Sounds like it will be a great race.  The family pass to Santa’s Village is worth it alone…nothing like sending your family to Santa’s village and you go for a run!  There is day care provided at Santa’s village…I don’t know if there is a cost or not (maybe Andre can respond….)

Here is a link to the newsletter outlining all the details.

Anyways, lets go out for a jog!

Rich

Six Feet Under: Mike Varieur, Steve Varieur and Rob Horton – ranked 7th in mens, 9th overall with a time of 4hrs 56 min.
Muskoka Bicycle Pro Shop: Fred van den Bulk, Sea Austin and Paul Jorgensen – ranked 8th in mens, 15th overall with a time of 5hrs 39min.
Second Wind: Louise Choquette, Barb Hesk and Monique Charlton – ranked 12th in womens, 63rd overall with a time of 6hrs 20min.

The race route had these teams paddling from Deerhurst across Fairy Lake in the pouring rain, through downtown Huntsville to Avery Beach. From there, they took mountain bikes up the steep Yonge Street hill, past the Rock Ridge Tubing Park and out the Yonge Street trail to Chubb Lake Road then out to a series of quad/snowmobile trails south of Otter lake. They then, dropped their mountain bikes at checkpoint 4 at the intersection of several snowmobile trails, and proceeded on foot to 3 trekking checkpoints in and around various beaver ponds. From here, they got back on the bikes and returned to Deerhurst along East Browns Road. All three teams chose to complete the advanced course which involved finding two checkpoints on the hill north of the Deerhurst pavilion.

Congratulations to all teams, particularly Muskoka Bicycle Pro Shop and Second Wind as this was their first race!

Photos of the Frontier Adventure Challenge.

On Sunday, May 2nd, many teams from Huntsville competed in the High School Adventure Challenge. While the official results haven’t been posted, unofficially, the Hoya Girls team comprised of Holly Jones, Robyn Klinkman and Sarah Johnstone placed 1st in their category! Congratulations girls!

Photos of the Highschool Adventure Challenge.

Thanks to all volunteers and to local athletes who participated in this great annual race.

Starting this Sunday, there will be a Learn to Run program being run through HEAT.  There have been some people that haven’t signed up to become HEAT members because they think that you have to be an “Endurance Athlete” to be a member of HEAT.  Au contraire mes ami(e)s.  One of the goals of HEAT is to draw people together and utilize this website as a way of facilitating exercise/endurance get togethers through the forums (see forums and register here for the forums so you get updates!).

This program is designed to be for people who are not runners and are interested in getting into running.  The whole program takes 13 weeks and is very gradual working through a walk-run program to a more sustained run.  It is time based and not distance based, and are designed to help people get a gradual introduction into running.

We hope that before each of the runs (as long as there are topics…) that we will have a local runner come and do a quick run talk to the participants and then

At the end of it all there will be a fun run for everyone involved as well as any other HEAT members that want to partake…probably some social thing afterwards too.

If you know of someone who would be interested in this activity, let them know that we will be meeting every week at the River Mill Park Pergola (thing with chairs) at 9am.

However, for the first week, we will meet at 5 Lorne Street (right by Huntsville Public).

Hence, the first week is this week.  So, MAY 2ND AT 9AM AT 5 LORNE STREET NORTH. Map: http://bit.ly/c4w3rq

Go to the “I am going running” for more details under the “Learn to Run” posting.

If you have questions, email me at rich@heatitup.ca.  Otherwise, see you on Sunday!

Rich

The only thing on my mind after Jennifer Brockett’s fast paced 2hr spin class was Food! 4 of us arrived at 8:15am, men on one side, women on the other, ready to take on her 2hr challenge. We weren’t 10 minutes in before the sweat puddle under my bike began to form – by 1hr it was spreading in all directions. Yeah it was a little gross, but strangely satisfying as you could monitor my effort level by the drip rate from my handlebars. No shirking in the back corner mister! After the class I read the notice in the change room asking members to use a towel on the cardio equipment – oh well.

Thanks Jennifer and Kym for opening the gym early this morning and for pumping out the rock and roll greats to keep us “motivated” for 2 hours.

If you missed this free spin class, don’t worry there are lots of other free classes at Motivations this coming week:

Wednesday 14^th April – Yoga for runners, 5:15pm

Thursday 15^th April – Pilates, 5pm

Friday 16^th April – Yoga for Athletes, 6:15am

Call 789-9435 or email motivations@bellnet.ca to reserve.

Rob.

Lorraine at Motivations Fitness has kindly offered four free classes to registered HEAT members coming up in the next couple of weeks.  Please call Motivations (789 9435) or email them at motivations@bellnet.ca to register for one or more of the classes:

Saturday 10^th April……………………..Two hour  Endurance spin ………….8:15am

Wednesday 14^th April……. …………..Yoga for runners ………………5:15pm

Thursday 15^th April …………………….Pilates ………………………….5pm

Friday 16^th April ………………………..Yoga for Athletes ……………. 6:15am

Signing up for one or more classes: Please make sure that you sign up at least 48hrs before the class

If you have to cancel for some reason: Please be courteous and call or email them if you aren’t going to make it.  It might mean that someone on the waiting list could get into the class.  Their phone # is 789-9435 or they can e-mail us at motivations@bellnet.ca.

Happy training….gotta love the sunshine!!!!!

Rich

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Skijoring is a sport which has its roots in Scandinavia, and simply constitutes any energetic dog pulling a cross-country skier!
The skier wears a skijoring harness, the dog wears a sled dog harness, and the two are connected by a length of rope (with a built in bungee). There are no reins or other signaling devices to control the dog: The dog must be motivated by its own desire to run, and respond to the owner’s voice for direction.

Don’t have the equipment?  No problem! There will be some gear onsite to borrow and instruction on how to effectively ski and guide your dog.  This is your chance to try a new  emerging sport with your own dog (who should be more than 30 lbs) or one that is already trained.

Standard Park day rates will apply…
Questions?  Contact Matt or Kristi at The Bike Shop in Gravenhurst at (705) 687-7433 or Lowell at lowell@heatitup.ca

So, I asked my trainer Kyra Watters to give a little blurb about stretching and how to do it.  I found some good videos that follow each of the different kinds of stretching to give you a bit of a stretching routine for both dynamic and static stretching that she goes over in her post.  So, I will pass it over to her…

If you don’t stretch you can not call yourself an athlete.

Athlete’s stretch. They know that stretching is part of the training and racing program.  It’s as important as the km’s on the bike, the laps in the pool and the post race beer.  If you choose not to stretch you’ll NEVER reach your athletic potential, complete your best time or continue to race into your 90’s.  [Think how popular you would be with the ladies if you were still  racing at 90.]

Two SIMPLE rules to stretching.

RULE #1 DYNAMIC stretching pre race or pre workout. It works best to
aid in muscular readiness. It uses movement, momentum and active
muscular effort to bring on a stretch reflex.

RULE #2 STATIC stretching post race or post workout. It works best to
increase semi-permanent muscle flexibility.

Dynamic Stretching:
The best form of dynamic stretching to execute pre race and pre workouts would be Pilates and or Yoga.  If you’re not familiar with Pilates or Yoga, simply find a DVD, pick up a book or do a couple classes. You need not worry about advance style of either. The basic moments of yoga or Pilates would be enough for efficient warm ups.

The dynamic stretching video attached has great warm stretches. I would recommend a 5 min. jog, jumping, skipping prior to doing them.

The Exercise Ball can also be used. The following video clips demonstrate some Static stretches on the ball that can simply be turned into Dynamic stretches by using constant movement, and avoid holding the stretch.  Old school side bends, high kicks etc…also work well.

More DIY videos at 5min.com

Static Stretching :
This is when you’re allowed to sit your ass on the ground, go into a stretch and hold it for 30 – 45 seconds repeatedly. You can use a partner or some other form assistance such as a towel, band or ball to increase the intensity of the stretch. The following video clips are all about static stretching. The videos clips contain stretches that are to be done POST race and or POST workout. [As mentioned above, you may change the video's Static stretches into Dynamic]

Have a bendy day!
Kyra

I was introduced to TRX training about a year ago,  and discovered that it is a simple yet amazing tool for creating a great workout. It’s hard to explain, so I recommend that you check out the video below, or some of the exercise videos on the TRX website.  This is a great opportunity to give TRX a try, in a safe, instructor led class, just for the HEAT community. There are 8 TRX’s in the studio, so we can start with a class of 8, and if there is more interest we’ll host another session. The price for this event is $6 per person to cover the cost of the instructor. I hope you’ll join me in a fun evening of training at Fitt Gym!

Please RSVP to iwantto@heatitup.ca

This video shows a few of the exercises, the Atomic Pushup (my introduction to TRX) is in the middle…

Rob. (RSVP)

Neil Jefferson and I ran the Hardwood Hills 3km loop in snowshoes on Saturday afternoon. It was absolutely beautiful with temperature of -14 °C and sunny blue skies. His running snowshoes being much smaller than my more traditional snowshoes seemed to be of some advantage, not to mention is long Kiwi legs propelling him in huge leaps down the hills Looking forward to participating in the upcoming Snowshoe race on January 24th. Nothing like snowshoe running to pin your heart rate in the upper 90%.

I also got a short skate ski in and ran across a few racers getting ready for the local Muskoka Loppet and Canadian Ski Marathon in Quebec. Jimmy Brendish was out on his skate skis as well, and Dave Gibson put in a huge effort with 80km on his classic skis. Of course, the ever present Steve Jones was out instructing for the Arrowhead Nordic Ski Club Ski for Fitness class on Saturday.

Sunday morning, the Six Feet Under adventure racers got in a 11km run and crossed paths with the 9am Sunday morning running group that meets at the Tim Hortons on Hwy 60.

Sunday afternoon, the Ontario Winter Games crew were out doing a dry run for the games next weekend. The sprint races are on Saturday Jan 16th, while the distance races are on the morning of Sunday Jan 17th. (Draft Schedule) This had the Arrowhead Race Centre team out to race the new Sprint loop – an exciting, fast paced event to watch.

Register now for the Muskoka Loppet or the Snowshoe Races.

Hope you had a great weekend!

Rob Horton