Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Carrying gear out to launch at the Mohawk Trail (two trips).

From the bailout LZ to the driving range to get my car, since nobody landed down there. Pretty much all downhill.

Cheshire Rail Trail (Walpole, NH), from the Rte. 123 bridge over the Connecticut River south to Halls Crossing Road and back. On the way out, I took a brief detour onto the "Mason Self Guided Nature Trail", which was in such an advanced state of disuse that it was almost impossible to follow. the rail trail was steadily uphill on the way south, and it was visible and it felt like going uphill, but hen fter turning around, it looked basically flat, felt basically flat, and my time for the return was basically the same. This was right around sunset, temp about 66F, on the way home from a day up at West Rutland in which I did not manage to get airborne (after watching the first guy launch and seeing how much the air was tossing him around, most of the rest of us just packed up our gliders and drove back down).

Wapack Trail. Started from 119, headed north, and screwed up when I got to Binney Hill Rd., taking the first right instead of the one with the derelict hunting camp. I realized before too long that things looked unfamiliar, but decided to keep going anyway. I eventually hit Lower Pratt Pond Rd., and ran up and around the corner to get a better view from the high ground to see where I was. On the way back, visibility improved and I saw that I was on the wrong side of Binney Pond, so I found an old skidder track to get though the laurel and bushwhacked around the north side of the pond to the Wapack Trail, and went up and over Pratt Mountain about to the north end of Stony Top. I had been glad that I wore a light jacket early on, but the sun came out when I was coming back from Lower Pratt Pond Rd. and it was a little warm, but then on Stony Top I got sleeted on so it was okay. Back on the Wapack, including correctly making the turn to avoid going up Watatic at the end. Distance is maybe a little l9onger that what I put down, because that doesn't include the various twists and turns of the trails. Fairly wet and muddy out there, a lot of puddles to work my way around. Good training, all told.

Out by Massabesic Lake while Stephen was at PTAC, using a canoe-O map (USGS copy) from 1988 (the trails shown were reasonably accurate). From the main parking over the hill on 28B to the boat launch, then out to Battery Point on the west side, and back down the east side to the Audobarn, out to the road again, and returning on the trail around to Rocky Point.

Fractal Trails (I think that's what I used to call this place when I used to run it more often — SE quadrant of Four Corners). Parked at Shaw's, and went CCW, doing kind of a lap of the outer trails with a detour over to Spectacle Pond, then some of the twisty inner stuff before finishing. I wanted to see what the deal was with Spectacle Pond, which is the reason for the one remaining flood-related road closing (Rte 119). It wasn't obvious what's going on; the water is higher than usual, and higher than the satellite photo (I couldn't actually get to the road because of flooding), but the water is clearly not over the road. All I can think is that it's a second-order effect, because they're needing to use the road for construction equipment to repair the culvert that collapsed (I could see a crane on the bridge). If I get another opportunity to run here (I was killing time while Stephen was in ballet class), I should try to remember my GPS, because I think the absurdly twisty track woudl be entertaining.

Green course at Five Ponds, intended to do Red, but Charlie accidentally handed me a Green map, and I didn't realize it until after I was done despite seeing a number of people who I would have expected to be on Red going in the opposite direction. Of course, once I got a control or two into it, I wouldn't have gone back anyway. Pretty pathetic navigation on a few controls near the beginning, but then I settled in and did reasonably well for the rest of it. The GoLite shoes, which are very comfortable and fine for trail running (and I expect for Rogaines) turn out to not be up to the task of real orienteering in New England. In particular, they don't do well stepping on mossy stones, and if they get damp and sidehilling comes into play, then they provide no grip if I step on any rock. I took one fairly painful fall about halfway through (which I was able to walk off in a couple of minutes). In order to run with my usual confidence, I need spikes.

Mystery Blazes loop. I've been avoiding running across the street for a while due to the high water, but I finally decided to see how things were down there. A few puddles and muddy spots, but not as bad as I would have expected. In particular, I expected the Lane trail to be flooded out, as it often is, but it was high and dry — I suspect the floodwaters blew out a beaver dam somewhere.

With PG on the Poet Seat/Sachem Head ridge, on quite a warm day for April. Taking his word for it on the distance since I have no idea, and my time came out a bit longer, perhaps because I didn't stop my watch while we discussed famous quotations.

C • Well, it ought to be in the... 2

To the Ritter Building, moving along pretty quickly in order to get there in time for the ConComm meeting (I was right on time, but only the second voting member to arrive, and we didn't have a quorum until about 20 minutes later).

And back home, with the hatlamp.

Hounds course, which I did first, because that's the one that Lyn handed me the cluesheet for (I assume she had some heuristic for deciding which to give each person a registration, perhaps alternating). Who am I to argue with Lyn? Not overly fast, but clean until ner the end, when I left #12 in the wrong direction, and hit a different trail than I was expecting, so I headed the wrong way (right) very briefly before realizing that this was totally the wrong thing to be doing.

Still not very quick, slightly cleaner this time in that the one error I made (drifting left on #6) was a little less boneheaded.

Red/Green alternating visit-all course. My choice of control order could have benefitted from some rearrangement to save distance, but at least it included all 30, in proper red/green order. Small errors (difting one way or another) on few controls in the woods, not a lot of time lost.

Order: 60 32 65 42 57 33 56 34 63 35 64 41 52 40 51 37 54 38 55 44 59 43 53 39 62 45 58 31 61 36

Picking up 6 controls at a very leisurely pace.

Now that the results are out, it appears that my suboptimal route was good enough for the best* time on the Red/Green course. This despite the fact that I don't appear in the results for any of the races, presumably due to the fact that WCOC's equipment can't read my epunch. No big deal. Although I do appear in the splits (with no splits shown), and my time there for the Hounds course is wrong.

*In theory, of course, there could be myriad people with cutting-edge SI sticks who also don't appear, and they could all have been faster then me.