Training Log Archive: CleverSky

With Nancy, up to another viewpoint and back (nobody else wanted to join us).

The rental place had various craft, but most of them were already out. We decided that the "Hawaiian war canoe" was the best choice, he expected that it would be back in a half hour, which gave us time to grab some lunch. This was two fiberglass hulls held together with a pair of struts (if you have fewer people, he replaces one with an outrigger). On the port side we had Rachel, Julianna, Stephen, and Nancy, and on starboard it was Matt, Nicole, Danny, and me. (I think. Maybe in that order.) I had the rudder pedals, and I did a pretty fine job of steering. Some kind of weird glitch in the GPS track, I think I corrected the distance properly. It felt good to have a canoe paddle in my hands again, and I was working pretty hard the whole time, while the others paddled in varying amounts, according to their abilities and interest.

Up with everybody, then out to the turnaround with Nancy and Stephen, and back with Nancy (while Stephen hurried to catch up with Julianna, who had gone back with Rachel and Matt). It looked like there used to be a trail loop around Lagoa das Eguas, but there's a notch visible in the satellite phone at the eastern edge that we could see, a collapse of the rim that seemed like it would be impassable to many people. This hike looked like it might be near-zero visibility, but clear patches blew through when we were up there, and we got some nice views.

Around the caldera, the first part with the whole gang, then with Nancy, Stephen, and Julianna after the rest turned back, then Nancy turned around, went back to the start, and did part of the loop in the other direction to meet us (she did a substantial fraction of the distance that we did).

With everybody, out to the base of a nature preserve with nice views (including of a recently wrecked sailboat).

Modest little loop, becauae I didn't want to miss out on such a nice day. In my head, this was relatively not hilly, but in reality it was hilly enough. Went to the trouble of fifuring out how to get my phone into the seat pack, then left the pack sitting in the garage. Also, I believe this is the first time I've used the keypad entry feature of newish garage doors.

An interesting flaw in my mental map of the world is that I picture Holman Street as running E-W, because it's "perpendicular" to Rte. 13, which is a N-S road. But the errors in my assumptions all pile up in the same direction: Holman Street actually runs almost exactly N-S.

I can both stand up from a sitting position, and walk. Neither is especially comfortable or painless, however. Sheesh, it wasn't that rough of a weekend.

Yesterday's meet was at Breakheart, which was also the site of my first race on a color map, on November 6, 1983. That was also the start of my "real" orienteering career (I had done three other courses on B&W maps in 78-79). Many things were different back then, but a few were the same: I finished 5th both times (in '83 I was on "course #4", which was billed a "long intermediate" but showed up as Green in the published results. And control #12 yesterday may have been on the same cliff as #4 back in '83. #15 yesterday was also very close to #7 way back when. 13.2 min/km isn't great, but it's a lot better than 32 min/km. Probably helps that I know what a reentrant is now.

C • Groin pull? 3

Breakheart Reservation, Bob Dangel Appreciation Meet, Red, 6.0 km, 215 m, 5th. One of the last starters because Nancy and I were hoping that the rain would eventually abate. I assume it was raining the whole time, though I didn't really notice other than the fact that I was very wet. Generally okay, several places where I could have been more efficient, and no big snafus other than on the long leg to #22 when I turned one junction too early and didn't immediately realize that I wasn't hitting a paved road (the paved roads are really hard to see on this map). That meant that I was on the wrong side of a large marsh and by that point it made more sense to go around the other end.

results
WinSplits
RouteGadget

Westmoreland, Raid the Sanctuary, Visigoths division (with Nancy), 5.5 km, 2nd. Three sections: normal orienteering, corridor-O with trails deleted, and get any 6 out of 9. Pretty casual pace*, Andreas was gone in a flash from the start and we never saw him, and the two people who we saw some of early on seemed to have dropped back after the first section. Pretty much spiked everything, other then being off a smidge to the right (high) on the second control, a brief bit of disagreement/confusion on the way to the first corridor control, and a slight fishhook on the second control on the last map, courtesy of a confusing control description. We also spent a few moments conferring when we got to a control that had the wrong code, but the location was unambiguous (this was confirmed to be a map error when we got to the finish).

*Nancy informs me that our pace was not casual. I stand corrected.

results

WBSW, same loop as the last couple of times, basically the same time as last time. This was with the 405CX, and the switchbacks do show up better than they did with the 10. Feeling not very enthusiastic for the first part of this, but by the end it felt a lot more smooth and pleasant (I was warmed up, and it was more downhill). I could feel the groin pull a little, but I think it's pretty much cleared up. The second toenail on my right foot is in a bad way, though.

Billygoat, Burnt Mountain 12.0 km, 425 m, 29th.

Came into this with some kind groin pull or whatever that had been a bit uncomfortable since yesterday (no idea what brought that on), a questionable right ankle, and a couple of other issues that I won't go into, but nothing that seemed like it would slow me down significantly. I pulled out my preferred watch, and although I had taken it off the charger last night at 100%, it was doornail city. Fortunately I had my other watch with me, though not at full charge.

Started out more to the right than most people, through the woods instead of on the trail, with Clint nearby and I guess Hendertupski following. Passed right by #23, then picked up the trail, and attacked f#1 from before the marsh. Apparently a bit wide to the right on #2, but when I got to the cliffs I correctly read the marshes and knew I had to go left, though others in the area were either stopped looking confused, or heading the wrong way. Blasted down the hill from there, and never saw the trail to the left of the line, so after crossing the big trail I continued straight. Halfway through, I saw Joe cross my path, heading north, and that completely confused me. Was he... way ahead and skipping #6? But that would be a dumb route to #7. I asked him afterwards and he said he had lost time on the first two, and was in fact on his way to #3, but screwing it up. When I hit the next trail, Cristina and Tori were passing by, and we left the trail where it goes around a little pond. Tori went straighter to the control while I hooked in from the right and got there just behind her, and I never saw Cristina again.

Largely following Tori and some others to #4, and Ed and Izzy were there when I arrived. I was behind the three of them taking the south route to #5, catching up to Clint on the way. Spotted #21, and when we got to the circle for #5, Tori and Clint were stopped and looking at their maps. Just a little further, I said, and Clint and I went to the knoll, but Tori blew past it; she was coming back as we were leaving. I think we had somebody else in our crowd on the way to #6, and Glen showed up about this time as well. Several people headed off straight or maybe a little left to #7, but Tori and I hesitated and said, wait, no, then went toward the trail on the right, and Glen went that way too. Arrived at the control the same time as Ed and Izzy. Straight toward #8, which went fine with me in the lead after some of the others hesitated partway, but the area around the control seemed to have more marsh than the map showed, which was a little confusing. I was the one who spotted the flag.

I went more to the right on #8 than the others did, because it looked to me like there way a route through relatively smooth white woods. But I overdid it, and hit the big canyon nearly on a straight line to #10; I had overshot to the right. The smart move at this point would have been to just screw it and continue to #10, with #9 as my skip. Not a great skip, but better than wasting time going back. Which was what I did (go back). I saw my cohort heading on, and that was the last glimpse I had of them. The last person I saw as I was heading in to the control was Nadim. Fortunately, I didn't screw it up any more, and found it easily.

On to #10, I made pretty good time and caught Nadim, and there were some others there as well, including jima and Hendertupski (What were they doing there? Making good time, and they had also skipped #4). Toward #11 I was catching up to people, and we all paused at a reentrant that looked likely but had no flag. Nothing to do but keep going, and I was the one who spotted it to our right, hollered for everyone, and led the way toward the water stop at #12. I was also therefore the first one out, and only Nadim was through quickly enough to be with me from that point on. No problem to #13, and on #14 I lost just a few moments by not initially realizing that the control was at the top of the cliff.

#15 was intimidating, but I did quite a nice job with Nadim trailing along until about 80% of the way there I was looking at a pond and hoping it was one of the ones near the control, but the shape was wrong. Nadim caught up and said he thought we were right on track, that it was some particular marsh. I was kind of lost so I followed him until I understood what he meant. I was a little quicker going down a steep bit and got in front again, and nailed the control. #16 went smoothly as well, though it was on that leg that I had only twist of my right ankle (just a minor one, no pain after a minute at most).

I had been thinking of skipping #17, but was feeling pretty good, so I went for it and spiked it. Nadin was still just behind, but on the next leg I crossed the first trail and then felt something sharp under my foot, bothersome enough that I had to fix it. I stopped to take of the shoe, and Nadim looked like he was going to stop and wait, but I told him to keep going and I'd catch up. I did just about catch him at the next trail, and we headed into the woods together. I could see that we were in a broad reentrant and just need to contour along the far side to the boulders, but he continued up the hill. After I punched, I headed for the east fork #19, and caught Nadim just as we reached the trail. I asked if he was skipping #18 on purpose, but he had just realized his mistake and headed back for it. Never saw him again. I was definitely further left than I intended to be from that point on, though it was a cinch to correct when I crossed the stream.

#20 was the most fun I had all day, just blasting down the hill until I hit the trail, straightforward attack from there. A little right to catch the trail toward #21, passing Nancy where the trail went around the pond, and catching up to a couple of other Kid runners just after the beaver dam crossing and inching around the base of the cliff. Almost ran right by the control (which I had seen on the way to #5), but turned and saw it at the last moment.

Out toward #22 quickly, and then got really confused in the detailed area near the control. Not really sure where I was and considering just skipping, I decided to try and bail to the trail, and spotted it off to my left on the way; I had overshot a bit, lost about two minutes. Skipped #23, a pretty poor choice, especially since I screwed up #24. Left the straight trail okay, and came to a waterhole. At that point I should have been able to see the control to my left, and I looked on the map and saw a waterhole, but it was the wrong one. Continuing on, I came to two more waterholes, spotted them on the map, and went uphill to get to the control, another two minutes. Heading for the finish I started out almost due west, and was handicapped by the fact that I can't distinguish green from yellow very well, so I took an inefficient route through the start. The Ox was not far ahead, and maybe a good route would have been enough to catch him.

As I was punching the last control, my watch was giving a low battery warning, and it lasted just until the finish and went blank soon after. That's 33 shirts for me in 35 tries, starting in 1984. Looks like there will be substantial shuffling of the groups with ten or more shirts this year. A tough goat, I think, but by no means out of line.

results
splits

Rattlesnake Hill, with the Clint map. Mostly trails, and I could tell that whatever the source was for them (Strava?), they're going to need some work to get them up to orienteering map quality. They're twistier then shown (and there are also some that aren't shown). But that's fine. Went off trail for a while at the end to make myself pay more attention to the contours, and they're quite nice. Ankle did fine. Found one small tick crawling later on when I was driving (same thing happened last time).

C • What interval contours did ... 3

This is the kind of thing that I run across at work:

C • Do people still use serial ... 2

On the Schwinn from the Pellecchia canoe launch (where I left the car) to Johnny Ro Memorial Park (where I had dropped off the boat). Headwind the whole way.

Nashua River, Johnny Ro to Pellecchia, taking advantage of the high water. Don't know if I'll ever do this again, but I'm glad I got to scope it out. Almost entirely navigable, but I was scraping bottom occasionally and bumped into numerous unseen submerged things, so with less water, I don't think it would work. Definitely glad that I was in the blue boat, because it can take abuse, but it also likes to go sideways sometimes, and that made the quickwater stretches challenging; it's not really an acrobatic boat. I wasn't expecting the first broken dam (maybe I'd seen it before on a mountain bike ride?), and I went to the clogged side and carried the boat down the step. Trying to run the chute would probably have resulted in my getting capsized and banged up. I snuck the boat along the edge past the smaller drop below it. Another highlight was what looked like a light-duty zp line across the river next to I-190, connected to maybe some kind of monitoring equipment. Wonder what that's all about. There was another rapid that I did run that had a big enough wave below it that I got drenched from the waist down. Some rather ugly stretches of river through here, plus some lovely spots. Twisty enough that I'd occasionally get a glimpse of the setting sun and think, "Huh? What's it doing over there?". I made pretty good time, but I think the current was responsible for more of that than my muscles were.

Rattlesnake Hill, using the new lidar basemap from Clint (though I wasn't looking at it in detail very often). The idea here was to ignore the trails and instead follow a bunch of stone walls so that I could add them to the map, at least in a schematic way. I made an effort to punch splits when I started or ended a wall, and also if I went past a junction. Complicating matters was the fact that my watch did some kind of really hard reset the other day, enough that it decided to take me through a complete tutorial after I recharged it, and it defaulted to auto-splits, so there are some extras in there. I think the stone wall segments are 1-3, 5-8, 9-11, 12-16, and 17-20. Definitely some accuracy problems in there, but I think it's enough to sketch some things in, and I can make them more accurate later. And there are definitely more walls out there. Nice sunny evening. No problems with my ankle.

I brought some running gear along but ended up not using it. A long day at the hang gliding field (in this case a farm field directly across the street from the Gifford Pinchot sycamore) that resulted in about nine hours on my feet, mostly just standing around, interspersed with some walking and glider schlepping. Quite tiring for the legs, must be worth something. And I think less than four minutes with my feet off the ground.

C • Gifford Pinchot 2

Rattlesnake Hill. Gray and dreary, but a nice temperature for running. Didn't have the Active Ankle, so I was maybe a little extra-careful, but no mishaps. On top of the hill there was a guy on a mountain bike who was stopped, and when he saw me looking at a map as I ran by, he apparently felt a need to offer assistance, asking if I was trying to get back to Rte. 117. I just said hello and ran on.

C • A quick and dirty map for y... 5