Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Up to Gibbet Hill with Nancy, Steven, and Katie, for a picnic.

And down the back way.

From Nancy's over to Stony Brook and back, In The Dark. When I got to the school grounds, I was at the track, so I figured I'd walk once around that, then I gave it a second thought, and put down whatever it was that I had with me (headlamp and keys, I think), and ran around the track instead. I was in the inside lane, so I would have figured that would be either 400 meters or 402 meters (if it was a quarter mile track), but the GPS has it as 424 meters. I think the GPS is just off, and it was really 400 (the track shows me outside the oval in places, which I definitely was not). Not really dressed right for this, and it was a spur of the moment idea to do it, and maybe running in the almost pitch black (no moon) made me a little hesitant, so I think I'm capable of doing better than 1:36. But since it's something I don't keep track of, for now I guess that's my PR.

On the Incubus, not too far, not too far from home. Still warm after a hot day, but not very humid. Last week I went down S hill, and the speedometer read 40 mph, but it was out of calibration. I calibrated it in the meantime, and it read 40 mph again today, this time honestly. I wasn't really in a crouch, so there was more available if I had wanted it.

Little bit: finished taking apart the last wall of the large shed and moved that wood all over to the pile, then picked up most of the tarpaper and shingles from the small shed and pulled apart the floor of that. Once I move that wood to the pile, I'll be down to just a zillion small odds and ends and bits and smidgens left. About an hour.

WBNW, a Green or so course, nominally 4.5 km, a fair bit of climb, and through some of the hairier bits of the map. Not pushing at race pace, and occasionally detouring a little or slowing down to look at things. The map is quite nice. I had a couple of legs that were deliberately through pretty dense green, one uphill, one downhill, to see how that would go. It went as expected, and I wouldn't force anybody through that, but it would be reasonable if it were a route choice.

The answer to the question off when I would get to try out my spiffy new compass is: today! And as a compass, it works just fine. The other function will still have to wait a while, though.

Little bit: started disassembling the remaining north wall of the large shed, got about half of that done, by which point it was getting pretty dim.

At the risk of jinxing this, if it's correct, I want to present a theory of mine.

This year I have seen more turkeys than ever before. In the past I saw family flocks maybe once or twice, but now I see them regularly, a few adults and a bunch of chicks of various sizes. If I go out for a bike ride, it's not unusual to see turkeys more than once.

At the same time, although I have spent quite a bit of time outdoors this year, I have found very few ticks. The number is probably in single digits, and I haven't found one on me in months.

I think the turkeys are eating the ticks. I've heard that keeping guinea fowl is a useful strategy for limiting the tick population in your yard, and turkeys seem like similar birds to guinea fowl. If I'm right, I consider that to be a good thing.

(I also haven't been bothered by FDFs very much this year. I don't know if that might also fit into my theory, or if I just haven't been frequenting the places where FDFs prevail.)

C • I've noted an increase in t... 4

Throne Hill, with Nancy. I think I'd only been up here once before, about 20 years ago, and maybe that was in the dark. Quite a delightful bit of forest.

To Ravi's house. I'd been hoping all summer for an opportunity to do this, but up until today it hadn't worked out. Once a week I have a one-on-one meeting with my boss, and when we were working at the ofiice, that meeting would (weather permitting) take place on the walking path around the campus. I figured we could do the same with a walk around his neighborhood, and I could get to and from the meeting by bike. This was the trip over there. There's a little glitch at the start because I got about 500 m down the road and checked to see whether I had my tool/phone bag, but I didn't, so I went back for it. Arrived almost exactly on time.

And the trip home. It was windy on the way over there, although it didn't feel like a tailwind. Definitely a headwind on the way back, though. And when I got home, I threw out the dribble-glass water bottle that I got at some canoe race 20 years ago.

C • tailwind 2

I got my new compass in the mail today, with built-in SI chip. Ho long will it be before I get to use it?

A loop to Timberlee, after having made an overdue repair to the recumbent seat over the weekend. All went well except that something needs lubrication, becausw when I shifted into the big ring, it wouldn't go back to the middle ring. I quickly did a mental scan of the rest of my route to see if there were any hills that I didn't think I could manage in the big ring, though after a little thought it occurred to me that I could always stop the bike and see if I could nudge things (and I had tools with me as well). But I nudged the front derailleur with my heel and got it to shift, and left it in the middle ring from there on in. The recumbent is a little funny in that you can't look down to see the rear cluster, so unless you keep track in your head, you don't know what gear you're in (whether there are any left to shift down to). It's three rings in front, five cogs in back. It also uses a slightly different set of muscles, so there's fatigue in novel spots.

Little bit: finished dismantling the small shed (except the floor) and carried all the wood over to the dumpster pile.

Baldwin Hill BYOM training, Red, 6.1 km. What a train wreck. Nancy and I went out there late afternoon on an overcast day, right on the edge of a bunch of rain to the SE. So it was really dim, especially under evergreens, and the brown on this map is too faint (my fault), making it hard to see the contours. In addition, J-J looking for orange streamers is not a good match, especially in low light, and summer vegetation decreased the visibilty. And I had fogging issues with my glasses. It might have been a good plan to use the GPS cell phone app, so that I could have just proceeded when it beeped, instead of hunting around.

I had a little trouble getting to the first control, but I arrived in about 10 minutes. Then it took me almost another 20 minutes to find the streamer. At one point I heard Nancy, who was looking for the same one, but never found it and just went back to the car (she was having even more trouble reading the map than I was).

2 through 6 went okay, then on 7 I got to what I was pretty sure was the right spot, but I found no streamer. Relocated on something solid, came back to the same place. Gave up looking for it, and everything matched up on my way out.

8 and 9 went okay, although I can't remember if I found streamers, I think I didn't for at least one of them, but I was confident that I was in the right spot. 10 I saw the depression but didn't see a streamer, went to find a nearly solid attackpoint and came to the same spot, and then I found the streamer, which I may have been looking at edge-on the first time.

11 I basically spiked, didn't see anything, went to some nearby spots to make sure I was in the right place, came back and was certain, and I can't remember if I eventually found a streamer or not. On 12 I climbed up the hill and knew where I was, and I looked at the clues and saw that I was looking for a depression. I couldn't see anything in the circle that looked like a depression, just mush. I might have given up except I looked up and saw the streamer right on front of me, maybe 10 meters away.

The rest went fine although I didn't find a streamer at 14, but knew I was in the right place. Somewhere on the way down near 15 I heard a squeal of tires, and wondered if it was going to end wi-BANG! Yes, it did. I was surprised that on our drive out we didn't encounter the accident scene, I didn't think they could have cleared it up that quickly, and it sure sounded like the kind of thing that was going to require a tow truck at the least.

I actually cam pretty close to my predicted time of 2 1/4 hours. (Nancy points out that I had said 1 1/4 hours, but that's a subtle difference.)

splits

C • Streamers 6