Training Log Archive: 'Bent

Back in the 'hood, took both dogs for a hilly run. Slushy snow and ice on the trails, but nice to be out. Bazingadog is much more restrained than the YK kids, but I kinda miss 'em too.

Foot/kneehab and lots of stretching.
My back and knee are a bit sore from YK.

-23c, new snow and both kids on the sled made for hard work keeping up with Bro. Short ski due to kids re-enacting the Battle of Culloden over sled space. Stil nice to be out on what feels like a real winter day- cold, calm and sunny, and the first half was peaceful.

Early morning run before a day with the family. Did a figure 8 around Niven Lake and Frame Lake, past the NWT Legislature offices. -15c

Quads were a little tired from a ton of trampolining yesterday, bouncing the kids over my head.

Out on Back Bay coaching Bro on skate skiing. Yes, it's come to this- now I'm the coach. I tried to impart the most important bits of all the lessons I learned from Goose and LD, as well as the coaching at Silverstar.
If you can't skate on a hard packed trail on a lake, you can't skate ski. I was bombing along well on my grip-waxed classic skis. Bro looked a hell of a lot more efficient by the time we were done.

No kids with us-once again no sleep for T-girl made for a powderkeg.

C • All right! Bent is now coaching. 2

Hiked out to the Snow King's castle, then skated across the lake to pick up the Bingham(?) trail which is a nice Classic ski, then back around the island and past the ski plane base to Back bay skating on the classic wax.
Brisk -16 but fairly calm.

C • That's brisk all right. Harps is probably wishing he was up there with you. 4

Stacked a pile of wood for Bro, and also used Leo as a human kettlebell a lot.

This time it's shoving and chasing the kids on their new pedal karts.
Leo has a 4-wheeler KettCar, and Talia's bombing on a KMX 'bent trike.
They work way better than 2 wheels on icy roads.

You knew it was just a matter of time before I served them the pedal-power koolaid.

C • Well done - rev them up, and then leave. 8

More kid-hauling at speed high enough to elicit cheers and screams, to and from a frozen waterfall. Good fun had by all.

Here's a vid of some of the hauling. Sorry, can't embed video or upload Garmin via the Attackpad.

http://youtu.be/gfA3LRX9FAc

C • Cool! 4

Off for a solo jaunt from the house across the lake to the YK ski club. Able to skate on the lake and part of the trails with my grip-waxed combi skis. Nice hilly well-groomed track set trails, good views, -3 but bitter headwind on the return across the lake. Decent workout and a fine ski.

More kid-hauling, up the toboggan hill. Got some good GoPro I think.
Talia the insomniac niece was only good for a shorter outing before the bullying began, so end of ride.

C • hauling 2

Snowshoe run around Great Slave Lake hauling both kids at a good clip.
No wind, sunny and-2c. Got them out of the house during Passover prep, and we had about 50 minutes of good adventures and 20 min of combat and sulking from a tired T-Girl, so that was the limit.

In all fairness, she was awesome during Passover dinner while Leo was a holy terror. I should probably log wrangling him.

Nice scoot from Yellowknife to Giant Mine and back. Turns out that if I haul Leo in a sled, Bro can ski at my pace, so a good workout had by all in calm winds, -6 and sunny.

C • Yellowknife??!! 7

Solid run hauling my niece and nephew in a toboggan. They love the intervals!

Wow, yet another nice ski commute, with Mocha this time.

Foothab, kneehab and pretty solid workout 1 with some KB swings and 12-8 pullups.

Man I love my commute! Blasting along through sunny maple woods on perfect new snow with my powerful buddy. Also did a nice crust-cruise through the fields of Reddington.

He was really good today- attentive when I needed him to back off on ice and corners, or stop to de-ski. Maybe he's off his game or maybe our puppy's growing up.

C • Kind of fun to still be skiing in late March from home. 8

Very nice ski home.

Wow, ski conditions again. Bulletdog and I had an easy but pleasant ski commute this late in March!

C • Like! 1

Pretty solid commute on crusty snow with BZdog. Still deadly on the one hill.

Not feeling tired after today's race (Maybe I took it too easy) so the hounds and I ran in the soft snow up every steep and deep hill we could find in Palgrave West including Lookout Hill and Mt. Tobler from sea level.

Pleased to still have some oomph in my legs.

C • nice way to finish the day, you're a beast! 4

Ski O at Highlands. Super-strong men's field meant I didn't have a chance on skate skis, so I decided to go with my classics to allow better bushwhacking.
Last time I made some big errors, so I took it carefully and basically navigated cleanly. My skis were sticky in the fresh snow, so I was taking as many short-cuts and steep climbs between trails as I could to try and make up for the faster skate skiers.

There were 2 map changes, and I had a devil of a time with my ski map holder with gloves on- finally took 'em off and spent forever trying to jam my hands back in damp gloves with ski straps on. Cost over 2 min according to my GPS.

Fun day out, and happy I didn't mess up, even if the Masters all got Goosed.

Paddle training session at MCC with a big gang. Busy pool with 5 SUPers along with 10 kayakers who rotated.
Good to work on a bit of technique- I made sure to sit in front of the mirror once or twice which helped.

Also got some pull-ups in as a warmup and a set of (only) 15 chin-ups. Need to find a way to do those at home- back to Forest Fit in the spring.

Crust cruising with Coach LD and Bzingadog in Glen Haffy. Rare spring cruising conditions.

I took the big boy and rocketed past LD at first, then we swapped and she got to handle the mighty beast while I skied hard to catch up. We managed to tire him out after a while, and had a great cruise around the open fields.

No casualties, and a fine time had by all.

C • Sounds awesome 3

Foothab, kneehab and Link workout.

Easy run in with Bulletdog. Used Katoolas on the Crossmax, which worked perfectly on the boilerplate ice. Nice crisp day, hard snow.

Foot/kneehab and part of workout 1.

Solid run to work. Pushed hard on the hills.

The Sea of Slush has mostly solidified, so only a couple of soakers. Some post-holing, some uneven frozen lumpy trail, lots of hard-pack snow, and some boilerplate that had both me and BZdog sliding down the hill despite Snowcross spikes.

Speaking of Snowcross- I'll have to give my arches a break from them- getting a bit sore from the narrow waist and high arch of the shoes.

Cold windy night run in the snow. Much better than the Sea of Slush.

Dark, pelting rain, and either post-holing in slushy snow or harder icy trails. Just like Sunday without the sunshine. Bulletdog liked it, even though we were both drenched.

On the way home we were postholing in deep snow over anke-deep freezing water. Lovely. Also hills where the Snowcross spikes weren't enough.

Maybe Salomon needs to make the slush-cross spiked rubber rain boot for running?

O-cup Puslinch.
Nice sunny day, hard work where the snow was soft but good on icy trails.
Dog-bone format box, where you had to do pairs of controls and could drop pairs according to your handicap.
Knee started out sore, but loosened up and I was running well- and hitting all the controls with decent confidence. Got the dog bones, and was surprised to find myself alone- turning on the controls as I reached them first without following any tracks, which was a lot nicer than running in a pack. Still- hmmm.

Made it all the way to within sight of the finish after #9 in only 44 minutes, still totally alone, before thinking "either I'm acing this or I'm screwed." Sadly, it was the latter- I had done 6 *controls* in 3 pairs instead of 6 pairs. @#%. Classic 'Bent botch. Oh well, lots of time left.

Ran all the way back via the road and got the remaining 3 bones, then re-did the course to the finish. Took different routes at least- tried ducking in and out to the roads. At the last couple of controls I started to get sloppy, and ran past the finish, for extra speed work. Just made it in under the wire, but pleased with my run and nav, and at least no DNF.

GPS link includes day 2 Snowgaine as first "lap".

C • Quick paddle across Lake Ontario 2

Out to Highlands for some spring skiing with Bash. Gorgeous bluebird day.

My grip wax was great- for double poling mostly. I was gliding as fast as the skate skiers in places, had some grip in others. Saw Goose and his flock fly by, and met up with them doing unusual training in a field. By the time Bash was heading out for a second lap my grip was zero, so headed down to switch to skate.

C • yes it was gorgeous 1

Quick switch- skate skis worked better in the shady spots, but it was getting slower in the sun. Nice fast loop, but my knee wasn't loving it. Still great to be out on snow.

Hauling sleds of firewood with the dogs, then chopping and stacking.
Also carefully excavated our second bank of solar panels.

Knee's quite sore today. Might be something at yoga tweaked it, or residue from the weekend.

Commute without hounds for a change. Feeling a bit tired today, but the snow may not last much longer.

Hard Core class.

Found a way to stretch the thing that's been bugging me in my lower ab/upper adductor today- plank with left leg out to right at 90 degrees crossed under me, with shoulders square to the floor.

Workout #3, foot/kneehab, and soldering battery packs for Bash and Hingo between sets.

Solid run to work with both dogs.

Bazingadog launched out the door after his sister who was tormenting him with her freedom. Unfortunately I was tied to him and flew out the door on my face after him, while the armed security system beeped menacingly before I dragged him back in to reset it.
A bit like this:

http://youtu.be/iVLi9Zn1fTU?t=1m46s

He was contrite on the run.

C • Musak 2

Easier run home in the dark.
Knee is a bit sore from the weekend.

Easy scoot to work with Bazingadog, and back along the longer pond loop.
A few rocket intervals, but mostly an easy trot. When we got home Bash got to see him hurl me onto the snow when he saw Mr.Coon up the tree.

Snowgaine Day 2 - we decided to use snowshoes for a change of pace.
We moved well in the bush. Nav was good, other than one mess at one high-value control.

About half way round we met Doubledown and a rather soggy Escondido, with an older black lab trotting along behind them with no tags. The old guy had been following them for hours, but decided to join our team.
We felt bad for him as he must have been exhausted. We tried to see if some snowmobilers would take him to safety, but they just wanted to abandon him. Partly deaf, he tried to run into fast snowmobiles, so I had to walk him on the tow rope. In the bush he kept dragging me under low logs and around things, so it was hard work. He was a slow climber, but trotted OK on lakes and snowmobile trails. I was no help to Bash as I was busy wrangling Buddy. He'd find a trail and follow briskly if a team had just passed, which pulled us off course once.

We had to cross a sizeable river on a small beaver dam. We let Buddy off leash, Bash made it across, then the dam collapsed a bit under me and I got a good soaker. Buddy tried to cross but fell in, and scrambled back up the same side when I tried to grab him. It took us a lot of time and coaxing to get the poor guy to come back across, and this time when he fell in I grabbed his collar and Bash grabbed my pack as I sunk into my hip in water, but we got him across.

He trucked along surprisingly well after that, and we both were warm enough while moving. Bash got us to the remaining controls and I got Buddy to the finish, where he got a burger and lay down by the fire. The camp caretaker took Buddy, promising to call the animal shelter Monday.

We cleared the course even with Buddy with 30 min to spare, getting us 2nd Masters after Joe and Jeff came in 3 hours earlier.

Won't spoil the surprise but Canada dominated.

C • buddy 30

CNYO Snowgaine with Bash
We decided to ski day 1, and the hard crust was quite cruise-able.
Fast on hard trails, very treacherous in the bush on downhills and creek crossings. No major crashes, and Bash's nav was very precise, so we picked up much of what we hoped for.

On the snowmobile trails we could skate a little, but fast traffic meant we couldn't fly down the steep hills without being able to bail. We tended to go in and back out to snowmobile trails, while our friends on snowshoes could go straight through the bush.
We cleared up the North West part of the course, picking up 19 controls over 42km. The fast snowshoers got more controls over less distance, but skiing was fun and knee-friendly.

Note- breathable top with a vest was perfect. Pocketfuel nut-butter race food went down really well- I'll be getting more of them.

C • Pocketfuel 15

C • Snowmobile trails 4