Training Log Archive: Charlie

in the gym with Eric. Not the best. Back was tight, so backed off on the deadlifts, used lighter weights on the squats, ended up doing a lot of bands. The back has been cranky for several days now. Probably too much laurel, too much driving.

With Rhonda, from PV

Busy day. Lots of work to do on rate filings. Did some brushmowing and planted some tomatoes during my breaks. Thought I would ride but the day got away from me.

Not much time, just wanted to do a few sets of squats, since they seem to be doing me some good. 4x6: working up to 90#.

With Rhonda, from PV. Nice morning.

Zack's last day in town and there was a lot of chipping going on. At least 4 hours worth.

Event: Westchester County Challenge
 

Model event at Ward Pound Ridge. Drove down with Bill. Not much of a crowd. We arrived just before 2, the first to arrive, and the next folks didn't show up until I was finished. Nice course, nominal distance 4K, and WPR was lovely, good visibility despite full leaf-out. All the chipping this week was perhaps not the best prep. Found out on the way to #1 that my legs were dead, but no real difficulty getting around. A couple of real blunders. On the way to #6 I convinced myself I was looking for a charcoal platform, when the control was actually on a dot knoll. Then to make it weirder, I found an unmapped charcoal platform, not all that far from the knoll, but of course there was no flag there, so some wandering around, eventually seeing the flag on the side of the knoll and thinking to myself, what kind of charcoal platform is that? Then another clunker, leaving 7 and somehow jumping ahead and thinking I was leaving 8 headed to 9. Went about the requisite distance, found a reentrant, but no flag. Wandered for a bit, then looked hard at the map and noticed that I had not yet been to 8. So how to get there now that I have wandered a bunch? Turned out to be not so hard, although there are a lot more substantial cliffs in the area than show up on the map. The rest was pretty straightforward, straight to 9, passing the rock on the line and the reentrant was pretty distinctive, a little high at 10, but didn't lose much, straight to 11, picking off one of the stone piles on the way across and seeing the flag coming up right in front of me. A fine time, but a long ride home, avoiding the traffic jams on 84 going up 22 and through Sherman, New Milford and Litchfield

Map and route

In the gym with Eric, stretching and rolling, deadlifts (135#), back squats (85#), pull downs, GH raises, pushups on the BOSU, ball planks. Good session.

Physical therapy appointment for my neck.

Home in time to join in with Zack and his boom lift, de-limbing and bringing down a big chestnut oak that he thinks was too menacing to the hot tub. He is pretty darned skilled with the boom lift.

Event: WCOC, WOD event at Bethel Schools
 

Laurel wrangling along the back trail for 45 minutes, building a pile to chip later. Cleared a good part of a very dense thicket. Not much else grows in a real laurel area, just a very few straggly pine seedlings.

Close on another 2 hours of laurel wrangling and chipping, with Zack. Finished off my pile and went and worked on an area of his choosing, clearing a good sized area and a path around one of the gates to get the tractor there. Pretty tired after that and maybe that is enough laurel for one day.

Longest ride of the season so far, and pretty successful, considering I was already pretty tired from laurel wrangling today. Up Sandy Brook Rd to the top at Rte 183 and back.

A chipper not being enough entertainment, seems like Zack rented the boom lift and was up chopping branches out of a dead pine tree preparatory to bringing it down. He has been complaining about it for a long time. However, 50 ft of boom lift was not enough for him to take it down the way he intended, so it is still there, although shorn of branches. Instead I went up with him and we took dead branches out of an oak tree that were hanging over the shed in a menacing fashion. He is pretty good at this sort of thing.