Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Bull Pond, Red middle distance event, M45. Saying that I spiked 11 controls is being generous. Really flopped around on the first one (all inside of the circle), and on a few others I lost small amounts of time. Unfortunately, on leg #7 (I think), a steep downhill diagonal, I hit a slippery spot and my feet went flying, and I came down hard on my left side on granite. The worst spots are just below the knee and the lower part of my hip (right where the joint is). Serious abrasion and heavy bruising, one of my worst orienteering injuries ever. I was limping slowly for the next leg or two, but then the pain subsided enough and I loosened up. Not a very impressive showing, but good enough for first place in M45, behind about 7 or 8 M20s and F21s. (Looks like the good M45s mostly moved up to Blue.) Time to take some excedrin and hope this doesn't hurt enough to keep me from sleeping.

C • sorry.. 3

Hmm.... I seem to have acquired a job.

C • new job 5

25 pushups, 50 situps, 15 tableups, 25 squats, 25 pushups, 50 situps, 15 tableups, 25 squats.

Lunenburg Project #15
Northfield Rd.
-> Turkey Hill Rd.
-> Oak Ave.
-> Main St.
-> Lancaster Ave.
-> Kilburn St.
<-> Goodrich St.
-> Lancaster Ave.
-> Main St.
-> Oak Ave.
-> Turkey Hill Rd.
-> Northfield Rd.

Another wet day (though I didn't actually get rained on), so I put on the crappy sneakers again and added a couple of roads. The easy stuff is mostly gone, and now I have to travel a fair distance before I start adding new streets. A little bit of GPS screwiness just after mile 2. I also had to wait a while for the traffic light in both directions.

25 pushups, 50 situps, 15 tableups, 25 squats, 25 pushups, 50 situps, 15 tableups, 25 squats.

25 pushups, 50 situps, 15 tableups, 25 squats. Sigh...

For a change of scenery, I rode down Northfield to Mass Ave to Arbor to the end and back. This was a step into the more daring side of things, because it involved about a km in each direction on Rte. 2A, rather than the sleepy neighborhood streets I usually stick to. This meant some cars going by at higher speeds, and some people honking the horn or hollering something unintelligble (why?). The scariest things were actually on Arbor St,: school buses. They're big, they're noisy, they go fast, and the street is narrow. But at least they're full of little kids who are totally delighted by the spectacle and all rush to look out the back window.

Took me forever to get started, must have been at least a dozen tries. I made it all the way to Page St. nonstop, then I had to take a break for a minute and a half due to numbness in my nether regions. On the way back, I had a dismount on a short steep bit on Arbor, and pushed it to the top of the rise. Then at Townsend Harbor Rd., there were cars coming, so I made a right and figured I'd turn around when the cars went by, but there were enough of them that I got fed up and got off and waited. Then I had a couple more dismounts on Northfield. So not the longest single continuous ride, but I think it's my longest ever unicycle outing.

34th Annual Billygoat (my 28th), Moreau Lake State Park.
After a pretty spectacular drive through rural Vermont (which Nancy didn't enjoy very much because she was trying to catch on on sleep and the roads were very curvy), it was also perfect weather for the Goat.
With a small bunch for the first couple of controls, then with a few people off and on for the next few, until I linked up with Ernst at #8 and the two of us were together through #17. Navigation pretty clean, nothing more than a few seconds here and there. Then while skipping #18, everything was great for the first 2/3 of the leg, but then we veered waaaay too far to the left and off into oblivion. I basically ended up relocating on the lake, and lost five minutes (all that I saved by skipping 18), and things went even worse for Ernst. That put me in a pack consisting of Joe Brautigam, Joe Mok, and the Breton girls. We caught Marty Hawkes-Teeter near the end, and I wound up in the middle of the bunch, between Anna and Elina. 29th place, which ain't too bad.