Trainin' When It's Rainin'

I didn’t paddle last Sunday as 45 mm of rain was forecast and, not having a big trip coming up, I thought “I don’t have to, I won’t.” Turns out, I should have and it didn’t. It rained, but only about 10 mm.; which, in the context of the rain we’ve had and the rain predicted, is incidental.

On Monday, I went out for a forest run, but, strictly at my aerobic pace because I did the Park Run on Saturday and lifted on Sunday. The fire trail I was on has all but disappeared – a combination of bush regrowth and erosion from so much rain. I joined up one of the few bits of fire trail I have not run yet where the granite boulders are scattered in the woods. There’s always this thought in the back of my mind that, if I run far enough, I’ll find a 30 metre high granite crag with splitter cracks. No luck so far, just boulders that are either featureless or featured but crumbly. The bush is so thick now that trying to get through with a bouldering pad would be like trying to argue men are not women on X.

The 112 steps at Wimbie Hill – the new bridge over the lagoon is finished but you won’t find it unless you know where it is (turn west when coming from either the north or south) – is my favourite spot for hill sprints. The very top of Wimbie Hill is between 50 and 60 metres high and the walk there and back from my house is a good warm-up/cool down. I managed six sets before my legs were shaking and I started wondering if I would need a defibrillator. I’m never sure how many times to run the hill as I don’t do it regularly enough to remember how I felt last time. Something is better than nothing, however. Training doesn’t have to be perfect.

Doug and I drove north on Wednesday to climb at Indoor Climb South Coast, not a thing we would normally do, but two weeks of unabated rain drives a climber to unusual things. The gym has a bit of an old school feel; school groups probably keep the gym open. Old school gyms make the routes harder by simply spreading the holds out further and further and further. This makes it easy, if you are an old climber, to tweak something. The original climbing gym in Nelson, BC, did this and twice I injured myself, once getting a troublesome case of “tennis elbow” and once popping a finger pulley. Older and wiser, I avoid those sorts of things now; there is no valour in getting injured training. On the way home the rain was bucketing down.