Training Log Archive: CleverSky

A rare case of J-J seeing a medical professional: I had a wisdom tooth extracted this morning. It was as unremarkable an event as could be imagined, took only about 10 minutes in the chair, I think. The tooth was straight and all, but it developed a cavity that my dentist deemed too difficult to fill and not worth it, so he told me (over a year ago) to get it yanked. As a result, I also have a prescription, which is rare for me. Percoset, and I can't imagine getting it filled. I went to the supermarket and picked up a bottle each of acetaminophen and naproxen, and it remains to be seen whether I'll even wind up taking either of those.

Snow dealings, round 10: shoveled out my front walk, the path to the oil filler pipe, and a path to the shed so that I can get kindling for Mom, plus I improved access to the mailbox a bit. In terms of practicality, this is likely mostly wasted effort, because the storms coming in the next couple of days will probably fill in these trenches before anybody gets a chance to use them. Although I will bring kindling over to Mom later today.

So far, no pain from the jaw. I think the novocaine has just about worn off (it's been roughly three hours).

Didn't realize what "Bye-Bye-O" was (or even that it was in New England) until after the event was over. Would have been nice to have gone, although I had a schedule conflict anyway and wouldn't have been able to.

Had a weird dream Sunday night, in which I walked into a self-serve gas station to tell the attendant/cashier that I would like to give him a message to be passed on to the higher-ups, that I was leaving without making a purchase, because after 10 minutes of going through menus on the pump, I had yet to get to a point where it would dispense gas. It had asked for my phone number, SSN, etc., and at one point presented a menu that showed an assortment of items for purchase (things like a drink, maybe oil change or car wash), many of which were checked by default and I had to individually unselect them. I had gotten so frustrated that I decided to smash my forehead into the display and break it, but couldn't follow through and kept "pulling my punches". Strange that I'm unable to do that while dreaming.

Never got around to doing any exercise.

Climbing Race Mountain with Randy Brown. Started at YMCA Camp Hi-Rock, and we had a little bit of fumbling around at the start in terms of deciding which way to go in order to get to the ridge. One we got there, the AT had been snowshoed already (prior to the most recent storm), so it was packed down a bit. Snow was probably waist-deep or more in some places, and I was glad that I had the larger Yuba snowshoes and at times wished I had the humongous antique ones. We were actually out for almost three hours, but some of that was standing still while Randy texted with the people at his business and made adjustments to his snowshoes. On the way back we tried an experiment where he went back down the way we had come, and I took a more direct route. We arrived back at the car at almost exactly the same time, though my route was absurd breaking trail through deep, loose snow, and with a lot of laurel. The purpose of this expedition was to scout out whether this would be a worthwhile place to try hang gliding (it was used in years past, but nobody has been there recently). Seems like it would be a nice site, but one that would involve a lot of work to get the gliders up to. With snowshoes but no luggage to speak of, it was about a 35 minute hike to the first place along the ridge that would be launchable. Figuring that we'd need to do 1.5 round trips trips (one with harness, one with glider), and that realistically could mean 2 hours to get to launch with gear. If we didn't have a driver, then it would be about 2.5 miles uphill through the woods to retrieve the car (from what looks like the best place to land), or if we stashed a bicycle, it's about 16 miles around by road.

20 pushups, 20 pushups, 50 situps

Snow dealings, round 9: cleared my driveway with the snowblower. Unfortunately, it conked out when I was almost done, still starts, but if I engage the drive or the impeller, it stalls. I'll have to check for fuel leaks, clogged filters, or bad spark plug, I guess. Fortunately, the plow came close enough to the mailbox that they were able to deliver the mail without my shoveling it out.

Snow dealings, round 8: shoveling Nancy's driveway (time is a guess). We're reaching the point where we'll soon have to start conceding part of the area to the elements. The mouth of the driveway is already narrower than I'd like it, suuch that it would be challenging to get two cars past each other, but the section that I would have to deal with down there is about four feet high plow snow, and the mountain that I have to launch it over so that it doesn't just slide back down onto the driveway is probably twice my height. Still have to get to Mom's, but because Nancy was using Mom's car and the driveway was empty, the plow guy was reportedly able to do a really good job over there. And I haven't seen my place yet, because I spent Wednesday night at work (in a sleeping bag on an unused desk) rather than try to drive in the bad weather, then I stayed at Nancy's last night. I'm optimistic that the snow blower will do an excellent job when I get there today.

20 pushups, 20 pushups, 50 situps. I did the pushups, not on the floor, but holding onto the arms of a chair, with my feet on a table that's about 8" higher than the arms. This was noticeably more difficult.

20 pushups, 20 pushups, 50 situps.

-11 F at 7:00 AM, but my brother (a couple of blocks from Carl and Mary Jo) reports that it was -26 F at his place overnight (-25 when he woke up). I took a stroll down the driveway and back in pajamas, bathrobe, and slippers in the double-digit negatives, just for the heck of it.

20 pushups, 20 pushups

20 pushups, 20 pushups, 50 situps.

Randy emailed and said that he had looked at the temperature forecast and decided to stay in (although he wound up having to work outside to repair his snowblower). Just as well, because I didn't even have time to go out for a local snowshoe jaunt, due to my mother's car failing to start when she left church, and Nancy's car getting hit when she was arriving at Nashoba Valley, so I wound up doing a bunch of driving around. Mom's car mysteriously started working again later, and Nancy is driving it. I'm hoping Nancy's car is totalled so that she can take the money and get a different car, since hers has been having various problems lately and she's been looking to replace it anyway.

Shorter Mystery Blazes loop. A couple with snowshoes and poles with a dog were starting out on the trail just as I was, but I left them in my dust. Or drifting snow, or whatever. I was breaking trail for most of this (until I got back to the snowmobile tracks in the Hickory Hills section), so it was pretty heavy going, with the crust that was five inches down cracking under my weight. I ran into Doug Pulsifer at the turnoff for the shortcut -- he didn't remember me, but I remembered him -- and we chatted for a few minutes. Temperature around 20F, I think, but the hat came off and the zipper pulls went down a bit after about 20 minutes.

Randy was talking about snowshoeing Monadnock tomorrow, but I don't think either of us has enough time. There's a possibility that we might do Watatic, though.

Snow dealings, round 7: snowblowing out Mom's parking area and woodpile. The snowblower started on the first pull, and was working pretty well, so this didn't take very long. Her woodpile is definitely diminishing, don't know if she'll be able to get another delivery (and if so, I guess I'll have to stack it).

Snow dealings, round 6: snowblowing my driveway. This went easily, due to the light fluffy snow, and required almost no shoveling. The only unpleasant bit was when the shifting winds dumped the snow right in my face. At this point we have 16" of snow on the ground, with a hard crust 5" down and a softer crust 5" below that.

Snow dealings, round 7: shoveling Nancy's driveway. I had Stephen shovel out a space so that I could pull my car in, but told him that he could just put the snow onto the adjacent part of the driveway, since I figured he would have trouble throwing it high enough to get it on top of the snowbanks. The bulk of the driveway was mercifully easy due to the fluffy snow, but the last part, moving the plowed-up snow from down by the road, was really tedious, because at this point I have to carry each shovelful about 20 feet (diagonally uphill) to get to a spot where the banks are low enough that I can launch it up over the top. Tough on the arms.

20 pushups, 20 pushups

Snow dealings, round 5: cleanup at Nancy's house. Things were not nearly as dire as I had feared, she and Stephen did a good job, but there were still some places where I was able to improve the situation a bit. Maybe 30-45 minutes of work.

20 pushups, 20 pushups, 50 situps

20 pushups, 20 pushups, 50 situps

Snow dealings, round 4: After having gotten home from work at a little after 11 PM and rammed the car up the driveway, I got up and snowblowed. The snowblower was able to handle most of what was out there, even though it was dense snow with an ice crust, but not the plowed up stuff at the edge of the road. It got the bulk of it, though it clogged a number of times, and I finally gave up and finished with the shovel. Then I tried taking it across the street to do the mailbox, but gave up immediately. 52 minutes on the operation at home, then I went to Mom's house to shovel out her car and the path to the woodpile -- I didn't even bother to start her snowblower, because I was pretty sure it wouldn't be woth the effort, as opposed to just doing it manually. I still have to get over to Nancy's to help out with the stuff that she and Stephen had to give up on, because the piles on the sides have gotten too tall for them to throw snow over.

20 pushups, 20 pushups, 50 situps

20 pushups, 20 pushups, 50 situps

20 pushups, 20 pushups, 50 situps

Mulpus Brook loop, running for part of it and eventually a brisk walk. The main trail was snowmobiled in, there were some snowshoes tracks on the first part near the road, the Lane trail has ski tracks (but I broke trail next to them because I know that slot-car skiers hate it when you mess up their grooves), and the Mystery Blazes and the rest of the lower loop had snowshoe tracks (though they didn't go exactly where I did). Working reasonably hard, wearing Dad's snowshoes, which was about right.

The sky may be clever, but it appears that Mr. Charlie is clever as well, though he has not tipped his hand thus far. Care to say hello?

C • bonjour 9

20 pushups, 20 pushups, 50 situps

Snow dealings, round 3: snowblowing at my place again, redoing the additional snow that had fallen on (or drifted onto) the driveway, and the dreaded rescuing of the mailbox. Tougher than usual this time, because some helpful snowplow driver had deposited a big pile of cement right in front of it. I had to break it up with a shovel before I could use the snowblower on it. If I didn't have a snowblower, I would have had to tell the post office to hold my mail until spring. 55 minutes.

20 pushups, 20 pushups, 50 situps

Snow dealings, round 1: snowblowing the driveway. 34 minutes, timed pretty well, because the snow was almost up to the top of the throat. Will probably have to do this again late tonight to get whatever falls in the interim, but I'm hoping I'll be able to run the machine in at least medium gear, as opposed to this round where some of the time I had to leave it in neutral and push it, because low gear went too fast and would bog down the auger.

Snow dealings, round 2: shoveling out Nancy's driveway. Hard to know what intensity this should be; it certainly was tiring. Didn't do the whole thing myself, Stephen and Nancy were working on it as well. Unfortunately, we seem to have made the always blind entry onto the street now be insanely blind.

20 pushups, 20 pushups, 50 situps

20 pushups, 20 pushups, 50 situps

Willard Brook SE. Don't know if I've ever done these two runs on consecutive days before. Temperature was about five degrees warmer then yesterday, though it didn't fee like it (maybe becasue of the wind). I had a notion that this run might be less icy than yesterday's, and though that may have been generally true, the northbound trail was quite icy, maybe due to ATV traffic, but probably also because it's a bit of a shelf that can collect water. I finished up by exploring a small trail (with bridges) that I hadn't noticed before, that branches off southward just after the start, and parallels the road for about a half-mile. There was also a trail forking off uphill that I should check out at some point, since it's still state land at that point, based on the signs. Finished up on the road.

Mystery Blazes loop. Temps in the mid 20s, intermittent very light snow, not enough to cover the leaves. Footing wasn't too bad, just a couple of treacherous spots in the Hickory Hills swamp crossing, and at the glacier just past the Xmas bridge. Busiest day ever, in terms of other people out there:
- Encountered a couple coming toward me just before reaching the Friendly Trail
- A big Polaris-like ATV on the Friendly Trail, driven by a big fat guy with a kid in the passenger's seat
- Tom Bertram supervising a couple of guys with chainsaws clearing the SMobile Trail
- Three kids trying to climb up the steepest part of the eskar by the brook

There were also footprints along Mulpus Brook, and even a few on the fallen tree that I used to cross the brook, so I'm not the only one doing that. I'm tempted to go down there with some boards and nails and make it easier to cross.

20 pushups, 20 pushups, 50 situps

20 pushups, 20 pushups, 50 situps. A tiny bit easier every day. Need to figure out if there's somewhere in this house where I can set up a chinning bar again.

20 pushups, 20 pushups, 50 situps. A bit better.

20 pushups, 20 pushups, 50 situps. Ow. Good thing I'm starting back up slowly. The situps aren't so bad, but the pushup muscles are sore. Didn't help that I was wearing two sweatshirts, which you might not think would be all that heavy, but it at least seems like I can feel the difference.

In Mooers. Got up early, and was back from the run before anybody else in the house was awake. I had a vague notion of wanting to get to the illegal border crossing that I had seen on a map a couple of years ago, but didn't really remember how far it was or it it really even existed. I was about 1/2 mile from Canada for quite a while, but didn't want to cross posted land, and I now see that the spot I had in mind would have added another 3 miles to the run. I could easily have gone to the legal crossing, but that's no fun. Next time, I'll also try to remember that I can get there quicker (and have different scenery) by going up Miller Rd to take North Star the opposite way, or by continuing on North Star and crossing Hemmingford Rd to get to a different crossing. Pretty pathetic speed, that's all a level 3 run will get me these days, and all that distance on pavement might make my legs hurt tomorrow.

Tenpin bowling in Plattsburgh with Nancy, Stephen, Nicole, Doug, Brian, David, and Maryanne (2nd game only). Doug bowled 138 on the first game and beat my 130, while David got 132 on the second to tie me, but I think I had the most total pins. Much more together than at the Superstars. Used a 15 pounder again, but I was able to put it where I wanted it. The first game had a strike-strike-spare-strike run, but was marred by a couple of bad frames at the end, while the second game was mostly spares and nines. Stephen started out the last frame of game 1 with two strikes (I think he got 7 for the third ball). Everybody broke 100 on the second game, which was great.

20 pushups, 50 situps, 20 pushups. Gotta start somewhere.