O-Cup Finale

Terrain: flat, trail, forest, crusty snow

Weather: plus a few, sunny

Format: Thomass Box with dog-bone controls

Zoom in for my tracks. Or don't.

It was Spring Forward weekend, and despite the fact that I had on the Saturday 1) warned a newcomer co-worker of the time change, and 2) sent out a reminder on my club's FB page for everyone to get up for the race on time, I still totally forgot, stayed up late and very nearly fell fast asleep without changing my alarm clock. Crisis averted, but I was a wreck the next morning and rolled in to the race totally last-minute. What else is new?? So not much time, or wherewithal, to look at the map and plan out which of the criss-crossing dog-bones to attack.

Once in the Thomass box, you had to take each lettered bone in pairs before continuing onto the next one. I know I made a rudimentary plan at the start line, but what followed was a long traverse in crusty deep snow that made us all post-hole our way across a field and shake all the bright ideas we'd had out of our heads.

My route: hH-Ee-cC-fF-Bb-Aa. I think I was trying to avoid the longest bones without really taking into account how much extra distance I'd have to cover in between them to do that. I got hit by my usual running/period cramps ahead of the box, so I huffed and puffed my way through that, thinking - Hey! With all this walking, I'll have extra time to think! Didn't help.

After H, I travelled a bit with what looked like a Giant's Rib Raid team practising together (several guys, with packs, and too much chattering). They took me through a lot of green. Why didn't I notice that on the map? The E's were fast and easy after that, but I under-shot little-c. Also lost a shoe in the crust - why can't Oroc make a decent shoelace to go with its super-tacular shoes? I was feeling my broken ass at this point, so I slowed right down.

After I picked up C, I actually stopped because I had no memory of what the crap I was supposed to do next. To minimize damage, I went out to get little-f, then back on the big trail for F and B. Kept bumping into those raid guys over and over, kind of funny. Little-b was a very special control, as it was a derelict sofa in the middle of the woods. I was happy that the Aa leg would finally take me home, but I got really turned around coming out from A, and hit a north-south trail instead of the big east-west. Luckily, this is my favourite mistake, so I always check the trail direction.

Closer to little-a I had the raiders hot on my heels again, and I decided to shortcut across an open field. I had evidently not yet learned that while yellow is an awesome colour to run through under normal conditions, that crusty snow is a horrible alternative to the long way around on a beaten trail. Stump stump stump stump. I didn't learn that for a second time coming out of #5 - "I'll just take this 0.59-second shortcut down this little hill instead of through everyone else's tracks like a chump." Splat! My foot got stuck in the crust, and down I went. With Pat-hectic and MJ laughing right behind me.

There was a nice long trail run past 6 and on to 7, but I took the wrong trail through the woods and emerged on that gosh-darned start field way too far north. Stomp stomp stomp... stomp.. gasp... stomp, argh!!! Leaving 9, one of the juniors asked me if he could glance at my map because of mumble mumble. So I stopped for a second, at which point the kid took off for the finish, and there went another point for me.

For all the grumbling and complaining, this was really an awesome course, one to remember. And the whole time I thought it was the man they call Tiny who was to blame, whereas it was actually DS who had devised this evil plan. He showed me his Cheat Sheet of the allegedly best routes for each handicap. I cried a little. I don't remember the whole thing, but it started with little-a and came back out at little-c. Not in a million years would I have come up with that.

--Distance: 9.5km
--Duration: 1:29:03
--Place: 19th

Fun fun fun, winter fun. Can't believe the Thomass / O-Cup season is already over. With my org points from our club race, I did pretty well!
--Place Overall: 13th
--Place Female: 5th
--Place Age Group: 1st - yay!

Snowgaine Day Two

When I finally highlighted all the controls we'd picked up on day one, I ended up with a really sad-looking little circle in the middle of the map. No wonder we didn't see anyone else for the first few hours. On day two, we were determined to make a comeback, cover more ground, pick up bigger points, and most of all just ski more instead of stamping around on our "overly-long snowshoes."

At the start, we realized we had forgotten a bunch of gear prep, and we ended up starting late. One guy who was on a time penalty asked us if we were also on an official delay. Nope! Self-imposed penalty over here! Finally started down and along the lake towards #22, which we had skipped the day before. The lake/marsh skiing was beautiful. A layer of snow had fallen over night, and conditions were perfect. We did have to struggle a bit towards the control because all the snowshoe tracks had frozen over in the woods. We saw the soon-to-be winning team wildernesstraverse.com (who would be done for the weekend in another 3hrs), and I was kind of embarrassed at sliding around trying to climb up to the control. The woods would usually prove more icy than the open lands and marshes.

We also saw CM's team Untamed Torpedo, and eventually caught on that he might have decided to do the same loop we had, as we were all discussing things together at our motel. Sneaky! The race was on. Skis vs. Snowshoes - it would be epic. Well, for one of the teams anyway.

We cut a straight line for #51 across another marsh, but then veered too much north-west, so it took us a long time of looking around and second-guessing to get back out to the snowmobiles. But then we swish-swished down to one of the big 81-point controls, and even the long dog-leg through the forest to #83 was a sweet ski. UT were just leaving when we got there though. I realized then that my water hose had totally frozen, despite my having diligently blown the water back each time. I just wanted to ski, so I let it go for the time being. The foam tubing I'd bought to fashion an insulator out of was still sitting in CM's car untouched.

We took another nice long ski over and around to get to the 60s in the southeast corner of the map. The snow was so perfect and easy. My skis wanted to skate, so I let them. Cool! Never skated before, that's for sure. We cut a perfect line for #62 and noticed that UT had not been there yet - yes! But they came up behind us just as we were leaving - geez, that was fast! I later found out that while we took the long way around on our skis, they had even gotten out to #50 in the meantime!

We got kinda used to thrashing through this stuff. I mean skiing.

The forest here was really beautiful, and halfway skiable. We caught the boys again just ahead of #67, but I stupidly had us climb an unnecessary hill, and we lost them for good. We weren't the only ones up there though, judging by the tracks, and the ski into the control was heavenly.

We had been worried about the state of the big marsh ahead, but it turned out to be as frozen over as all the others. Only the first bit was rough, but we bumped into Attack from Above again, who were travelling with a surprise friend - a runaway black lab that would go on to switch teams later on and end a long day of rogaining with a burger in front of the HQ fire. Latest reports had him safely back with his totally unconcerned owners!

We also found out that PH on the team had fallen through some ice and been rescued out by his snowshoes by CL. Knowing he was soaked right through, I really reconsidered packing extra clothes for next year. I thought I was saving weight by dumping stuff, but it turns out that all the experienced teams had spare gear just in case. No messing around.

Skating!

CB finally decided to shove my water hose down my back to warm it up - it would work like a charm, phew!! We had another wonderful skate ski across the last part of the marsh, where we were caught up by the Tree Huggers and exchanged some smiles and photos. It was BC on the team who totally sold me on this crazy race a few weeks before at another ski-O. The way she described it made it irresistible, and here we were!

From #66, it felt like we were meandering along a river valley to get back out to the road, but we were actually on our plan the whole time. The map was very accurate, so reading the contour features was a breeze. We did a very short road run once we ran out of snow, but my ass got angry with me. Nooooo running.

Tree Huggers

Although I thought we'd go around the west side of the hill to #50, CB pointed out that the 2.5m contours are really slight, and that the forest would probably be much more skiable than the marsh. She was so right. Many tracks across this "hill". Our only hiccup was when I decided to check out a little side stream to make sure we didn't overshoot. We also took a shortcut across a tiny part of a lake to get out onto the snowmobiles, but we had to avoid the, um, actual open water near a culvert. We stayed where we saw ski, snowshoe and bike tracks. Yes, there was a team on big fat-tire bikes, and they did really well too!

After #38, we decided to skip #49 for a second day in a row, as it would be a time-wasting dog-leg. Because of our complete lack of overall strategy, we had ended up in an area where we had picked up most of the controls already. We wanted to shoot up along the big trails to the north part of the map to get the bigger points. At this point, CB had come down with a terrible headache. I started kicking myself for forgetting painkillers in my kit. We had a long ski ahead of us, and she was going to be a trooper.

I found myself in the lead for the first time in the race. I'd look back and see her skiing with her head immobilized and almost with her eyes closed. She said, "I'm okay, it just hurts to think and talk." Yikes! She had to recover quickly though, because my line in towards #47 was less than perfect.

Our final push was to cross the big road and swish up to pick up some bigger points. We were both getting a bit antsy about the time, but I gave us an hour to take care of business up there and have 30mins to fly down the main road to the finish. I decided on 56-64-41 to make best use of available trails. With the existing tracks, this last foray was a no-brainer. And I think I finally got the hang of this skiing thing! We passed PK in there, who was courageously doing the whole course on skate skis. The RD had had a good laugh at his expense at the start, telling tales of those skating snowgainers whose bodies had never been recovered in years past, but here PK went on to be one of those to clear the whole course. So there!

We were right on time with these last three controls. The snowbanks on the side of the main road were quite squishy, so we ended up getting out-walked by some snowshoers as we sunk into the snow with each "glide." But we made it back with 10mins to spare and big huge smiles.

And we weren't last! 20th out of 23rd, baby! And... 2nd Female Team. Here's to all those other female teams who didn't show up.

--Distance: 30km
--Duration: 7:50:00

I am so glad this was a two-day event. A lot of things finally clicked the second day, and we were much happier campers. We retired in front of the fire to hot dogs, burgers, chili, and the sweetest dog ever to race all day in a winter rogaine. (There's probably been more than one.)

CM had had the bright idea of taking a sweet three-day motel deal so that we could still take showers afterwards. Amazing. Then we drove down to Syracuse to meet up with my race buddy MK for sushi dinner. And to trade war stories of course. Wicked! What an amazing weekend. The race was amazing, and so many friends to spend it with. I'm really grateful for CB being my teammate too. No one could have been more patient.

Gear Worn:
Same, except packed my little gloves, good move. That Salomon front add-on is really dorky but awesome.

Gear Packed:
2x Socks, Turtle mitts, Toque (ditched the jacket, probably shouldn't have)
8x Roctane, Cheese sandwich, salt pills, 1.5L water (ditched the big 2L tank)
Headlamp, First aid, Emergency blanket (lightened the load a bit)

Snafus:
Being cocky about having stuff prepared from the first day and then realizing I still had to make food and get my gear in order. Result in a lot of time wasting at the start.
Not adding pain killers to the first aid kit, duh!
Not taking the time to rig the water hose insulation.
CB forgot her watch, while I forgot to charge mine. Thankfully, unlike its owner, my watch is Ironman-ready with minimum 17hrs of GPS on the battery. But this could have turned out badly.

Next year:
- Use insulated water, and much less of it.
- Do a team gear review to make sure all essentials are there and easy to reach
- Pack all essentials in the front for both teammembers
- Do keep the warm stuff in the back just in case
- If skiing, use trails as much as possible
- Re-read the rules to take advantage of them when necessary
- Might use the string-on-board concept now that I know how fast we can travel (in these conditions at least)
- Make only planned stops and do as much as possible on the move. Boy, did we waste time on stoppage. 5mins here, 8mins there... yikes.
- Be very disciplined with eating at intervals (which I finally did on day two)
- Strategy: don't get stuck in an area with no controls on day two. Plan better!
- Might add more stuff as I remember it...

Snowgaine Day One

Location: upstate NY, north-east of Syracuse
Terrain: flat-ish, snowy forest, frozen marshes, snowmobile trails
Weather: minus a few, crisp and perfect for racing
Format: 2x 8hr rogaine, 37 controls, any non-motorized travel permissible (we skied both days), manual punch with a time sign-in sheet to see who is where
Team: Swish Swish Thump with CB (the swish swish is for the skiing, the thump is for when we fall on our asses)

If you click on this and squint real hard, you can see the tracks from both days overlaid.

I had done only one 10hr urban rogaine before, while CB had done some real ones in the woods. The only advice I could contribute from my meagre experience was that once you take time to travel into an area, you should grab all the controls there no matter what. I had skied a total of 11 times in my life, and never off-trail, other than in tracks that had already been cleared for me by others in a ski-O. CB was going to be the leader on this team through and through.

Started off with a short road run along with everyone else (who were mostly on snowshoes, the cowards! LOL), but we ducked into the first snowmobile trail, while the others continued on. The trail was soft and easy to ski on. Our first bushwhack to #43 was really tough, with lots of icy moguls in the forest, which I could not figure out how to move on. CB seemed to slide and hop from one bump to the next, but I was very frustrated and delayed us quite a bit. We then had to climb an icy, crusty hill up to #42. Again, CB got up there pretty quick with an aggressive herring bone, while I slid all over the place. Finally side-stepped to the top. Coming back down was a little blood-curdling! Had to slide sideways as well while CB mostly skied. And waited. A lot! I didn't realize until after the race that there was no rule about each team member having to touch the control... oops!

We quickly hit #51 , and our next objective was #49, but even though the marsh we crossed to get close to it was thickly frozen over and snowed in, there was a sizable river in our way that didn't have any lucky natural bridges. We pressed on to #55 instead.

The scenery became more and more beautiful. 55 was in another frozen marsh. Unfortunately, crossing this marsh to #48 was probably the most tiring part of the day. Nothing but little moguls with water holes in between. Apparently this is where CB took a nose dive into one of these! I myself had already fallen over a hundred times thus far, and gotten my skis stuck in bushes a hundred more. It took us a whole hour to cross that marsh. I had just started getting a bit more comfortable with what my skis could take on the uneven terrain, thinking that if CB's skis could take this punishment, so could mine, right? Then I noticed: she has touring skis, about twice as thick as mine!

At this point, we realized that we hadn't seen anyone else so far. We had hit 5 virgin controls, with no other sign-ins. Wish there were bonus points for that! Although it was tough going, it was very satisfying to keep hitting the controls dead-on after kilometres of lonely marsh-whacking.

After CB got a little wet, I vowed I wouldn't go in the drink myself. There was this one little stream (which she just flew over) that my little legs couldn't span properly as I tried to step to the other side. I got all unbalanced, but determined not to touch water in any way, I threw my arms out and landed in a sweet plank across the stream. My skis and poles were stuck in every direction possible. I yelped and heard "can I help?" from up ahead. "Yes, please!" When CB rounded the corner, all she could do was burst out laughing... and start taking out her camera! With this great help, I had to extricate one of my poles with my teeth, haha.

PHOTO TO FOLLOW! Maybe even the video. Yes, she took video.

We were disappointed trying to find the trail to #53 as there were lots of private property signs along the snowmobile trails. We just couldn't find a way in. So had to give it up and finally do a satisfying fast ski up to #65 and then on to #46. By this time, there were definitely elephant tracks to the controls, so at least that was easier, although kind of disappointing too, as we got so used to finding our own way.

Instead of going back out to keep dodging the snowmobiles, we decided on a direct route to #21 - murder! Maybe the second most frustrating leg through a very tough forest, and now we had crusty snowshoe tracks to contend with. CB also lost her compass there at some point, and she went back out to find it - and she did! Crazy and awesome! It was busted in two though, so I had to take over despite the fact that I was exhausted and disoriented. I got us a bit off-track at #45, so we wandered a bit to re-orient. #37 was easy, and now we were doing everything to stay on skiable trails or open tracts of the forest.

We finally saw some familiar faces (Attack from Above, first male team, what what!) at #44, and although at this point the two snowshoers were quite jealous of our "fast" skis, I made sure to give them a front-row seat to wipe-out #367 of the day. While I baby-giraffed myself back to my feet, they gingerly pranced right past me.

The last trail ski was a bit of a blur. I was exhausted beyond belief. We got to ski more easily here, but I had very little left in me and felt so bad for CB who constantly patiently waited for me to catch up, and who at every control we hit would yell out, "We're AWESOME!"

We got #33 and #35 and had a little time left, so we debated catching #22 as our last control. CB made an executive decision to go straight home, and as someone who is perpetually late for things, I agreed with her sense of timing. We took off across the frozen Lake Loraine, 300m+ of very nervous skiing, at some of the fastest pace we had put on the whole day - and that's not just because of the smooth flat surface!

We ended up having about 20mins to spare, and it turned out that we wouldn't have lost points for lateness on day one, but would have been delayed by 3x each minute at the start the next day. If we had known that, we probably would have gone for #22. But we were exhausted and happy and very proud of ourselves on this first outing.

Great post-race food, and then later dinner with the 16-strong Team Canada, and of course planning for Day Two. Took the Tree Huggers' advice on utilizing our, ahem, speed on the trails and minimizing the ski-whacking. I don't think I could take another whole day of that!

--Distance: 22.5km
--Duration: 7:40:00

Gear Worn:
LG Ski pants, ski socks, HH shirt, arm warmers, ultrathin windbreaker, ear band, ski gloves, 20L pack + 5L front add-on - Other than gloves, I nailed my clothing for the day, perfectly warm and dry

Gear Packed:
Ski jacket, 2x Socks, Turtle mitts, Toque
8x Roctane, Cheese sandwich, salt pills, 2L water + 1.5L water
Headlamp, Towline (which I lost - sorry, CK!), First aid, Knife, Emergency blanket

Gear Snafus:
Didn't pin my map, so kept taking it out of the front pack. Good thing CB was the navigator.
Didn't drink most of the water, so really just dragged a lot of extra weight.
Forgot my tiny liner gloves, so when my hands got cold had to squeeze my regular gloves into my mitts. The mitts were also too big for my pole loops, gah.

Stars W*A*R

First race of the year! Finally!

Format: Ski-O with two handicap boxes
Terrain: flat to rolling, white forest, snowshoe trails, single-track, machine track-set, skate trails, bushwhack
Weather: Sunny and crispy chilly

Route Link

Started the day off really nicely with a ride up with "Bender" and "Chief". I love carpooling.

This being my second Stars WAR at Wasaga Beach, I meant to prepare, but of course forgot last year's map at home. I also forgot my highlighters but thankfully borrowed from a friend.

There were 7 point-to-point controls plus 2 boxes of 4 controls, where I could skip 1 in each. I think I picked a decent route, and off we went, shuffling up the mountain and through the forest to the start. This was mainly a team ski/snowshoe race, and these guys mass started first. Then they started us skiers one per minute.

I started behind my two rivals: MT, a highly-ranked junior skiier, whose parents had won this race on occasion, and VD, our dear course setter's wife and a great skier/orienteer as well.

The first leg was a long slog on a snowshoe trail. I caught up to VD at one point, and my nerves got to me. I was really intent on getting a particular control that I thought was my first one, that I skied right passed #1 and on to the first optional A. D'oh! I climbed the hill to manual-punch A, then had to backtrack 200m for 1, much to the surprise of the later starters.

The long ski to 2 was really nice, although I eventually got stuck behind some straggling ski teams who had a hard time climbing. I also missed an opportunity to bushwhack instead of switchbacking, but I enjoyed the fast ski. The next leg was fun on a skate trail. The snow was so glidy and smooth, that I could even skate a bit - I think??? I easily hit my other two letter controls in the lower box and then jumped in for #3. Passed a team of skaters, who were having trouble on the single track.

Since many of the fast teams had gone ahead, there was a nice trail blazed to cut between several parallel ski trails. I came out onto a major track that should have taken me up to 4. I kept going and going, but there was no turn-off. I eventually found myself at a junction with a little warming hut, and thank goodness, because then I could see how far north I had ended up on the map. Another racer had the same problem as me and went back out to investigate - turns out the trail we were looking for to get to 4 did not really exist!

Met "Bender" and his teammate "Mick" as I skated (!) my way back down to 4 - a junction control, from which I had to grab three controls labelled 5, then return to in order to continue to 6. 5a was really close through a bit of forest, and I was surprised no one had broken trail for me yet, harrumph. So I took off my hopeless skis and hoofed it. Definitely worth it. As I left the control, I wanted to take a gel, so I didn't notice that I had dropped one of my poles. Had to backtrack again 200m to pick it up, golly! Really surprised that one team of struggling skaters who had now caught up to me. "How could you possibly not have noticed that you don't have a pole??"

I quickly hit the other two 5 controls, and decided to take a skate trail back up to 4. The trail was really cool, as it had constant little ups and downs. Not the best for classic skis, but since the snow was great for it, I could help myself with a bit of skating.

I saw VD again as I was leaving 4 back down the same trail, plus I had now passed those skaters again, and my excitement got the better of me again. Along the long ski down to 6, I made one right turn way too early. This time it was a 300m-each-way mistake. Yikes. I passed the skaters again on that awful snowshoe single track heading back to the start/finish, but I was sure that VD had gone by. A male skier was also catching up to me now, and I had to let him go.

Now I passed the Treehuggers team heading out on their snowshoe portion, followed about 10mins by Bender and Mick, then "Tiny" and his partner. The ski tracks were rapidly deteriorating under their clunky footwear, haha. I couldn't catch the guy who had passed me for anything. Finally gasped my way to the finish in 1:58, two minutes behind him.

In the end, I was the third woman and sixth skier. VD made a mistake after 4 and did not finish. MT won handily, the little whippersnapper. After the race, there was a some talk of getting more ski-Os going in Ontario, as driving out to eastern NY state sucks. RD Nick, BC, and MT's parents are all into putting something else together. I told the RD that I could do this every weekend.

To summarize, I think the course really favoured classic skiers, or at least evened out the advantage that skaters might have had. I couldn't believe how easy it was to move on this snow too. The adventure teams felt that the handicap system was fair and quite democratizing. A wonderful, wonderful day. Despite the fact that I lost about 1.4km worth of time (10-15mins) through stupid mistakes. But I got a sweet door prize - massage therapy with, of all people, the wife of the dude who passed me on that last fight to the finish. Oh, my back needs that.

--Distance: 14.5km
--Duration: 1:58

O-Cup Chase

Terrain: forest, deep valleys
Weather: sunny and crisp, perfect
Format: 3min/6min delayed starts for 0-2, 770m marked prologue, plus one Thomass box of 7 controls

The second O-Cup race returned to the usual Dundas Valley, with a start at Canterbury Hills. The extremely deep valleys / grooves in the terrain make for some tough route choices if one wants to avoid climb. Not sure if it was the best choices, but I executed them very well. I found myself doing a lot of dog legs though, which isn't the most exciting, but at least you know where you're going.

I started my race with 6:00 already on the clock, and unfortunately my untrained legs no longer allow me to stay up front with the elite men like last year, so I got through the prologue gasping and panting at the back of the pack. Leg 2 was a long but fairly fast run on a big road. I saw a few people choose to take off right a bit earlier than I planned, but I changed my mind when I saw that I could stay on a contour and go around a large hill instead of going over it to get to Control 2. I nailed it.

Route Link

Then it was down into the valley for a long run along a river, past C, which I would get after entering the box from 3. Taking this route had the advantage of seeing the earlier runners coming down a cliff from 3 to get to C, so I knew where to start going up. Then dog leg number one back to C. D was further down the river and up a huge hill again. Then back down and a climb on the other side to get to the only legal entry point to the western part of the map.

Trying to minimize climb, I went after F at the top, which was a fairly flat run with easy attack points. Then I took a big trail for a bit until a long hill ended, so that I jumped over to a more southern trail to get to the far-flung G. I didn't want to climb at all, so I descended into the river to get it from there, which probably slowed me down a bit. But the contours on the side of the river are so prominent, that it was an easy find. Dog leg number 2 was a backtrack in the river to get to E. Some other people chose to go up top, which definitely would have been faster, as I got stuck between the river and a cliff a few times. But reading the contours was much easier from below. I nailed E and climbed back out to get back to the other side of the map and punch 3 again (which meant another dog leg past D!)

The next leg was just a long slog across to the easternmost part of the map, and I was exhausted. My legs wouldn't move. For dog leg number four, I re-ran the big road from leg 2, but I was almost 15% slower the second time around. Control 4 was hidden in a gully coming up from a river, but again, the contours are prominent and easy, so I nailed it no problem. Ran across the plateau and back down into the river and up the other side for 5, then a "quick" uphill for the final control and a real sprint even more up the hill to the finish.

I have to be very happy that I hit all the controls perfectly and moved efficiently between them. I had told myself that in my condition I can't afford to waste time and distance and energy. I mostly avoided the dreaded climbs on the course, so I'm thrilled. 

Unfortunately, this had to be the worst handicapped race for F21. First there was the staggered start with handicaps 0-2 held back 6mins, so the (3min) gap between F21 and F35 was immediately huge, added to the fact that we're the slowest of the 0-2 in the first place. Then 3 of the 7 box controls were on the other side of the map, so automatically I had to get at least one of them, while anyone on handicap 3+ could just stay on the near side the whole time.  In 36th place overall, I was the 1st F21 back, haha.

So not too many points this time, but at least I can be proud of a totally clean race, and how often can we say that?

--Distance: 8.36km
--Climb: 387m
--Duration: 1:18:21 [1:24:21 on the race clock]

--Place: 36th
--Points: 15

--Series Standings: 27th

O-Cup Kickoff

Formerly the THOMASS winter orienteering series and now dubbed the O-Cup with a "Thomass" format.

Terrain: forest, snowy ski hill, trail
Weather: overcast but probably >0
Hosts: Guelph Gators

It definitely snowed for us in the morning, a fitting opening to a great new season of winter ass-kicking. The only snow at the race was the first layer of fake stuff on the ski slopes, but if you have to trudge through it, it counts.

The format had two Thomass boxes, plus an extra start handicap. I should have started at control 2, but the start was off-set, so I got confused and ended up at control 1, which essentially took one handicap point away from me, oops. After that, nav was basically great, but I had a hard time running. Part of it was my hamstring as well as some pretty strong arch pain I'd developed during the Raid, but mostly I was just really out of running shape.

Route Link

After 7 controls along the flats, I went through the train tunnel and straight up to the top of the ski hill and the box controls on the plateau.

I did well here except for getting distracted by a chatty friend towards the first control, where I just followed the crowd, and the crowd was wrong. It's not that hill, it's that other hill.

The terrain up there was really pretty, especially when the course went south towards the characteristic rocky ridges of the area. At one point, I crossed a trail just as an older couple were taking a walk, and as I emerged from the shrubs, they mockingly mentioned that "there's a trail, you know." Haha. What can you say to normal people?

I only got off-course once, going towards what I now know should be called a "Bingo!" control, as in, it's in the middle of nothing, and when you find it you can yell Bingo! Some of my friends chose to skip it and take a longer way around the ridge for their controls because of that. Smart. Still, I think it's good practise for straight-up orienteering on a bearing, which I suck at.

The last part of the course was in a kind of escarpment canyon. I had never been there before, and it was beautiful how the ridge curved around the control in a big U. I even found a second wind and outran a guy who had caught up to me. Then down the snowy ski hill again, across the train bridge, and straight to the soup kitchen.

The Gators put together a fantastic and varied course, plus cooked up not one but two soups and hot apple cider and home-made cookies that apparently had a nav theme, but almost no one noticed because we just scarfed them down. Great to see everyone out for the season starter too. This isn't going to be my most successful season, but I'll make the best of it.

--Distance: 8.73
--Duration: 1:22:34
--Place: 25th / 89
--Points: 26

I also used new shoes! First time out for my spiky new Inov8 Oroc 280 - I definitely felt more secure on the slippery parts, but need to learn to trust them more. The downside is that, as everyone says, these shoes have zero stability, so my ankles were all over the place. Rolled one quite a bit once.

Peak-2-Peak

Format: Point-to-Point, Trail
Terrain: Forest, deep valleys, meadow, road, trail
Weather: Drizzle/Rain, 5°

I thought I'd get all my lost-iness out of the way by making the wrong turn on the highway in Hamilton and forcing my carpool mates to run out their phones trying to guide me across the city and back to the race start. That mostly worked. But it's not an efficient strategy.

This was the warm-up race for the Raid the Hammer, and I raced it with my teammate WP. The orienteering was actually quite challenging, which is good, because I don't expect the Raid navigation to be nearly as hard, so this was a good way to overcompensate and be better-prepared. It was a blustery cold and wet day, so any time spent moving slowly and thinking about the course kind of sucked a lot.

AP Route, Garmin Track

We spent a short time marking my map, and while that really helps if you do a good job, maybe committing to certain route choices hastily isn't the best idea. To get to control 1, we ran around the bottom of a hill on a road, even though I saw another racer duck into the bush earlier - I realized that it wasn't a straight climb on the near side, but a bit of a valley; decided to press on anyway, but the other way was much faster. For control 2, I took us down the hill along a bad line because there was a clear path, so then we had to go up a trail to make sure we knew how far along we were.

Then we had a long run on a piece of the Bruce Trail (yay! I love seeing those white blazes!) and easily found 3. The straight route to 4 looked pretty green on the map, but we agreed we'd see how it is in reality and decide then if we should take a trail around. We ended up finding a bit of a clear path through sumac bushes, but when we made it back out onto a trail close to 4, the vegetation was different than on the map, clearing later than it should have, so I overran my attack point; thankfully there were some characteristic boulders where we ended up, so finding 4 was easy, just took too long. As an aside, this was probably the 3rd or so of many controls marked as "hilltop." The race was really "Peak-2-Peak-2-Peak-2-Peak-2-Peak-2-Peak"...

5 was easy orienteering, and 6 would have been the same, but we got caught up seeing 12 close to it, so detoured a bit before continuing to 6. We then moved to the third part of the map, which was a kind of crossed loop, and I did something silly - I started running straight for 11 instead of 7. Thankfully W was like, "huh??" and got us back on track, and the unplanned route was actually more direct and faster than going around like the other racers!

I have no idea what I did heading out to 8, but my line was way off, and we got quite close to an out-of-bounds private area. It was a little hard to tell how far along the private fence we were, and there had been some distracting racers yelling on a slight hill. Since we were looking for a hill (big surprise!), it was possible that that was it, although I thought the area we'd ended up in was too flat compared with that part of the map. We doubled way back to an obvious set of hills and houses and confirmed that we hadn't gone far enough in the first place.

9 was on the other side of a fairly deep stream valley, and once again I veered us off a straight line between the controls, crap. But that took us to a very obvious bridge and fork in the streams, so getting to 9 was quite easy. The only problem was that the control was set a good 100m too close to where it should have been, so when I tried to navigate among some hills to 10, I ended up in a different area than intended. I can read contour features very well, so I figured it out, but we really got slowed down here in what should have been a much faster section.

Next up was my favourite part: running on train tracks! I am terrified of trains. Maybe it made me run faster. 11 was fairly easy once we got back into the woods. We already knew where 12 was since we'd inadvertently visited it before, haha, and 13 was really fun to get to along a small sandy river bed. There was a cool crink in the river, and since I get very excited about funny contour features, that was a delight to run past. Don't judge me.

The way to 14 should have been a no-brainer since there was an open (although shrubby) field and a clear tree line. I have no idea how I turned us around, but we ended up on a trail that was perpendicular to the one we needed, and I clued in about 50m in when I checked the trail direction. 15 was fairly easy, and I kept a good line, but for some reason I chose to cut across a very brambly field to get to 16 instead of just taking a trail - I think I wanted to avoid climbing. Well we avoided that! I think I'm still picking the thorns out. Then we took the long Bruce Trail run back towards the start, and found 17 easily, although it was at the toppiest hilltop of them all.

Notes for the Raid:
- Use max time for map marking, and each map should be marked
- If we're lost-ish, get to a definite known point to re-navigate
- Teammate who is in charge of control descriptions / control numbers / other race leg instructions is awesome; food timing would also be fantastic during the long race
- I have a hard time holding a good line on a compass bearing, and I'd prefer one of my teammates to do this instead on the longer legs
- It would be great to have one teammate lead to a control and another teammate to have the bearing leading away from the control ready, so we can leave the control immediately; I'm bad at doing this in solo races
- Tow-line: normally I'd recommend it for equalization, but both WP and I are in no shape to move at a faster pace than what our broken legs allow; neither of us should push our legs beyond safe operating limits
- Gotta check in with team pace and stay together
- I know I get more nervous about my skills when others are counting on me to get it right

--Distance: 12.5km
--Duration: 2:28:53

Hey, even with a crappy time, it turns out we were 12th overall and 3rd women! This challenging course was not kind to a lot of the racers, many of whom ended up skipping controls just to finish. So I'm pretty happy that eventually our diligence and persistence paid off. Look out, Raiders - here come A Few Good Legs!

Great Toronto Rogaine

Format: Rogaine (10hr Score-O)
Terrain: parks, muddy ravines, streets
Weather: warm but drizzly in the morning, then just overcast

I was so excited when I heard about my orienteering club's inaugural city-wide urban park rogaine, I immediately ditched my entry into the Waterfront 1/2 marathon taking place on the same day. A rogaine is a multi-hour orienteering event with controls you can visit in any order, accumulating more points for the outlying ones. They usually take place out in the woods, but this one was set in the many parks our club has maps for, and also incorporated a lot of scavenger hunt-style photo-based controls in the regular urban areas. The time limit would be 10hrs for the long course, my new longest event to date.

Marking the big points down before the start

Having either raced in all of our club parks or set courses in them myself, I predicted which areas of the city would be part of the race and which would probably hold the most points, so I was able to sketch out a general route ahead of time. We were allowed to use any human-powered transportation plus public transit. It turns out that virtually all Toronto bus routes now have bike racks, so I opted to use my sturdy commuter in conjunction with hopping on buses where it would be faster.

I guessed that I could probably average 15kph on that bike overall, and that I could put out about 75km, plus however far I could get by transit. I opted for an eastbound route to Scarborough, then northwest to hit some parks along Steeles, and then back southeast towards the finish at Riverdale Park. My assumptions about the course were right on the money, so other than slotting in some photo controls along my general route, I didn't have to think too much before the start. The master map was the city cycling trail map with the photo controls marked in - an excellent choice, as it made choosing bike routes very easy. We also had about 12 park O-maps and a transit guide. New record for most maps in one race??

I knew each of the parks quite well, except for Warden Woods, Morningside and Bestview, which I hadn't raced in for quite a while. The other parks: Taylor Creek, L'Amoreaux, G. Ross Lord, Earl Bales, Sunnybrook and ET Seton, I essentially know like the back of my hand. For a few, I could probably produce a reasonable O-map just from memory! I was confident that I could make decent decisions on the fly during the race.

Highlights:

• Stopping at my house on the way out to dump extra gear and clothing and finish my coffee - not my fault it was on my way!
• Being soaked inside of 10 minutes. I remember how shocked I was when that one ray of sunlight hit me in the face at some point during the day. But being soaked by rain means you don't mind wading through marshes and crossing creeks.
• Being super nervous the first time I dumped my bike in the bushes unlocked at Taylor Creek to wade into a marsh - I quickly realized I was one of very few people out in the drizzle and that my bike was always out of sight in places no sane person goes into anyway - I ended up never using my lock.
• Going down a sheer and muddy hillside in Warden Woods with the bike where there should have been a trail - put the bike sideways in front of me and used it like a granny walker.
• Using the mapped buildings and property edges visible above the ravines as landmarks - a fave trick of mine, I did this at four different parks.

Confucius - a photo control

• Pulling and tugging at the "defective" bus bike rack for the first time before realizing I just had to read the printed instructions.
• Remembering one of my cardinal rules of checking precisely which side of a river the centre of the control circle is at - after approaching from the other side.
• Finally eating some breakfast 3hrs into the race all the way out in Guildwood. I finished the race on a Timmy's bagel belt, 3 gels, 1.5L of water, and a lot of adrenaline.
• Topping out at about 40kph on the empty stretches of Scarborough roads. I'd have thought my commuter would start to shear itself to pieces at speeds like that.
• Finally pulling out my compass 3.5hrs into the race to check the direction of a trail at Morningside - another one of my cardinal rules.
• Constantly emerging from thick bushes covered in mud, soaked by rain and sweat, and inexplicably carrying a bike - much to the surprise of dog walkers and other decent people out on the trails.
• Having other bus passengers move away from my muddy, smelly self, and the driver opening the window. I felt really bad for that one lady in a bright white jacket trying to squeeze past me when it got really crowded.

Fall colours at Bestview

• Using my poor commuter as a bit of a mountain bike in Bestview when I got flat-out tired of carrying it around. My bike skills leave a lot to be desired, but I didn't slide into the river once.
• Ducking into my own private short cut at G. Ross Lord park, across a small marsh and up a secret trail. Helps that I've set courses here for quite a few years. I got all three high-point controls in this park in 20 minutes - easy money!
• Finally catching a glimpse of one other Rogainer as I was leaving this park - I didn't know for sure he was in the race until we both got back, but a guy on a bike with a ski-O map board, backpack and mud in all kinds of places - who else could it be?
• Climbing the Himalayan peaks of Earl Bales park, clinging to nothing but mud and ripping out dying trees on the way up, just to show the organizers that their questionable choice in control location was not in vain.
• Seeing a big furry dog rolling in the mud like crazy and running madly through a creek, much to the chagrin of its grimacing owner - only to take a good look at my own clothes caked in mud and then to jump in to run down the creek myself. That dog and I had a bond that will never be broken.
• Letting the official Toronto bicycle routes carry me diagonally through totally new territory from Bathurst and Wilson all the way to Bayview and Eglinton. I rode like the wind. Smelly, smelly wind.
• Emerging from one of these bike trails totally turned around and with no idea what street I was on. I put on my orienteering hat, took out my compass for the second time and started theorizing based on contours and directions. Then I turned around and saw the street sign.
• Feeling like home-sweet-home when I finally entered Sunnybrook park, my favourite stomping grounds. Maybe not the best choice for the final set of points, but I know every rock and shrub, and I just wanted to take advantage of that.
• Because of construction (which I knew about!), having to detour up Li'l Bastard, a huge hill leading out from ET Seton to Thornecliffe, named thus by some members of my triathlon club who do hill repeats there. 9hrs15 into the race, I managed about 3 revolutions on my bike and got off to push.
• Having accumulated more than 3,500 points and with 15 minutes to spare, I briefly considered carrying my bike up the Riverdale stairs and over the river to get 5 more points at the Riverdale Farm. Very, very briefly.
• Being the first one back on the long course to smiles and cheers from the sleepy organizers!

This was my first ever rogaine and one of the most fun events I've ever done. It was exhilarating to ride as far as I did, and then to constantly duck into the woods to find those lovable orange and white flags in nearly every park in the city. I really don't know how MJ, AW, CB and all the control-setting and -retrieving gnomes managed to put on this course, but I'm very grateful they did. We all had these huge smiles on our faces at the finish.

Route Link (hand-drawn, precise)

I ended up doing 80km on the bike (and on foot), and 20km by bus. So my estimate of 75km of riding was right on the money, and I was able to execute my pre-imagined plan perfectly. Once we all got back, it was pretty clear that everyone on the long course did more-or-less the same loop via Scarborough to get the big 200-point controls and then up to Steeles for the ~150+. People used all combinations of running, biking, busing, taking the subway. For me, the bike and bus combo was really optimal, as I could cover a big distance but also get to specific places quickly, and then ditch the bike to burrow through the bush.

Where I did lose time was re-checking my routes too many times, when I should have committed them to memory - some of the guys had map boards (on the chest or on the bike) - that probably would have been great! I also could have eaten a bit more, doncha think? Should have been eating on the bus rides, although I did take those times to plan ahead. I'm also not sure I was right to skip some controls in the parks where I thought they were a bit too out of the way (wrong side of a river, too deep in the bush to deal with the bike) - I had gone out far after all, so maybe should have banked those points while I was there. I would have had to skip the parks at the end, but would have had more points. I think in my heart of hearts, I went with having an enjoyable experience rather than maxing out the race - kind of unusual for me!

Photo by CL

I will definitely be back next year, and hope to see a lot more people out there, making it more worthwhile for the organizers to have lost sleep putting up controls in the dark and hand-marking maps for us to use. I'm really in awe of their effort. Congrats to team of MS and RT who ran away with 4,500+ points and a clear overall win. It was easy for me to "win" the women's category as the only female out there, haha. But I think I did quite well overall too.

--Distance: 102km
--Duration: 9hrs 45mins
--Garmin track (imprecise): 101.22km
--Points: 3,530
--O-Controls: 21
--Photo controls: 7

Ontario Orienteering Championships - Long Course

Map: Hilton Falls, south of Rocky Ridge
Terrain: woods, very rocky and just as ridgy, but very little elevation change once you're on the Escarpment
Weather: chilly and overcast, very comfortable

The start was a long hike away, and I didn't have a regular watch on me, so I technically missed my start; but they slotted me in a few minutes late. I was the last starter on this course, so I'd be chasing everybody in my group.

There are so few features here other than endless rocks and rock piles and rock beds, so orienteering off-trail is a bit risky for the likes of me. After yesterday's sprint legs, I was pretty cavalier on keeping a good line from point to point, so I veered off-course many times.

Route Link

Already from 2 to 3, I ran out onto the wrong trail, and broke my own cardinal rule of checking the trail direction by compass, so put on about 400m to run up and come back when I realized my mistake. I veered off course for the next control as well, but ended up in a rock bed where the subsequent one was, so ran back for 4, then straight in the opposite direction back to 5. Quite pathetic.

I got out onto a trail after this, and realized I'd caught up to another woman on this course, although not the same age group. We decided on taking opposite trails around an officially uncrossable feature - she went on a main trail, while I took a small one, which turned out to be a Bruce side trail that my roomie and I had hiked a few years ago. Definitely the scenic route! Went by the glacial pot hole we'd photographed then - and got told to get a move on out of the way by a pair of hikers who had the same idea! The other lady ended up beating me to the meating-point (a bridge), but I know I enjoyed the ultra-rocky Escarpment edge more.

Generally the long traverses went well for me, but every time I wanted to quickly jump into the bush for a control, I'd veer off and have to backtrack. Controls 6, 7, 8 all veered off at least 50-100m - how many minutes did that add? But I nailed 9, hopping from one rocky feature to another, and then 10, 11, 12 and 13 (all closer together).

14 was off a trail with another trail leading out to it, but it didn't meet the first trail exactly (great mapping actually!) so I guess-timated by distance instead. By the time I was going out to 15, which could have been a long-ish light green traverse, I learned my lesson: I cut back out to the main trail, then cut back in, guided by contour lines. 16 was another veer-off. The last control was 17, and this time, I veered extra-wide, but thankfully I was on the edge of the Escarpment, and I knew where I'd ended up due to the direction the slope was facing. But wasted a few minutes for sure.

So the big lesson is that I need more practise sticking to a compass bearing. That likely involves a few things: checking the compass needle itself, picking out target features in the distance to stay on-track, and of course being aware of surroundings - which is difficult on such a flat map. As punishment, I flatly lost my age group, coming in 5/5. Still, I love Escarpment country, so nothing could really ruin this day.

--Distance: 9.8km
--Duration: 1:36:31

After the race, I caught a guy in a jacket from last year's North Atlantic Orienteering Champs - he highly recommended going up for these events, especially the marquee race I want to do in Ilulissat, Greenland next June - the Arctic Midnight Orienteering. I'm so much more excited now after a southerner's recommendation, not just the awesome invite from the race organizer.

p.s. I raced on my calf brace today, but after 3 races back-to-back, my ass bones are not happy.

Ontario Orienteering Championships - Sprint Course

Map: University of Waterloo
Terrain: urban, park
Weather: chilly
Rules: no entering any buildings!

Route Link

Okay. This course was kind of like running Mirror's Edge, but without the parkour. Much like my own alma mater York U., Waterloo is a closed-in campus of hundreds of buildings clustered together, with myriad passage-ways linking quads, terraces and green spaces. The fun is finding the quickest way through to the other side. Or to the top!

I have to say this was the first time I'd had to consider multiple levels on an O-map (delineated by thick black lines like in architectural drawings). I would have been screwed early on if another runner hadn't taken some stairs up to a terrace that housed control 2 - never would have thought of that! Came in handy to catch control 14 later.

There was some talk of the best choice from 6 to 7, which were at buildings on opposite sides of a creek, with a bridge in either of two directions. Most of us saw the southern bridge and went for it, but some chose the northern bridge because it would afford a route with allegedly fewer changes of direction. Which one was faster? Only the splits will tell!

Overall, I think I did a great job of concentrating on quick route choices and reading tiny features such as the essential passageways. There had been a sneak preview photo posted of course setters/testers ND and ML at a low fence between buildings, with a discussion as to whether or not this was "officially passable" (it was.) As soon as I saw the fence, I decided I gotta hop it!

This was the longest 21 minutes of my life. I sprinted my little heart out, and whatever sprint I still have in me after a season without any training, I managed a 3rd place finish, with a sweet trillium-based Ontario champs medal.

I'm sure I'd shaved off some precious seconds by using my brand new control description holder I bought from the O-Store folks that came down to the event. The only thing I'd improve (other than my speed when I'm able) is my punching technique. I watched elite racer SL punching by stabilizing the control with his other hand, and it looked so much faster. On a sprint course with 16 controls in 4km, every second counts.

--Distance: 3.9km
--Duration: 21:21

After the race, I was treated to an impromptu nostalgia- and ridicule-ridden campus tour from alumni CK and ES, including finding out for example that when a woman enters the math and computers building, it's like she's entering a prison... This was as good as confirmed by our reading of the current issue of MathNews, the math students' newsletter with their highly dubious and sad advice on how to get a girlfriend. Turns out the coffee shop we chatted at after the race is the ideal place to go on a first date and pretend you enjoy discussing vegetarianism and gay rights. 

My alumni friends also bonded over how few of the current buildings existed when they'd attended and how much of a joke RIM is as a presence on campus. Boatloads of fun!

Ontario Orienteering Championships - Middle Course

Map: Natchez-Zeller
Terrain: woods, urban, mostly flat
Weather: chilly but sunny

20 controls over 5km made this into a very long sprint, and since the terrain was quite flat, and the scale was 1:7500, I soon realized that just a quick rotation of the map would allow me to run straight from one control to the next. Quite a clean run. I kept verbalizing what I saw around me as well as the decisions I was taking, something I picked up from team navigation.

Route Link

Control 5 tripped me up, as I went in too early, but then had to back-track anyway through an obvious change in vegetation. Still not sure what happened there. I found a few times that my running line was a bit off my compass line, which is a testament to how little orienteering I've done this season. It didn't affect me on this sprint map, but would make an impact on the long course the next day.

I'm getting really good with fixing mistakes, though, without getting flustered. I overshot 18 but realized it when the terrain was much too flat and went back. Being very aware and methodical would save me from some potentially catastrophic mistakes on the long course.

--Distance: 5km
--Duration: 55:02

Turkey Trot

Map: Albion Hills
Terrain: woods, fairly flat
Weather: beautiful day, warm

Route Link

Lakeside Sprint Triathlon

The final triathlon in the MSC series, and my first time trial, as I actually did this one last year on my heavy-ass commuter bike. That was also back when I could run, so the times for this year's race would prove to look like someone else had impersonated me by comparison.

It was a super-carpool edition to this race, as I got KB to grab one of the few final spots in this race in the hopes that she could finally do a proper triathlon on her third attempt - so we stuffed ourselves and our bikes into ML's car and took the endless ride to Lakeside, a needle-in-a-haystack somewhere out between Woodstock and London.

Eine kleine rant:
We did arrive a bit late for comfort, and since the race was over-sold and they had rearranged the TA to fit as many bikes as possible, it was quite tight. ML was in his primo fast gentlemen's area near the exit, and KB was pretty close too in the overflow late registrants' area. As usual, the rest of the ladies were stuck in the back. But behold! I see a perfect 4' piece of space at the near end of my AG rack, so I go for it. Well that didn't sit too well with a fast-looking girl to my opposite right. Her towel was taking up most of that space, and she complained that now it would be hard for her to get to her stuff with my front wheel "in the way." Firstly, the amount of space available was exactly per MSC photo instructions. Secondly, this TA was extra-tight, and every piece of space needed to be used. Thirdly, our rack still managed to look exactly the same as at every other tri I'd done this season. All I could think was, "take a look around, princess!" After a polite argument, she let me stay. Geez. I was fairly sure this was the girl whom I expected to win this race, which made this confrontation doubly ridiculous. I had meant to readjust my brakes, which were rubbing as we walked from the car, but she totally made me forget, gah.

I used my wetsuit this time, which probably did as much harm as good - but it was chilly in that little lake. The swim went by as normal for me - slowly. But pretty good sighting. Still a pathetic 10th place out of the water. Taking off the wetsuit wasn't a total tragedy. But my break pads were definitely squealing on the way out of T1, so I had to stop and fiddle with them. Crap.

The nice thing about starting way back out of the swim is you get to pass everybody. It's extremely satisfying. But the not-so-nice thing about it is that you have to pass everybody. I ended up wishing for a pre-recorded sound effect of "on your left," as I got tired of yelling it out. I'm sure the constant passing was eating into my time. Nevertheless, we were flying out to the turnaround with a crazy tailwind. Of course I didn't realize that until we actually did turn around. I just thought I was having a great race! Then BAM. On the way back, it was like we were tethered. It felt worse than climbing a steep hill. I finally got passed by a couple of guys, although they went past me with the familiar whoosh-whoosh of their disc wheels, so can't feel too bad about that! Turned out I had passed 6 women in my AG somewhere in that mass of riders.

I had no idea where I was in my placing heading out for the run, and I knew that provided Princess would win the race, I'd need at least a 6th place finish to overtake her on points and get my 3rd place in the series. One girl my age tried to overtake me right out of T2. Nuh-uh. I put on some speed and left her behind. I started seeing some female racers returning somewhere at 1.5km / 3.5km, Princess included, but it was hard to tell who else was in my AG. I finally caught one girl about 3km in, and we jostled back and forth for a few hundred metres, neither able to drop the other. When we caught up to a few slower people running abreast, I took the outside to pass, and she was left stuck behind them. She couldn't catch me after that. I sprinted in and shook RD John Salt's hand one last time with abundant thank-yous for a wonderful series.

Toronto Triathlon Club on the podium!

This was to be a truly awesome end to a year for both me and my season-long race buddy ML. He finally battled past the super-talented guys in his AG and grabbed a 3rd place podium spot - so well deserved, as that is a seriously competitive group! And then it was my turn - also 3rd! Thank goodness I was able to hold off that one girl and then pass the other one.

To speed up the awards ahead of the kids' races, they would cram both the men and women in each group onto the same podium, so ML and I have an award photo together, yay! Also felt so good to get up there in our club gear, so proud.

On top of that, I got catapulted up to 2nd place in the series, and ML safely locked up 3rd, so we'll be getting even more awards later in the fall. So awesome.

As we were clearing out of the TA, I showed ML the space I had picked for a second opinion - and his second opinion was that this was the perfect place to put another bike. So there.

Swim - 16:41 / 2:14
T1 - 1:57
Bike - 42:05 / 28.5
T2 - 1:01
Run - 24:46 / 4:58

	S	T1	B	T2	R	F
Place in Discipline	10	7	3	13	4	3
Place in Real Time	10	11	4	4	3	3

A comparison to last year's times on the exact same course reveals that... hold on, let me get the data...

Wasaga Beach Duathlon

The night before the very popular Wasaga triathlon, well attended by my fellow members of the Toronto Triathlon Club, we all started realizing that we might be starting in the middle of a rainstorm. Having already had last week’s triathlon converted to a duathlon, I was really hoping that we would get a normal Olympic race this time, but I was preparing for any eventuality. The one-day event combines a sprint, an Olympic and a try-tri in close succession, so there is little room for moving things around!

It was already raining by the time I got to my MSC series race buddy ML ‘s place to carpool together to Wasaga. The race site was considerably colder than Toronto, and chaotic with anxious sprinters, who had just found out that we all, in fact, would not be swimming in the rough white caps of Georgian Bay nor in the polluted water of the back-up river. I would have a duathlon once again. Their race and ours were both delayed, and several of us stood around in the drizzle, covered by shiny emergency blankets, waiting for even the sprint race to start, let alone to find out when we would get to go, not to mention what our course would even look like.

The transition was open-rack, so after a minute of incredulous standing and looking around in the middle of the sparsely-populated Oly space, I finally tossed my bike in a primo spot right near the run exit, feeling like I got away with murder! Once again, all that went into my TA was my bright orange towel and my bike shoes, which is so weird. I didn’t want to try any mount line heroics, being out of practice. But I would get to wear socks, neat. I did a nice slow warm-up run and dynamic stretches. I tried to look out for my sprinting friend KB, thwarted yet again in her goal to complete a true triathlon, but unfortunately must have missed her going through. Waited some more with a bunch of club friends, and finally headed to the race briefing, where we were told that we have to start with a beach run to avoid the returning sprinters. It would be a 5-28-5.

I was really reserved on the first run, banking on the fact that most of these people probably hadn’t done a du before (and I’m such an expert!) The crowd rushed past me, and since we were the last wave, it seemed like I was at the very back. Got through the sluggish run with just the faintest stitch in my side.

On the bike, I was really worried about the wet roads, but it turned out the course is essentially flat, so I picked up some confidence during the ride out. Some encouraging smiles from first-wavers ML and JC got me pedalling a bit faster, although I got worried about a persistent twinge in my calf. But I found it so easy to stay in the mid-30s on this course. After the turn-around, I got into aero more often and started catching and passing people. I still felt like I was at the back, but actually it wasn’t so bad. The rain picked up, but it was more fun than anything else on the flats, and I got even faster as the back way was a very light downhill.

Finishing in the flood

Getting back on the run loop, I felt amazing within a few hundred metres. There was a young girl ahead of me, and she seemed to be running a confident but similar pace, and I let her pull me along and past a bunch of other racers. While I’d been jittery on the bike, this run was my time to shine. I told myself, “Time to start taking people out.” Thankfully I’m very aware of my own pace and ability, so I can be aggressive without over-doing it. This girl and I slowly but surely overtook a number of racers. I caught her after the turn-around, but she said nuh-uh and pulled away. At this point, we were running through ankle-deep puddles more often than not. Towards the end, it was a veritable torrential downpour, and felt pretty awesome! I shouted loud thank-yous to all the soggy cold volunteers, still manning their aid stations like pros.

Maybe 1.5km out, I caught a girl who had foolishly forgotten to turn her bib around after the bike, and I read her name. This was my current rival in MSC series point standings! She was right behind me in 7^th, but I was sure she would beat me in this race and overtake me, making it nearly impossible for me to lock up 3^rd place. I looked her up later, and although she’s a much faster swimmer and rider, she can’t run to save her life. Terrible luck for her having to do a duathlon! I calmly and slowly passed her so she wouldn’t feel threatened, and continued on.

In the final straightaway, my pacing bunny took off and was impossible to catch. I took one look back to make sure I’d dropped everyone behind me, realized that I’d beaten my rival, and put on my patented finishing sprint, taking out two more racers on the way, one of whom was in my AG.

It’s official: no matter what kind of race it is beforehand, I live for that final run. I felt incredible, physically and mentally. And I negative-split the du again.

By the time we were packing up to leave, the wind had picked up to gale-force, and while the only restriction on our bike course was the prohibition of disc wheels, the poor try-tri’ers, who had waited seemingly forever for their race to start, huddling under any tent they could, were to shortly discover that they would be neither swimming nor biking. What a mega-bummer! But ML and I were beyond much care, soaked to the bone and shaking, and we took off for sunny Toronto.

At this point, I'm 4th in the series, and if we get full Oly-level points for this effort, I'm all but assured 3rd by the end of next week's race, with a decent chance at 2nd. If we only get sprint points, it will be incredibly tough to make the series awards, but either way, I will be making the most of the Lakeside Sprint.

Run 1 - 26:29 / 5:18
T1 - 1:02
Bike - 57:44 / 29.1
T2 - 0:58
Run 2 - 24:53 / 4:59

	R	T1	B	T2	R	F
Place in Discipline	9	1	7	2	4	4
Place in Real Time	9	6	6	6	4	4

--Distance: 38km
--Duration: 1:51:03

Ontario Women's Sprint Duathlon

Yes, DUathlon. No, I did not sign up for that of my own free will. I found out about this TRIathlon race a few days before, as my friend KB had signed up, wanting to get back into triathlons after quite a long break. I thought it would be exciting to do it together. It was located in the daunting foothills under the Escarpment in Milton, but I was up for a mental challenge. Unfortunately we were notified the day before that Kelso Lake is infested with bacteria, and that all races were being converted to a duathlon. There's a first (and last) time for everything!

The Women's Triathlon is a small, spare race, geared towards beginners, and offers a sprint and super-sprint/try-tri. Being a ladies' race, they don't even put your age on your calf, just your wave - go figure! The concrete TA left a bit to be desired, as my pampered feet are used to the grassy parks normally used by MSC. I racked my bike on the unsteady metal beam, incredulously donned my sneakers, looked down at my orange towel with nothing but bike shoes on it, and tried to figure out how to tackle the opening 2.5km sprint.

My friend and winning duathlete PK had admonished me not to kill myself on the first run, and I'd looked up the bike course to reveal a long steady climb in the first half, so I tried to be conservative. The run loop was also quite hilly, but I managed to pass a bunch of people in my wave, especially on the downhills. But I didn't get out ahead, and it turns out I actually would run faster on the 5km.

The 20km bike course was indeed a long climb, but I can get pretty aggressive going up hills, and I managed to catch and pass some of the actual (signed-up) duathletes, who had started in the wave before mine. I think it wasn't until the turnaround that I got caught up - by a couple of people two waves behind mine... That's what happens when you're too afraid to stay in aero most of the race. I lost a few more spots towards the end as well.

I didn't think transition would be a big deal in this flippin' race, but turns out my tri shoes are pretty much only good for being put on once. When I'd pulled them off, the soles came out, so I had a dilly of a pickle of a time trying to stuff them back in followed by my feet. Lost a few more racers this way, poo.

I've said I don't like looped courses (because I'm excited by the unknown), but knowing what was ahead on the two loops of the second run made it much easier to vary my approach to each section. I knew when I could attack. And it secretly felt good to lap a few people on the second loop, tee hee.

Unlike usually, I was surprised I didn't have my finishing kick. I couldn't catch another girl in my wave, so the best I could do was 6th out of 44 in my AG, with a time of 1:20:39 - just as I'd predicted for this race, though!

KB followed some time later, a bit sidelined by a mid-run stitch, but triumphantly finishing what may be the first of many tri(du)athlons. She'd been really bummed out because she had been practising her swimming for months, but I think she took it as a great accomplishment anyhow. It's actually nice that several hundred people, many of them newbies, took the duathlon in stride and did their best.

Run 1 - 12:43 / 5:05
T1 - 1:06
Bike - 41:14 / 29.1
T2 - 1:20
Run 2 - 24:22 / 4:53

	R	T1	B	T2	R	F
Place in Discipline	8	-	10	-	5	6
Place in Real Time	8	-	6	-	6	6

--Distance: 27.5km
--Duration: 1:20:39