Training Log Archive: Charlie

Rhonda's morning class, with the ante upped a bit - it now starts at 5:45 to accommodate some of the moms who have to get back and get school kids on the bus. Our niece Danielle attended (and about 5 of the usual suspects). She flew in last night from the West Coast and will stay a week before starting an internship in NYC for three months. Earns many extra Aunt Rhonda points for getting up for the 5:45 class with 3 hrs of jet lag. Danielle is 21. Class actually drags on til about 7:15, although people start to trickle out, and an hour is all I can take before I have to get out myself.

After a hard day of running and laurel wrangling, even the three bowls of ice cream last night did not stave off a dip in my g.

C • Thirds!! 3

Original plan was to park at the Tunxis trailhead near Hillcrest, go N to the Indian Council Rocks and over Pine Mt and come back on the road, with Kathleen and Rhonda. Chris from next door found out about it and wanted to come, although we were a bit suspicious. Anyway, about halfway up the first hill his calf started to cramp, and after about 15 minutes he was done, so we showed him the way to the road and sent him to get the car and go home.

So on to the Indian Council Rocks, and then cut it short because now we were going to have to run home, too. Up to LeGeyt Rd and then back on the road to the trailhead where the car used to be, then S on the trail to Ratlum Rd, at which point I announced I was walking for a while. We walked up Lavander Rd, freshly sanded, and then started running again when we got to the woods, and ran until we got to the site of all the recent laurel wrangling, where I gave the girls a tour and then walked back to the house. Very sweaty

a tired but really successful spate of laurel wrangling, as we burst through the nastiest thicket encountered so far this summer to hook up the two ends of the boundary trail we have been working. A real golden spike moment.

Event: D2R2
 

Morning jaunt at McLean with Kathleen & Rhonda, starting at 6. Parked at corner of Barndoor Hills and Simsbury Rd and traveled CCW, then took the path up toward Canton Rd to the yellow trail, past the main entrance and took the blue trail (of the red-orange-blue complex), cutting across on purple and then up to the top of the eastern Barndoor Hill, thence to the lookout on top, but much too hazy to see anything except a lot of houses where there used to be only woods. Came down on the southern trail, which was not as nasty as I remember it. It is quite steep and has been very eroded at times, but seemed a bit better. Thence out to the road. The house across the street there was the only house along the road when I lived in the area 35 years ago. The family who lived there then had a couple of teen age girls who were babysitters for my older kids. And back to the car along the road, Kathleen and Rhonda liberated from having to follow me and disappearing quickly into the distance. Kathleen had remarked earlier how difficult she found it to run slowly when she was following me on trails, and that it seemed to use different muscles. I told her I also found it difficult running slowly, but running fast was no longer an option. Pretty sweaty morning.

A spate of chainsawing - getting rid of some spruce trees I've been thinking about for a bit. At one time they were candidates for Christmas, but now in the Rockefeller center category, so down they go. Much too hot for such foolishness, though, and once they were down and partly bucked and limbed I had to doff my chainsaw gear and cool off - time to think of something more mellow to do. Come back a cooler time to drag the stuff away.

Skipped the run today, as I was feeling stiff. Some laurel wrangling with the assistants, who will be moving on now that school is about to start. I observed that there does not seem to be any time that both of them are moving at the same time. An AOWN moment, as I got nailed on the back of the arm by a yellow jacket, resulting in a re-ordering of priorities and moving further along the boundary to work. Made some good progress, and found the remains of some 40-ish year old blazes on trees along the boundary. Not surprising I didn't find any on my first pass through here, as I was off about 20' to the right.

Then off for some rogaine practice in the pm, where I had the interesting experience of joining a threesome of young lads of about 14. While they were pleasant and nice enough to chat with, it turns out that their golf manners are not as refined as Zack's. Some of it was familiar - the jumping around on the green and swinging a club trick, but then there were the putting out of turn, the surprise second, third and fourth shots, standing in one's line, etc.

Distance is an estimate. With Rhonda and Kathleen. From the SW corner of Barndoor Hills and Simsbury Rd in West Granby along trails in McLean Game Refuge headed for the falls off Firetown Rd, but there are more trails in there than I remembered, and we ended up thrashing through some private property and off-trail areas looking for a reasonable way out. At one point we stimulated a dog in someone's back yard who sounded pretty big. I'm sure we sounded pretty big, too, and we could hear the owner whistling and trying to recover his dog before it fell afoul of whatever giant thrashing animal was out there. Eventually popped out on Firetown about 1.5 miles north of the falls, so along the road to the falls, and then back without further event. Knee feeling pretty tender, so I will endeavor to ice it. And also to get back to doing my rehab exercises, which have fallen by the wayside.

Kathleen turns out to be a pretty good sport about being lost in the woods and crashing through thickets and the like, although perhaps she was operating under the illusion that I knew where we were.

The road section was tough, as the girls dumped me on the uphills and I had to struggle to catch up on the downhills, fortunately snagging them before they went steaming by the trailhead near the falls.

C • Waterfall trail 3

AOWN activities: Barred owl hooting outside the bedroom window through a fair amount of the morning until Rhonda declared it time to get up at 5. A little mousie scurrying away from my feet as I approached the car this morning. Escaping from Sunderland? Saw a coyote crossing rte 309 in West Simsbury at 6am when we were headed over to McLean Game Refuge with Kathleen. Zack and I saw one a few nights ago at the same corner. Handsome red-tail perched in a pine tree right out my office window around 10am. Some impressive looking wasps have joined the swarm of yellow jackets dispatching the last of the peaches that have fallen from our peach tree. Periodically (although not today) Rhonda dispatches me to clean up the fallen peaches from the walkway, which involves snatching them away from the hungry yellowjackets. Kind of scary, but they don't bother me, apparently because they are so much more interested in rotten peaches than they are in human flesh.

Rhonda's 6am class, which is apparently moving to 5:45 starting next week. I could only take an hour, so ducked out while they were still at it.

A couple of hours of laurel wrangling along the border with the assistants. The assistants are rather ill-motivated and need constant encouragement to keep from lapsing into complete torpor. They seem to fail to appreciate the beauty and utility of a perfectly straight line through the laurel thicket.

McLean Game refuge with Kathleen and Rhonda.