Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Bear's hump; 8k plus 5x200; stationary bike; 5k fartlek and hike

Have a lot to catch up on. Can't download from my watch right now because need my laptop to do that and nowhere to charge it here. Blogging from my phone, which is less than ideal but works in a pinch. So now to catch up.

Sunday was a rest day but I couldn't resist the Bear's Hump hike in Waterton NP in Canada. Short hike at 1.1km each way, but with 240m of elevation gain it was quite steep with many stairs. Great glute workout. Took about 20 min hiking quickly with Calvin and the view was SO worth it. Let's see if I can post a picture. Uh, no. Not happening. Well it's on Facebook if you are my FB friend.

Monday my legs were a bit sore from the hike, but not too bad. At least it was different muscles than RW. I had 8k plus 5x200 @85% effort. The 8k was lovely - saw a deer and 2 fawns and had a great time exploring Wateron with Calvin, who came along. Though I was a bit sore and started a little slowly it went well and I did it at a 6:14/km pace for a total time of 49:23, I think.

Later on Monday we went to Lake Cameron and worked my legs some more with an hour in the paddle boat. Uh, that was a surprisingly tough quad workout!

Tuesday I did the stationary bike at the hotel for 30 min, followed by a very short hike at Red Canyon. It was only about 10-15 min hike and then I relaxed by soaking my feet in the icy stream, because it was a warm day. Later we drive back to the US and set up camp in the St. Mary area of Glacier NP.

This morning I did a 5k fartlek on a somewhat flattish road out front of or campground. My legs were pretty tired and though I started well with 2:49 and 2:51 I slowed down pretty quickly and my other fast 500s were something like 2:52, 2:57, 2;58 and 2:53. My medium 500s were better than last week with the slowest one about 3:08, but I felt very tired and my legs had no turnover today. Still, I finished in 29:41, a couple seconds faster than last week. I'll take that.

Calvin wanted to hike in Many Glacier today, and so even though I know I have 8k tomorrow I decided to hike a nice one with him. It was pretty level for a hike, with only a small amount of elevation change, but it was on the long side at 11km and 2hr hiking very briskly. The payoff? Two beautiful glacial lakes and two moose - one a bull moose with an enormous rack, swimming!!! We also saw a deer very close to the trail.

After the hike (which was just me and Calvin), the four of us decided to canoe in Swiftcurrent Lake. That was an amazing hour! We rented canoes and it was so much better than the paddle boats! We loved it. To top off a great day, we then saw a couple of bears feeding on a hillside - from our car - and watched them with binoculars. Nice!

Tomorrow - 8k might be interesting, but it was worth it to enjoy the things I did today.

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