Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Someone must have reported what I wrote about yesterday to the wind, because today the wind did not mess around and was at full throttle much of the day. As an example, a quick trip to the Post Office on my bike, which usually takes about 9 minutes, took over 15 minutes thanks to a very fine headwind.

The wind carried with it a brief snow squall, so brief and so light that if you wanted to perform Yowsa! you would have had to rush out within 10 minutes of the snow squall passing, and even then any implement of removal larger than a teaspoon would have been overkill.

For the first time this year, the clouds had a more summerish than winterish aspect to them, and snow thunder seemed possible.

Today closed out what was a very nice and beautiful week--nearly all sun, except for one day--and it felt more like early spring than late winter. February will go down as a month of above average temps for nearly the entire month; January and December were the opposite, with temps consistently well below average for nearly the entire time (especially December, which was more than evident in the electric bill!)

I skied at the end of the day, while the highlight was biking in the early afternoon. I saw several other bikers, all of whom were clothed from head to toe, with hardly any skin showing except for a little bit around the eyes and nose. I'm not sure what was up with that, since it was a pretty toasty 50F or so.

The wind was up some, but not not truly voracious, so I tried to time some intervals of harder efforts during some of the bigger gusts, which I could not by timing how fast cows were blowing by. Maybe we'll get some bigger wind before winter closes out; one can always hope!

Yesterday skiing was still very good. Today was very good in a different way--good if you like spring skiing conditions. Things were starting to re-freeze at the end of the day, and overall I would have to give the edge to biking over the skiing today. It was really beautiful out and even a jacket wasn't needed for the bike.

Very nice skiing--crisp temps, and the corduroy had some firm "bite" and an icy, fast feeling finish to it. The skiing was so good I ended up skiing longer and skipped running afterwards as time was short in order to make the basketball game.

Nice skiing, a bit chillier like winter and not so much like spring--really a good thing, since it's a bit too early for spring to be showing up to good effect--and the only downside was no wind. What happened to all the wind??? It's a very mysterious force.

Many days of Big Winds last week decimated the forest at Happy Jack and left the trails strewn with enough debris so that the trails consisted of roughly 1 part snow and 2 parts pine needles, pine cones, branches, and bark bits. Tough waxing conditions for those who bother.

But in the afternoon today some trail refreshing snows arrived, about 2" worth--maybe a little more--and even if there were cone objects lurking beneath the new surface, at least it still looked nice.

I skipped running and skied longer instead, about 2 1/2 hrs worth.

I did not see any drones.

C • But did they see you? 2

On the 48th day of the year at last a new record high was set. 55F was the new mark, and what was remarkable was that it was set on a day that was mostly overcast, with practically no periods of full sun.

Came close to setting another record high for the date, but clouds all morning long spoiled the chances of that. Close to record high winds, so there was that, though!

Many trees were blown down up top (and a few in town, too), and the ski trails were a mixture of one part needles, one part twigs and pine cones, and one part snow. Given the mildness, the snow was moist. In other words, very fine spring conditions! At the end of the day, and right when I was switching from skiing to running, the weather underwent a dramatic change and a fierce snowstorm swept in. Fearing an equally dramatic change in the road conditions, I cut the run short and hustled on back home before the roads froze up.

There's nothing like a good study. Some people will ask: "How can you be so interested in all these good studies?" In answer to that, there is the fallback observation that "if you've seen one good study, you haven't seen them all."

A good example was the study reported in disparate sources this week about research looking into the effects of various types of exercise on the brain at the cellular level. Since there are obvious problems in extracting cellular brain material from human subjects using the usual chainsaw or tomahawk laboratory methods, rosstophers were substituted in as the test subjects. This is considered to be scientifically valid because the main difference between rosstophers and humans is the noted tendency of rosstophers to engage in clustering behaviors when in the presence of certain catalysts such as the vuvuzela; otherwise, the rosstopher genome and the human genome are essentially identical.

In the study, rosstophers were split into test groups which underwent different exercise regimes of: distance running, weight lifting, intense interval training, and time trialing. A control group was set aside and fed sweets and equipped with powerful head lights which made them look oddly alienish.

The time trialing group ultimately had to be dropped from the study because unfortunately the test subjects wisened up, realizing their craniums were going to be subjected to tomahawking, and would dash off into nearby wet marshes and hide behind scattered pine trees.

The results derived from the remaining groups were quite surprising. The weight lifting group showed almost no observable changes at the cellular level, though, while it was not specifically part of the study, researchers were able to anecdotally note that vocalizations within this group devolved into increasingly frequent amounts of non-verbal grunts and moans.

The interval training group also didn't show any cellular level changes, but intriguingly they became highly focused on distances and their stop watches, to the point where all of the test subjects lost interest in eating, which raised hopes of the possibility of a promising new weight loss technique. However, enthusiasm for the technique waned considerably as the test subjects one after another went on to die of emaciation.

The distance running group, however, exhibited profound changes at the cellular level, which researchers related to dramatic improvements such as the ability to manage resources and develop sophisticated tactical scheming in games of skill such as Seven Wonders.

Fascinating stuff indeed!

C • Science 6

Very windy today. While biking, I came across a tree that had been blown into a road in the middle of town. Police were arriving on the scene, so I did not feel compelled to hop off my bike and move the tree myself. Not that I could have moved the tree myself anyway.

Up top, many more trees blew down. Once again, I did not move any of them myself. I think that was the right call. I was happy they fell on trails and not on me!

C • No chainsaw? 3

Went up to Happy Jack with Kris at what I reckoned would be about the time racing activities would be over. They weren't over entirely, but most racers were starting to head back to the very full parking lot when we got up there.

Saw racer X8A7's car, but no sign of X8A7 himself. Later, while I was running back at home, I realized I should have tried to put myself in X8A7's boots and ask myself what would he be doing post-race. Then the answer was so obvious: double pole intervals on Summit Loop! I have no idea why I didn't think of that while I was up top.

Suitably windy, and the wind got stronger as the sun got lower.

Another day of balminess--temps in the high 40s. Much winter in and around town was melting and heading quickly downstream, bound for Louisiana and laden with winter fines. Conditions at Happy Jack were transformed and re-frozen fast. Running wasn't bad either, though the highlight of the day was a two hour ride on the bike back home. No signs of any presidential nominees yet, so situation remains overall normal.

After a colder than average January, and a first colder week in February that continued the trend, things have changed. Monday was a little bit above the seasonal average, with snow conditions still in full winter mode. Tuesday was a bit milder, and by the end of the day trails had hardened somewhat. Today was milder still, almost balmy, way up into the 40s, and up top there were patches of glazed snow for the first time this season. So the skiing is no longer quite is good, unless you like it fast and re-frozen. On the other hand, who is going to complain about the sunshine? It will not be me.

I went out for a longish bike ride (for me, given that it is early February) at mid day, then skied, then ran--the trifecta! From a stealth running trail bordering the ski trails, I thought I spotted the elusive racer X8A7 finishing up after sunset--though the racer in question was zipping by so fast it was hard to be certain.

Watched the Big Game yesterday with Kris. It was hard to concentrate, because the black beast was also there, and since Kris wasn't serving any doggy nachos, and with the black beast being a voracious carnivore and me being the closest available target....well, good thing Kris kindly let me use her Norwegian bubble wrap blanket to stay warm with.

After a Big Game is won and done, I like to reflect a little bit on what I saw. A lot was written afterwards about how Beyonce' won the Super Bowl, and I was wondering which one was Beyonce'. Ha! Just kidding! Actually, though, I really *was* wondering which one Coldplay was.

Then, after I am finished reflecting, I like to peruse a few entirely random newspapers to see what others thought of the Big Game, and see if they had the same thoughts I did. Usually they don't.

The first entirely random newspaper I looked at was the Denver Post. The Denver Post seemed pretty happy about the Big Game and was filled with congratulatory articles about how great it had all been. Though Beyonce' never came up, which seemed strange at first.

Okay. Then, the next entirely random paper I checked was the Charlotte Observer. There, the tone and direction of the articles was slightly different. There were about 43 articles focusing on Newton's post-game interview and what a disaster it had been. I guess when it comes to analysis of the post-game interview, nobody does it better than the Charlotte Observer.

Finally, I checked one last entirely random newspaper, which turned out to be the Lawrence Journal-World. Curiously, there was not one reference to the Big Game. I realize this is Chiefs territory, but, really? Not even one teensy article about the Big Game??? How can they even claim to be a newspaper??? On the other hand, there was a fascinating article about how KU Basketball Coach Bill Self uses various letters written by Phog Allen to Bob Dole as a motivational tool to get Jayhawk basketball players to hit the offensive glass harder. How these presumably really boring letters could be of any possible motivational value to a bunch of young basketball players is hard to understand--but that is the genius of a coach like Bill Self.

After that, I went skiing and did a little running, too.

C • Confused 1

People were opting to go into the parking lot and parking across the road in about equal numbers, and I chose to the safer option of parking across the road, too.

Trail condition were very good, if soft. I think there's more snow up there now than I have ever seen here in mid-winter.

Went up to go skiing in the mid-afternoon, and almost as soon as I got on the interstate I passed a fresh wreck--a car had hit an ice patch and spun off the highway. The conditions were perfect for badness: sunny earlier in the day but now clouded over and getting colder, lots of fresh snow, and big wind. There were many more ice patches on the road. Up top, I paused at the entrance to the parking lot, as it was clogged with snow and looked bad. I thought I could get in, but getting out? Getting out two hours later with the wind working the whole time to bring in snow reinforcements? I pulled across the highway and parked to assess things. I wanted to ski, but I also didn't want to get stuck there after skiing. In the end, it was the stop sign I was parked next to that decided me. It was shaking so violently in the wind that I started to wonder if it was even safe to be parked by it. That made me think that this was just crazy, and it would be smarter to bugle a retreat and come back another day.

I wasn't up top for very long, and it turned out that already in the bit of time the gates across the east bound lanes on the interstate had been swung shut. I was glad to get home in one piece, and subbed in a run from home in lieu of skiing.

The trails were fat with snow. Good or skiing, bad for snow biking. Good thing I was skiing!

Quite a few people I saw commented on it being cold; I can't remember so many people saying that on any other day. It wasn't so absolutely cold, rather, it was cold plus some wind with some real cut to it. By the time I was done, my face was cold, my hands were cold, and so were my feet. With all that, no surprise my skis were slow.

Yowsa! exhuberance! It was over all too soon.

Went up top to ski, only to find a scene of a landscape nearly completely overwhelmed by snow. Most barbed wire fences had disappeared. Several vehicles were in the parking lot, but remembering the parking lot horrors from after the storm last week, I decided I was not going to venture down the snow filled chute into the lot, and instead nestled behind another truck on the other side of the highway and felt fortunate to be there (there was barely any room). I made my way to the trail head to find, well, a grooming style I had never seen before. It consisted of several snowmobile passes over the trails, leaving deep furrows in the snow (in the track of the snowmobile) with huge ridges of snow cast to either side of each furrow. It was hard to discern what the point of all this activity had been, though presumably there was method to the madness. It just did not allow for much skiing in the aftermath. All I could do was use my skate equipment to shuffle along classic style. An interesting variation on skiing, still fun, but I am hoping the usual grooming techniques will be in evidence tomorrow.

There was a truly unusual amount of snow for the Laramie Range, 2' of new, I will guess, maybe more. It snows all winter long here, but in the Laramie Range the snow falls almost never come up to the kind of thing you here about in the high mountain ranges of Colorado, much less the California Sierra Nevada. No doubt when this snow starts to melt in the spring Cheyenne will experience bad floods, though at least part of the devastation will be averted because of the large Walmart distribution facility off of I-80 west of Cheyenne, which serves as something of a flood diversion works.

The weather forecast said the major winter storm was going to miss the Laramie Valley. Again? Really? Again? It just didn't seem fair.

I raised my arm and shook my fist at the sky and screamed: "Damn you weather gods, first you give us Cruz and then you take away our major winter storm!" That made me feel better for a little bit.

Then I remembered that, technically, it hadn't been the weather gods that gave us Cruz. It was Canada! Oh, Canada, how could you do this to us! I raised my arm again and shook my fist in the direction of the great white north and screamed: "Damn you Canada, first you give us Cruz, and then you take away your Tim Hortons!" Definitely not fair, but now I was feeling a little ashamed--all that cursing... I vowed I would be a saint and would not curse for the rest of the day no matter what.

Later, I drove up to ski, and as I approached the exit, I could not help smiling. There were huge snowdrifts all but entirely blocking the exit! And semi-trucks at the rest area parking lot were encased in cloaks of impenetrable ice. It was blizzard up there! It was so blizzard there were only 3 cars in the Happy Jack parking lot, and snow was blowing in so fast there were no discernible tracks anywhere. If I skied even the smallest loop, by the time I made it back around, my tracks had vanished.

And on the way home, the blizzard followed me all the way back down into town, and kept raging for hours. Man oh man! I could hardly go to sleep that night, so excited by the prospects of some excellent Yowsa! the next morning.