Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Yard work for Mom, which included some time on the roof with a leaf blower.

Across Holman, back on the bottomlands, then finished up with the Mulpus Brook loop. Late afternoon, getting pretty dark by the time I was finishing up. Two shirts was the right call, not much above freezing.

Another bunch of driving.

Around the block in Mooers with Brian and David. Up Duprey Rd, then we turned right on North Star. Pace was easy at the beginning, then picked up to about as fast as I was interested in going. When we got to Garrand Rd., David said his legs were feeling tight, so he turned around, though it's not clear if that saved him any distance. Brian sped up, and I wasn't able to keep up, so although he was still in sight, I turned on the railroad bed while he continued on to Rte. 11. I found a trail in the woods that led halfway to the back yard, but Brian still got back a bit ahead of me, and David was a bit later. If it had been up to me, I would have gone at a slower pace and done a longer run that would have continued up North Star to Hogle Rd., then up to the Canadian border and back from there.

A lot of driving.

And again.

Back to nothing.

Blue Hills Traverse, nice course, nice weather. This was the one with the comical situation wherein the start was delayed for 30 minutes because nobody knew where the maps were, so we lay down and did some winter sunbathing. I think it was Peter who had the apropos line, "I'm really glad it's not raining". My expectations were pretty low, in part because I've got a cough, but the first half of the course went fairly well. A little bit of confusion fog got into my head at the start of the dogleg loop, when I stopped a few meters before control #11 and had trouble figuring out if I was doing the controls in the right order, and I also ran to the wrong boulder on #12. Those delays got me separated from the pack, and I saw nobody at all in the second half other than the guy I passed at #15. I expect I slowed down quite a bit once I was solo, and I think I was 10-15 minutes behind the people I had been with.

SA says I lost over 15 minutes. Let's see where the time went:
7 - 0:49 - Went pretty straight, hesitated when I hit a trail near the end, figuring out whether I neede to turn left or right.
11 - 1:03 - Stopped about three steps before I would have been able to see the control, confused by people running in various directions, worried that I might be going to controls in the wrong order, started down the trail toward #14 for a few steps, then smartened up and went to the right place.
12 - 1:18 - Went to a big boulder, no flag. Realized I was at the one my the trail and needed to go to the smaller one further in, got there and no flag. Looked further along and saw another boulder, went there and punched. Looked back and wondered what those other boulders were...
16 - 1:57 - Not a great route choice out of the control, but most of teh time loss was due to taking a leak.
18: - 0:58 - Not reading the map details well, and went too high, attacking from above. Based on the elephant tracks, I certainly wasn't the only one.
19 - 3:34 - I attribute most of the time loss to the dumb choice of trudging up through the woods rather than just taking the trail, which is what I ended up doing to attack anyway.
20 - 3:51 - Probably passed within sight of the control shortly after leaving the trail, but not seeing anything, I continued looking much too far along the edge of the swamp before turning back.
21 - 1:48 - Pretty straight route, didn't run on the paved road at all, mostly just slow walking up the hill, as opposed to most people who were probably picking up the pace with the end in sight.

A very unusual hike. A miscalculation put me on the ground down by Marconi Station, a mile south of where my car was at White Crest Beach. The obvious thing would have been to carry the glider to Lecount Hollow and get it up the bluff there, and walk back to get the car. But the wind was blowing very cross, so that I could easily get the glider flying so that it was supporting its own weight (and some of mine) when walking north along the beach. So I just took this stroll back on the sand, steering the wing and being light on my feet, although I was still dragging a 170 sq ft wing into something like 15 mph of wind.

Tapering.

Nah.

Uh uh.

Nope.

I took the day off from work, with the original plan being to go hang gliding if the forecast was favorable. It wasn't. But that was okay, because I had something else to do outdoors: dig out my septic tank so I can get it pumped. I had a notion as to where it was, but when I looked at the diagram and did the math, it was clear that I was very wrong. I didn't have long enough tape measures to actually measure from the corners of the house, and I didn't have rope handy to create makeshift tape measures, so I tried to do the trig and figure out where it ought to be, but it was getting too complicated. So I drew a diagram in 0CAD and figured out where to look, 49 feet from a certain point along the side of the house. Measured out with two tape measures end-to-end and... boom, a shallow depression with a flat rock in it. I was anticipating having to go down four feet or so, and I was quite pleased to hit concrete at about 18 inches. Not bad. It's all covered up with plywood and a tarp now, waiting for me to be able to schedule an appointment with the septic guys.

C • In our case, we just need t... 2

Tromping out to a control in the southern part of the Baldwin Hill map with a backpack containing three gallons of water (that's why I had the giant pack, Phil). Probably the biggest shortcoming of my course design (which I think I spent all of 10-15 minutes on) was that I completely spaced out on the fact that I needed a water stop for the longer courses, and I didn't leave myself a convenient place to do that. So it goes. (And back, without the water, of course.)

C • pack 2

A quick trip around the school area to put out the last half-dozen controls (on stands).

Thanks to Ian Smith, Peter Gagarin, Phil Bricker, and Dan O'Leary, I didn't have to pick up any controls -- awesome! All packed up and on my way home from the meet site by about 3:30.

Putting out most of the controls for tomorrow's meet. Still have to hang a half-dozen and put out some water. Only pulled my compass out of my pocket once, and it just confirmed what I thought anyway. The biggest "Doh!" moment was when I got back to the car and opened my backpack to get the last control, that I was planning to hang after driving partway out. No control. Dang, I knew it was there at the previous control location, so I ran back out there, and found nothing. So I tried to retrace my steps in the fading light, and about halfway back I remembered that I had been carrying two backpacks. Sure enough, when I got back to the car, it was in the other one.

Got home and sent the maps off to FedEx Office by internet, and it came up saying that they'd be ready at 10 AM. Not good. So I called the place and asked if there was any chance they could be ready tonight. He looked at the order, saw that it was straightforward, and said I can pick them up at 8:30 tonight. Whew!

Florida situps. During ATC tonight, the news feed said that Florida had announced that Obama had won.

A few days before the election, I heard some conservative talk show guest stating confidently that Romney would win with 300+ electoral votes. Instead, it's 332 for Obama.

Wikipedia has finally colored Florida blue, but that seems to be something of a guess -- Florida is requiring all results to be in by noon Saturday, but won't announce a winner until Novenmber 20. The NPR and AP pages don't seem to be updating any more.

Back to nothing.

Even though Obama leads 49.8-49.3 with 100% of the precincts reporting, neither NPR nor AP is willing to call Florida, so I'll put off the remaining 29 situps for now.

Florida aside, winning every swing state is a pretty good strategy for willing the election. A small but unambiguous lead in the popular vote doesn't hurt, either. A good day for the good guys, and we don't have to see Trouser Conflagration Willard in the Oval Office.

So here's the plan: every time NPR calls a state for Bronco Bamma, I'm going to do situps in the number of the electoral votes for that state. I'm hoping to do at least 270 situps.

C • Nice plan 2

Illinois

Delaware

District of Columbia

Rhode Island

Massachusetts

Maryland

Connecticut

Vermont

Maine

New York

Michigan

New Jersey

Pennsylvania

New Hampshire

New Mexico

Minnesota

California

Washington

Hawaii

Iowa

Oregon

Ohio

Wisconsin

Nevada

Colorado

Earlier, I accidentally did an extra set of three. I'll assume that if Puerto Ricans could have voted, they would have cast their ballots for the incumbent, and dedicate these three pushups to them.

Virginia

Nope.

Lynn Woods, Blue Middle (rerun of courses from US Champs event a year ago). We've coined a term at work to describe some of our data collection sessions: "jacalt", which looks kind of French of Portuguese, but is actually an acronym for Just As Crappy As Last Time. Here, it describes both my orienteering ability and Lynn Woods itself. I have now been here enough times, and feel no need to go back (Nancy had missed last year's race, so she got to see the map). Started out by blowing the first two controls, and proceeded to blow half of the rest of them to varying degrees. The lamest one was after the spectator control when I started out running the final loop backwards, not realizing it until I got a control and the code was wrong, so I went 18-20-19-20-18. Really pitiful, not moving very fast, not moving very accurately, and not thinking that it was a particularly fun place to orienteer. But getting outside in the fresh air and getting some exercise beats a lot of things. (Next time there's a meet at Lynn Woods, I need to take that as a prod to go out into the woods and run around -- somewhere else.)

Funny side note: on my way to #14, I passed a guy with longish gray hair, and he said, "Hi, J-J". At first my brain put him into a category as one of Barb's friends, but then I turned as he said, "I wondered if I'd run into you", and I asked, "John Minkle?". And it was. He's a hang glider pilot, who I think I last saw in March 2011 when we went flying on the Cape. We undoubtedly discussed orienteering while on the drive there and back. He was on the Yellow course, not sure if this is his first time out or not.

50 situps, 25 squats. At least it's something.

Yet another nada.

Still more nada.