Training Log Archive: 'Bent

Jog in with Bulletdog. I drove the Phatmobile home after a huge thunderstorm

Biking in Albion with Bash and Suze. We ran into EH as well, who asked me if I knew Richard Ehrlich!
Fun ride in perfect conditions, but I was a bit tight for time before work and had to request we not stop and chat too much. Next time we'll start out a touch earlier and I won't be such a pain.

Easy jog/hike home on a smoggy night with T-dog.

Note from the Official AR Light Geek:
Since people keep asking-
I think I've sourced out a great bike light for multi-day AR.
I've been speaking with Dinotte lighting.
They now have a 5W LED, the 200L. It's tiny and very light. It puts out 200 lumens with a brand new type of LED, which is over 3X as bright as a Princeton Tec Apex 3W. It can run on 4AA lithium batteries, and they can modify it for AR for 2.5 hours on high, 5 hrs on medium and way-long on low. You can get extra AA battery holders too, or lithium rechargeable packs. This light is not on their website yet.
http://www.dinottelighting.com/index.html
They also have monster 500Lumen LEDs.
No finanical interest etc...

Jog in with the Bulletdog, and a leisurely jog home with T-dog. (Bash traded pooches on me)

Slow commute to work as I discovered my rack was broken and wheel was rubbing, on my biodegradable bike. Got it patched up and dropped off for welding on the way home.

A very easy recovery hike/jog with the dogs.

Note- after a very intense May with 3 successful races in 4 weeks, it's time to take a recovery period.

An easy workout #2 and some yoga/ stretching.

Event: ECCO-Emergency Services Adventure Race
 

ESAR with Bash and Angus as Tree Huggers/ Bullfrogpower.com
Bash and I usually do this on separate teams. Originally I'd hoped to find some hammerheads capable of beating Beowulf and Canadian Outback for a 3-peat overall win. All my "ringer' buddies were away, injured or washing their hair, so I joined Bash and first-timer Angus, the coach of my previous ringers V-maxx and Britt. Little did I know!

We started with a river paddle. 90 boats, with some who couldn't steer to save their lives made for chaos. We managed to haul clear, and worked our way up. Angus turns out to be a great paddler, and we managed to pass the powerhouse Outback but couldn't quite catch Anystyle, 3 male cops. No sign of Beowulf.
Sadly the paddle was only 21 minutes. We came in 2nd, then swam the river into a bush bash through the Minesing Swamp. A "trail" run turned out to be knee deep muck for 4km where we couldn't tow so we lost a little time to strong running teams until we hit firmer ground.
Near CP3 we met Beowulf, Anystyle and Numsi's team all searching. We and Numsi got lucky and headed to the TA/CP4, where we met Outback running back to find CP3!
On the bikes in 2nd, but cunning nav by Bash got us to the special task 1st just before Raid the Fridge- a 100 piece puzzle. We got the 3 little pigs, but RTF got a map of Canada and finished 1st.
Back on bikes on singletrack, trail and road, where Angus did some good towing. Next task- Crossbow targets. No real penalty system there though.
Next we were handed an old and confusing orienteering base map of Snow Valley, for big climbs of course. Neck and neck with RTF and Anystyle, and expecting Beowulf any minute. Tricky time finding one of the CPs in the half-pipe due to the old map, ended up past it at the bottom of the hill and racing back up with Anystyle and RTF.
Anystyle just got the CP by seconds, and we took off after them. We ended with a climbing wall, a stretcher carry, then an inflatible obstacle course fun-house!

We finished 42 seconds behind Anystyle, for 1st Co-ed and 2nd overall. I was very pleased with this, and racing with Bash was the icing on the cake. Rookie Angus turned out to be a great teammate, strong in every discipline. And Bash claims she's only good in long races!
Numsi and his 2 firefighter amazons were right up there in the top a few places behind Beowulf.

C • Nice 3

Easy link workout and heavy on the stretching.
I won't log mucking out the dog-pond.

Took it really easy due to crappy air, and its anti-training effects. Kept the bulletdog down to a trot after her swim rather than the usual ballistics.

Workout #1 + some extra quad and hamstring work on the ball.

I had to drive in from Toronto, and you could see the brown air all along the horizon, from Downtown Toronto all thorough Caledon. I'm guilty of contributing :(

Did a *very* easy jog in and back.

Note:
Big thanks to LeAnimal, Flatfoot, Hansel, 3Pin and all the other Bullfrog Power customers who aren't responsible for the bad air.

C • Ahem 3

Bah. My new commute route that I spent so long cutting in the bush is now a forest of poison ivy:( I saw a couple of plants last week, and naively brought a hunk of carpet to smother it, strapped on the back of the bike. I'll need about 20 more now.
I'm not sensitive but the dogs could pick up some oil and give it to Bash or patients.

I really tried to throw off the chain from my modified idler setup. Bulletdog and I rode Salty Steven Singletrack, convinced that I can crash-and-burn somewhere. Wouldn't you know it- I made it up the Wheelie hill, I took the old and discontinued extra hard loop and made it up that (First time ever) and everything else, and never managed to throw off the chain once.

Bash and I were trying to keep up with 3Pin at Puslinch tract. Wow, a great ride on 20km of nice singletrack, and 3-pin's quick! A bit of it was probably at the limit of what a 'bent can handle, and I had chain issues again. 3Pin luckily drove his entire workshop there, so we rigged something up to keep it from flying off the midship idler.

Our planned paddle didn't work out, but I gave the lawn a trim on the pedal mower.

Workout #3

An easy paced but very hilly run through Hockley, including a particularly steep side trail section.
Didn't quite get our entire ambitious route done but still a good run, in perfect spring conditions. Not a lot of water for Bulletdog in the middle 1/3.

A nice easy tour of Albion with Bash, on a perfect evening.
We stopped off to say goodbye to Vmaxx and Britt before they head back off to training camp.

Also took the hounds on a great local hike (Not logged) with several pond swims- a nice weekend getaway at home for them and us.

Note- did surgery on Bash's headset- grease had turned to glue but bearings seem OK.

Bulletdog and I did all the Palgrave singletrack on the way home, as the rain held off.

Link workout + extra arm blasting.

Warm up, cool down and between intervals.

Speed intervals in Palgrave East and West. 5 minutes on, 2 off. Nice lush greenery on a drizzly day.

Dark and rainy jog home.

I wanted to bike to the Caledon Navigators meeting. Fortunately Bash persuaded me otherwise, as the skies opened up in biblical fashion.
The rest day seems to have done me good. Wasn't dopey the next AM for a change.

No extras today due to threatening weather.

Hard Core DVD. Haven't done this one for a while, but it was OK.

Coach Bash took me out for some nav instructions at Rocky Ridge, an area where I suck at orienteering. Turns out I can't really follow a bearing by just looking at my thumb compass there to orient the map, even at a pokey pace. I need to take an accurate bearing far ahead and run to it.

Event: Storm the Trent
 

Storm The Trent 1-day "Trek" race
Woo Hoo!
Bash and I did this one as solos.
My 'Bent seems cursed. It had a flat when I took it out of the van, and after changing the tire I found it low again 10 minutes before the briefing, so yet another panic tire change.

We started on the water. Paddling my huge expedition kayak into a stiff breeze, I was going zone 5 and couldn't catch Bash, until the downwind section! I came off the water around 6th after a huge effort, with Dave Z 's team and Bash hot on my heels. A horrible 400M portage (My 80lb boat's a pig to carry solo).

On the bikes, I managed to catch Dave Z's team and a solo on the road on a huge climb, but cramped up something fierce, and had to stop, stretch and eat tums. I got them and another team of 2 later on the nice singletrack.

TA to the run, where I planned to bushwhack to cut the marked route. Unfortunately the 1st 2 CPs were misplaced, and I wasted some time looking for CP1 with some other teams. Once we found it I lost them by more bushwhacking, happened to hit the misplaced CP2 OK, then leapfrogged Dave Z, nailed the advanced section and came off the trek in 1st!

Back to bikes, Dave Z and Nulla (sp?) caught me when I took a bearing at a suspicious curve under a hydro line, (Threw my compass way off) and went squishing off through a muddy ATV trail. I eventually backtracked, ran them down, and we worked together briefly. After that I just put my head down (figuratively) and biked hard by myself the rest of the race, thinking that if the headwind's hard for me it's worse for all the Wedgie Bike riders. I kept waiting for the roadies to run me down.

At the final offroad section I ran into a team and solo, (who didn't do advanced I later learned) but lost them with a final blast and sailed in to win not only my category (Solo Masters) but take the overall win too! Yee Haw!

Dave and Nulla were about 10 minutes back, and our RTN teamamtes 3-Pin and Lo-Tox were 2nd co-ed.
Bash's precision nav backfired due to the misplaced CPs, but she still was not only the first female solo but the second solo overall, so we were 1-2!
We were really pleased to see Hingo and K/O, and they narrowly missed 3rd co-ed.

C • wooo hoooo!!!! 16

Workout #2. Didn't really blast as I'm racing tomorrow.

An easy spin on the kayaks at Golden Beach- figured we'd test them out once before STORM.

An extra loop to work and bit of a detour home testing out the new bars, map holder etc. Soggy but not smoggy.

Yes, that's cycling on my lawnmower. Pedal powered recumbent mower of course. The dogs followed me around and had a swim in the pond on every lap.

I finally got the 'Bent reassembled, and it should be good to go.

C • Does it have a beer holder? 7

Workout #1.

I threw in some more hills and a small extra loop. Would have run further but I have *another* meeting tonight. Also a big smog alert out. :(

Note: The good news is that V.Max's dad returned my welded and reinforced handlebars already. STORM here I come, as long as Bash's cold stays away.

An easy run to work and back. Still in recovery mode so no extra distance today.
A very busy week ahead, so it's a recovery one.

Some light jogging up and down roads to various TAs to cheer the Mayfield teams we coached in their Highschool AR, while doing a bit of volunteering.

"My" team won! Taught them everything they know. Oh, -and they took a whole clinic with LeAnimal, -and they're great athletes who could kick my butt. "Bash's" boys were 3rd overall, and LeAnimal's kids were 8th, 4th co-ed. All the Caledon teams on the podium this weekend!

C • And Phatty too 2

Event: Fronteir Adventure Racing - Adventure Challenge
 

FAC Huntsville with Bash and V02Maxx.
Perfect weather for a race. We got a little messed up with misplaced CP1 on the bikes, but moved up to 6th with some great nav on bikes and 1st half of the trek.
We ended up bushwhacking parallel to the road/ trail for most of the 2nd half, but hit the TA OK. Wouldn't want V02Maxx to miss serious swamp/cliff/swamp trekking- running trails are for wimps! On the portage I got to do more thick bushwhacking as Mr. Canoehead, but we moved back up a couple with a good smooth paddle, and leapfrogged Dave H's team. On the advanced bike section I heaved too hard on my handlebars and snapped off the left half, so I did the nasty biking with one hand and bars held on with sticks, duct tape and zip ties. Ended up 7th overall, 4th co-ed. Good to see our buddies ESAR and Kinetic Connection just ahead of us.

Great to race with Bash again of course, and V02Maxx was awesome. He did most of the towing, not afraid of bushwhacking, good whitewater paddler, and he's just a kid! A really great course too!

C • any luck finding an all-night ... 6

Easy putt to work. Chainline's still wonky but Bash has been burning up the lines with UPS to get me hooked up. I suspect the FAC race will be less work than talking to UPS eight times.

Note- my arms and back are slighty sore from the teensy bit of paddling. All those weights, Link workouts etc still don't make me superhuman. Wish I was so hot and muscular right now.

Nice ride down the rail trail to my environmental meeting, and a really great ride home in the dark. No wind, lots of frogs singing as dark fell.

Note- Bash indeed moved heaven and earth and got UPS to get the missing bike parts here last night. The store hadn't shipped exactly what I'd ordered, but I got it modified and installed before midnight!

Some paddling practice on the mighty Lake Albion with Bash and 2 upcoming teammates- Flash aka VO2maxx and Angus, attackpoint name to be determined.

A brisk ride around Albion with Bash, Flash and Angus. The new dudes are quick! An easier ride to work after.

Spectacular conditions, but my broken mid-idler's getting worse. None of the 6 replacements I ordered from 3 different sources has shown up yet.

C • Bike part 1

Night ride home.

Took the short route to work so as penance Bulletdog and I ran the rollercoaster + some of Caledon Chase home. Feeling a bit tired- hope it's not Bash's cold.