Training Log Archive: bl

Calling it a rest day. Came home from work & took a nap and decided to give in to any impulse "to go do something". Hacking away in the middle of the night can do that. Cancelled my long awaited dentist appt today - can't be in the chair with a tickle in the throat, fighting to suppress. And a visit to the dentist with an obvious cold would be frowned upon by the staff, I'm sure.

When we lived Leverett 20+ yrs ago, I went to a dentist appt with a cold. When he put back the chair, my nose plugged up as he proceeded to go to work, occasionally rinsing my mouth with copious water. Memorable. Today's was only a 'prophy', however.

Spring-like day inspired a visit to Bear Brook. Parked at park entrance & took Mile Long Rd. to its end. Had the 1975 BB map (used by me at a 6/1679 meet!) which proved invaluable. Finally got to the UNO 2011 A meet map - by then had spent nearly 30’ in arrival. Mile Long Rd. had ice over much of it but it was also soft ice - no falls but some delicate ice dancing. Orienteered on the most northern portion of the 2011 map and then made my way back on the Catamount Trail, along Catamount Brook for a portion, then over the hill to the NW & back down to Mile Long Rd. The unnamed hill felt quite solitary. I don’t believe I’ve been there for at least ten years. Woods were mostly hardwood there which is to say light, almost bright for BB. Could see quite a distance and the leaves flattened by the recently departed snow cast a strange semi-gloss light. The 40 year old trail scheme had changed little, the boulders hadn't budged and, at 1/15, are the smallest of the small for an O map. A few new clearings and small trails were about the sum - except omitted boulders and 40 yr old contour interpretation.

An invigorating visit, the kind that one can find on a fine early spring day. Completed a traverse of the 6th decade yesterday. This was a good start to the 7th.


Catamount Brook Cascade with the iPhone. Needed the other camera for comparison. The iPhone camera can do lots, in any event.

C • Congrats! 6

Nottingcook with map & compass. Went thru Hope, bounced off Peaslee Estates (houses growing, trees going kind of encounter). Very little snow. Warm, sunny, pleasant early spring kind of weather. Nice to be relating a map to terrain - definitely thick woods in quite a few places & contours that don't make constant contact easy. Think it actually can be considered orienteering training.

A cold found me, not sure how/why. Haven't done anything to attract attention. A sore throat seems almost unfamiiar but I am reminded.

SPS wander, 50F+ day. Down to Turkey Pond & along the trail initially as the woods seemed pretty clear. Left the shoreside for brown woods but they didn't stay brown - more white & a lot more wet, a lot of dodging. Surprised to see that my course had taken me to a bight still on the shore of Turee. Made a turn & headed in a new direction, then hit a path & followed that back to the road I came in on.

Crazy weather with considerable thunder & lightning between 2-3am. A real downpour, too.

Morning mist, warm air over cold surface.

At Y. A miserable, wet, freezing rain day.

Treadmill stuff but not much.

Did try skate ever so briefly to see what this latest 1" of snow might offer. It looked OK when I took Mocha for a walk first thing but when I returned about 2 hrs later, the rain had settled the snow too much.

From NHH at noon hour, first time in years and much missed but parttime work plays out differently. Saw David Z outside of Cimo's - someone I had not seen in about 3 years. David & Diane and I used to run at noon together from NHH 3+ years ago so this was indeed a coincidence.

Local loop after work. Spring-like again. Heavy thighs, walked some.

310XT tells me I have a 19' update all too often. And just now, 2 nights consecutively. Can't figure out why that would be. I've updated maybe 4 times in the past 6-8 wks. Time to pay attention to update # and details. I can't believe a bonafide need for such regular updating.

C • update? 6

Covered maybe a mile, something like 150 yds back & forth maybe 12-14 times. No poles, good balance and propulsion exercise. Last time scrounging for opportunity. What next in the way of snow precipitation.

C • Last time? 5

BHS-BMS loop once. Went to BHS to see if there was any utilizable snow on the edge of the fields.

Concord neighborhoods, went searching for the streets Jen & I walked when we were canvassing for Sanders.

Around MIT campus returning from Mattapoisett. 60F today and many, many people along the river and on the campus. Heard cheering inside the MIT field house, entered & enjoyed some time watching the NE div 3 Mens' Indoor champs. Lots of energy, noise-excitement, chaos - people crossing the track all the time etc. Cheered for my alma mater, which had the first place finisher in the 5k, 13:55 (think I heard)...200m track, lots of laps and pick up the pace at the end. Flashback 48 yrs or so, and I might have seen me at the meet. It was easily mild enough to have held an outdoor meet today. Saw one thin clad from Bates walking outside in bare feet.

Lots of SE expressway traffic, Storrow etc but worth the return thru Boston.
Not much snow left here and virtually none south of NH-MA border.

Spring precursor in Boston, walking around the Boston Convention center, awaiting 1pm entrance to boat show.

Drive to Mattapoisett, visit w/ Colleen & Jim, night aboard, not cold like last visit.

BHS in am. Measly weekly mileages over the winter. The way it goes, que sera, it will have to be. Less running than other winters.

Two efforts at skate ski today. The first at BHS on the way to work. The surface that had the earliest light was ok but small. Went to Trinity Baptist Church parking lot for lunch with the paper. I could see the Memorial Field fields - from a distance, flat and snow-covered for sufficient part. So went there after work. More “ice scapades", all fun. Some good stretches - tried inside the track after climbing the fence but it was not as good as it looked. As a matter of fact nothing was as good as it looked.

A young woman got dropped off as I was leaving to ski. She was wearing a Concord Nordic sweater. She disappeared on skis somewhere having left her ski kit stuff behind so I knew she was making do of it. Did not see her. Wished we’d had a chat about the prospects. Did about 10 hills near parking, off the watch.

Two walks with Mocha at the brush dump - icy but made do there too. The 5pm moon was about 3/4ths.

SloGo from Winant parking up Fisk, left on Little Pond and left on Long Pond. Sunny & mild, felt like a day in early spring. Surprised to see that it was nearly
4 miles.

Stopped at BHS on way home - kids were skiing on a smaller oval, the larger having slush spots.

Shovelling & Y time.

Odd duck type day - changed to rain, wind and hi 40s. We had about 3-4” snow with eventual rain that made a crust last night. Tried classic on an untracked trail behind Audubon late morning but the crust nixed it. Then went to S&W to buy universal glide wax. Noted the $4800 Farley 9.8 Fatboy bike for sale (as well as the $900 Rossingnol alpine skis). A very rainy pm, fog too.

Cardio & weights around 4pm. Entered the California A meet next month.
The website photos beckoned!

Morning mist, warm air over cold surface.

BHS in the mid-PM - went to see what was going on. One field had been groomed and about half the surface was good - the other half was on the soft side. 50% w/o poles. Managed 3 loops with the watch off. Calm day that started blue and went gray before long.

SPS to try classic. Fields, woods and Turkey Pond provided a pleasant contrast to skiing on an oval. More kids out skiing there than I’ve seen before. T got to high teens and seemed normal cold. Flurries, rain tomorrow in willy nilly New England. Interesting that the "wise guy" watch has a heart rate for me when it really had no way of knowing. Or is there something I don't know.

Possibly our coldest day ever though it's been cold now & then over 20 years here. T was -16F in the morning & surely colder to the north & west. Radio said Watertown, NY was -37. Bright & sunny in the afternoon. Went to the Y & saw 45 after with Beth at Red River. It was a thought-provoking movie, the theme being deception leading to the breaking of bonds between two people, long married.

C • ..and now it´s getting milder... 4

I see this.
This was additional tonight.

Started keeping track of which update Garmin is referring to. I agree that it must be a glitch and need to call. I've seen these screens too many times.

I use the ant stick, open Garmin Express, finally get a sync, go to Garmin Express & download the gpx to a file. It works smoothly enough this way except for this problem. This is the only avenue I could find that worked. There was a thread on this maybe 4 months ago.

Token exercise at BHS, tried the skate oval. Snow flurries the other day had smoothed the surface from the last visit but the glide was not very good, stop & go. Very few new tracks since I was there a few days ago. The wind was whipping on a desolate Turee shortly before sunset. It was 5F at 5p on the way home. About as cold as winter gets in this part of NH.

Morning was NHH time & the middle of the day was taken with an iPhone workshop at the Apple store in Manchester. Nothing like being introduced to so many facets by expertise. Learned quite a few essential or useful things.

Cold day, gravitated toward gym after work.

Then the treadmill. Got a bit into it, and got the speed up to 8.5 briefly to see how hard it was - and it was on the hard side. Too much of that would likely lead to hamstring casualty but good fitness training if not.

From Town Pond on waxless skis. Pretty good SM-packed trail for the most part. Quite a few wet spots where SMs broke thru the covering ice. Finally took the skis off crossing Arnold. By then, I'd crossed more than enough hardtop w/o removing them and what remained wasn't worth it. It was a wintry day with occasional snow showers.

BHS early afternoon - snow on soft side. Had hoped for better but SM tracks, however groomed over, made for too many up and downs or linear streaks occasionally deep - and hard to ski across diagonally. A shame that abusive snowmobile types tore up the surface - with figure 8s and circles - what snow there was on the fields before new cover. About as bad as (dog) walkers on classical tracks with the occasional poop! Authoritative signs and chains across possible entry points would seem 'necessary' for the nordic team to have what they should have.

Kimball Pond solace

Went to BHS to see what was on way home from work - it was in process of being groomed. Removed my skis from their bag but they were the waxless classics fm Bear Brook a few days ago, duh. So did some of that, went out on the white expanse of Turee. Spoke with the groomer, Clete B, whom I knew from CH GI years ago. No school on primary day.

Went back to BHS just before dark, T under 20F. Had longer, better skis. Glide was not as good as expected on the squeaky snow with universal glide wax. Snow was not packed as well as expected either.

From north Concord - windy & cold at the start & I did not have optimal hat or gloves. The wind-accentuated cold caught me by surprise. Whimped out for the most part - had 4 in mind but called it quits at 2. Somedays are like that. Went to Gibson's to read. Best thing that happened today was seeing the 12 turkeys who came by to sample what the birds had spilled from the feeders.

Went to the cinema for Superbowl Sunday, maybe for the 12th year. Have a list somewhere - started with Titanic. Last night's choice,The Finest Hour, wasn’t our first but the story was interesting, a USCG rescue off Cape Cod in a 1952 February gale. There was too much Disney-Hollywood (3D too) but the fact that it was based on a true story made it both remarkable and memorable. Then today, one reads of a mammoth cruise ship off C. Hatteras in a February gale in modern times - and also wonders what's with all that state-of the-art weather watching and predicting capability.

Went to Kimball Pond for a hike with Beth & Mocha - not sure how far M would be able to go and we were pleasantly surprised - she was always ahead of us. We were stopped at the beaver dam-trail crossing. Surprisingly, it was too flooded (with snow as well) to try, esp given Mocha’s aspiration issue. So we walked back - first time that has happened in my maybe 10 visits. Walked on the pond the last third, plenty of tracks to provide reassurance.

Visited BHS mid-morning but no grooming there.

Visit to Bear Brook after 5-6" snow yesterday. Around 35F. Not surprisingly, quite a few people out. BB looks particularly thick when boughs are full of snow. Pondered the time when Beth & I skied on Smith Pond & climbed the bank by the lean to - must be 10 years ago.

Y after work. Snow starting early this morning - 100% about face from yesterday's 50F to today's winter wonderland, 25F by late pm. No time for a planned jog, instead bought a new cell phone (finally submitted to iPhone affliction, presumably followed by addiction) after some 9 weeks without any phone.

C • Yes, but who provides your ... 7

Started from Iron Works pkng. No energy to speak of, maybe 3 hrs sleep last night, so jog-walk devolved to just walk. Had an impulse to leave the road & made my way into the Turkey River watershed. Had been there about 5 years ago with Diane. Today, flooded areas, no place to cross and had to retrace. There were many streamers along the river banks but I couldn't figure out why.

Cold, miserable, rainy all day. Sat in the car after work finishing the paper, opted out of the Y and went to BAM to read sailing magazines in which the sun shone and the water beckoned.

In east Concord - came upon a nice city park for parking. Started east on Pembroke Rd. Saw 2 cell towers high on a far hill & thought I'd head that way for some adventure. They soon disappeared but I crossed Sheep Davis to North Pembroke Rd where I’d been before and then by large sand and gravel pits, one I’d run thru the only other time there. Decided I wasn’t going to get to the towers in the 4 miles allotted, entered a gravel pit and headed for the hills there. Gravel pits of that size are unworldly - there was a monster truck and excavator and huge piles of crushed stone. Lots of soft mud at first, then a climb to the high point, then departed thru really crappy woods back to N. Pembroke Rd. Right thigh felt a bit charlie horsed & right leg ever so slightly uncoordinated around mile 4, so did some stop & go.

Blither...

Going back on N. Pembroke, a car passed at speed and next thing, a loud crash and some car parts flying, about 100 yds ahead and just coming into view. Fully expected to see a seriously injured person in a flipped car. Two cars had also stopped. Got there, no car anywhere, not in woods and no drop off. One of the drivers said the car had made a left 100 yds ahead. Indeed, there were drips on the road indicating that. I took a jog down it, could see the car and driver parked in a warehouse parking lot. He was out & looking at the damage and not apparently injured. I suspected an impaired driver & did not go any further toward the car. He got back in & drove by me, the right front mangled, car sounds of scraping, the right rear tire near flat & wobbling. A couple that had stopped earlier came by & were about to call the police. The car went L on N. Pembroke, toward the traffic & likely interaction with police. The driver, a man in 30s or 40s, was red-faced - as in intoxicated. Not a dull run.

Not a dull meeting last night either re NH Fish and Game public hearing re a proposed bobcat trapping season. A full house, maybe 300 at the State House, maybe 95% opposed. 11 F&G commissioners, per state law - “each must be an active outdoorsman holding a resident fishing, hunting or trapping license in at least five of the past ten years”. There were very strong comments against. I can’t imagine their approving this. Their funding is at peril with a “yes". One voiced threat was to get opposed landowners (one petition had 10,000 signatures) to post their land “no hunting” for deer, bear and turkey for backlash against F&G. Very interesting to see what comes and also to see the inside of the SH - many old paintings, flags and murals. Small state, sort of large history.

Two Stoney Brook laps. No hamstring complaint. Not sure what the episode of 10 days ago was about - a one time thing so it seems. Need miles with an A meet next month. It was near 50F today - dealt with two burn piles which felt good.