Training Log Archive: RLShadow

Setting out a loop of 7 controls for today's Mendon meet. With Cheryl.

The pulled muscle in the left calf was noticeable, especially when going up hills, but was tolerable. Although it limited my walking speed.

Played about 10 minutes of pickleball (left-handed, of course), just warming up (no game). I hustled up to retrieve a short shot, and in the process pulled my left calf muscle pretty badly. I was able to eventually walk around almost normally, at a slow pace, but any running, even the tiny amount of running needed to play pickleball, was totally out of the question. So that ended my pickleball for today. I'm hoping I'll be able to walk well enough by tomorrow morning to set out my portion of the controls at Mendon.

Stationary bike in the fitness area of the rec center, while Cheryl and trailsnail and Paul and one other guy finished up their final pickleball game. Fairly fast rpm but very low intensity, to avoid aggravating my calf muscle issue.

More mapping at Durand.

Th afternoon walk-in pickleball at the Rec center. Again, I played 100% left handed. Gradually getting a bit better. Main weakness is handling hard or semi hard shots hit right at me when I'm at the net.

Walk with Homer at Ellison Wetlands. Once more, for the 2nd time in 3 days, my Forerunner said "low battery" as soon as I turned it on, even though I know I had charged it the day before. It recorded 17 minutes; I actually walked for 46 minutes. I scaled up the distance accordingly. Not sure what's going on with the Forerunner ...

C • Forerunner 4

Tues morning pickleball, playing left-handed the whole time. I lost more games than I won, no surprise ...

Stationary biking in the fitness center after pickleball.

More mapping at Durand. Weather was a bit better than yesterday (a little warmer, and not quite as windy), although it started to rain lightly during the last 5 minutes.

Monday evening pickleball group. Because my tennis elbow issue seems to be getting worse, I decided I needed to totally forgo playing right handed for a while, so I was determined to stick with left handed playing tonight, even though I play much better playing right handed, and therefore have more fun. (To re-phrase a saying I heard about another activity -- "I play for fun. Hitting good shots, and making few mistakes, is fun.")

I did OK, and I'm improving bit by bit. I can actually hit an occasional backhand now, in fact maybe even 50% success (vs about a 5% success rate when I started playing left handed). Unfortunately, playing left handed precludes me from playing in games with the better players. In one game, it was me and three fairly clueless people (one of whom was very new, so she had a good reason to be clueless, but the other two have been playing for a while now and really should be at least understanding things like how to keep score, how the serves rotate, etc.). Other games weren't so bad, though.

Mapping at Durand. Not exactly great mapping weather -- a bit too cold, at least for the first half hour or so, for fingers to be warm enough to write, so I wore gloves with open fingers, and that was OK for warmth but a little awkward to write. Also, very windy, which makes it tough with two layers of Mylar on the map board.

Went with Cheryl and Homer, although they went their separate ways.

My GPS immediately said it had a very low battery, even though I had charged it last time I used it, just a couple of days ago. This happens to me very occasionally and I can't figure out the cause. So the battery lasted for 35 minutes, about half the time I was out. I kept track of the time on a regular watch, and estimated the distance from knowing what my snail-like mapping pace usually is.