Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Hike in at Brace. Used the cart as far as the second bridge, then brought the harness and battens up to the ridge, went back for the glider (Kip helped me with it for the second half), then likewise for the hike along the ridge to launch. Blowing in nice when we got there, though it backed off some by the time we were set up, and it shut down after about an hour of flying (all ridge lift, no thermals). Hot (in the 90s on the ground, I think, a bit cooler on top of the mountain but still well over 80). I was wilting a bit by the time this was all over, felt a little dizzy a couple of times when standing up quickly while I was breaking down.

I think this was another zero.

Mystery Blazes LSwamp. A bit warm and a bit humid, started at 8 PM and brought a flashlight but never quite needed it. I started out feeling like I was moving along pretty well, and was able to keep it up. There seem to have been some FDFs around, and a few bounced off my head, but none bit. Sometime I wonder when I hear one buzz past me several times, whether it's actually one keeping up with my running and making a bunch of strafing runs, or if I'm running past several of them that each buzzes me once. I finally started feeling tired as I approached the esker, but I kept pushing (the last bit was getting pretty uncomfortable). I decided while I was running that if my time was under 44 minutes I'd be satisfied, and if under 40 I'd be very pleased. Looks like I just made it, and I was pleased although I also felt like I might throw up. I've run "this" loop with faster times on three previous occasions, the best being 39:24, but those were before I started doing the LSwamp variation, which is certainly somewhat longer than Howl, so this is the best performance to date. Fireflies out during the latter part.

A zero. I think.

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

25 pushups, 25 squats, 50 situps. Plus some walking around in Maine with Nancy to look at lighthouses.

From the rental place to the start, paddling solo, time is a guess.

NE Canoe-O Champs, Tully Lake, C2 with Sam Levitin. Started out with a bit of a snafu when it turned out that we didn't have a boat. Sam had invited me to partner with him, and implied that he had taken care of securing a vessel. Appareantly he though he had as well, but when I arrived he said that he had fucked up, and we had no boat. A reasonable option would have been to shrug and just leave at that point, but there was reportedly a campground "just around the bend" that rented canoes. So I drove up there and rented a boat, just took whatever they had, a broad tub of a C2 with big clunky plastic paddles and brought it to the start solo. Not a particularly pleasant boat to paddle alone. Turned out that Aims had brought a C1 for me, thinking that I'd probably be wanting to do a course by myself, but that wasn't the plan for the day. So Sam and I set out and did the medium course, because I had no intention of doing the long in that thing, and both of us had time constraints. No problems to speak of, other than my limited skills paddling stern (I did much better than I expected), and Sam's doing faceplants getting in and out of the canoe in shallow water. He didn't seem to have a particularly good grasp of where we were some of the time, but it didn't matter, because I did. My only issue was that I had trouble distinguishing between water and marsh at the distance that the map was sitting (in the bottom of the boat, no fancy mapholders for this race). We managed second place for the medium, close behind a guy in a kayak.

Didn't paddle back, I had Sam give me a ride to retrieve my car, and put the boat on the roof, which was tough since it was wider than my roof rack and the straps wouldn't reach all the way around it, but I improvised and got it to work.