Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Hike in at Brace. Used the cart as far as the second bridge, then brought the harness and battens up to the ridge, went back for the glider (Kip helped me with it for the second half), then likewise for the hike along the ridge to launch. Blowing in nice when we got there, though it backed off some by the time we were set up, and it shut down after about an hour of flying (all ridge lift, no thermals). Hot (in the 90s on the ground, I think, a bit cooler on top of the mountain but still well over 80). I was wilting a bit by the time this was all over, felt a little dizzy a couple of times when standing up quickly while I was breaking down.

I think this was another zero.

Mystery Blazes LSwamp. A bit warm and a bit humid, started at 8 PM and brought a flashlight but never quite needed it. I started out feeling like I was moving along pretty well, and was able to keep it up. There seem to have been some FDFs around, and a few bounced off my head, but none bit. Sometime I wonder when I hear one buzz past me several times, whether it's actually one keeping up with my running and making a bunch of strafing runs, or if I'm running past several of them that each buzzes me once. I finally started feeling tired as I approached the esker, but I kept pushing (the last bit was getting pretty uncomfortable). I decided while I was running that if my time was under 44 minutes I'd be satisfied, and if under 40 I'd be very pleased. Looks like I just made it, and I was pleased although I also felt like I might throw up. I've run "this" loop with faster times on three previous occasions, the best being 39:24, but those were before I started doing the LSwamp variation, which is certainly somewhat longer than Howl, so this is the best performance to date. Fireflies out during the latter part.

A zero. I think.

25 pushups, 50 situps, 15 tableups, 25 squats.

25 pushups, 25 squats, 50 situps. Plus some walking around in Maine with Nancy to look at lighthouses.

From the rental place to the start, paddling solo, time is a guess.

NE Canoe-O Champs, Tully Lake, C2 with Sam Levitin. Started out with a bit of a snafu when it turned out that we didn't have a boat. Sam had invited me to partner with him, and implied that he had taken care of securing a vessel. Appareantly he though he had as well, but when I arrived he said that he had fucked up, and we had no boat. A reasonable option would have been to shrug and just leave at that point, but there was reportedly a campground "just around the bend" that rented canoes. So I drove up there and rented a boat, just took whatever they had, a broad tub of a C2 with big clunky plastic paddles and brought it to the start solo. Not a particularly pleasant boat to paddle alone. Turned out that Aims had brought a C1 for me, thinking that I'd probably be wanting to do a course by myself, but that wasn't the plan for the day. So Sam and I set out and did the medium course, because I had no intention of doing the long in that thing, and both of us had time constraints. No problems to speak of, other than my limited skills paddling stern (I did much better than I expected), and Sam's doing faceplants getting in and out of the canoe in shallow water. He didn't seem to have a particularly good grasp of where we were some of the time, but it didn't matter, because I did. My only issue was that I had trouble distinguishing between water and marsh at the distance that the map was sitting (in the bottom of the boat, no fancy mapholders for this race). We managed second place for the medium, close behind a guy in a kayak.

Didn't paddle back, I had Sam give me a ride to retrieve my car, and put the boat on the roof, which was tough since it was wider than my roof rack and the straps wouldn't reach all the way around it, but I improvised and got it to work.

Hiking out to Skinner launch (from summit parking) with PG carrying one end of my hang glider, then afterwards carrying my stuff back from where I landed to the road. PG joins the elite list of orienteers who have watched me launch, along with Nancy, Charlie, Zack, Clint, Ken Sr, and Dean (plus Mom and Dad, I guess -- they orienteered once or twice, as did fellow pilot Peter Kelley). (Did I miss anybody?) He also had the privilege of witnessing my shortest ever mountain flight, only 144 seconds. Insufficient wind, no thermals to speak of. As to the question of how close I was to the treeline by the river, see the tracklog.

25 pushups, 50 situps, 15 tableups, 25 squats.

25 pushups, 25 squats. All I felt like doing.

25 pushups, 50 situps, 15 tableups, 25 squats.

Meanderings near home. AcrossHolman, then back on the creek bottom flatlands, where I encountered one of the tallest freestanding stone walls I've ever seen, at leat in these parts. Continued on the left bank to where I used to cross over, then acoss the tributary on the stepping stones, and straight up the other side where I hit the laurel jungle. Hadn't been there in a while, but I was able to find the route through except for the last turn, so instead of crossing the wall I continued straight in white woods and hooked up with the mystery blazes in the last hemlock stand before the powerline trail. Turned right, went back to the esker, and then home.

Sitting at the computer an hour or so later, I felt something crawling on my wrist, and spotted a speck so tiny that I could barely see it. I captured it with a piece of scotch tape, and even with a pretty good magnifying glass I can't see it well enough to tell if it's a tick. But I think it is. If I remember, I'll bring it to work to check it out with a serious microscope. Most of the ticks that I encounter are the bigger wood ticks. This is probably a bona fide deer tick nymph. I suspect that few people would be able to find one of these before it took a chomp. Wouldn't surprise me if there are many others around.

A zero. I might have tried exercises, but the time got away from me, and my shoulders were sore anyway. Canoeing isn't supposed to make your shoulders sore if you're doing it right, just your core muscles, but better the shoulders than the arms.

Lake Cochituate canoe-O, C2 with Aims. About 2.7 km of this was on foot, the rest in the boat (and one short leg was a carry over a peninsula). One minor time loss in a spot where the map was weak, that turned out not to matter because I still reached the designated rendezvous point ahead of Aims (if I hadn't lost the time, I might have tried to meet him at a different spot). A reasonably commanding victory for us, like the old days, though we didn't have any strong C2s for competition. First time I had been in a boat in quite a while.

On rare occasions, I hear something that really cracks me up. I mean something that's so funny that I laugh so hard that I can't talk. It's not necessarily something that's "objectively" funny, but it just happens to hit me just right. Aims was showing me the modifications that he's made to his C1, and he has a map clipboard suspended on bungee cords below his knees. I was admiring the workmanship, and noted that he had bolted the compass to the map board with a nylon nut and bolt. He said the only alternative was brass, which I said would have been very classy. But then I observed that the compass was still next to the big honking clip of the clipboard. "Yes", he replied, "but it's not magnetic, it's made of monkey metal".

Monkey...
metal...?

WTF?

When I was telling Nancy about this later on, I was laughing so hard that it was probably five minutes before I was able to actually say the words "monkey metal", during which time she just had to listen to me laugh, which fortunately also made her laugh.

Google/Wikipedia has enlightened me: there really is something called "monkey metal", a nonspecific alloy consisting primarily of zinc that's used to make cheap castings. I doubt that's what the clip on Aims's clipboard is made of. My best guess would be stainless steel.

Ratlum Summer Picnic, Course A. No real mistakes, just a couple of fishhooks where I approached the actual control from the back because it seemed quicker that way (but might not have been). Tagged off to my relay teammate James McDougal.

Ratlum Summer Picnic, Course B. My teammate hadn't showed up, so after a while I was given leave to start anyway. Since I was on the same course that he was doing, I had some hope of catching up to him, but that didn't work out, apparently because he was somewhere down by Big Down Marsh. A bit slower on this one because my motivation had abated a bit. Eventually we went out looking for James, who we heard had been spotted searching for his cell phone. Becky was the first to find him, he had his phone, and I shadowed him around the rest of the course, on which he did fine.

Mystery Blazes LSwamp. I was going to do something different (Groton Town Forest), but when I got there, I realized that I didn't have my sneakers with me.

A zero. I realized just after I got into bed that I had forgotten to do any exercises. Nancy says I should log "carrying around a TV", but that's not as impressive as it used to be when TVs were heavier than they are now.

25 pushups, 50 situps, 15 tableups, 25 squats.

AcrossHolman/MulpusBrook. Very little spunk (felt drowsy all day), but somehow a few seconds faster than last time. Finished up with seventeen delicious strawberries.

25 pushups, 50 situps, 15 tableups, 25 squats, 25 pushups, 50 situps, 15 tableups, 25 squats.

Nashua River Rail Trail. Started in downtown Groton, and went north to Sand Hill Rd., then south to Broad Meadow Rd., then back to the car. Very nice afternoon, and this is an ideal place to ride -- good pavement, shady, and no car traffic. If I want to set a PR for distance, I'll probably be doing it on this trail. It's fun tooling along at low speed, getting passed by kindergarten kids on bikes that probably just had the training wheels removed. A lot of cyclists nodded, a few people had nice things to say, but the best comment was something I heard from behind me, a guy warning his wife that they were about to overtake a horse. (?!)

Ascutney gear schlep, double trip (8:50 with harness and battens, 6:29 back, 18:04 with glider). The GPS track is not of the hike, but of the considerably more interesting travel that occurred afterwards. Note that the altitude graph shows the altitude of the ground underneath me.

C • Very nice! Was putting down... 2

25 pushups, 50 situps, 15 tableups, 25 squats. The work week is over.

AcrossHolman/MulpusBrook. Got home from work at 8 PM, and quickly put on running clothes so I could get outside for at least a little something. Brought a flashlight but didn't need it. Wet ferns from the recent rain.

The best place to east berries, and far as I'm concerned, is standing in a berry patch. My strawberry crop is nothing like the first couple of years, but I did manage to find eight ripe ones in the fading light and popped them into my mouth. They were quite delicious.

25 pushups, 50 situps, 15 tableups, 25 squats. Work this week is not leaving much time for anything else.

25 pushups, 50 situps, 15 tableups, 25 squats.

25 pushups, 50 situps, 15 tableups, 25 squats.

Willard Brook Beyond SE. The original plan was to go to Gay City, but the Vibe has been acting up a little bit in a way that makes me not so comfortable about driving it on the highway, so I decided to change plans and go to Nobscot. But I has some delays in getting going, and then noticed that the starts for that event ended at noon, and time was tight for that, so I just punted and went car shopping instead (no decision yet). And when I got back, I decided to head over for a little run. When I left the car I was figuring on doing the standard loop, but then opted to do it in the opposite direction, and then at the top of the hill I took the right fork and explored what was over that way. It turned out that there was a lot more that I was expecting, quite nice trails for the most part, although the rain the day before meant that they were flooded in a lot of places, which reduced the appeal somewhat. Should be nice in drier conditions. I didn't have the GPS with me, but I think this was likely all south of the state forest, in Lunenburg. In places, the laurel in bloom was lovely.

25 pushups, 50 situps, 15 tableups, 25 squats. You'd maybe think that after several hours of music rehearsal in the afternoon, my fingers would be tired from the guitar work. But the tableups went fine.

25 pushups, 50 situps, 15 tableups, 25 squats.