Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Walking around Rome with Nancy and Stephen, time a wild guess, distance from Nancy's phone. Circus Maximus, Colosseum, Pantheon, Piazza Navona.

Walking around Rome with Nancy and Stephen, time a wild guess, distance from Nancy's phone. Forum/Palatino, then Trevi Fountain, and back to our apartment.

Red-eye flight to Rome.

Back from Seeley after dropping off the car. Enough FDFs to be pretty annoying.

Longsjo Legends ride, on the Incubus. After having arrived a little after 7 AM to ride around in a car and put out the direction signs, I joined 20-30 people at the start line for this ride. Some of the people were luminaries who had done things like winning the Longsjo race in past years, and they were called to the start line to be recognized and applauded by the spectators. As my brother (race director) was doing the announcing, he called me up as one of those luminaries (noting that I was the son of the famous Joe Cote, but also mentioning my efforts in setting up the course). We started with one lap of the criterium course, then headed out of town. The first quarter of the ride was pretty mellow, no problem keeping up, and everybody stayed together. There was about a 10 minute break at the water stop in Ashby, and I decided to go ahead and do the 50 mile option. There were eight of us, and I looked around and decided I was outclassed, but whatever. Lyne (four-time winner of the women's race) said we'd be picking up the pace somewhat, and that was true. I was still able to do okay, although when we got to Mason, I knew there was a big climb coming, and just dropped it into the lowest gear and took my time. They had stopped for a short break on the top, so I stopped for about four minutes there. The next section went fine, back to the water stop, and another 10 minutes off. Kinda scary fast downhill on bad pavement to West Townsend, and when we turned onto the long straightaway back to Fitchburg, I could feel cramps starting, and told them to go on ahead. At least two other guys got dropped on that section, but as the last guy, I had the personal motorcycle escort. There's a steep hill up to the college, and that was rough, with more cramps popping up. I don't cramp often, and this was one of the worst ever in that regard, with random things seizing up when I got back to the car. I think if I had blinked vigorously, my eyelids would have cramped. After a brief rest and some more to drink and then a couple of slices of pizza, I was feeling better, though I'm obviously somewhat tired. My brother asked me afterwards when was the last time I had ridden 50 miles, and if it had been decades; I said maybe. I'm pretty sure the rest of the 50-mile group were a little skeptical about me (I was intentionally wearing some vintage gear, and some of my other equipment also probably made it look like I didn't know what I was doing), and I think they were surprised at how well I did. In general, I couldn't keep up on the major climbs, but was fine on the rest, until the cramping started. Taking out the stops, it looks like the rolling time was about 3:05. Not terrible.

C • Nice.. guess we both decide... 8

Ratlum Mountain, summer picnic relay, teamed with Bill Duncan, running legs 2 and 4. Leg 2 was Course B, nominally 1.6 km. Tagged off just after Jeff Saeger, caught him at the first control, and saw a lot of him up through #11. Clean run, was the fastest until Adam C-B came in. My watch was in an annoying mode such that it was beeping every 30 seconds to tell me to either start walking or start running. I got it straightened out before the second course.

And Sprint A, the anchor leg. This time I was tagged off to just ahead of Jeff, and he caught me at the first control. More or less together through #7, then I somehow misread the map and thought we were going to the tree at the top of the clearcut again. I took the left route, got stuck in some laurel, and punched at the tree before realizing it was not my control (thus the extra split). Through the woods on #9, which may not have been optimal, and fine on the rest. Bill and I ended up in 5th place.

I think my new mantra might be, "Yeah, y'know what? Never mind. Just forget it.".

80 situps.

Nashua River upstream in the orange boat from Rte. 225 and back with Nancy. Forgot my GPS watch in the car, so I took the distance from her log. Nice enough stretch of river, but even though I had remembered it as being kind of a long haul from the parking to the put-in, it was longer than the picture in my head. Glad that I had thought to bring the wheels for the yellow boat.

Assuming the weather forecast holds, I'm planning to be up on Talcott Mountain a little north of the Heublein Tower this evening around 6 PM with a hang glider. In case anybody in the neighborhood wants to go for a hike and say hello.

C • possible 5

Up the main trail to the launch at Talcott, dragging my cart with the glider and harness on it, probably about 100 pounds total, fairly hard work. But I flew for more than twice as long as the climb took. And Woz brought the cart down for me, so I didn't have to hike back up for it. Beautiful evening, I'm pretty sure I could see Mt. Tom up on the northern horizon.

Over to Mom's house to put up her screens.

And back home.

Townsend State Forest, wanted something relatively relaxed after the busy weekend, so I mostly stayed away from technical singletrack. Almost got around this without any stops. Mountain laurel in bloom was magnificent, FDFs were plentiful. I think it's sticky hat season.

Harris Center, Blue, 2nd place (I think). Warm day, and with the tiredness from yesterday, it wasn't entirely clear that Blue was the smartest thing to do, but I heard that Ernst was out on Blue, so... I wore shorts, and despite some scratches on my knees, I'm happy with that choice because of the temperature; it's not like it impeded my ability to move faster. Forgot my GPS watch at home, so there's no track, but it was pretty much just straight on all controls except #13. I went with a plan of not hurrying, and just being careful and staying in contact. I wasn't entirely successful at that, because sometimes you're just too hot and tired to read the map, and next thing you know, you don't know where you are. My definition of a "spike" is pretty liberal here, but there really wasn't anyplace where I lost any significant time. The bulk of this was walking, though I did jog a few times.

Started right out with losing contact, though I got lucky and found a hill that I remembered from vetting, and I managed to locate it on the map; I had veered a tad left, and was just north of the control. I met Clint at #6 (on a different course and coming from a different direction). We were together for the next leg, then he made a comment abount a "Hail Mary" leg. He was on Green, so I figured it was different because I had a short leg to #8, but then I noticed that was #18 (the line to #8 was broken because it went through the #18 circle), and I also had a leg going most of the way across the map (same leg, in fact). He headed left to take the trail, and I went pretty much straight. I lost contact pretty quickly but just kept going, and fortunately found the trail 3/4 of the way there, just before the big marsh, and I got to the control about two minutes ahead of Clint. Ethan passed me near the control, and I could see him up ahead on his way to #9. On #13, I took my one trail route, on the right, attacking past #14. Missed #14 on the way back out and had to bounce off the trail. Poor execution leaving #16; I climbed up and over some topography instead of going left on the trail and just heading up the valley. As I was about to climb the steep hill, I met Mark Webb, who had just come down it and had no idea where he was. I pointed it out on his map (nowhere near his course). And the rest. Phew!

About 34 minutes behind Ethan, and 15 ahead of Ernst.

Back to Seeley to pick up Nancy's car. Time includes one dismount on the downhill (downhills are intimidating!) when it took me about four tries to get restarted. I will note that at the beginning, as well as on Thursday, I managed to get started with just one try. I stopped about 100 m short because I was riding on the left* shoulder of Rte. 2A, and a pack of about a dozen bicycles was heading my way, and I hopped off to let them by (and just walked the rest).

*It's a hard call as to which side I should ride on, and I don't know if it's specified anywhere. Am I more like a bicycle or a pedestrian? I usually ride on the right, but switched to the left when I got to 2A in order to avoid crossing it twice.

Mt. Monadnock, denemesisation hike with Nancy on the Dublin Trail. Deducted the time for the picnic at the top. Perhaps the most crowded I've seen it, probably a couple of hundred people at the summit, with more continually arriving and departing.

Long Pond, Rutland State Park, with Nancy near sunset.

80 situps, after getting back from the 25th aniversary Nields concert (thanks, Cristina!).

Home from Seeley after dropping off Nancy's car. Solid evidence that this is faster than a brisk walk (compare the two times I recently did it on foot). Thsi was even a hair longer, because I did a lap of the parking lot before heading out onto Rte. 2A.

A loop at Willard Brook on the new bike, largely singletrack. Went quite well; I dismounted for a couple of very technical rocky stretches, but I got through some obstacles that I might not have expected to. Working reasonably hard.

This is about a different sport, but it had a familiar ring to it.

First ride on the new bike. Worked very well, I like the big wheels. I was able to ride nearly everything, save for one very steep spot that I didn't prepare for, and a few very technical spots that I chose not to attempt. But I had expected to have a much more difficult time of it. Quite nice.

New bike! Those with sharp eyes will see that it's a 29er, with disc brakes. Not entirely clear whether I'll get to keep it, though.

80 situps.

Mt. Kearsarge, Winslow side, with Nancy. Wiiiiindeeeeee!

Temple Mountain, from the north side, with Nancy. We briefly discussed leaving a car at the south end and doing a through hike, which it turns out would have been shorter. Timing was perfect, the rain started just as we were getting back to the parking lot.

I see that USGS is no longer available as a background map for tracks, but OpenTopoMap is. Overall I consider this an improvement, as when USGS used to work, it was so slow as to be almost useless.

Some of you reading this will think, "Man, I hope I never get to the point where that kind of thing happens to me", and the rest will think, "Huh? This sounds like a typical day."

I ran out of ziploc bags. I made a mental note to pick some up at the supermarket, brought them home, and put them in the spot in the drawer where the previous box had been. Then when I went to use them, I found that I had accidentally bought snack-size bags, not so useful. So the next time I was at the supermarket, I picked up another box. There was no room in the drawer where I keep such things now, so I opened the drawer just under it, and found that there was no room there, either. Because it had four &#$@ boxes of ziploc bags...

Mystery Blazes, In The Dim. Not bad to be able to finish up at 9 PM without a light, must be June. Really didn't have much energy, and this was a jog/slog, so when I got to Hickory Hills, I took the Smobile trail instead of Lswamp. We're at the brief period of the year when mountain laurel is pleasant to have around. Unfortunately, it's not the only plant that's doing well: the train in from Gilchrest is overrun with poison ivy, which is why I finished up the old way. Time to get a big spray bottle of weed killer and embark on the scorched earth policy that the ConComm gave me permission for.

Back to Seeley get the car. It wasn't cheap, but you do have to spend money on a car once in a while.

80 situps.

Home in the dark with a headlamp after dropping the car off at Seeley, trying to keep it brisk.

Slightly wiped today, after the weekend's adventures. And kind of a dull generalized ache in my left lower leg and foot.

33 years ago today, I headed off on a bike trip across the USA, camping in Harriman that first night (probably across Seven Lakes Drive from the southern end of the Sebago map).

The unedited track, just to preserve the control splits.

Team Trials middle, Blue, Pond Mountain, 5.7 km, 280 m, 24th. Mostly pretty good, though split analysis shows that I actually lost quite a bit of time. Drifted a little right on #4, and had trouble reading the form line detail. Was quite a bit right coming up onto the plateau on #5, and fumbled around for four minutes looking in completely the wrong place, 10+ m to the NW. SA shows me as having lost a bit on #9, which was apparently just suboptimal route choice, I went a little left and crossed the marsh instead of taking the trail. And on #17 I overshot to the left, pretty confused as to why I couldn't find the rough open area on my map (turns out it's basically not mapped), and not seeing the stone wall in the weeds. It did not pick up the one leg where Charlie beat me by two seconds, the one to the last control, where I went around the enormous boulder clockwise, not having read the control description.

Failed to stop my watch at the finish, and editing the GPX file lost the control splits.

Team Trials Long, Pond Mountain, 13.2 km, 500 m, 18th. Fairly epic, pretty physical, temps in the upper 80s I think, and challenging to read the 1:15000 map -- last time I try this without bringing magnification. A lot of times I really couldn't see the detail and just went to the circle using major features, and hunted around. I'm using a pretty relaxed definition of "spike" when I claim 20 clean legs. Some of the controls were not that easy to see, and I was in about the right place, but didn't spot them right away. There were only two places where I had errors shown as more than a minute. One was #7, where I got too far to the right and overshot, and when I came back to the control, I was on the wrong side of a fallen tree that took me a while to wriggle through. I also had a bad route on #4, because I had an impression that the lighter green wasn't bad based on having gone through the western end of it on the way to #2, but diving into the heart of it turned out to be very slow. The real clunker, though, was #12 (note that there's an extra split on my track, so this is what appears to be #11 to #13). I picked a route that I think was quite fine, around to the right and past #1, but my execution was a disaster. I headed off to the NE, and figured I just needed to hug the base of the slope, but wasn't paying very good attention and failed to climb up to the shelf I needed to be on. As a result, I contoured around to the right and was eventually baffled to find myself heading south. I had no idea what was going on, and even wondered whether I could trust my compass, so I tried checking the sun, but it was basically dead overhead and of no use. So I just headed NE and hoped I could find something I'd recognize. I haven't been this lost in a long time, turns out I had looped to the south of #4. The plan eventually worked, and I got back on track, but not before 12+ minutes was down the drain. I has aspirations of breaking 3 hours, but that mistake put me over. I had the next to last start, and didn't see many people out there, just Steve Tarry twice (passed him halfway to #11, and again on the way to #14), and Tom Svobodny, who I first saw at #7, and several times after that, including leaving the last control. Next to last start, next to slowest finishing result, and the next to last person out of the woods.

80 situps. I usually do these on a carpeted floor, but this time they were on a padded bench, and it was way, way harder. I had to stop a number of times.

A little spin on the Incubus, loop to West Townsend. At this speed, 50 miles would be something like 3:10. Not that I particularly think I could keep going at this speed for 3+ hours. Gilchrist Rd. in Townsend has been freshly paved, and is very nice. Maybe they'll get to Tyler Rd. soon.

Pearl Hill. I had a kind of short loop in mind, as as soon as I got started and felt my lack of oomph, I knew I had made the right choice.