Training Log Archive: 'Bent

Event: 20th Annual CNYO SNOWGAINE
 

Snowgaine with Bash.

Day 1 Snowgaine.
We only had 30 min to plan the route and map, but Bash figured out a plan to basically clear the Southern section. Only a dusting of snow, so running shoes only.

We headed off, until I discovered that my bladder QR had locked up. I was sitting in the dirt taking it apart to no avail, as the rest of the field ran off. We had to return to the car and I dumped my 2.5L bladder into Bash's spare 1.5L, spilling lots on my gloves which shortly froze up. Not a good start, but we got past it and got back in the game.

Bash's nav was great. Travel was pretty good in the woods, but the horse trails often had a crunchy meringue-like layer of iced leaves that was awful to run on. There were some nasty sections of blown-down trees, but also some nice open forest. We leapfrogged UNE frequently.

We had to skip a couple of controls near the end of our route (UNE got them). If not for my water woes we could have gotten an additional 41 pointer, but not the 31. Other than that the day went well. Bash and I worked well together. It was a fairly long hoof back on roads and I could feel my right knee and left heel a bit. Also a little tired after a fair bit of hard work. I rationed my water and just made it on 1.5L.
Shower and Mexican food with the gang after!

Nice scoot in to work with AD- tracks are good this morning!

Easy workout 1 plus some rehab.

Excellent night ski home. Good ski tracks, and K/0 's tire pull groomed the walking lane perfectly.

Spectacular ski- breaking trail through shin-deep fresh powder on a perfect bluebird day with my big buddy- doesn't get better than this. Slow going but great workout for man and beast. The birthday beast had a huge doggie smile on his face. I suspect I did too- my favourite sport ever.

Easy run in with Brody on his 5th birthday. No Bazingadog today- fully mellow leash trotter. We met his long-time buddy Brock (Fit 11 year old black lab), whose owner mentioned how calm BZdog is now.
Stormaggedon hasn't started yet, but the ice is less slippery with some snow melted on.

Met Crash and her pooches, and little Sadie tried to terrorize my gentle giant by grabbing his leash and pulling him around. He tolerated it well and really wanted to chase her around. Got to get them together off leash.

Boot camp. Just made it on time after carefully taking deserted back roads in blinding snow.
A first for me- I had ladies fighting over me as a partner for the push-up relay. (1 partner goes until they can't, then the other takes over)

Aah, but there's a yang to the ying- I discovered I am utterly useless at skipping, (never tried it before) - just about burned myself out at the first station in a flurry of malcoordinaton and leaping. Luis kindly told me the ropes were too long and tried to coach me after- still a lost cause.

Back to dry ground in the open and ice in the woods.

Stars WAR- Garmin lost about 40 min, corrected from Bash's Ambit.

Beautiful spring skiing in sunshine, with sleeves rolled up.
Course was a complex system of bonuses, with rules that you couldn't ski on snowshoe trails or vice versa.
Bash spent time working out a good strategy to maximise the use of our classic skis.

I had worked hard to make sure our waxless skis had glide, and they were good for bushwhacking or on trail. We figured skate would be useless in the bush.
We did the first 2 hrs on ski, and cleared that part of the course. We had to do some slow, rough bushwhacking in order to get 3 bonus controls in order, but it turns out we misunderstood the rules and could have saved a lot of time there, as well as gotten 80 more points.
Bash was careful and was right in contact with the map the whole time, executing our plan exactly, while skiing strongly. My attempts at navigation tended to slow us down, so she did 95%.

Next we switched to snowshoes, with lots of scrambing up and down steep gullies. We were only able to tow part of the time. Cleared the course, and made it in with 8 min to spare. We thought we had all the bonus points too.

Thanks to Bash's attention to detail we were 3rd overall, and first Masters. Only Tiny's team got everything in sequence to get full bonus points, and some strong teams missed cps and/ or bonus combination. We missed only 1 combo.
Great racing with Bash and a great course with a ton of work put in by Nick and the Stars.

Includes part of the ski.