Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Helping out at the bike race in Worcester. There was a little bit of fence-slinging this time, but nothing like last year. Took off early, while the second race was going on.

I had thought of doing this for a while, and finally got around to it. Parked at the Mt. Watatic trailhead and did a one-way trip up to Windblown on the Wapack Trail. Wore the hydration pack that I'm planning to use in SD, but mostly empty, just a liter or so of water. The (steep) uphills weren't exactly running, but I was still putting out a decent effort. Had a gel somewhere in the middle and another at the end. Fairly warm, in the mid 80s, and I was feeling like I'd had enough when I got to the end.

And back to the car, using the bike I had cleverly stashed in the woods. The route back turned out to be partially a dirt road, but it was a good quality dirt road. Riding (on pavement) is a hell of a lot easier than running (on rough, rocky trails). Sucked down 20 oz of Gatorade pretty easily when I got to the car.

Helping out at the bike race in Worcester, but didn't need to do any fence-slinging.

Old man complaint check: list of things that are bugging me.
left wrist
right middle fingernail
right elbow
right shoulder
right knee
right ankle
spine
bug bite on my butt
(left leg is fine, and nothing else itches)
None of these are bad enough to qualify as injuries. Just annoyances.

C • Quite a list. Only thing r... 3

Ware River Watershed Rail Trail (I think). Stopped on my way home from flying at a place I've driven past a number of times. Excellent stone dust trail for the first part, and very good stone dust trail for the next (then a little bit of barely used trail up to a barrier where it didn't continue), then back. Felt level on the way out, but sure felt uphill on the way back. This was a run with diminishing ambition, I had planned to do more when I started, then was feeling like I'd had plenty, and when I got to the car I could have then done some in the other direction, but I said "nah".

It looks like I'm noticeably faster on the 29" unicycle than I am jogging.

Double hike at Ascutney with gear (also another bit later carrying my glider out of Africa). Got a little over two hours in the air.

C • Wasn't this on Saturday? 2

Similar trip to the one I did on the unicycle last week (as in, Groton to Pepperell and back), and it's evident that the boat is slower than the wheel. I'm surprised that it's so much shorter, because it definitely seemed twisty, but the track shows that it's not as twisty as it seemed, and I started quite a bit closer. Nice night to be out on the river, lots of AOWN to see and no problem with bugs. Virtually nobody else out on the water, which I found surprising.

Maybe I'll see how many varied modes of transportation I can come up with for doing this particular out and back trip. (There's one that comes to mind that I would probably not have the guts to try.)

Warm humid evening, this time with my good headlamp, but I have no idea when I last charged that, either, so it was getting pretty dim by the end. Managed to dump my right ankle three times and my left once; the first two on the right were pretty early and the second one kind of hurt, so I backed off on the effort for a bit. Tricky finding my way through the ferny places, and I did lose the imaginary path just before the Friendly Trail, so I just bashed through the laurel and came out by the Mean Junction. Feeling kind of beat by the end (did a bunch of yard work before this) and was glad to be done.

It feels like there's something loose in my headlamp. Having it clamped to my skull like that, any little rattle gets amplified, but I'll investigate because I wouldn't want it unexpectedly failing when I really need it. Just shaking the lamp in my hand, I don't feel it. Maybe the thing that's loose is in my head.

Ratlum picnic sprint relay, w/Joe Brautigam, Leg 1, course A. No real problems, though my route on #4 was dumb, went straight instead of taking the trail, and drifted right. Also made the mistake at #10 of continuing CCW around the rock pile to see if there was a better way back to the trail, but I didn't find one.

Ratlum picnic sprint relay, w/Joe Brautigam, Leg 3, course B. All fine.

In honor of the fact that there are people Jukoling tonight, I decided to go out for a run in the dark. All was fine until I looked for my headlamp, and it wasn't where I expected. You might not guess it from th wy my house looks, but I'm actually quite good at keeping track of where my stuff is. I hunted around for a while, checking all but one place. Unfortunately, I did not know where the one remaining place was. Eventually I gave up and dragged out the hatlamp. It's anybody's guess when I last charged that up, but it sure wasn't recently. I also grabbed a spare flashlight just in case. When I got to the parking spot, my GPS watch was unresponsive. It was displaying the time, but the time was not moving, and pressing buttons had no effect. Eventually I held down the both of two main buttons for a long time, and that seemed to reboot it.

I'm pretty pleased with the fact that I can go for a run in the dark in the woods like this. I was thinking about that while I was running, and the fact that some of my orienteering friends probably think this is nuts, and maybe all of my non-orienteering friends feel the same way. And it occurred to me that we don't have a term for those people. Sailors supposedly call non-sailors "landlubbers", hang glider pilot call non-pilots "wuffos" (a term that I'm pretty sure was appropriated from skydiving), etc. But we don't have a semi-disparaging term that I can think of for people who don't have the skills of map-reading and moving through terrain. And I kind of like the fact that we don't, seems like we're less exclusionary.

By the time I was finishing, I suppose the lamp was probably getting pretty dim, but my eyes had been gradually adusting, so I was fine. I think it was one day past full moon, but summer moons aren't good for much, especially under a tree canopy. I had no trouble following the trail, even though it's barely a trail in a lot of places, and my time being only eight minutes slower than when I did this loop in daylight isn't too bad.

(About halfway there on the drive over, the one remaining place occurred to me, and when I checked when I got home, sure enough.)

Groton to Pepperell and back(!) on the rail trail. It occurred to me on the way home from work that I had the unicycle and a chance of clothes in the car, so despite the fact that what I really wanted to do was take a nap, I stopped and went for a ride. It looked like there had been a thunderstorm earlier, and there were gust fronts blowing through, but I didn't get wet. Only two dismounts, the first at a road crossing on the way up and the second at the turnaround -- I did the entire trip back nonstop. By the time I reached my car, I had absolutely no remaining desire to do any more unicycling today whatsoever.

Rough guess on the time, this was the various trips with and without equipment at Ascutney. Unfortunately, while hiking my glider in, I slipped on a smooth rock and came down on my elbow. My immediate concern was that I might be bleeding a lot (I was bleeding, but not too badly), and there's also a bruise that started to hurt some on the drive home, so now I'm icing it and typing with my left hand. But the glider didn't get dented or anything, so at least there's that.

Jury duty today, which consisted of sitting in the jury pool room without getting called until we were eventually dismissed, during which time I forced myself through the rest of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (I never managed to figure out what the appeal is, Phil). Then when I got home, I was feeling a little banged up rom the weekend, so I eventually decided to go for some no-impact exercise (warm day, so this was good). Four dismounts, I think, including the two attempted U-turns (I think I just have a mental block, I should be able to do these).

C • appeal 12

Long day at the airport, arrived maybe around 9:30 AM, and left at 9:00 PM. No loggable exercise, but enough walking back and forth, carrying gliders, carrying gear, and pushing carts, that I got pretty tired.