Happy New Year! Today was the last run of 2014. We reminisced over the past year and talked about the plans for next. Boy do we have great plans for 2015!
Doing what we love on the last day of the year!
The Sisters competed in Don’t Get Lost’s Icebreaker Adventure Run down at Chedoke Golf Club in Hamilton this weekend. This event is the end of year event for the ARK group (Adventure Running Kids) as well as a warm up for the Snowshoe Raid in January. The turnout was great, lots of kids and adults participating. We both say we wish we would have known about this sport when our kids were young, we would have been out there with them.
We are ready to go!
Chedoke Golf club is a rolling little place at the base of the escarpment, so there were actually two levels to this event. We chose not to climb the escarpment and just find the controls along the base of the escarpment and around the golf course. That didn’t mean we didn’t get some great bushwhacking in or climbing, but we did get some nice running in across the golf course. With a few slips and falls we still managed to collect 430 pts that put us finishing right in the middle of our division.
We wanted to bring you an update on the turtle eggs we saw being laid back on June 12. #100happydays day 28 All through September we kept an eye on the nest. Finally we saw that it had opened a bit.
We are pretty sure the baby turtles clamored out of this hole.
The next day we saw that something had dug it out complete. We were pretty happy to see that some of the little eggs hatched because up to 84 percent of snapping turtle nests are destroyed by predators such as minks, raccoons and skunks. We sure hope most of those special little snappers made it to the water.
We are pretty sure that the nest was dug out by a racoon looking for stragglers.
According to the web: “As with many reptile species, egg temperature during a critical stage of embryo development determines the gender of the snapping turtle hatchling. According to Scientific American, cooler temperatures at that stage produce males, while eggs incubated in warmer temperatures will produce females.” We can only assume because our summer was so cool that most of these little guy were; well, guys!
Killbear and Snakes!
I was lucky enough to go camping this past weekend with hubby Photographer Phil. It was a perfect fall weekend, sunny and warm.
We journeyed up to Killbear Provincial Park. Usually we head over to Algonquin but I decided that we should try something different. I cheated a bit. I booked us in to a site that had electricity. After all it was the fall and I knew I would be cold so I lugged along my electric blanket and a small heater for the tent. We chuckled because we had the only tent in our campground. We were surrounded by beautiful motor homes and trailers.
Our site was really nice, considering I picked it from the web. It was surrounded by oak trees, and it was raining acorns! As soon as we got out of the car, we could hear them falling all around us. I’ve never seen so many!
The other thing I saw when I got out of the car and wandered over to the road to place our site pass on the post was what I thought at first was a large rubber snake. It was on the side of the road with part of its body in the grass. So I am walking along thinking “Gee, that was a huge snake…I wonder if it’s real…No it can’t be, it didn’t move when I almost stepped on it…hum… it must be a kid’s rubber snake…but when I turn around maybe I will find a stick to give it a poke just to be sure…”
I turned around and it stuck its tongue out at me! “Quick Photographer Phil. Get over here!”
Our “anaconda” size snake slithered around into our site, at a lazy pace and stretched right out as it slithered over towards the bush beside the site. (I checked at that point for a rattle on its tail but there wasn’t one.) At one point it picked up the pace and whipped along, disappearing into the weeds beside the creek at the back of our site. Too Cool! He had to be about 3 feet long with a small head and a rather plump body.
The next day we wandered over to the Visitor center with our cameras and showed the young gals working there our snake. They instantly recognized it as a Northern Water Snake. According to the web it is a pretty common snake to our area and completely harmless unless you are a frog.
“The northern watersnake can be found in and around almost any permanent body of fresh water within its range, including lakes, rivers and wetlands. Rarely far from shoreline habitats, these snakes can be found in shoreline vegetation, basking on rocks and logs, or in other open habitats along the edges of the water or under rocks along the shoreline. Northern watersnakes hibernate underground in dens or crevices, or in beaver lodges.”
The actually bear their young live and feed on fish and amphibians. They are even curious and will investigate swimmers. Wouldn’t that scare the whatever out of you!
Here are a few pictures from our trip. I wonder if I can get Glenis to go camping at Killbear?
Volunteering at Storm the ‘Scarpment
Tomorrow Glenis and I along with photographer Phil are volunteering at Storm the ‘Scarpment. The event is held a Kelso Quarry (at the top of Glen Eden Ski Hill at Kelso Conservation Area in Milton) and involves doing as many loops of an eleven kilometer course as you can in 8 hours. During each loop you will run, ride and paddle. The easy part is that it is a marked course, other than that, nothing is easy about this race.
Kelso Quarry Park
This is an adventure race put on by Storm Events and like most adventure races there are teams. The solo and teams of two work together on each loop they choose to do. There are also teams of 2 and teams of 4 who compete as a tag team with two runners on the course at time. They get a little break between each loop they do. It should be fun to watch the competitors during this event and how they plan out their day.
All smiles in the canoe!
The Blister Sister did this event a few years ago. It was tough. We managed to get three loops in before we decided we would run out of time if we did a fourth. We did have a blast doing it. Glenis got dumped in the lake a few times at the canoe transition because I was laughing too hard to steady the boat. We stumbled around the quarry over the obstacles, hiking ourselves over the walls and crawling on our bellies under the netting. The scariest part was the biking portion. Flying down the ski hill was one of the scariest things I have done. Glenis threw caution to the wind and was a kamikaze on the downhill almost taking out some of the maintenance men on the ski lift. It was a awesome day!
Hitting the wall!
Oh Yea, we came in second in the team of two females category!
Enjoying our 2nd place win!
50K done!
A big thanks to Helen Malmberg and her crew for putting on another terrific race and to the Haliburton Forest Center for hosting it in their beautiful forest.
There are a few lessons to learn running this type of race.
We took our time on this race and did a little videography. Have a look at our movie of the race to see the beauty of this run.
Highlights of the run were:
The Haliburton Forest Trail run is just two days away.
The excitement is building! This year is the 21st anniversary of this event which features a number of distances from 12k to 100 miles through the beautiful Haliburton forest. We haven’t run at Haliburton for a few years, but we do have some experience, running the 50k a couple of times and finishing the 50 miles distance. It will be fun to be back at the beautiful Wolf Center.
We really like this race not only for the great wilderness trails it follows but there is no time limit for the shorter races. As long as we finish before the course closes for the 100 mile race on Sunday, we are good. The 100 mile racers have 30 hours to cover the course so we won’t have a problem.
Haliburton Forest Tail Map
We are heading up to do some van camping Friday night so we will be rested and ready Saturday morning at 6am – in the dark – with headlights – running in the wilderness – up hills with a bunch of great runners who are, oh so much faster than us!
Nightlights, that reminds me of when we ran the 50 miles. It started to get dark about 8pm in the forest and we pulled out our tiny flashlights. Both of them started to fade and we were forced contemplate running the last bit of trail in the pitch black. As we trudged up the forest road to the trail head in the dark; we mumbled “hi” to two figures walking by with flash lights. One of them called out “Glenis”! OMG, it was our husbands! They walked out from the finish to see if we had passed through the 2nd last aid station yet! We quickly exchanged our dying flashlights for a pen light and a wind up flashlight. Those two tiny lights got us through the last 10k! Too funny!
So Saturday morning 52 amazing runners will head off to run 100 miles through tough single track tails and 67 of us will head out to do a fraction of that distance. Let the fun begin.
#icebucketchallenge and the Blister Sisters!
Thanks to my friends Melissa and Karen I was challenged to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. I nominated Glenis so that the Blister Sisters could do this challenge together. After Saturday’s long run was the perfect time to get ice water poured on us, after all ice is every runners friend! Now Jean and Al, it’s your turn!
Here is our challenge.
Now off to donate!
UP Date!
Did you hear! All of us who did the icy ice bucket challenge were directly responsible for a major break through in ALS! Click in this link to read more! http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/ice-bucket-challenge-directly-funded-major-genetic-breakthrough-als-research/
This is what we do when we are not running!
Coffee and knitting!
Yesterday, we ran a great 35k. For something a little different we decided to be driven out 35k and to run home. A point to point run rather than a loop or an out and back route. The down side of getting driven out is you get to see how far you really are running. 35k seems like long way to run when you are looking out a car window.
You have to plan ahead when you are running a long distance. Nutrition, hydration and even bathroom stops all have to be considered. There is also a mental game, getting your head around running that far for “fun” can be hard.
We pretty well have the food and drink under control, however the soreness and pain can be a real mental thing for both of us.
One thing that gets’ to me is how sore my joints are when I run long. My hips are achy during the run and for a few days after. Glenis always laughs when I exclaim 2k from the end that I just want to sit down.
Yesterday, I tried out a pair of CW-X compression shorts. Wow, I should have been listening to myself when I was pitching their benefits at Running Free! What a difference they made on how I felt during the run and how fast I recovered after. I wore a pair of Stabilyx Ventilator Shorts that are designed for joint support in the hips and core area.
For those of you who are not familiar with CW-X, all their products feature patented support webs. The support web is like kinetic taping that doesn’t come unstuck until you take the shorts off. The web design provides joint and muscle support. This support results in increased stability and balance, greater efficiency of movement, better shock resistance in your joints (I think this is what helped me), better circulation and better recovery. Oh yea and you don’t jiggle! Check out their website. cwx.com
They are definitely going to be my “go to” shorts for our next “big” adventure in September. They are surprising comfortable to wear and I didn’t look nearly as bad as I thought I would in compression shorts (according to my Blister Sister). Now, I just hope that it isn’t really cold the day of our September race or I’ll be stopping at the store to pick a pair of the tights!
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