Thursday, July 3, 2008

What the Hail?!?

Last night we had a heck of a hail storm with golf ball sized hail stones pounding our house.





It made for quite the racket as the hail came down unbelievably hard and was bouncing off the metal roof of the house. As well both dogs were barking like crazy.



This morning there is debris all over the place as the storm knocked down lots of branches off the trees. I also noticed the hood of my truck and the roof of the house is dimpled from the hail stones. So I will have to give the insurance agent a call today. Apparently the storm just had a narrow path through our sub-division and never touched the town of Hinton itself.



On Tuesday when I went to run the Town trails I was greeted with this sign...




It's probably hard to read in the picture, but here is what it says:



Caution: Problem Bear suspected in this area. Natural Resources service personnel are attempting to remove this bear.



We ask you to be especially careful.



The have a description of the bear, light brown, walks upright, and was last seen wearing a green hat and neck tie.

Police Artist Drawing

Seriously though, it is that season again and the bears are starting to be sighted in and around the town. Once they start getting a taste for garbage and human food they are really difficult to get rid of. I have met a few bears on the trail and usually if you stop and make some noise they will take off. Unless of course you have a pic-a-nic basket with you!

Tuesday I did a brisk run on the trail despite the bear warnings and managed 9 miles in 1 hour and 10 seconds. It was a beautiful day and I was in a good groove.

Tuesday evening I took the mountain bike out for an hour long ride. I didn't feel like packing up the road bike so I opted for a ride on some single track trails. I only crashed once, which is pretty good for me when I get on the mountain bike. My left elbow and right knee got scraped up pretty good, but nothing major.

Wednesday's swim was cut short when some old guy got in my lane and started doing sidestroke and elementary backstroke. The whole lane was in total confusion and since I already had done 1,500 metres I didn't feel like enduring the frustration and called it a day. I finished off the day with a 7.5 mile run in 56 minutes.

This will be the last big week prior to Sylvan and I already have 6 1/2 hours logged.

Have a great day!

2 comments:

Grellan said...

The threat of a bear on my run would sure improve my pace (as well as elevate my HR).

Re: falling off your bike. I was getting my bike tuned up last night by a friend who's been cycling since he was 9 and he told me that the reason i'm nervous with speed is because I haven't fallen off by bike often enough.

Love2Run said...

Good thing you didn't get caught outside in that! Seems like your training is well on track for the Sylvan Tri which now has 267 people signed up. It should be a breeze after doing the full?