Training Log Archive: CleverSky

16 ring pullups. Maybe could have done more.

30 pushups, 60 situps.

Walking around the Lane property with Brandon and Bob, discussing trail routing, potential bridge locations, etc.

Out and back, streamering the proposed trail access from Gilchrest St. This is here primarily to have a GPS record of where the streamers are, so that we can check that it's staying inside the boundaries of the town-owned property.

Some new stuff at Willard Brook. I managed to get in a run after work in February without a headlamp; pulling that off required getting to work before the alarm clock in my bedroom went off, and because I dropped Nancy off at Logan before going to work, it meant I woke up almost as early as people in Connecticut. The sun was going down behind the hill as I drove over to Willard Brook, and it never quite shone on me directly while I was running.

I had seen these trails on OSM, so I printed out a copy and brought it along, and referred to it a couple of times, managing to do the loop I had in mind. As with the previous in this area, neither the OSM or my own GPS track captures the twists and turns from km 2 to km 5. There's an extra half dimension out there. There's also a bunch of really sweet terrain, with a lot of variety. One graceful fall sliding down a rock face, but I stayed upright on the ice (not that there was much of that until near the end). Some of the trails were pretty flooded, though generally not the singletrack.

AOWN: Found a chestnut, which I put in my pocket and immediately decided that was a really bad idea, so I put it in my map case. Also flushed four deer. I did not see any kamelåså.

C • kamelåså 4

15 ring pullups, 30 pushups, 60 situps.

Snow dealings, no dealings: driveway covered with icy slush in the morning, maybe close to an inch, but not enough to keep the garage door from opening, so with all the warm rain in the forecast, I just ignored it. Looked about the same when I got home from work, ditto at bedtime.

30 pushups, 60 situps, 15 ring pullups.

Town Forest, In The Dark, just as light snow was starting to fall. Kept changing my mind about exactly what loop I wanted to run, to the point that I made a last minute change about what trailhead to enter on, and then still kept changing my mind about the loop as I went along. Trails were surprisingly icy (very glad I wore spikes!); it's a big contrast to previous years, when I was almost the only one going in there, and now that it's public land, it's good to see that it's getting used. The trail through the ferny flats has been rerouted, closed to the brook. After crossing back over the Mulpus, I went bushwhacking, got pretty lost, and then spotted some thumbtacks, which I followed back to the Waterline trail (which I was proud to recognize after just a few seconds). Exit via the proposed trail that I need to get out and streamer. Surreal enough experience that it never felt like an unpleasant effort.

30 pushups, 15 ring pullups, 60 situps.

Willard Brook SW. Waffled over where I wanted to go for a run, and finally decided on someplace that I like a lot, though it took a bit longer to drive there than some of the other options. Put together a route in nmy head, missed one turn, and instead of turning around, just reconfigured it. Definitely more enjoyable than pavement. Either the watch or Attackpoint's algorithm is missing a lot of the switchback details just before the 4 km mark, there's a lot of back and forth going on in there.

AOWN: Got back to the house, and noticed that some things had fallen off of my kitchen table. That was weird. Then I went into the bedroom and saw that things had fallen off of my stereo cabinet, and further investigation showed things that had fallen from the mantel in the living room, etc. Huh. Had there been an earthquake? Possibly. Then I was in the bathroom and heard someone moving around in the house. An intruder? A religious terrorist? A Republican presidential candidate? But I am wise enough to see through to the truth of these things, and suspected that it was actually some animal that had invaded my abode, perhaps a moose or a bison. (Or a rabid eleph-- no, wait, I already mentioned that one.) Sneaking stealthily toward the kitchen I spotted... yep, had to be: a squirrel. He had probably been pretty freaked out at not being able to find his way out, and knocked over all manner of stuff. He had retreated to the living room, so I opened the door to the deck, and tossed a heel of bread with some peanut butter on it out there as an enticement. I think he was out the door in less than five minutes (I saw him exit). The remaining mystery is how he got in. Years ago, one gained access though the fireplace, but the screen seems pretty secure, so I don't think that was it. Hmm.

Decided to go skating at first light, and I laid everything out last night before going to bed so I'd be ready. Just before heading out, I noticed dripping from my eaves, which wasn't a good sign. There was a dusting of snow on the ground, and it seemed to be lightly drizzling, which also didn't bode well. When I got to the lake, I left the skates in the car and just walked over to the ice with a screwdriver, and didn't even bother testing the thickness. The surface was a little slushy, with a few spots of standing water, and my shoes were leaving visible tracks. Unappealing. So I went home, put on some suitable shoes, and went for a run instead. At the bottom of Holman, the dusting of snow was hiding some treacherous ice, and I went down. No problem from the fall itself, which was kind of a baseball slide, but the backs of both my arms (triceps?) got strained from the flailing. Hurt like hell for a couple of minutes.

Slight wheezing, not bad. I need to start doing this on a more regular basis in order to lessen the amount that I don't enjoy it. (And start doing it in the woods again.)

C • running enjoyment 1

Ravenswood Park in Gloucester with Nancy. About half muddy trails, half wet ice. Deducted the time we spent at the overlook scoping out lighthouses. Might make a nice little map if there were someplace to park cars.

15 ring pullups, 60 situps, 30 pushups.

Not much wind, pretty good moon, smooth-looking ice -- seemed like a plan. It was a little dicey getting onto the ice, because it was thin at the edge, but the hole I punched with a screwdriver where I put on the skates seemed to indicate about 10 cm, so that was okay. I had a headlamp, and for the sake of safety carried a couple of screwdrivers in case I broke through and needed to pull myself out. In retrospect, I guess I could have worn a PFD and brought my new ultra-loud whistle. Tentative going, because I was keeping an eye out for suspicious patches. I had hopes for the eastern section, but when I got out past the straits, I found some frozen-over leads (and a larger area) that I didn't feel like chopping through to measure the thickness of the black ice. So I retreated to the western part, which was plenty big enough, though there were occasional areas of air bubbles, and a few spots where there were odd (though not ominous) noises. Never had the confidence to really get up a good head of steam, so I was never breathing very hard. Quit when I did in part because my hands were getting cold (should have brought warmer gloves than the BHT ones). Glad I got out in the fresh air, though.

Plans for a run dwindled to plans for exercises, but then I fell asleep early. But at least I got myself and Nancy signed up for the BAOC meet. I think I haven't been to the west coast since '05 (Oregon), not to California since '03 (Tahoe), and not to the coast of California since '01 (LA).

C • BAOC 1

Snow dealings, round 6: a minute on the driveway. Unlike the excellent timing of some earlier storms, this one looked like it was going to suck. Snow started late at night, followed by freezing rain, and what I hoped would be insignificant was actually enough to keep my garage door from opening. I trudged out through a couple of inches topped with a crust and used a spade to clear away enough to free it up, then headed for work. During the day it warmed up and eventually turned to heavy rain, so I came home to the prospect of having to clear a lot of slush before it froze up into a treacherous mess. I was therefore delighted when I reached the driveway and saw that there had been enough warm rain to clear it down to bare pavement, and I'm hoping it was the same deal at Nancy's house.

15 ring pullups, 60 situps, 30 pushups.

Highland St. loop, CCW. I waited until a bit after dark, and in light flurries, for the additional HTFU factor (or because I was too lazy to go earlier). The strobing of the low beam of the headlamp turned the snowflakes into dotted lines. A little bit wheezy. Not much of a run, but I gotta start somewhere.

(Likewise, though it's not exactly the same.)

30 pushups, 60 situps.

30 pushups, 60 situps.

Saw The Finest Hours with Nancy. Not a bad movie, though we got stuck in the front row for a 3-D film (the seats reclined so we didn't get stuff necks), and as a result everybody kind of looked fat. After seeing The Revenant, a film in the Banff Festival about people trying to photograph an eclipse in Svalbard (and some other snow films),The Hateful Eight, and now this, I'm ready for my next movie to be something where everybody isn't freezing their butts off, especially when we stepped out of the cinema into subzero temps.

60 situps. Just so I could have something to log, because otherwise all I did was bring a bunch of firewood in from the shed for Mom, too busy.

C • Friday?? 2

My intent was to do some exercises before bedtime. But I went to a movie in Somerville, and when I got home close to midnight, it was 7 F outside. That's no big deal, but I remembered that I had set the thermostat to 58 since I was away for a couple of days. 58 is a little on the cool side, but when I stepped into the house, something seemed wrong. I checked the thermostat, and was set to 58, but the temperature was 43. Bumped it up and the furnace immediately came on. (That happened once before, and all signs point to a sticky relay in the thermostat, very easy to replace the unit.) Only 35 F in my bedroom, so I pulled out the down mummy bag and hit the hay without doing anything else. By 5:30 AM, it had finally gotten up to 58.

Stomach cramps chased away my interest in squeezing in any exercises. But on a more pleasant note, Nancy and I had a fine evening at the Banff Film Festival with Jon Nash.

Snow dealings, round 5a: my driveway. About 3" of floofy stuff, easy peasy with the snowblower before breakfast.

Snow dealings, round 5b: Nancy's driveway. About 4", which I was able to corral into piles with the pusher and then pitch with the grain scoop.

30 pushups, 60 situps. Decided to wait until morning to deal with the snow, as it seemed like there was a reasonable chance that more would fall overnight.

East Boston Camps with Nancy. We started out on snowshoes, but there turned out to be a lot of non-coverage, so we carried them for a good portion of it, then put them back on for a while at the end.

Planned to go snowshoeing with Nancy, but something came up that I had to deal with, so it didn't happen.

Snow dealings, round 4a: Nancy's driveway. Something like 8"-10" of fairly dense wet sticky snow. The timing of the storm was excellent, it wasn't snowing much yet when I drove to work, and the sun was out when I left. The only hazard was that black ice was forming on the steep asphalt as I shoveled it, and I couldn't get back up to the top. I labiously worked my way up, using the shovel as kind of a crutch, to get to the bucket of salt/sand, which I was able to use to greatly improve the situation.

Snow dealings, round 4b: my driveway. The snowblower ate this stuff up, easy going.

30 pushups, 60 situps. Counted carefully this time.

15 ring pullups, 30 pushups, 60 situps. I'm not 100% sure that I kept an accurate count on the pushups and situps, but if I was off, I also don't know in which direction.

After a little gentle prodding, HR finally activated my access to the fitness center at work, so I was able to swing by and check it out. One room full of weight machine things, another with treadmills on one wall and ellipticals on the other, plus two bikes, and an empty room with some yoga mats. Nothing that really strikes my fancy (I had been hoping for a Concept II). I can find places to go for a run around there and then take a shower, but I could have done that anyway, because the locker room doesn't require access privileges.

14 ring pullups, 30 pushups, 60 situps.

60 situps.