Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Walking over to the Holman St. Bridge (through the woods), then helping to lead the site visit hike, and home on the roads. We got a great turnout, maybe close to 30 people, all of whom seemed to be enthusiatic about the land purchase. So optimism may be in order. We need a 2/3 majority at towm meeting, two weeks from today. It would be great if it were to pass overwhelmingly. Financially, it will be a big win. If anybody is curious, more info will be here (site is only partially up at the moment).

Billygoat, 14 km. This was a test to see if the course was too long. My objective was to walk the course and see if I could do it in 3.5 hours. After deducting 3.5 minutes which I spent when I decided that I has misplaced control #15, and made sure the new location was right and moved the streamer, the total is 3 hours, 31 minutes. But I didn't skip anything, and I really stuffed up #3, lost about 10 minutes there. Wore a camelback, and I never ran a single step. So I think it will be okay as is. Though I did decide to eliminate the last control, which was really superfluous. Beautiful day to be outdoors. Tired feet now.

I'm calling this orienteering training because I had a basemap in my hand, and I did look at it occasionally. It was actually a tour of the property that the town is angling to purchase with Amanda, a reporter from the local newspaper. (Town meeting vote will be on May 3.) I walked over to the bridge to meet her, and took her on a more extensive trek than the one we'll be giving the public tomorrow (and a week from tomorrow, but I won't be around for that one). Managed to go some places where I hadn't been before, and it was mostly pretty nice open woods. Looks like I did a decent job of following the property lines where I was trying to.

I had been wondering if we'd continue to get frosts. Woke up this morning to find that it had snowed overnight, just enough to stick. My roof is all covered, with tiny icicles, and there's a dusting all over the yard.

C • Icy roads & jack-knifed tra... 6

Took the day off from running, but a moderate plumbing disaster meant that I got to spend a bunch of quality time in the morning with the friendly Roto-Rooter man, including digging out my septic tank. Knowing where it is, and that it isn't that deep, makes it a not-too-onerous job. And now my drains are working again.

Plan for the day: take a very familiar piece of terrain very close to home, and go explore a bunch of previously unvisited corners. This was definitely adequate after two days of pathetic racing.

Good news: today is Fresh Air Day, because it was warmer outside when I got home than it was in the house, so I opened the windows. Bad news: today is Tick Day, and I found two crawling on me when I got back from running.

West Point, Black & White Cap Mountain, Red (M35), 5.5 km, 135m. Better then yesterday, but still pretty lethargic. Biggest error doesn't even register on SA, it was #2, where I was always going in the right direction, but I pulled up way short and tried to figure out if I was there yet, and decided ti wasn't, and revised my opinion of my location a couple of more times as I made slow progress in the right direction. Fishhooked a couple of others, bobbled around a little looking for the water stop at #7, and took what was in retrospect a pretty questionable route on #10. But I was good enough to just barely pull ahead of Magnus for what I think was 2nd place in M35 (of course, in the real competition in M45, I would have gotten creamed by the rest of the 50-70 crowd).

Not every meet needs to be special. Which is good, because this one seemed to be at best really ordinary.

Not logged: the walks to and from the start each day, and the walking Nancy and I did to get views of two lighthouses on the Hudson.