Week of March 8 - 14: Snow Porcupines

This was a great week and actually felt like training again. I'm continuing to feel stronger. I opted to take last Tuesday pretty light instead of doing the uphill treadmill workouts that I've been doing recently, and was rewarded with the rest of the week being very solid. I'm pleased that my volume is back up to almost 2hrs a day average, but will continue to take some very light days when I feel I need them.

The week was highlighted by a great long run on Sunday at Frontenac Provincial Park. Right now we have absolutely no snow on the ground at home, so I was very surprised to see how much snow was still in the park in places. I thoroughly enjoyed my run and being on trails that looked like nobody had been on in weeks, or possibly months. With all of the snow I was post-holing pretty deep in places. Throw in some mud, water and ice and it was a slow loop of Big Salmon Lake.

The other thing that I found surprising was how difficult it was to find the trail at times. I feel like I probably know these trails better than anyone out there (except Sara), but found myself going off trail a couple of times because the it wasn't so obvious with there being no foot prints on the snow. Adding to the mix that I had to go around a few big bodies of water that were blocking the trail, made things that much more challenging.

I had one interesting incident where I was trying to get around a large flooded area. I finally found my way around it and and got back on the trail only to discover another set of foot prints going in the opposite direction. Strange I thought? Even stranger when I noticed the tread pattern in the snow. 'What are the chances that someone else is wearing a pair of Crosslites out here today?' Yup, you guess it...I found myself having done a 180, and heading back in the wrong direction. Silly me. Good thing there was snow on the ground or I might have kept going back to where I started. In reality, it wouldn't have been a big deal as I was about halfway around the loop anyhow, but I would much prefer to complete the loop instead of backtracking.

The only individuals that I saw on the trail were either adventure racers or ultra runners or porcupines.

Andrew Cameron, James Galipeau and Andrew's girlfriend Kim, had camped at campsite #4 on a very nasty night. They came down from Ottawa for the weekend. Andrew and James had just gotten back from doing well at an Adventure Race in Patagonia. The last time I saw Andrew was almost a year ago at Rock and Ice in Yellowknife.

I also bumped into Heather McNie from Trailhead Kingston, and Grant, who were just finishing up their run as well. Another highlight was stumbling upon a very sleepy porcupine who looked like he had just woken up and was just standing in the middle of the trail. Funny, he was only about 5 feet from me, but didn't seem too concerned. We talked for a moment, but I think I was boring him, so I continued on my way.

I really have missed doing longer runs over these past few (five!!!) months due to the knee injury and am so glad to be back enjoying some longer runs in the park again. I'm already just dying to get out for my next one.

Total # of hours this week – 13:10
Total # of hours this year – 80:21
Streak – 7,384 days of running in a row
Training Log Details

Week of March 1 - 7: Snowshoes and Dogsleds

Some great races this past weekend...

Pittsfield Snowshoe Challenge (Marathon, Half Marathon and 10.5km): A huge congrats to David and Kimberly who competed at the Pittsfield Snowshoe Challenge yesterday in Vermont. David finished 5th overall in the marathon on the killer course that climbs up and down a mountain four times in 5:42. Kimberly finished 4th female in the 10.5km one loop course in 1:33. The weather was mild, but sounds like conditions were challenging with very soft slushy snow. Congrats guys! Look forward to hearing more details. Race info and results (eventually) can be found at http://www.peakraces.com/ .

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Can Am Crown Dogsled Races: My friend Duane Ramsay of Inverary competed in the 6 dog - 30 mile race at the Can-Am Crown Dogsled Race in Fort Kent Maine on the weekend. He had a great race and finished in 16th place. Duane is one of the most recognized and respected mushers in the area. His knowledge and care for his dogs is unparallelled. I've had the good fortune of learning first hand from Duane and even raced his 'B' team on many occasions, including twice at Can-Am in the past. Two of our dogs, Willy and Jesse (and Cody before), came to us from Duane's kennel, and are enjoying their retirement from racing with our pack. Duane's passion for the sport of dogsledding is very inspiring as evident by the fact that now in his 70's, he is still out there training with his dogs daily.

U.S. Snowshoe Running Championships: Sara and I have run the U.S. Snowshoe Running Championships twice in the past and always had to travel quite a distance to the event. Too bad that we were both injured or coming off injuries as with the race being held in Syracuse, NY it would have been a nice short drive to get there. We had even considered going down just to watch, but decided that a relaxing weekend at home was more appealing. I still haven't seen results posted from the race, but conditions looked good and Dave Dunham has a race video posted here .

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Training Summary:
Things continue to go well with my training. I was very pleased with how I've felt with the continued increases in volume. I'm still splitting up most of my runs into two runs per day most days. My long run was up to over 2 hours yesterday at Frontenac Park and felt great, even though much of the run was done on snow that was ankle deep in places. I've also kept up with two quality uphill workouts per week on the treadmill, even though I really don't enjoy this. The uphill sessions have already jump started my fitness level and I feel that I've made pretty good gains in a short period of time with minimal strain on my knee. Structurally, my body feels very good and I'm pleased with how my knee seems to be getting stronger each week. I've even found myself getting excited with looking through the race calendar and thinking of upcoming races. I do think that I'm a ways off of racing right now though. Racing for me is usually secondary...I'm just so happy to be back out putting in some decent length runs again.

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Total # of hours this week – 11:51

Total # of hours this year – 67:11

Streak – 7,377 days of running in a row

Training Log Details

Bugs Bunny

Okay, everyone knows that all of the great lessons in life can be learned from Bugs Bunny cartoons.

It's funny, we don't own a TV, and I don't think I really watched that much TV when I was younger, but I can still quote Bugs Bunny-isms with the best of them.

Often at our place, one of us will bring up a topic, and Brennan, Heather or I will immediately answer with a 'You wouldn't hit a bat with glasses now, would you?' or 'Abracapocus, Pocuscadabra, ...Walla, Walla, Washington'. By the way, Sara thinks we're all 'Looney'!

It seems as though the above video of Bugs Bunny in Transalvania 6-5000 has been awarded the #1 Bugs Bunny episode of all time in our house. Though, my personal favourite is probably still Hillbilly Hare, featuring this great squaredance.

So many great cartoons...thank Bugs for Youtube.

100 Fastest 100 mile races in 2009

Thanks to EJ for bringing this to my attention. I hadn't noticed that Ultrarunning Magazine had listed the 100 fastest 100 mile times in 2009 in North America. It's sort of fun going through the list, seeing what times were run on what courses and how your time compares to others.

My time at Haliburton 100 was listed as the 42nd fastest time, which is kind of cool. My friend Keith's time at Haliburton also made the top 100.

Of course with 100 mile trail races, there is a huge difference in times and how the different courses stack up compared to how technical the trail is and how much elevation change there is. There were people who probably ran slower times on more difficult courses than Haliburton, but also people who ran faster on easier courses. That's the beauty of trail and ultra running is that you never really know exactly how a specific race is going to play out and how you compare until race day.

Judging by the list, if you want to run a fast 100miler, the races to run seem to be Javelina Jundred, Umstead, Kettle Moraine and Rocky Raccoon.

URG Treadmill

Now that's my kind of treadmill...

www.UltraRunningGuy.com

La Sportiva Mountain Cup

La Sportiva has announced the dates for the 2010 La Sportiva Mountain Cup.

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Race Schedule:

4/3/10 Mt. Penn Mudfest 15 km Reading, PA

5/22/10 Jemez Mountain Half Marathon 13.1 mi Los Alamos, NM

5/28/10 Rock2Rock Run 10 km Asheville, NC

6/5/10 RothRock Challenge 30km State College, PA

07/18/10 Barr Trail Mountain Race 12 mi Manitou Springs, CO

08/07/10 Squaw Valley Mountain Run 3.6 mi Squaw Valley, CA

08/07/10 Jupiter Peak Steeplechase 16 mi Park City, UT

08/08/10 La Sportiva Eldora Trail Race 11 km Nederland, CO

8/7/10 Mt. Ashland Hill Climb 13.3 mi Ashland. OR

8/21/10 Up and Over 10 km Taos, NM

For more information, please visit http://www.mountaincup.com/