Ap in brief

I'm back from a multi-day canoeing, camping and portaging trip to Algonquin Park. This is a quick summary as I'll post a longer blog in a couple of days. The trip went well and started with rain and ended with a couple of days of bright sunshine. The rain on the first night forced us to cook steak sandwiches under a suspended canoe using my new stove. Our food bag was attacked by something and the attacker got covered by powdered milk with no damage to the backpack. On our first night, we had the fun experience of evicting a mouse that took refuge from the rain as we were heading to bed. The rest of the trek was uneventful as the warm sunny weather made paddling on the lakes effortlessly. We also what discovered what really killed the famous artist Tom Thomson.

Photo gallery:
http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Algonquin_Park2007

Ap here we come...

In about an hour my father, Bulgaria and I will head north to Algonquin Park for a three night canoe trip. Our goal today is to camp on Burnt Island Lake and Big Trout tomorrow. The final night we will camp on McIntosh Lake and do a 2500 yard portage which will take us in Little Doe/Fawn. (route map) The weather is a little spotty with the possibility of rain on the first day but temperatures in the 80s for the rest of the days. We spent $60 on groceries so there should be plenty of food. I bought 24 Clifbars for added energy boost while paddling. Back to the final packing...

People Watching at the train station

Today, I took the train to Toronto on the way to my folk's place and had some time to kill while waiting for the next train. I decided to pass the time by doing some people watching. Off in one corner were two women with two kids. The youngest was wearing a harness which was attached to her mother by a long stretch cord. The energetic daughter could pull all she wanted by was constrained by the stretch cord. This kid was a bundle of energy. I started to wonder about the durability of the stretch cord as it getting a real beating. I came up with some estimates as to how long it would last and surmised as to what might happen at a critical moment. I didn't have to wait long. Just as she was darting towards a sofa, it happened and she fly into the sofa. Mom wasn't too surprised as she opened her purse and started to unravel a new stretch cord. Happily, the daughter got up and started to pull away as she was attached to a new cord. I started to wonder how many stretch cords the mother might have in reserve but they were calling my train at this point.

Sore and tired

Tonight, I did another hard interval workout which took the form of a 25 minute warmup and then five-1000 meter intervals on 30 seconds rest. (3:53 / 4:07 / 4:01 / 4:12 / 4:06) I was happy with the workout as my times were consistent. After the intervals, I did a 20 minute cooldown run along the canal. The workout will have the effect of make me stronger for my Baltimore half-marathon which at last count is seven weeks away. In September, I am going to have to increase my running volume as I get closer to the race day. I'll start off September with a half-marathon which will give me a good benchmark for my fitness level.

The Baltimore race weekend was a lot of fun last year and I hope that I have learned my lessson about eating at the Lexington Market as the after effects of the food poisoning made for a challenging evening. I am really looking forward to race weekend and hope that we can do some of what we did last year and hopefully a little bit more as it was a lot of fun.

Where’s the tent?

I was talking with my father the other night and we trying to figure out who has what camping gear. I have some of it in Ottawa and my father has the rest at my folk’s place. The topic of the tent came up. My father could only find the tent poles and not fly or the tent body. I scoured my place and couldn’t find the tent. This was odd. My father checked the garage again and discovered that he had done too good a job when putting away the gear from our last adventure. The tent was in a box labeled Christmas decorations. I'll head over to MEC at lunch hour to buy another thermarest mattress and an awl but very slowly the chores are getting finished. The weather looks a little spotty with some rain to start off the time with hot sunny conditions for the remainder of the weekend.

Algonquin Park #1

This coming weekend I am going to do something that I haven't done for two years and that is, go canoeing, camping and portaging in Algonquin Park. It is sort of a tradition for my father and I to do a canoeing trip just before school starts. Health reasons prevented us from going for the past two years. This year we will do the standard trip which will take from Canoe Lake in the south up to Burnt Island, Big Trout and then back by McIntosh Lake. (the route) We will have one of my father's international chemist from Bulgaria with us this year. I'll spend the next couple of days visiting MEC buying last minute gear before I head south to my parent's place. The goal is to have four days and three nights in the park. A couple of days ago, I made the online park reservation and still have to reserve a 17' superlite canoe. This year we will try out my new superlight stove to do some cooking otherwise most of our food will be prepared over a fire. I am looking for using my turtle algonquin guide paddle which hopes to redeem itself from it misadventure in the Ottawa River earlier this year. One day in the future, I hope to take JL either hiking or canoeing in Algonquin Park. Dang, time to go find the tent....Pack on...

Workouts

Today, I started my final set of interval workouts. These workouts are designed to simulate race-pace conditions as you only have 30 seconds between each interval. The way Phil, the coach, described it you do an interval say your prayers and do the next one. The workout was over quickly as we only did four. The goal next week is to do five on the same time that we did four this week. I'm going to be starting up my long Sunday runs shortly 10 miles and higher as I prepare to run my third Baltimore half-marathon in October. The race is coming up quickly as it is only eight weeks away.

The White Jacket

During my stay at Kemptville College on the weekend I took some time out to explore the campus and stumbled on something that brought by memories of my grade 5 exchange trip. At the time we were living in the city and the concept of farms and agriculture were foreign to me. To give the city kids a glimpse into life on the farm we would spend a week living with our exchange partner and working on their farm while going to school. In exchange they would spend a week living with us in the city. My mother had bought me some new clothes for the trip which included a white sports jacket. At the time I didn’t know that white is not a color that you should where around the farm. My exchange partner was Stephen Stringer from Shelburne, Ontario. One of the first things we did when I arrived was to take a tour of the farm using his tractor. We checked out the disc, plough, barn, the seeder, the wheat field, the corn field, the silo at which point it was time to refuel the tractor. I unhitched the nozzle of the diesel pump, which was slippery, and attempted to put in the tank but missed. The diesel fuel spilled down the front of my white jacket. What to do? Stephen didn’t want his parents to find out what happened. We tried to wash the diesel fuel out of the jacket but too no avail. The jacket still stank. His parents knew something was up but we just made excuses. What to do? We came up with the idea to bury it. On the weekend, we headed into the back forty and buried my jacket. As I write this I’m not sure if my mother ever found out about why I came home jacketless. So, when I was walking by the diesel tank and pump it reminded me of my ill-fated white jacket.

Sore for a good cause

As I type this entry my legs and bum are a little sore and tired. Yesterday, I cycled 90km/56 miles as part of the MS-Bike tour which took me and 600 other cyclists from Ottawa to Kemptville. We stayed overnight at Kemptville College and cycled back today. Over the two days of cycling we covered close to 160km/100 miles. I was able to locate a couple of new geocaches that were placed recently. Rather than stays in the dorms, I decided to camp and was able to use my solo tent which worked out great as they don't have sufficient dorm space for all cyclists. In a couple of days, I'll post a story about one of my first experiences with diesel fuel. While touring the campus I saw something that brought back memories of a misadventures in the occurred when I was in Grade 5.

Research finished. Hooray!

A couple of entries ago I talked about the research study that I was taking part in at UOttawa. The project was to analyze the thermal stress that a miner would experience during the course of a normal day. As the mines get deeper and deeper in the ground the conditions get hotter and hotter. The research involved three exercise sessions at 25C/77F, 30C/86F and 40C/104F. In all cases the humidity was at 20% so sweat would evaporate. Each session had three parts, the setup, the exercise and the unpacking. All of the exercise sessions were done on a recumbent bicycle in a calorimeter which is a highly climate controlled environment. Getting ready for each session took about 20 minutes. I had four skin temperature sensors on my back and legs. Internally, I had a tympanic (ear), esophageal (nose/throat) and a third one somewhere else. On my back I had a sweat capsule that would measure my sweat rate. Around my chest I had a heart monitor strap and a blood pressure cuff on my arm. On my other arm I had a blood flow sensor that would measure blood flow by shining a laser beam into one of my blood vessels. Finally, I wore a mask that would monitor my breathing rate, oxygen-carbon dioxide ratio and bunch of other breathing measures. One I was all connected up I would spend an hour in the chamber doing nothing. It was a good time to catch up on babble. I would take blood pressure and heart rate measures every 15 minutes. At the end of the hour I would cycle for 90 minutes at a low resistance. The resistance would simulate the energy expenditure that a miner would experience during an average work day. At the end of the cycle, I would take heart rate and blood pressures measurement every five minutes for 30 minutes. Once the cycling was over I would sit for an hour and play babble again. The final part was doing a maximal blood flow measure. The theory is that as you sweat your body reduces blood flow to the core and sends more blood to the skin for heat radiation and sweating/evaporation. The blood flow meter would track the blood flow rate over the course of the 3.5 hours. The final part was unhooking and removing all the sensors at the end of the session. In the sessions at 25C and 30C I was exothermic as I was heating up the chamber by cycling. When cycling at 40C I was endothermic as the chamber was heating me up as it was a couple of degrees warmer than my body temperature. In all the sessions my heart rate and blood pressure were slightly elevated and the only time I sweated was when cycling at 40C. I had initially that that working out at 40C would be a challenge but under a low humidity was quite pleasant. The researcher will be sending me a summary of the results in a couple of days so I will post the findings.

Philadelphia

As I type this entry I am looking out the window at a banner that says Philadelphia Airport. My flight back to Ottawa was been delayed for about two hours so I decided to fire up the laptop and catch up on the happenings of the day. The conference was a lot of fun. Yesterday, I went to Turner field for a Atlanta Braves game and it was a great chance to chat with some of the delegates from Australia and New Zealand. The Braves won which was a bonus. The toga party went well as the blue material that I bought for my toga worked out well. One of the neat things I did was to meet Jack Canfield. He was a keynote speaker at one of the sessions and wrote the "Chicken Soup for the Sole" books. I bought one of his books and he autographed it for me. I explored the olympic park that was built in connection with the 1996 Olympics. I was able to find a couple of geocaches which was fun to do. One of the interesting things that happened occurred when I was walking through a black neighborhood on the way back from the Martin Luther King Museum. I was passing a group of black guys and they wanted to know what a "white boy" was doing in their neighborhood. I kept on soldiering down the street. The flight has been delayed again so back to surfing.

Relief...Ah!

I got the relief was looking for this morning. The airport shuttle dropped off my bag at 600 am. This was really good news as I didn't want to skip a couple of sessions as I was wearing shorts.

Delayed Baggage

As I type this entry I am looking out on the setting sun in downtown Atlanta, GA where I am attending my second honor society conference. Last year, I attended the conference in Phoenix, AZ. My flight from Ottawa to Dulles/Washington and then onto Atlanta went by really quickly. So quickly that my bags are still somewhere in Washington waiting for shipment south. I hope it eventually turns up as I don't want to miss the toga party!

There are 25 students in the Canadian delegation. I know about half of them from the conference last year and other meetings that we have had during the past year. During a break in the sessions I stopped in at REI to pickup an order that I had sent to the Atlanta store. I was pressed for time so I grabbed the order and headed back to the hotel. Drats, I didn't get a chance to the explore the store. The opening session of the conference was a blast as it celebrated the 30th anniversary of the honor society. The weather has been in the high 90s and it is humid.

Scavenger David Morrell

Last night I finished reading another good book. It is David Morrell’s “Scavenger.” The book came on the market in March and I was waiting for it come out in paperback but after reading the inside corner again I bought the book and couldn’t put it down. Scavenger builds on many of the happening of his previous novel, “Creepers” and continues where it left off. I like David Morrell as he is an author with the ability to say and express a great many things with few words. He relies on your imagination to flush out the details. The book contains reference to GPS, geocaching and letter-boxing which I thought were cool. Early on in the book I figured out the central theme and enjoyed watching the way he has the characters perform their roles. It was a good book and I recommend it highly.