Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Townsend State Forest, Red, 6.3 km, 175m. Some days you have it, some days you don't, and this was one of the days when I don'ted. I started out with the attitude that since I can't go fast (I'm still coughing and congested from the cold I had three weeks ago), I should just focus on being accurate.And I screwed up the first controol which wasn't even very hard. Part of the problem was that I was misled by an extra stream due to the very wet conditions, and once I realized that, I found the control. Struggled to get get out to the trail on #2 (should have gone to it even sooner), but the control was easy. #3 was a short leg that should have been a cinch, but I mistook one knoll for another one and wandered around for a while. It was during this that a young woman overheard my coughing and asked if I was okay. Jim Arsenault caught up to me at the control when I finally found it, but I didn't see him again. #4 was easy, #5 was hidden in the green, but I had the good fortun of being passed by Ethan just then and he led me into it. #6 was fine, #7 I got delayed in a bit of laurel on the way, then got to the hillside and wandered back and forth a bit looking for the reentrant. #8 fine, #9 I successfully contoured along the hillside until I thought I was in about the right spot, then stopped to look at the map, and when I looked up again it was right in front of me. #10 was okay, #11 I took the trail too far into the green and had to turn around to get to the right attack point, and was lucky to find the very low-hung control in a vague area. No real probems on #12-#16, but then leaving #16 everything seemed okay, crossed the stone wall, then saw the trail up ahead... but the trail was paved. I had gone off directly south instead of east, and also apparently crossed another trail without seeing it. So just a trail run from there to the last control and the the finish. Pretty slow.

results

And I had in mind to go hang gliding in the afternoon, but I was pretty knackered, and took a nap instead.

Harris Center, Red, 6.1 km, 5th. Mediocre performance, bu I found them all. Missed a little on #5, found it on the second attack. Just ran blindly on the long leg #6, figuring correctly that I'd hit the big marsh, and in smoothly from there although when I thought I was about there I saw that there was another hill ahead and I had miscounted. Drifted to the right on #8 and had to scratch my head when I hit a logged area that didn't look like the one I was looking for, and noticed that I was facing in completely the wrong direction. Parallel error on #10, went up the wrong hill but realized it immediatly when things didn't look right. Slight error on #11, went to the wrong rock, but I could see the control when I turned around. And #12 was the biggest goof, I took a pretty aggressive route, soemhow crossed two trails without seeing them, and then found myself on a third trail, not understanding whre I was. I finally went along the trail until I found an intersection, and was able to navigate in from there.

splits
results

Red - Splits

Willard Brook SE, In The... yeah, it was pretty Dark. I was inexplicably depressed on my drive home from work, and I don't think it was because I turned on the radio and caught a few minutes of the Senate Judicial Committee hearing, but that couldn't have helped. I haven't gotten any vigorous exercise since I was sick, and I'm in the lingering cough phase at this point, so I figured maybe a little fresh air and bouncing around would help. My headlamp didn't seem to be particularly well charged, so I stuffed a couple of cheap flashlights in my pocket just in case, but didn't end up using them. I kept the headlamp on low beam to extend the battery, and it was sort of just bright enough to kind of see where I was going.

Old City Road was as wet as I've ever seen it (from the standpoint of water), so instead of running, I was reduced to a walk, sometimes hopping back and forth across the gentle torrent depending on which side had a little dry ground, and sometimes just pushing my way through the laurel off to the side of the trail. After making the turn, my light was inadequate, and I made a wrong turn somewhere. I realized this pretty quickly (when I hit a big patch of bare rock), and I'd been on this trail before at some point, so I kept going, thinking that it would merge back to the trail I intended to be on. Well, I don't know exactly where it went, but after a lot of unfamiliar stuff, I hit a slightly larger trail, and turned right because that was the topologically smart move. And that went to a larger trail, but I didn't know which one. But after cruising down it for a bit, I thought I spied the subtle right-hand turn that's on the main trail, so I checked it out, and it was. It was confirmed a bit later when I got to the sloppy ford, and from there it was straightforward back to the car.

Looking at the GPS track, it appears that I did merge back to the trail that I had intended to be on, but then missed the right-hand turn that I would have needed to take (I was looking for it, but it's hard to see, and I wasn't sure when I shoulc expect it to come up). I should familiarize myself with the trail that I ended up taking. And I should maybe find a way to bypass Old City Road.

A bit of a fiasco, but at least I got out.

Saturday night, after the wedding of Nancy's nephew, I was getting ready to leave really early to head for Pond Mountain, and I noticed that it was already up on Routegadget. Hmm. I guess the meet was Saturday, not Sunday. Well, no need to wake up so early, and less driving required. And instead of catching a ride home with her daughter, Nancy rode with me and we went for a pleasant hike in Vermont on the way back.

And I grabbed an air mattress and spent one last night in my childhood bedroom. After a year and a half of cleaning and renovating, the closing for Mom's house is Tuesday.

C • one last night 1

My nephew* Croix is about 18, I think, and has a number of disabilities. He was able to walk with crutches when he was younger, but has been wheelchair-bound for a number of years. He also has difficulty communicating, limited to just a few words. Last year, his parents got him a bicycle. It's actually two recumbent bicycles bolted together so that he can ride with someone else. He was pretty excited to have visitors so that he coud show off his bike and go for a ride. We just did a little spin around the neighborhood and the park. Being in what felt like the driver's seat, I initially felt like I ought to be driving, but after a bit I realized that he understood the capabilities of the bike much better than I did, as well as knowing his way around, so I mostly just let him steer while I pulled my weight in the propulsion department.

*Technically my sister-in-law's nephew: Croix's father's sister is married to my brother. But I'm Uncle Jean to him.

A stroll around the open space in Boulder with Nancy, starting and ending at Chautauqua. Took our time, and stopped numerous times to breathe the thin air and take in the view. Time and distance corrected for the fact that I forgot to stop the watch until we drove away.

Almost forgot to mention this: I have a coworker with a garden, and he supplied me with some vegetables last week. Fortunately, I knew where to find the recipe for something delicious to do with them.

C • Delicious 1

No Pawtuckaway for me this year, the first indications of a cold came on during the day Friday, by Saturday it was clear that I had no business going anywhere, and now ealy Sunday afternoon I'm feeling considerably better but still taking it easy.

C • Missed you! 4

Corn Maze Sprint. Totally frazzled trying to deal with last-minute check-ins, epunch number changes, etc., and didn't even change into my running clothes before just grabbing my epunch and glasses and taking an open spot in the start list. My watch had previously gotten satellite lock, but had gone to sleep before I started, so it needed to get lock again and started about 12 seconds late.

Mostly not too bad on the navigation, though I definitely lost time in the mini-maze, I think I went in once, backed out, went to a different entrance, had to back out again, and then got it the way I had tried initially. 10th place, not too bad, considering.

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Corn Maze Classic. Another decent run, though down to 13th place (I was in 4th when I finished). I beat a couple of veterans who had gotten me in the sprint, but a number of younger folk got their sea legs and were faster than me. Bumbled around some trying to find the right passageway to #4, and also got off in the wrong direction a bit on the way to #17 and had to correct. In addition, there were some legs where my route choice wasn't the best, that were longer than they initially looked due to the requisite meanderings.

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Corn Maze trail-O. I was adminstering this, and went up as part of the very small last group (me, Joe, and Peter). By this time the northern balloon had already made its escape, and the other three were only bobbing up into visibility intermittently. We helped each other spot them, and I took my wild guesses, which I think were all incorrect, but I got a few points for coming down with time left, which put me in a multi-way tie for 18th place.

Corn Maze Night-O. I got to skip 2 of the 29 controls, and although I only see a couple on the GPS track that look like I screwed up, I remember a couple of times finding a random control and looking for it in the control descriptions to relocate. Only three legs over two minutes, so that's not too bad, and 6th place in the night-O pulled me up to 7th place overall, though a bunch of that was due to post-prandial attrition. Skipped #16 and #29 for looking like major distance savings, though there may have been better choices. #4 & #5 looks interesting, as does #28. #8 and #19 would have been pretty good singleton skips, I think.

splits

Control pickup, 50-40-34-32-33-43-31-56. Track includes tidying up, driving home, and the watch sitting in the car until the battery died.

Wanderings Bike-O. FIrst time I've ever done this, and I opted for the three-hour bike version without the extra 90 minutes on foot (Nancy did the three hours on foot). Pretty casual approach to the whole thing, we arrived moments before the 10 AM mass start, and went out in the 10:10 second wave. I was riding the Incubus, with the map case containing all the stuff just crumpled up in my hand, and a pen in my back pocket. Spent a lot of time pulling stuff out and stuffing it back in at controls. Only one wrong turn, and that was pretty minor, taking a turn that was off by one street on my way from Rte. 60 up to Menotomy Rocks, but it still got me there.

The road bike was perfectly fine most everywhere. I pushed it through the little trail section around #80, and a little bit on the way to #71 (on a shortcut that was likely not worth it). I did zero advance planning, just headed off northwards and figured a tour around the periphery would likely net a bunch of high value controls. The only oops in the regard was that I failed to see #91 on the map (it was quite close to some OOB and kind of blended in), so I didn't pick that one up even though I was fairly close to it. The hardest one to locate was #23, the last one I went to, because the description was so complicated. Another guy was there looking for it, and I finally figured out what the description was trying to say and found the sign. That left me short on time, and my only option was to put it the lowest gear, get out of the saddle and hammer my way up and over the steep hill, arriving in the nick of time, even cutting it a bit closer than Phil did.

Control order: 43 74 80 93 73 84 94 70 64 85 71 60 51 86 40 61 82 81 62 55 44 31 25 = 1450 points. The route took me quite close to four places where I used to live back in the early 1990s, as well as the apartment that Nancy's daughter Rachel just moved out of.

C • wanderings 7