Training Log Archive: CleverSky

I could have stayed home and gone to Harold Parker, which I hear was awful. But instead I went flying at Ellenville, which was incredible. I could easily have flown for 5+ hours (the friend who launched right after me did), or have flown cross-country (the guy I drove down with flew 50 miles and landed in NW Connecticut -- I picked him up on the way home). As it was, I blew the doors off of my PR for altitude (8600+ feet), and at times I was climbing faster than I can run. I don't mean faster than I can climb stairs, I mean my vertical speed was faster than I can run horizontally, more than 16 mph straight up. After two hours I was beat, and spent the next 45 minutes actively trying to get down, which wasn't easy, because there was lift everywhere.

After packing up, seven of us loaded into a Honda CRV with two gliders on the roof to drive up and retrieve cars. When we got to the gate and started on the rough dirt road, one of the passengers asked the driver if the car was going to be okay with all that weight, and he said sure. Then it bottomed out twice in the first 20 feet, so we all hopped out to walk the rest of the way. But as I started at a brisker pace, one of the other pilots called from behind me, "If you keep running, I'm going to throw rocks at you!". My arms are pretty wiped out, but my back is in better shape than usual after this sort of thing, and my legs are of course fine, so we'll see what this means for Sunday...

It's physical activity, even if it isn't exactly exercise: flew for an hour at Ellenville, which requires both carrying things around and low-intensity upper-body work while flying. I was totally willing to make the hike up to retrieve the car, but Keith was offering rides, and I accepted the offer. I really think doing it on foot could be competitive in terms of time, considering how much further you have to go with a car.

70 situps. A token. And I'm not counting lugging the test equipment around the parking lot at work. Silly Swedes.

Tired again, nothing.

My first paid holiday in 25 years is coming up at the end of the week, but there's anough to do that I'll probably still be putting in close to a full week of work in the first four days. Too tired for exercise when I got home.

13 pullups, 35 pushups, 70 situps, 35 squats.

The USGS map suggests that there are 15 "corner" points in Lunenburg, which presumably have (or had) monuments.

Nearly 50F, and I figured maybe I could go for a run on snowmobile tracks, but that didn't work out. I wore the old GoLites and neoprene socks because I figured it might be wet. Turned out there wasn't much snowmobile action since the last snow. It was essentially untracked until I got to the turnoff for ther Canna stone, and even after that it was maybe one snowmolbile and one ATV that had been through, so this was mostly postholing in several inches of soft snow. I realized that the problem is that because it's late enough in the season to be warming up, the perennial puddles are unfrozen and present a serious obstacle for those guys (the snowmobiles, at least). This might have been something that would have been suited for small snowshoes, not sure. Working pretty hard, in any case. I wondered at the turnaround if I'd make it back in under 50 minutes -- hah! I should try this again to see how quickly I can do it in good running conditions.