Training Log Archive: 'Bent

Gotta ditch this cold, and gotta head to the airport after work. Still hate missing a gorgeous bluebird powder ski commute.

Bah, forecast is too windy to ski home from work tonight, so I drove. And packed.

Woo hoo, trail breaking with Bazingadog in shin deep powder.
A little easier ski home in my tracks from this morning. About half the route wasn’t stomped.

Love my commute. Still have to take it easy due to my cold.

C • Sweet! 1

Easy ski to work. Brilliant sunshine, deal calm and -21C. Not much glide. No dog, but probably would have been OK.

Ski home in a full on blizzard. Needed goggles.
Progress was sluggish, but when I got home I found one grip skin was half off and one pole tip was missing. Still a great commute.

All fixed up now.

Too nice out not to ski with AD. Short and easy due to my cold, not because of the cold.

Rehab, core and easy workout 1.

Think I’m getting a cold. That just won’t do with my Guatemala mission leaving Friday.

Trying to rapidly ditch my cold, so no training. Too nice not to go out. Hiked the dogs on a perfect winter day.

Workout 1 plus rehab, core and more hand-sawing the last logs.

Biking with AD. Side trails and Charlevoix were hard slogging and wallowing in loose snow, but the main trails had refrozen tractor tracks and rode very well. Glad I had screws in my boots too where I had to hikeabike the odd hill.

Slushy run in with the big guy, and icy run home.

Knee still sore from SSR.

Early ski with AD in Palgrave West/Charlevoix trails. Really nice morning with new snow falling, still and quiet. Skin skis worked well.
Later my commute was more of a slog as the snow turned to rain and the snow was heavy and slow.

Rehab, foot and kneehab.

Wind came up and power went out so I got a ride home.

Ski to work with the big boy. -21 when we set out, so I put his coat and sled-dog boots on him. Predictably the boots didn’t stay on.
Light powder over hard ice, but still better than driving. Much milder on the night ski home.

Planned to ski but high winds forecast so I drove. They never came- I should have skied.

Foothab, kneehab and core.
AD wasn’t keen on staying out for long walks in the howling wind and -18c.

C • I wasn't sure if you were g... 2

Snowshoe Raid with Mick- Loree Forest. There would be a second map available after 1 hour at the matrix aid station with additional CPs. Bob advised traction but no snowshoes needed. -15c but not too windy.

We started with a grunt up the Camperdown Hill climb, a warmup my legs weren’t appreciating.





From there Mick and I set off NE by ourselves, directly across the grain of the terrain. I promply lost my wrist compass, but was able to help a bit with the nav anyway as I know the area.
Mick is fast, strong and accurate, and I worked hard to keep up with his well-aimed “climb every mountain, ford every stream” navigation. No big nav errors, and we got the NE controls then headed back to the matrix.



On the second map, Bob had added high value controls N, E and W, so it would involve basically rerunning the whole map to clear it. We decided to head North and come down the West then clear the South. In the North we ran down the trail beside Georgian Nordic at great speed, only to have to scramble up a steep near-cliff from branch to branch on hands and knees.

I was slowing down in the slogging sections and was getting worried we may be late, but we ended up finishing our plan with nearly 15 min to spare and nothing left to get. I was pretty done but Mick didn’t even seem winded.



We ended up 5th overall behind Chad, Christian/Graeme, StormBeowulf and MBR.

Emma and Shannon won Female, and Bash and Dee were second masters female behind Nicole and Cathy.

In hindsight it would make more sense to get the second map right at 1 hour, and we could have left the NE controls until after that and gotten the extras, dropping some lower points in the South.

Fun racing with Mick, who is as fast and smart as he is cheerful.

C • Pics added. 1

Out with Bash and the beasts. Tried spikes vs snowshoes. Hard call for tomorrow.

Easy run in on a chilly morning with AD.

Lunch time run with AD and The Gazelle (Wayne) who is visiting from Tajikistan, all over Palgrave singletrack. Great to catch up.

Old-school trail clearing with axe and saw. Cleared a big tree off the trail, and hand sawed some more logs.

Later did workout 2 with rehab. Gusty winds meant driving to work ;(

Crisp moonlit night run home.

Ride in with AD. Things have firmed up a bit, and a little singletrack went OK even with the ice. The bikewhack up the luge run on the way home was still tough, but a little less eipc with even more scews in my biking boots. The doubletrack riding was really nice.

Crisp run in with Bazingadog. Ran the Rollercoaster and pushed hard on a few hill sprints.
Easy run home- only needed the light for the last half.

Bah- missed a gorgeous bluebird day in meetings about the Guatemala trip.

Bluebird day at Scenic Caves. Skate wasn’t super fast, but I was enjoying it enough that I did basically the whole system (except the lower zipline trail) and some repeats up top. Longest I have ever been able to skate.

C • well done :) 8

Back to classic, and dodging a lot of touring skiers who tended to stand in the middle of intersections at the bottom of hills. Another great ski, and did the lower zipline trail which was finally in fairly decent shape.

Gorgeous mid-winter conditions on a crisp bluebird day.
Tracks were a little slow at first, but later on it was one of those times the glide is good and I could trot up the hills. Back red was amazing, and not a breath of wind.

Nous allons en France! I got in to OCC and Bash is in CCC.

C • Excellent! 2

Challenging ride to work with AD. Light skiff of snow over zamboni ice. The bike rode just fine on the trails, but there are 2 narrow luge runs that have become shove-a-bike, and even with additional screws in my bike boots and a rope I put up these were pretty epic to get up. 2 steps up and 1 step back, unless I lock the brakes and lean on the bike.

Maybe next time I’ll bring Kahtoolas to put on my bike boots for those sections. This ice is likely to last.

Slush/ice/mud run with BZdog. Sloppy but decent traction. Duffy's lane was pure zamboni surface.

Right knee still a bit sore on downhills.

Icy night run home in the pelting rain. Lovely.

Run in with BZdog. Probably bikeable despite the nasty forecast, and my knee wasn’t too happy to be running today. Lots of eyes in the forest on the windy night run home. Got back before the freezing rain set in.

Hockley with DD-11, Gally, Storm and Logan the Adventuredog.
We were warned it was Kahtoolas only, but I was perfect with spikes and poles, DD and Gally had spikes, and Storm just flitted over the ice like Legolas with kahtoolas in his pack.

Decent run up to the Northeast, where we caught MsGally.
We ran together to the southern Sidetrail where she took the short route and left me to the mercy of the hulking giants, as my legs began to fade a bit.
Logan the loyal adventuredog dropped me too, but he consented to run the last road bit with me as we finished up 5 min behind DD.
Turns out it was actually a pretty decent loop time.

Missing part of my GPS track- estimated here.

Old-school hand sawing and splitting some really big logs I had hauled in a while ago.

C • hand sawing 3

Partial Workout 2 plus rehab and a little core.

Cautious but excellent ride in with AD on snow-over-ice. Some bonehead drove an ATV through Palgrave East, and traction was better in those tracks.
Ice softened up on the return trip, and I made it home before dark!

C • Scary ice 3

Run with BZdog. Light powder over zamboni ice made for tricky conditions.

Rehab, stretching and part of workout 1

Ride in with AD. Some parts of the singletrack were boilerplate ice where the studs spun and scratched a bit, but I never lost control. Almost all of the ride would be nasty/ impossible without studs.
Ride back home in the dark was gorgeous in falling snow- but I rode cautiously with the hidden ice. Pushing up the bikewhack was really tough even with toe spikes in my bike shoes.

Snowshoeing Scenic Caves with Bash, Storm and Browner.
Still some snow even after all the rain last night.
Skate ski would have been crazy fast.

C • Terraventure 2 2