Training Log Archive: vmeyer

A very sweat producing couple of hours pulling weeds.

Yard art:

C • Awesome box turtle! 3

Event Announcement:
The Squirrel event series is in its 15th year of the summer series. To celebrate this major milestone, this year theme is “Squirrel Car Rogaine Park Tour”. It will be part sprint, part score, part rogaine, part car. There are numerous areas nearby the Severn area that have been mapped (some brand new areas). Most are small local parks or technology areas. Each area will have one or more courses in it. This year’s Squirrel event is a giant Score O with the goal to get as many controls as you can in the allotted time frame. The drive time between parks counts. Which parks you go to is up to you. Who you travel with is up to you. Whether you run, bike, roller blade, or pogo stick each course is up to you.
As usual we will end at the home of Ted and Darcy Good for the make your own pizza party, and other games (Foos ball, Air Hockey).

Our fearless leader, Ted.

Arrived at the first park around 2:45. Wish I had gotten there sooner and been more organized. Could start at 3 PM, but I didn't get going until maybe 3:10.

Decided to do the first map on the bike, which would have been fine if I hadn't been determined to keep the bike with me the whole time.



Should have dropped it after finding how overgrown the "trails" were to 152, 174, 181. Then to make matters worse, I bike whacked a bit from 181, finding a nice 6" mud pie area. I was able to unclip and dismount just in time, otherwise there would have been some great pictures from today. Oh, well, maybe next time. ;-)

Not too adventuresome after that, and that was fine with me. Was using a map board for the first time, and while I need work on mounting and dismounting without hitting it, I really bonded with using it.

Drove from Severn Danza Park to Sawmill Creek Park (21:22, 4.56 miles), the site of the Sprint map, as well as some score controls off the edge of the sprint map. The score controls were likely better to get on bike, in conjunction with the ones to the west on the Tomas Dixon map, but I decided that this was going to be part of the run portion of the event.



So, I changed into trainers (included in the 21:22 above) and went off to get controls 132, 131, 130, 129, 128, 127. Not too exciting, but I did get an idea of being on the B&A paved trail, and I may come back and ride that a bit more sometime.

After a 2:24 rest, and a bottle of water (Thank you, Ted!!), I went off to do the Sprint. Love sprint maps, and this was a fun little course. I felt sluggish but did manage to kick it in to finish under 10 minutes per km. Yay!

Transition and driving time was 19:15...pretty slow considering that the next park was just 1.75 miles down the road...this park is where people hang out to watch the planes from BWI.



Picked an easy six controls, though it was not without a little error down a private road for a little bit...



Coming back, the plan was to get on the Park 100 map, but I blew past it, ending up taking an even longer ride down the private road, before turning back and getting onto the Park 100 map at control 51.

Didn't recall hearing explicitly that we needed to start at the S/F on the map, but I figured that we probably did, so I rode over there, after chatting with Amy for a minute. Did the controls, returning to the S/F, and then back to 51 to exit the map.



Fun area, though I kept thinking some private security guard was going to accost me at any minute.

With time ticking away towards the 7 PM closing time, I decided to head to the maps closest to Ted's for my finale.

Transition and drive time to Meade H.S. was 26:29 and 6.85 miles. On the was in, some deer posed for me.



I like this shot of a two headed deer.





If I had only had SI-Air, I would have had this control...as it was, I was on the wrong side of the uncrossable fence, and it was not worth going around and getting it...



Saw more deer and a big ground hog/woodchuck?? on this course.

And, despite Ted's repeated warnings, and the liberal distribution of duct tape, I likely picked up chiggers at 43 and/or 94...

Arrived at this map, just about 1/2 mile from the school, very close to 7 PM. The Lennons were just finishing up, and I was reminded of the 7 PM course closing time. I decided that since I started late, and it wasn't clear what the penalty was for being late, that I would continue on, aiming for 4 hours total, instead of 7 PM. The map looked like just too much fun to skip at this point...



Seen at 139...



At 135, in the park, the tree was surrounded by about 20 men, enjoying the little shade it offered. I waved at that one on the way by.

Off to Ted and Darcy's, finishing not only after 7 PM, but also at 4:07...

Inquire at what the overtime penalty is. Informed that there is none, unless someone else objects - not exactly fair for others, but then this was a pick your own adventure kind of day, so that works for me. :)

Final activity was to use some of the gazillion offset printed maps of Bowie and created a bridge long enough and strong enough for a matchbox car to roll over. I used four maps, three for length, and the fourth to make strips to interlace the maps together. Success!



At the awards ceremony, I was second to Kathleen on the tie break, but it looks like on the recount, I am second to the course setter instead. Works for me. :)

Thank you, Ted and Darcy! It was a blast!

Wanted to get an hour in today, but swimming had gotten a little monotonousness of late, and I don't want to get discouraged from wanting to swim, but I wanted to swim. :)

So, I settled on 250 yards at a good pace, and then with whatever time was left up to 6 minutes, I would tread water. So, 10x250, with the first and last ones being around 5:05, and the middle ones being around 4:50-5:00. Felt like I was really floating well on top of the water today, and it was a positive experience.

10x~1 minute treading water...the last few, I tried to concentrate on tightening the abs.

Indecisive day, at least related to exercise. Did get the process started to have someone help me get the upstairs bathroom freshened up - biggest issue being the really grungy shower.

Wakefield Park...tried running first but lungs not happy. So walked until I got to 2 miles, then ran as much as I could back. That felt better, but the thought that it would feel even better if I was not so heavy kept popping into my mind. Work to be done.