice MTB race on Team Sloan Wobbalee with Tommy Hillflyer and Julia, Mr. Funderstorm (A.R.) and late addition Phatty.

Lap 1. Tom flew in sub 50, 10 min ahead of estimate so I missed the swap and didn't get my HRM going well.
My head's not used to racing- HR was up there due to race-ness and took a long time to settle in. Ran into traffic in the only part that's really tricky for me, so was off the bike a few times.

Lap 2. HR better, less traffic.

First night lap. Lights were awesome, and HR more reasonable. Made all the stuff that gave me trouble in the first laps, but a dude in running shoes and baggy shorts bailed right in front of me later on. Twice.

Foothab, kneehab, core and workout 1.

Easy run to work. Knee's OK running but a bit dicey after.

Easy spin on the erg.

Easy spin around the 24hr course at Albion, with some extras.
Less rooty than some years :), less long uphills than previous years :(.
There's one nearly 'bent-proof hairpin turn that took me about 10 tries to figure out a marginal line for, otherwise a not-too-technical course.

Just caught the rain in the final 3km.

We're camping at 349 and 351, Down By The River. Come visit!

The ol' knee wasn't too happy with the running, so I got a lift home, then biked to and from my enviro meeting at a fairly easy pace. Met the C3 runners on the way, and several deer and a lot of fireflies in the dark on the way back.

In-out run- 1km @90%, 1km at 75 for 5km.
The Garmin's definitely losing signal in the woods- it was recording 5:30/km on a fast downhill until I got out of the bush then it steadied at 3:17- 2:54/km at the same pace.

Got to try this on rail trail, and without the dog next time.

Easy commute with Bulletdog. Legs are coming back.

Note- updated ESAR report with new pics.

Easy recovery ride with Bulletdog. Legs are toast from yesterday.
Ankle not bad at all but feeling the knee a bit. Off to ice.

Event: ESAR - Emergency Services Adventure Race
 

ESAR with BillyW and Dave the ShedMan as team The Shed Coffee.
A little nervous going into this, coming back from injury and racing with 2 AR superstars. I'd done some scouting, but it's such a pain for me to nav on the 'bent that we decided I'd do the trek and paddle nav, and ShedMan would do the bike. Good practice for WT.

Format was a bike start up the ski hill, then 2 mandatory CPs with 18 optional bike and paddle CPs in between, then mandatory CP3 with Feats of Strength, then 4 optional trekking CPs and a mandatory CP4 at the top of the ski hill and finish at the bottom.

My GPS got bumped at CP3 and stopped there, so no tracking on the trek.

We were the first team up the ski hill, then the lads really took off down the road. Unfortunately ShedMan's not used to the 1:10K O-maps, and the lads are super-fast on road, so a couple of times early on we blew 1.5km downhill past turn-offs and had a big grind back up. After that we got the nav sorted better.

The singletrack bits went fine, and we all rode about the same pace. More road paceline hammerfest and trail to Bass Lake.

The paddle went well- Boat speed was between 8.5 and 9.5kph.

Back on the roads, my quads and adductors started to cramp on the uphills. Billy led the line, and Shedman gave me a couple of good shoves. Next singletrack section went OK, then back on road to bike-the-line. Had another scale-related error at first, but then the riding went well on yet another excellent trail.

Back to T/A at the top of the ski hill- I was lagging on the uphills again. We were 28 min behind LeAmazon et al so they were moving at almost exactly my speed (the other boys had more in the tank) but with Lee's impeccable nav as I had expected.

Run down the ski hill (ouch, ouch) and back to the chalet for the Feats of Strength- I did the tire drag.



Off to the trek next. My running was actually going pretty well on the flats. Nav went well here for 3 CPs, with one error on 71 where I got the wrong ridge. My legs started to go again, and ShedMan and I both walked the uphill on the XC trails ( !! ) . The march up under the chairlift was a cramp-and-nausea-fest, as Billygoat skipped along, then down to the finish.

Leanimal, Goose and Dogrunner put 7 more minutes into us on the trek. They dominated, beating us by 32 minutes! We were second overall and 1st male.

Great to race with such strong lads, who carried the extra weight and did the lion's share of leading the paceline. Dave and I could both work on our nav a bit, but at least we work well together. Not a bad first comeback team race.



Bash's princess team was first female, and I think 6th overall, so a great Caledon showing!

Here we are after Shedman had to go home and I started to feel human again.

C • Congrats! 4

C • congratulations 2

Took the T-dog for a Chuckwagon ride with a few debarkation stops. Bash's a genius!

Easy jog to work.

Easy spin on the erg.

Quick but solid workout on the home gym, dumbells and pull-up handles.

Too hot for the hound, so I took a good spin thru doubletrack in Palgrave East.

Easy ride home.

Hike home. Short cut has too much poison ivy.

15 min warmup, then 20 min starting at 4:50 and kicking it up faster every 5 min. Hard to keep the pace even on the fairly hilly Bruce trail, but put the pedal to the metal on the last 5. Hardly noticed the ankle.


Bulletdog's definitely slowing down a bit these days. She kept up, but only just.

I missed the first 3 min of the speedwork when I hit the wrong button, but it looks like I have to work pretty hard to keep the speed in the low 4s. Too slow uphill, a little too fast downhill (Got under 3 min/km briefly) GPS kinda loses track when I have to do an out-and-back. I suspect this would work better on the rail trail.

Easy ride with Bulletdog.

Tour de Grand with Bash and Kirikou. Started 22 min late due to an organizational issue, so we cut the 72 down to the optional 60, and chased down the riders. Bash was on Princess, Kirikou on his MTB, and I had slicks on the Omega 'Bent.

Apparently it's fast on roads, especially downhill- at our end of the pack only one guy on a TT bike with aero helmet could hold my wheel, and he dropped off pretty fast when there was a headwind. He also asked about my "girlfriend" back there, saying "She sure is strong".
Interestingly, nobody caught me on climbs either, but we *were* moving up from the back, not up front with the speedsters.
I was a good boy and waited up for my riding mates. Bash and Kirikou sure passed other riders like they were standing still as well.

Got a few fast bits in with TTguy, but mostly a pretty easy and very scenic ride.

C • gf 2

Kettlebell workout with Raf, then pull-ups and foot/kneehab, then workout 3 with a bit more dynamic than usual, then the nastier bits of hard core.

Out with Raf and G from the city. Spaff gave me permission for 75 minutes easy. Great to get a little more distance in, although this was enough for the ankle.

C • lookin good 3

Out with Leanimal scooting around some fun singletrack near Horseshoe.
Some great technical downhills, some nice winding uphills, and one climb that was pretty much impossible. Great trails, perfect conditions, and frequent stops to orient.

The 'bent is riding better since I got the swing-arm re-welded and changed the suspension geometry a touch.

15 min w/u, then 20 solid tempo, and 15 cool down.
Stinkin hot even at 8AM, and hard to cool down while climbing out of the Don Valley. Ran into construction during the tempo section which also slowed things down.

Ankle started to complain slightly near the end of the tempo.

Ferocious storms let up by 5AM, and rode in easy then back via NW blue trail in the hot afternoon.

Easy hike home, but I threw in some push-ups and pull-ups with the pack on. The deerflies sure like me doing push-ups on the trails.

Knee is a little touchy from biking Sunday. I think the climbs get to it.

Pics from Friday's paddle with Bash's new kayak now posted.

Out with Bash and Leanimal at Horseshoe. I was trying to get my head around the map, and had to stop to orient regularly, until a member of our group who shall remain nameless (but isn't a mother) couldn't take the bugs or the waiting any more.

I realize that my special navigation contact lenses are still a problem reading maps. I also realize that Bash and Lee can pick up info from a map way faster than I can, and remember it better.

Absolutely great day out. Couple of good solid climbs perhaps made up for the time futzing with maps and swatting bugs.

Note- I noticed that my rear suspension seems to be bottoming out a lot more since I heard a loud bang Wednesday after dropping off a big rock. Found the problem- cracked the rear swing-arm. :( Off to the welders.
Oh well, better now than in mid-race.

C • poo about the swing arm. No... 2

Easy steady run with Bash & B-dog around the 'hood once the storms let us go. I could still feel the ankle a bit from last week.

Workout 1 and foothab + some extra pushups and pullups.

Paddling part 2- Garmin got a bit messed up.
I got to use Bash's new fancy Jake for part of this.

Another easy jog-hike. Jogged the flat-downhill bits, hiked the rest. Finally getting that light and easy feeling while running, even with my work pack on my back.

15 steady, 15 tempo, 15 steady. 2 swims for Bulletdog, who's not all that keen on Tempo now. Ankle a touch sore after, and I was aware of my knee a bit.

Down to Albion and around the South and Northwest. Much drier now, except for the IMBA trail section. Good solid ride, trails are great, perfect temps, but had to wait out some very strong wind gusts out of the woods.

Easy spin to work and back via roads- Forest too windy.