Bit of a pickle

 I spent last weekend in the Haliburton Forest.

Which was quite misty at first light on Saturday

I got to check out the High Falls of Vankoughnet

Which weren't exactly what I expected, but were a beautiful 5min detour

..and paddle on Clear Lake on a gorgeous evening.

Such a magical spot

Wish we'd had more time, but grateful to have the chance at all.

The wind dropped at sunset, leaving the lake like glass.

(I may have experimented a little with the camera settings on Tank's new phone)

Come Saturday morning, it was deeper into the forest to help finish the setup and man Aid Station 2 (in the same place as prior years' AS5, but on a newly designed course) until early Sunday afternoon.

We were lucky to have (mostly) lovely weather

As runners came through - especially as the day warmed - pickles were one of the most popular things on offer. Dill pickles, and their juice: the salty, vinegary brine from the jar. We poured endless dixie cups of pickle juice for runners experiencing cramps, some of whom had heard of it and requested it, others who simply had to take us at our word that it would help.

Unrelated photo from the Marsh Lake Rd bridge

Cramping in endurance sport is really quite poorly understood - there have been multiple theories advanced, but the most recent is that it's actually a neuromuscular control issue. Rather than dehydration or electrolyte imbalance, it's your brain making you cramp.

Especially when you have spent more than a day climbing hills on rugged trails

For more than 20 years now, pickle juice has been used to alleviate muscle cramps. While it was once theorized that the sodium in the brine helped electrolyte balance, the short timeframe from ingestion to the dissipation of the cramp - approximately 85sec - was far too short for any of the chemical composition of the pickle juice to enter the athletes' bloodstream.

It'll stop that cramp faster than you can get your bottle filled and grab some snacks at an aid station!

More recent research indicates that the mechanism by which pickle juice works actually supports the theory of neuromuscular control dysfunction being the cause of muscle cramping. The best idea we have so far is that pickle juice is so powerful a flavour that it literally overloads your brain enough to force it to forget about making your muscles cramp. 

I know of someone who uses mustard packs for the same effect, which may be more palatable to some

You could probably use anything with a sufficiently overwhelming taste, like a swig of Italian dressing - it just has to be strong enough to send your brain for a loop, so it essentially forgets to maintain that painful knot in your calf (or quad or whatever).

AS2 rockin' all night long!

This also explains why attempts to create a prophylactic anti-cramp substance have largely failed. Until your neurons have created the cramp, you can't actually apply the "cure" for said cramp. At least, no-one has yet been successful in creating anything that can stop your brain from making your muscles seize...except boring things like "adequate training" or "not working to exhaustion".

You can't buy those in a bottle.

I was thinking about this the other day, and wondered whether or not it might have other applications for neurological dysfunction. Is it possible that someone having a panic attack might be able to alleviate it with a shot of pickle juice to help re-regulate their brain function? What about someone with ADHD using it to re-focus when they've drifted from a task they wish to complete?

I'm not a neurologist, so I have no idea if there's even a shot

If anyone knows of any current (or past) studies that look at the impact of flavour on neural regulation, I'd be most obliged if you could point me in their direction, because I'd love to know if my whacked-out theory might hold any water.

Or pickle juice, for that matter.

In any case, I'm off to the woods for a bit - I'll be back to blather at you again in a couple of weeks!

Forest-y Service

 Well, I've messed myself up again.

How out of character, right?

I was less than 3km into a (shortened) run to the farmers' market on Saturday morning. It had been going well; I was moving pretty smoothly, and even passed someone else who was running out there (which never happens: either seeing someone else running in the singletrack, or passing anyone). Then - in literally the last heckin' metre of non-groomed trail - I caught my right toe on something.

Not the same spot - this was earlier.

Not wanting to hit the deck and possibly re-aggravate the damage I'd done the week before, I managed to catch myself at the last moment before I fell. That's the good news.

The bad news is that - as I landed heavily on my left leg - something went POP right where my butt meets the back of my thigh. An explosion of pain confirmed that this was not a positive development.

I tried to walk it off. I tried to run a little. I could manage running, but it was definitely not bueno.

Walking uphill wasn't great, either.

So, I got Tank to come meet me just off the end of the trail, still ending up at the market late enough that something I'd been hoping to grab sold out just as I got in line to purchase it. It was just that kind of day.

The reason I'd done a shorter run down in the first place was I'd had a weird idea about trying to follow the 40km of the Guelph Hiking Trail Club's Radial Line Trail from Limehouse back to Guelph. I've never seen the trail and know very little about it, so it was going to be an adventure! However, with a strained or torn hamstring on top of a closure of a section of the trail, I changed my plans.

I went for a bit of a walk instead..

Wilkes Dam, not far from my starting point in Waterworks Park

Beautiful day

Looking back as I crossed a boundary

Two feet and a heartbeat

Not a lot of variety, but not a lot to trip over, either.

Transitioning between segments

Looking back downriver

I did see a bunny, a mink, and 5 deer

Tank met me twice along the way so I could refill with water & snacks, plus pick up my headlamp and a sweater

Out of trail - still a couple of kilometers to go

That'll do.

Seven hours of walking didn't seem to have any negative effect on the damaged hamstring, so I've been trading my training runs for walks instead.

Which isn't so bad, really, but seems to take forever
(Not that I run particularly fast, either)

I've been trying to behave myself, though I have run a few little steps here and there.

Just testing, you know?

I'm trying to just take it as the universe telling me that an event I have coming - in which I confirmed my registration the day before I wrecked myself - will be more walking than running, so I better get my walking up to snuff.

I've even done some trail, and completely failed to trip and hurt myself again (so far)!

In any case, I wouldn't have had time to run this weekend anyway, since we're off to the Haliburton Forest tomorrow to volunteer at the New and Improved AS2!

IT'S BACK!

Good luck to everyone racing Falling Water this weekend, and to all the runners heading up to the forest I'll see you Saturday!

I'll try not to hurt myself any further before then..

Have we met?

 It's incredibly hackneyed to say "There are two kinds of people in the world:"

Especially since I might be a third kind

For some people, the true joy of trail running lies in the familiar - a favourite route, traversed over and over until each footstep is a practiced placement, each rock and root and branch an old friend.

Or - in some cases - that familiar sense of peril as you try not to fall a couple of dozen feet into the river..

For other people, the true thrill is encapsulated by the discovery of a brand new path.

Oh hey there..

So which do you prefer?

Choose your own adventure!

When I saw I might be a third type, it's because I actually got to experience the best of both worlds last Sunday. I returned to run a much-loved trail for the first time in months (possibly this year), and was delighted by the familiar sights along the way.

It helps that it's a really stunning trail, I suppose

I mean REALLY

As I trotted along in the sweltering heat, I noticed some new side trails had been established.

With a wild guess that they might have been built by the mountain bike community

I didn't mind the flowy, bermy pumptrack through the sunny pine forest!

As I completed my out-and-back and transitioned to a different trail (for a point-to-point run), I saw a sign for a new side trail and went to check it out.

Well HELLO

Perfect singletrack, right along the river's edge.

Yes I will take all of this, please.

I might have overshot my exit point from the main trail a bit - and had to scramble up a bit of dodgy scree in order to get myself back on track - but it was absolutely delightful to go exploring for a little while.

With pretty views, even if calling it the "Rapids" side trail is overstating things a bit

So which kind of person are you? Do you prefer to traipse along well-known trails, or strike out to explore new paths? Or are you - just like me - a mix of both?

I'm really just happy to be out wandering in the woods at all, no matter where that may be.

No matter what your preference, I hope you all have a fantastic long weekend!