Training Log Archive: CleverSky

On the way to the start, rough guess on the time. I was a little late getting ready, and thanks to some misinformation given to Charlie by a cadet that was then passed along to me, I wound up going the long way around Round Pond, and had to hustle to get there with adequate time. Just as well, got me warmed up.

Black Rock Forest, Blue middle distance. Most of the course went okay, though I wasn't moving particularly fast for much of it. #9 was slow, because I was pretty sure I was going the right way 9and I was), but the stuff I was seeing in the terrain didn't look much like what was on the map. #11 was the one real stinker, I was right on target until I got to about 100 meters away, then went for an overly optimistic wander through laurel and unmapped cliffs for about 5-6 minutes. I shoudl know better. I had a bit of a burst of speed near the end, when Wil Smith and Hans Fransson caught up and the course went downhill. Running down steep rocky hillsides is something I'm pretty good at. Then the terrain flattened out again and they were gone.

I had a goal of keeping myself off the bottom of the results list, and I managed that with a bit of room to spare.

Mulpus Brook loop x 2. Just a little shake-out/loosen-up jaunt before the weekend, originally thought about doing just one loop, but it was such a gorgeous morning that I decided to go around again. Not pushing too hard, but around four minutes faster than when I last did this a month ago (though there was still snow on the ground at that point, and it was about 30 degrees colder).

I find the meanderings of this section of Mulpus Brook to be very aesthetically soothing.

2 x 20 pushups, 50 situps, 2 x 20 pushups

40 semipullups, 2 x 20 pushups. I've been wanting to start doing pullups for a while now, but I took the old chinning bar out of my garage a while back because I needed the wooden supports for something else (and it was a pretty sketchy setup anyway), and at this point I don't really have anyplace in the garage to set up a new one until I can move some of the stuff that's out there. But I've also been thinking that pullups are a kind of tough exercise anyway, since the loading is so high that I can't really do a lot of reps. Lacking equipment for band-assist, I figured maybe I could set something up to do half-pullups, kind of like upside-down pushups, using a bar that's arm's-length from the ground, and keeping my heels on the floor. The 40 or so that I did involved a bunch of experimentation. I started with a spare hang glider control bar spanning a couple of stools, then added hard foam blocks on top of the stools to get more height. That was unsatisfying rickety. Then I noticed a stand for an electric piano keyboard that worked pretty well but was also a bit too low, and the last batch were using the stand on top of foam blocks. If I substitute something more solid for the foam, I think I may have something that will work. Not quite the same motion as pullups, but I think it's probably useful. I'll have to develop some discipline in order to avoid the temptation to slip into starting each one with part of a situp, which is cheating.

C • keep tinkering 1

2 x 20 pushups, 50 situps, 2 x 20 pushups

2 x 20 pushups, 50 situps, 2 x 20 pushups

Hollis Town Forest, Red course. Pretty miserable weather, right around 40 F and raining pretty hard, with snow mixed in as I was getting ready. My hands were pretty cold for the first few controls until I really got the blood flowing. The course was not especially difficult (it would be hard to get very technical on this map), and at least one of the two controls where I lost time I attribute to the map being pretty weak, in terms of both fieldwork and print quality. I think there was a pretty good turnout considering the awful weather, and I appreciate and pity the Bundschuhs for putting this event on. I wasn't having fun at the beginning, but it was fine once I got rolling.

2 x 20 pushups

A bit of a tour around East Boston Camps between taxi driving duties. This is another place that I should look into making some kind of map of at some point, since it's practically across the street from Nancy's house and has great access. I was surprised to see a pile of snow remaining out there (probably the result of plowing, but probably not where they would have carted snow with a dump truck).

2 x 20 pushups, 50 situps, 2 x 20 pushups

Mystery Blazes loop. Four out of five days is a lot for me these days (though it shouldn't be), so I got myself out the door by promising myself I'd just take it easy. Looks like the water levels were a lot higher after the heavy rain on Saturday night, Mulpus Brook being maybe as much as two feet above where it was today. There was some shifting of the logs, and I used a hemlock for crossing, which is maybe a better bridge in the long run. On Saturday I found a down vest on the ground up in Townsend, which I hung on a branch to make it more visible, and it was still there (presumably having gotten pretty wet in the interim).

Mashamoquet, Red course. Pretty sloppy and slow, especially in the beginning, though the end of the course was a wide open joy. The screwups tended to be in the low visibility laurel areas, should have been more careful. You can tell that this was a thin field, as it appears that I had the second-best time, just 140 seconds back.

Mystery Blazes loop, T-shirt with temps in the low 40s was a little chilly, but not too bad. Felt pretty strong the whole way around, and a new PR.

Though I was offered a ride back up to launch, I declined it and went on foot instead. I was told that it would take an hour to hike up, but I scoffed and said I could definitely do it faster than that. Then I was told that there are guys who are said to be able to do it in 40 minutes. Despite the fact that my tired brain failed to identify the landmark that I was planning to use to indicate where to head uphill (I had scoped out the route from the air), and I therefore overshot my target by a whole lot, I still managed to do it in 40 minutes. Hah! It takes almost 20 minutes to do this by car (much less direct route, and you have to get out to open and close the gate), so this really isn't too bad. Beautiful day, around 60 F just before sunset when I did this.

2 x 20 pushups, 50 situps, 2 x 20 pushups

Mystery Blazes loop. It was T-shirt weather, so I did this before breakfast because I figured it might get cold and rainy later on. Pushing fairly hard, though in the shape I'm in at this point in the season, I figured that doesn't mean much. Pleased to find that, despite all the snow we got this winter, the woods are not a muddy mess, and I barely had to detour around wet spots at all. Feeling kind of weak near the end, had to really concentrate to keep moving at a decent pace, and finished feeling the way that I imagine a few particular female orienteers do at the finish line (ones who have a reputation for collapsing in a conspicuous overblown shower of tears). Felt okay by the time I had walked to my driveway, and was pleasantly surprised to see my time. Looks like it may be the fastest I've ever run this, at least the fastest since I started doing the Mulpus streambank variation last October.

I'm taking Stephen to dance class tonight. A year ago tomorrow I did that and ran the Fractal Trails while I was waiting, and said in my log that I ought to bring the GPS to get a sense of the shape of them. Maybe I'll do that next Tuesday.

2 x 20 pushups, 50 situps, 2 x 20 pushups

2 x 20 pushups, 50 situps, 2 x 20 pushups

I had been thinking about going for a mountain bike ride (probably in Willard Brook), but after doing a bunch of yard work, I was too tired, plus I need to fix the tires on the bike. So instead I just went for a one-wheeled spin around the Holman loop. Got on first try and lost it about 15 seconds later when I hit a pothole. First try on the second go as well, and made it around to the steep climb, where I popped off and walked it in from there. Sore spots at the contact patch with the seat after yesterday's outing.

Registered up for West Point. As I can move into M50 this year, and have a problematic foot, I did not sign up for Red. I picked Blue. We'll see whether this is a dumb idea.

Highland-Holman Figure-8. The foot is hurting again (I walked around for about an hour in the conservation land with a couple of people before I went running), so I figured some low-impact exercise was a good idea. (A bike ride might have been a better idea, because I could get more aerobic benefit, but unicycling is fun.) No stops, and I made it all the way into the driveway, though coming up the last steep pitch on Northfield, I barely managed to stay on.

Running all around Laurel Bank/Brown Farm (aka Pleasant St.) and environs. This is a place I should by all rights have run around in long before now, but better late than never. Turns out to be a much nicer piece of land than I was expecting, and actually quite interesting from an orienteering perspective, with detailed topography, a dense trail network, some pretty nice woods, and wide variations in vegetation. Probably even decent access to ample parking. Given that it's so close, and I have an engineering basemap for a good chunk of it, I think I should really make a sprint map of tha place. Distance is a completely wild guess, just based on how long I was out there.

3 x 20 pushups, 50 situps, 20 pushups

2 x 20 pushups, 50 situps, 2 x 20 pushups
I had thoughts of getting the bike rollers out, but by the time I got done with other stuff, there wasn't enough time.

Rocky Woods, Red. Fairly physical course (nontrivial amount of climb, and fairly think considering that there are no leaves out there). Only one real boo-boo, misreading some marsh that wasn't shown on the map, deciding I must be way off, and bailing out until I hit a trail, though I ran almost right by the control in the process. Other than that just a few little hesitations and small fishhooks, not too displeased with my navigation.

Stephen, meanwhile, felt that he could have done somewhat better on Yellow, when in fact he pretty much crushed the field. If he were 34 days older, he'd be on Orange this year, so I think he ought to move up, at least at local meets, for the practice. And the pair of shoes that are a bit too small for me that I wore running up Mt. Holyoke last weekend? They fit him just fine.

3 x 20 pushups, 50 situps, 20 pushups