Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Slinging fence and helping set up scaffolding, etc., for the bike race.

Did one lap of the race course on the unicycle, before the races got underway, just because. Among those who rode by was this guy. Inspirational. (I don't think he rode in any of the races, he was just riding with some of his buddies as they were warming up.)

Nashua River with Nancy (her in the yellow boat, me in the orange). From the Petapawag launch (Rte. 119) up as far as the Fairgrounds Road bridge (Fitch's Bridge?) and back. She had some trouble adjusting the rudder pedals far enough back to reach them well; we'll swap boats next time and see if that works better.

Back to the bike race, slinging fence again and general assistance with packing up. The race went very well, although the crowd of spectators was quite a bit thinner than in the old days. Maybe if they can keep the event going, the crowds will return as well. Very proud of my kid brother, he did a great job pulling this together, after it looked like it was gone for good. And the main event was very exciting -- there was a breakaway of three riders for about the last quarter of the race, but with a few laps to go, two juniors bridged the gap and joined them. Then with two laps left, one of them, 17 years old, took a flyer off the front and held them all off for the win. First time a junior has ever won this race in its 52 year history. This is especially impressive when you realize that the rules impose a gear restriction on junior riders, such that in a sprint, when you may be limited by cadence, they are not allowed to shift up to as high a gear as the adults.

The Longsjo bicycle race is back. This year, it's two events: a criterium tonight in Leominster, and a criterium Sunday in Fitchburg. Thanks to a bunch of administrative snafus, my brother ended up being the big guy in charge of the whole thing. I told him I'd be willing to help out if he needed anything, and tonight I showed up and ended up schlepping a bunch of stuff, primarily not wood, but metal: setting up and tearing down fencing, which meant slinging around 40-lb fence sections and later loading then back on the truck. I also helped break down the finish arch scaffolding and load the announcing stage sections into a U-Haul. No idea how much time I actually spent doing this, this is just a guess. And I told the fence guys that I'd be willing to show up Sunday morning to help out again.

A break in the rain, and it wasn't dark yet, so I decided to get out and do something. I must have misread the clock, as it was apparently later than I thought. Across Holman and back via the esker. Showers started when I was close to the Powerline Trail, so I cut the corner, but did it wrong and went through a bunch of swampy laurel. Took off the glasses around there as well, because they weren't doing me any good. A bunch of new trees have fallen in various places, and there was also evidence of recent flash flooding along Mulpus Brook.

Warm and humid, and when I got back all I wanted to do was take a tepid shower.

My brother's place (about two blocks from where Carl and Mary Jo live) got whacked with a freak thunderstorm this afternoon that basically took out the (private) road that he lives on, so they're stranded until they can get a guy with an excavator to repair the canyon.

NE Canoe-O Champs, Lake Quinsigamond. Yellow kayak. Nice day, although not an overly pleasurable experience. The lake (Quinsigamond in particular, but also the other lakes that we accessed via underpasses) had a lot of powerboat traffic, with serious wakes, and there was also a pretty good breeze blowing. The navigation wasn't too tough, and I almost navigated flawlessly, save for one error that cost me ~20 minutes. Although I saw #10 when I initially scanned the map, I overlooked it when I was on that part of the course, despite twice passing within a few hundred meters of it. I noticed that I was missing a punch when I got to #7, and had to paddle back for it (there was a land route that would have been a lot faster, were it not for the 40 meters of out-of-bounds that I would have had to cross. So I ended up something like next-to-last. Had I not made that error, one of the boats I would have beaten was Jeff Schapiro and Ian Smith, but they had their own unusual problem: they got capsized by the wake of a power boat and spent about 10 minutes swimming to shore so they could get back in.

Interesting how clearly the GPS speed graph shows the dips where I stopped to punch. The funny section from 1:12 to 1:17 is where I got out of the boat, went to #10 (on land) and back, and got back into the boat.

Walked down Crane's Beach with Nancy until she decided to turn around, then I ran down to the tip of the island and ran back to our blanket. I know where the blanket was on the satellite photo, but I'm not sure where she turned around, so the distance is a bit of a guess.

Course B at Ratlum Picnic Relay (paired with Craig Weber). Quite a clean run, opened up a lead from the start such that glancing uphill when leaving control #1, nobody was even in sight up Left Rd. No errors beyond overrunning a few controls by literally a few steps. Clean though my run was, Jeff Saeger blew the doors off everybody, finishing two minutes clear of second place. Sheesh!

Although I had my Garmin on the charger overnight, it ran out of juice about 3/4 of the way around the course (it must have not actually been connected).

Course A at Ratlum Picnic Relays. Craig and I wound up in third place, behind Joe/Becky and Adam/Phil. One big mistake on this one, on the second leg I crossed from the field to the trail, then headed down the side trail, but it was the wrong side trail. It felt funny right away, but I didn't turn back soon enough and lost over a minute. Didn't feel very spunky at the start of this one, but it got better. Also lost a little time thrashing around in the thick stuff looking for #8, although most people lost some time there.

In a discussion with Peter, I tipped my hand that I'm considering doing something kind of nutty at some point: running/walking over to his house. It's about 55 miles, and he said he'd give me a ride home afterwards. He offered some advice, some of which I'd already thought about: I'd carry a cell phone and some money, and in addition to having the route planned out, I'd also figure out in advance where there would be convenience stores. I might even drive it (or bicycle it) to scope things out in advance and make sure there are no surprises waiting.

Willard Brook/Pearl Hill, but I decided to look for some new scenery instead of the usual loop. Trails were a bit wet in spots due to the recent heavy rain. This was almost entirely on trails, but I ran by some very nice looking woods, some quite open, some with just enough laurel to make it interesting, and some dense laurel stands just coming into bloom (will probably be spectacular in a couple of days). Very nice variety of terrain. Not much rock, but what there is looks very distinct (would be mapped entirely with black dots, no triangles or stony ground). Feeling old, slow, and fat, but a nice evening to be outside.

I seem to have more or less given up on exercise. Sigh.

Hiked out to the Ascutney launch with my harness and battens, and after we assessed the conditions, hiked back to the parking lot. Had I gotten there a few hours earlier, I could have run the race up the road, though I had completely forgotten when it was scheduled for. Afterwards, more low-grade exercise at Morningside associated with a couple of flights from the top of the hill (carrying my glider back from where I landed on the other side of the road each time, and carrying it up the last part of the hill after the ATV broke down).

If Zumba counts, then this does, too. I went to see a band that was playing nearby (I'd provide a link to their web page, but it's a Facebook thing that I can't get to), and spent the second set dancing vigorously, enough to get my heart rate up and work up a pretty good sweat.

Squannacook and Nashua rivers, orange boat. I wasn't expecting the rain this morning to end, but it was beautiful when I left work, so I hurried home and grabbed a boat. Parked behind David E. Ross, and started by heading up the Squannacook. That turned out to be a maze of snags with a fair amount of current in places, but it was spectacularly beautiful.. Worked my way through the obstacles, even managing to paddle up and over two things that looked to be shoddily constructed beaver dams. Had to duck under a few fallen trunks, and went over some shallow logs -- this would not have been doable if the water was much lower. Finally got to a spot where I would have had to portage around fallen trees, and who knows what would have been above that, so I turned around. I realized that the trip back was going to be a challenge, because in order to keep sufficient water speed to be able to maneuver the boat, everything was going to be coming up really fast.

Managed to get through it, and felt like I still had enough time and energy, so I went a little way up the Nashua. A lot more current, but easier to get around the few obstacles. Upstream was a lot of work, but then I turned around and got the screaming high-speed ride home. Wheee! (The roads that GoogleMaps shows in this section are pretty baffling. You'd think I went under a couple of bridges, but there wasn't so much as a trace of an abutment to be seen. But the little loop I did at the beginning, about three minutes in, was under a big ol' railroad trestle, clearly visible in the satellite photo, though no longer in use.)

I was sure glad I did the Squannacook by starting out upstream rather than by trying a downstream run, because I got to preview the obstacles and could always turn around if something didn't look workable. Downstream I could potentially have gotten most of the way, and then reached a non-navigable spot with no good way to portage. Not sure I'll paddle this stretch again, but I'm very glad I did it once.

Well School (actually Sargent Camp), Blue course, listed as 9.7 km. None of the five non-spike controls was a particularly major error, just hesitations and fishhooks. Hot day (probably 85-90F), and I was doing a lot of walking. Steve Olafsen also did Blue, about 8 minutes faster, I think, with some errors, but he was moving a fair bit faster. I just wasn't motivated to put out much effort in this weather. A total of 10 people showed up for the meet, I believe -- a combination of oppresive weather and competition from meets at Breakheart and Gay City.

The Blaze Lite shoes seemed okey for trail running, but I'm not too impressed with them for regular orienteering. I mainly got them for rogaine, if I ever do any of those again.