Training Report

Today I did a half hour or so of easy running during track practice, and then went home.  When I got home, Dad and I  loaded up our cycling gear, and went of to Fanshawe Lake for a trail ride.

When we got there, I set my tire pressure, and did all the normal pre ride stuff.  Shortly after I got out of the parking lot, I crashed.  There was a sandy corner that I took too hard, apparently.  When I fell I got some road rash on my hip, some minor scratches on my right calf, and a fairly deep inch long gouge in my chin.

I immediately began bleeding all over everything.  I got blood on my bike, my shirt, and my pack.  Naturally, since I couldn't see how bad it was, I made a joke about hardcore cyclists using blood as chain lube.  I also apparently said some bad words.  We got the first aid kit out (its mandatory gear for life you know), and he patched me up.  He did a fantastic job actually, except that he used my helmet straps as anchors for some of the tape.  This meant I could not take my helmet off.  It kinda sucked.

The bleeding stopped quickly, and we continued our ride.  Things were fine until I got my first (of many) mechanicals.  During the crash my derailleur had become slightly out of tune, which drove me crazy for the remainder of the ride.

The next issue was going over a log, the nose of my saddle dropped.  I had been messing with a new seat position, and I had failed to tighten the bolt adequately.  I corrected this, and continued to ride.

There is a short road section linking parts of Fanshawe's trail system.  I locked out my fork for this section, and forgot to open it later.  As I rode a root garden, the shock was compressed, but not allowed to spring back up.  This became apparent when the tire started buzzing the bottom of my head tube.  I fixed the issue by opening the shock, which sprung back nicely.

My fourth mechanical was a flat tire.  I run tubeless, and the valve in my tire had become clogged with sealant.  So, as recommended by the bike shop, I applied alcohol.  This worked great, and freed up the valve.  It also spilled onto the tire, and dissolved a spot where the sealant had done its job.  This caused me a slow leak, which resulted in a flat which became un-ridable a few hundred meters from the car.  Instead of bothering with a tube and C02 cartridges, I just got picked up by Dad in the car.

The moral of the story is, always be prepared, and never make jokes about Lance.  He has some sort of cycling power that he will use against you, and your bike.

Anyway, here are some slightly gory pics.

Not a happy camper

This looks worse than it is.  

Some fun road rash

It almost looks like lips, doesn't it?  (insert joke about kissing the road)

All stitched up

There were mixed reactions at school.  Some people thought it was cool, some people mistook it for a goatee, and one person immediately asked "hows the bike?".

Training Report

Well, I ran around Fanshawe lake.  I have biked it numerous times, and run sections of it.  I finally went and the ran the entire 24 km of it.  It took me exactly 2 and a half hours to do.  I could have gone faster, but I wanted to hold off because this is the longest I have ran straight.  Its not much I know, but you gotta start somewhere.

Weather wise, it was perfect.  Temperatures were comfortably warm, without being crushingly hot.  The trails were dry for this time of year, which led to easy running.  I am excited to do it again, and longer distances.  I hope to do longer runs soon, which means I will be doing double laps before too long...

After I finished the run.

Thomass STARS Race Report

Today I raced in the Thomass STARS orienteering race, along with fellow Raid The Fridge members Roy and Chris.  Roy and I had done a bunch of these races before, Chris had only done one before.  Despite that we all registered individually, and each were issued Sport Ident chips, we ran as a team.  I acted as navigator, as Raid The Fridges main navigator had gotten married the day before and could not race today.

Chris, Roy, and I standing in front of the finish.

More of the same.

The course was mostly flat, with some small steep hills thrown in.  It was mostly on a well mapped set of trails, with some bushwhacking through open forest.  The trails themselves were frozen solid for the most part, with a few mucky sections near the numerous swamps.  The frozen dirt was excellent as far as traction goes, and my new Vibram Treksports were great on all terrain encountered during the race, with the exception of the ice.

The ice proved problematic.  It covered some sections of trail, making cornering treacherous, and running slow at best.  The people who had metal spikes in or on their shoe seemed okay, but we slid around.  On one especially slippery section I fell.  We were running along fine, in a single file line, when it happened.  I promptly found myself on the ground, and heard sliding behind me.  Chris (next in line) had witnessed my sudden loss of standing, and had slid to a stop (an upright one).  Roy was at the back of the line, and was fine.
At the end of the race I found that I had done a better job of injuring my self than I thought:

"It's okay" says Chris, "you iced it right away when you fell".

My navigation this race was far better than my footwork.  We hit all of the CPs, except for one of the two that we had the option of skipping.

We started the race by running a short, mandatory loop, that took us past where we would have to turn on our way to CP 1.  Following this loop, we made our way to CPs 1, 2, and 3, in quick succession.  On our way to CP 4, I made a the only error of the race.  We overshot by a bit (our standard mistake in orienteering races).  Luckily, I realized my error and we backtracked and found the checkpoint, losing only about two minutes.  After this we collected CP 5 and 6, then started the Thomass Box.

The Thomass Box CPs were in a rough circle, scattered over the whole course.  We opted for a clockwise direction, as it allowed us to scout out future CPs.  After collecting CP A-E (but not F, Roy and Chris thought it was too far away) we went back to CP 7, which was conveniently located right across the road from 6.

From CP 7 we went towards 8, along the same trail we used when looking for A.  It was here that talking the whole race paid off.  I was leading us in the general direction of where it was, and telling Roy and Chris to look for a depression in the ground.  Before I knew it, Chris was running off towards a depression to our right, that I hadn't seen.  I find it helpful to talk through my navigation, both so team mates know what to look for (eg. a trail that turns right, after we pass a swamp) and so that they can point out my mistakes.  CP 9 was very easy for us to find, as we had ran across it earlier.

After CP 9, the course designer obviously decided that there hadn't been enough climbing during the race, and opted to put all the remaining CPs on hills.  The two advantages too this were that you could sometimes see the next CP, from the hilltop you were currently on, and that I got to test the new Vibrams on hills.

After CP 12, we ran along a short section of trail to the finish.  When we reached the trail junction near the finish (which we had visited 3 times by this point) Roy and Chris told me too run ahead.  So I did, and finished shortly before a small herd of runners came pounding up the trail.

Overall it was a great race, very well set up and lots of fun.  We figured out that we ran about 8km (it would have been closer to 9km if we had added the Thomass box CP).  It took us an hour from start to finish.  They had cookies at the finish...