Training Log Archive: barb

Kids' yoga

At Horning's Hideout...

From Georganna:

It's been a while, but you probably remember the gang of us who came by to film your chickens for the cable show? You and your wonderful children - and chickens, were so kind and obliging!

We are still in the editing process and are working on the credits, so I wanted to know what would feel most comfortable to you. I am happy to put your children's names with the character reference of "boy with chickens played by...." "girl with chickens played by..." and give their names. Or I could just say "Special thanks to the Yee family for letting us film them and their chickens." If you are okay with having you or your children's names, just give me the correct spelling. If you would rather not have names mentioned at all, that's fine too - whichever you prefer.

to work & home, and later out to Lexington to meet with Pete Lane. Was pushing somewhat on the ride out to Lexington. Had some traffic (lights) though. And I think riding along Mem Drive on the sidewalk is slower because of the tree root bumps and narrow people passing, compared to, say, Mass Ave. Took the Minuteman Trail a lot of the way; nice. On way home dived off it to Mass Ave b/c my bike light isn't bright enough for me to go very fast in the way dark.

Many people passed me handily even though I was working hard. They had skinny tires though. And colorful skin-tight clothing. I'd like to try out those thin tires just to know if I could go faster with a different bike or if I'm just totally weak. I am not going to wear those clothes though.

C • tires 5

From Crawford Notch Crawford Trail trailhead up and around to the Appalachia parking area on the north side of the Presidentials.
Stopped for coffee + cinnamon roll at the Waterwheel.
This is a nice ride. Even though it's on fast roads, there is a broad shoulder most of the way. The biggest hill is not so very hard.

Unpresidential Traverse. (i.e., did not actually climb any of the peaks.)
Appalachia parking lot; up Valley Way to Madison Hut. Gulfside Trail to that nice bypass around the W flank of Mt Washington. Down to Lake of the Clouds Hut at 5:30pm. Then via Crawford Trail along the beautiful ridge past Monroe, Eisenhower, Pierce, and down to Crawford Notch.
Finished at 9:45pm; had maybe an hour of stops.
Took it very easy, luxurious.
Had soup, bread, orange, tea at Madison Hut at 1:00 pm.
Forgot, in planning, that I am spooked hiking on my own after dark. Sang a lot. Was on 33 bottles of beer when I encountered hikers going the other direction. Embarrassing. Whatever.
Not really sore today (Sunday). Last week was quite sore for a few days after.
Original plan with 7:10 time limit would have been very hard to make in my current shape. I bet I could get there though.
Scree bits are annoying but probably good for the balance & strength as long as you don't err and hurt yourself.

Feeling somewhat low. Work is weird.

Watched "Moon" with Dave last night. I thought it was really good.

I would like to do a Presidential traverse this weekend. There had been a little discussion about it with Ian before he became lame. I guess I either need to travel with people having another car and do a drive-around or key exchange partway through the hike. Or I could bring my bike and bike around in the beginning, and pick the bike up at the end. Or maybe there is a hiker shuttle. Or I could hitch-hike.

I definitely want to go from north to south. The AMC shuttle picks up at Webster Cliff trailhead at 9:10a.m. and drops off at Valley Way at 10:45am. That's a late start for a Traverse, and might mean finishing in the dark, which would be OK. It also means I could drive up in the morning from Cambridge.

Alternatively, if I do the traverse fast (maybe skipping all the peaks), I could park at Pinkham Notch and take the 8:00am shuttle that drops off at the north Valley Way trailhead at 8:20am. Then I have to be done at Webster at 3:30pm to get the shuttle back to Pinkham Notch. Looks like the minimum is 17.2 miles, and I'd have 7 hours and 10 minutes so I'd have to hustle. Seems kind of fun to have a time limit.

Ah, better to go down to Crawford Notch from Pierce; going all the way to Webster Cliff trail will be longer. Shuttle leaves CN at 3:25pm.

Or, maybe a 2-day double traverse with a bike ride before and after. Have to get my bike souped up though.



... OK - took my bike to the shop; plan is to drive up tomorrow evening, park at Crawford Notch, bike around to the north, then hike back to the car, then drive to the bike, then drive home. Have to run it by Dave though.

C • Traverse 5

Dave's birthday today.

I stopped in around 5pm at the restaurant, to see whether it would work for us to come early and check out the rooftop garden. The greeter put me in touch with the maitre d' who then took me back to meet the chef, Steve. I was flummergasted because it was the Chef, and I'd seen his picture on the website, and it looked just like him. I splutter about me & Dave having an appointment at 7, and Steve told me that in the restaurant business, they call that a "reservation." Coming at 6:45 to check out the garden wasn't going to work because of course the chef would be busy. I called Dave and got him to meet me outside the restaurant asap, 5:45 or so, which worked, though it took several minutes to explain to Dave that yes, he should meet me at the restaurant on the way to go home to get ready to go the restaurant, and, yes, I was already there, and waiting for him.

The ladder up to the roof was much less intimidating than it might have been, as a result of us using a ladder up to our roof garden. And the roof sloped, and right away you have to maneouvre around some HVAC unit covered with thin shaped tin. Maneuver. Manuever. Argentinian tango.

Yum.

Radishes, planted weekly. Rosemary bushes. Potatoes. Mint, marjoram, chives, lovage. Lovage. Flowers & succulents recovering from their stints as display pieces near the restaurant entry.

Steve gave us plenty of time to savor the garden. He lives quite near us, 3 blocks, and just about adjacent to the Sidney St chickens, the free-rangers, who co-habitate with a pitbull or pitbull-like dog. He didn't mention the chickens. We only mentioned ours at the very end, reciprocating with an invitation to visit our garden.

The food was FA.

Yeah.

The garden is watered by runoff condensation from the 3 big air-conditioning units. the water runs out of the tubes coming from the boxes, onto the roof, where it puddles and slowly drains away. The garden boxes are fruit crates and the like, rough thin slats with space between them, nailed or stapled together. Inside, a cardboard box, then the dirt, compost, plant. Watering happens by wicking up from the puddle into the cardboard, to the dirt, sucked by the roots and the evaporation at the surface of the dirt. Very re-used. Very sustainable.

Steve talked about other restaurants-in-the-making by other people, getting a lot of press. $20M including a well-engineered hyper productive green roof. Not so "found object"

To Medford.

I am slow. When I jog, people run past me. When I bike, people bike past me. Heck, when I bike, people sometimes *run* past me. I have a new theory that maybe my bike needs a tune-up and then it will go faster. Dave is faster than me, of course, so it is interesting to me that I seem to have more endurance. Saturday I was tired on our 12-hour hike, and I've been really sore since, but he was suffering at the end of the hike in a way that I wasn't. I guess he has some real physical issues -- old injuries or tendons that tighten up or something.

Rogaining with Eric Bone: obviously he's really fast, and strong. I'm not. I have to go slow and keep moving. He's better suited to (= practiced at) going fast for a few hours, then resting for a few hours. I imagine he can go forever if you can just manage to slow him down.

C • I bet you are a pretty fast... 2

Cambridgeport Garden Tour Schedule - tonight
(times approximate):
116 Henry Street (us!) 6:30-7:05pm: Container gardening, irrigation techniques and more.
32 Chalk Street 7:15 pm: A quick stop en route to look at a slow soak irrigation technique from rainbarrels.
8 Fairmont Av 7:25pm: Garage rooftop garden. Look at how this often overlooked resource can be developed.

So, related to all these silly-but-popular not-rogaines, the Warrior Dash will be held in Horning's Hideout in September. That's also where Dave & John & I are heading for a concert/festival in a week or so. "Hustle up and over giant straw bales... Clamber over rusted junkers... Scramble beneath barbed wire... Trudge through the waist-deep bog and over the logs..." I think I'd rather be dancing.

To ferry

I was slow, but it was hot. Lovely trip out to Thompson's Island to do Jessica's orienteering course. Quite a few friends there.

Home from ferry.

In the Presidentials, with Dave, Katia, Giovanni

TMI alert; stop reading now; this is my log and I'll do what I want with it; etc.

Last night I was feeling down, and emotionally vulnerable, insecure. I felt like everyone disliked/hated me. Peter for not doing WRC with him. Various people for not replying to my emails. Pete for me thrashing around too much with NEOC business without coordinating well with him. My ex-CEO because he turned away from a conversation with me and because I figure I have failed him any number of ways. My colleague(s) similarly. All those comp bio researchers at the conference for the usual reasons of me sucking. Dave, as proven by some one of those interactions you have with a family member where you both talk in an annoyed/whiny voice. O people as shown by them ignoring me or whatever, and who could blame them for how I write ridiculous things on my AP log, or suck at O, or am just weird or whatever. And on and on for every community I'm involved with. I thought this might be a sign that I've put myself forward way too much, and should really not do that, just live under the radar a lot more. I thought maybe this was fueled by reading Malcolm X and feeling the guilt of the white man. I thought, maybe I need to eat and exercise well; these feelings might be a symptom of not.

Turns out I got my period this morning which explains those feelings. That's how it often manifests for me. Not that all of those worrisome things aren't true; that emotional state can be a useful opportunity to pay attention to certain otherwise unexamined threads.

I don't know these days when I will or won't menstruate. I'm at the stage of hot flashes and irregularity.

...

Had a nice breakfast with Dave - homemade bread (light wheat) toasted, and completely from our garden/chickens: eggs with tarragon, parsley, oregano, rosemary, sun gold cherry tomatoes, kale.

C • Same here 6

C • Chickens 11

work; dinner at K&Gs. Very cool to see their new house.

Hey - nice updates to the club map availability & policy spreadsheet, guys, thanks!
Here is MNOC's map of maps.
Notes from my conversation last night with Bob, Ian and Andy. I hadn't talked with Andy before; what good luck for NEOC to have him involved! Organized, smart, nice... I enjoyed hearing some mapping history from Bob, though I'm still no expert. Sad to see Ian limping.

In other news, there is some talk of a hike in the White Mountains this Saturday. Katia & Giovanni & me for sure. Would like a long hike where we are on ridgelines for the good weather and off them for the lightning.

It is time to start training for WRC now that I have a partner! I've always thought that rogaine team names are annoying because they mask who is actually on the team. But I admit that there have been cases where a catchy team name has become a compelling reason for me to want to partner. I thought "Borblyn" was pretty good. For WRC, now, we have: Barberic. And others of you out there may be at risk if I stumble across the right name.

C • Team Name 1

work, Boston.

Around Boston; really fun because I have not been on many of those streets. Thanks Lori!

To conference.

Tonight I'm going to be meeting with a few people to talk about NEOC maps - mostly which maps need updating and how, but also other things. If you have any thoughts or opinions, please let me know!
Somewhat related: started (with Ian) looking at how other clubs are or are not posting maps and so on: see this spreadsheet. Feel free to edit it. I think anyone with the link can edit it.

To conference.

I've been reading Malcolm X's autobiography, because it is required reading for David over the summer. Thought-provoking.

With Dave, to a gathering at a senior scientist's house where we enjoyed a reunion with former colleagues

Back & forth to the conference. A couple times. Conference goes right through the weekend, which will make for a long two weeks of working with no days, which will perhaps balance the previous week of "working" while traveling around chasing orienteering events.

At lunch I went across the street and bought trail-running shoes, which I figured would coax me into a wonderful period of training hard. It couldn't have hurt, training-motivation-wise, that I tried on some clothes in a brightly lit changing room with a big mirror, which was a real downer and resulted in my not buying any clothes at all.

To Hynes a couple times for ISMB conference.

Coming home in the afternoon I waited for the downpour to abate. In the driving rain, a parade of people went by: protesters, with signs railing against anti-immigration measures. Later I figured out that the Governors' association was meeting in Boston, and in fact there was some kind of event at the same conference center I was at, requiring extra security.

While watching the rain on Boylston Street I saw something I'd never seen before: manhole covers popping around like the lid on a boiling pot of water, with geysers streaming up through their holes.

To conference, to work, to home for bike trailer, to grocery store for O snacks, to Public Garden for the conference orienteering event (wonderfully designed by Deb Humiston), then back home. On the way back, Dave & I stopped and watched a few minutes of Wizard of Oz, which was playing at the Hatch Shell. We got to see "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", Toto escaping, the tornado, the arrival of the Good Witch, and the Munchkins.

Orienteers putting on the speed:

C • Nice variety! 2

Jogged from hotel to event site. Not nearly enough warmup; I need more like 12 hours.

We stayed in the hotel because the previous night our air mattress sprang a slow leak. At 2:30 am it had deflated enough that Dave and I started waking up half way and rolling around on the large gravel underneath. Made me really really appreciate a proper bed the next night. Beds are so cool. I love beds.

sprint. fun. messed up controls 4 & 2.

C • Missed you 7

Some uphill walking home from the awesome Seattle fireworks.

Sprint - Course 6 - Splits

Dave beat me by about 15 min. I struggled getting to 11. Otherwise fairly pleased. Now I need to get faster.

Long - Course 7 - Splits

Event: North American Orienteering Championships
 

M45A course. Beat John but Dave beat me by having a clean run (34 minutes). He's faster, so I have to rely on him to make errors. Very fun. Dave got a lot of great photos.

Middle - Course 7 - Splits

Looking forward to dinner with Carl & Linda... Spent the day in the Bean Cafe instead of doing THOMASS, which is too bad, but I'm supposed to be working. THOMASS sounds *totally* fun. My avatar ran for me, but not well enough to beat Dave.

Gentle jog along the river and through the woods to the other campground and back.

Long sprint - Splits