Training Log Archive: 'Bent

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.

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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.

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