Training Log Archive: Charlie

Event: DVOA Mount Penn - Antietam
 

Event: NEOC: Baldwin Hill
 

Lucky I am going orienteering today, as it allows me to dodge yard work. I am pretty stiff in a lot of places. Last night Zack was giving me my assignments for today and I had to remind him I wouldn’t be here.

Baldwin Hill Green course. Not too bad, except for a really long excursion in the area of #4. Finally climbed up a line to a place I was reasonable sure it wasn't, and there it was! Otherwise, trying to pay attention to compass, and doing pretty well.

1. More or less on compass, crossing the stone wall, picking up a bit of trail and heading on compass when I got to the part where it paralleled the second wall. Saw the reentrant, but slow approaching because the flag was hiding behind a tree from the direction I was coming.

2. Got passed quickly by a guy in an orangish shirt. Headed a little left of the line toward the wall, saw the depression near the wall, two bumps before heading down to the stream, caught orange shirt and was more or less even going up the hill, but he was right of me and the control was left, so I got away,.

3. Keeping a good compass line and heading up the hill. Otherwise not much to do until I got on top, where I saw the hill, the marsh and the flag. Nice.

4. Would have been very fine to head down E of the big hill top and west of the marsh, but I got it in mind to go on top of the hill, and once I was up there it seemed to be a good idea to be on the west side of the top. So far so good. Climbed down, around under the southernmost cliff and tried to find the depression just S, but got sucked into the reentrant just W of there, convincing myself easily that it was a depression, so I continued on to try to find the depression past it, and there was certainly a lot of topography, back and forth several times, and then expanding the search area, alas first to the west, going way too far, and then East, before climbing a line and finding it. 14 minutes squandered!

5. This was not too hard, but really gloomy and spiky woods in between. I had an eye out for any possible Rodents of Unusual Size. Anyway, over to the little ridge line, and then south a bit to the right knob and the control behind it.

6. Generally thinking I was on compass, but drifting a bit left, until I had gone about the right distance and saw a big boulder. Yay!, Except not my boulder, and gee, there are three of them. So I realized I was 100m too far N and quickly corrected. Not too much time lost, really, maybe a minute.

7. More or less on the line to the wall and the trail, along the trail for a bit until it seemed like the right place to get off and go across the knoll in the middle of the marshy stuff. Crossed the two SW facing reentrants, and then it wasn't too much farther, just a couple of bumps.

8. Aimed for the spur and headed up, across the hill bending left with the two dot knolls on it. A bit of uncertainty because the feature looked more like a boulder than a cliff, but got a bit closer and there was the flag.

9. More or less on line, not making much speed. Crossed the stone wall near the boulder R of the line, then angled down, along the very faint trail for a bit, then on compass over to the really steep part of the hill in front of me, and headed a bit left to where it was a little less steep and crossed the wall right where it climbed and went over the hill at the top, so knew where I was and checked off a bunch of boulders, the first marsh, then ujp on the hill to make sure and in.

10. Somehow got R of the line, just past the marsh east of 9, across the wall near the little bend, down on an angel across the EW wall segment, crossed the streamlet pretty high, over th two line hill, past a hunter's stand and read my way in, slowing down and looking around as I got to the more complex terrain, but the flag was right in front of me.

11, Easy leg, going along the wall a bit off, wavered a bit left just before it, but then saw the big rock.

12. Thought I would go W to the trial, but easier just to cross the stream and get out to the trail by the ball field. Miscounted trails and got off too soon, but cut through, picked up the trail again and attacked from the bend. No problem.

Bill D was kind enough to drive, so hard to pass up a fine meet like this.

Map

C • Bladwin Hill 4

Green - Splits

Event: DVOA National Event Nov 4-5
 

Stump grinding. Zack is operating the device, but I need to be there to help guide him, as he can't see where the blade is going, and to dig rocks out of the way, since rocks are really hard on the teeth. 5 stumps down before lunch, 3 to go.

And the next 3 after lunch, and one other stump that had a lot of rocks around it so we took it out with the tractor instead. A pretty successful outing, but not a machine either of us is eager to try again. Too hard. Thankfully, no other stumps that are currently bothering us.

C • Ratlum 4

Yard work today, including 2 hours with the brush mower, clearing the area above the smaller clearcut, working some mountain laurel along the edges of trails, then going with Zack to pick up the stump grinder from the rental shop for stumps tomorrow.

Very satisfactory workout with Eric in the gym, usual stuff, deadlifts, goblet squats, bent over dumbbell rows, but somehow felt relatively stronger today.'

Surprising considering the unsatisfactory sleeping last night. Stayed up until 11:30 watching the Astros in solidarity with my mother-in-law, and then woke up at 2;30, wide awake, finally came downstairs at 3:45 as I was not going back to sleep. Will need a nap somewhere along the line.

1 dog loop. The plan was to do an easy two, but there were a lot of sticks down across the trail and I was picking them up along the way and by the time I got to the end of the first loop I wasn't feeling it anymore.

Around the Ann loop with Rhonda, with a short side trip to inspect why there is a barrier up at the top of Barbourtown. Turns out there is a broken tree hung up in the power lines just N of the intersection with Triangle. I assume there is no one available to take it down because all the guys who would otherwise be doing that stuff are dealing with the outages in Eastern CT.

Seems to have been a busy day.

In the gym with Eric, usual kind of stuff, including DLs, goblet squats, pushups, TRX rowing

About 4 and a half hours with the chipper today, a Bandit 150. Pretty fine machine. Zack and I cleared up everything that had been cut on Friday, plus a bunch more stuff that we could get down without the lift. Satisfactory, but very tiring and it led to a 2 hour nap for me.

Unsettled day, and nothing like what I might have expected. Woken up at midnight by the dog pacing and panting. Then she skedaddled downstairs and threw up her supper. Finally got back to sleep for a bit, got up at 4, in time for her to drink a bunch of water and throw up again, then gingerly eat some breakfast. Took her out where she strained unproductively to defecate, and then took her down to the vet at 9. Some x-rays and this and that, left her for a while, came back around 3 to see what was up and the vet directed us over to the emergency vet who could operate on her tonight. So over there, more x-rays, more waiting around and finally they decided they would operate sometime tonight and we got out of there around 5:30 or so, in time to get home and do some chipping with Zack, who had picked up a chipper at the rental place at 5.

C • Hoping this morning for a r... 11