Training Log Archive: Swampfox

The choice came down to routing via Bentonville or via Farmingtonville, and I decided on the latter since I liked the idea of one last run at Hawn in 2007.

A planned rest day was somewhat subverted by an invitation to go for a morning run with PG, which I happily accepted, but only after making sure the sticky blue headcups were going to be optional.

During the run I got lots of good tax tidbits like: "Don't declare deductions until you can see the whites of their eyes," and, "A centavo of tax deferred is a centavo saved," and, finally, a paraphrasing of Sherman: "Taxes are hell."

I'll have to admit I have no idea what a centavo is, but it still sounded good.

Rather than dissipating, the ominous golf troll vibe seems to be intensifying. I really prefer to forego consulting witch doctors, but that might be the wisest choice at this point.

I don't know what it is, but a somewhat ominous and alarming vibe just swept into the room. I just hope it doesn't involve some kind of troll doom or even golfing!

Possibly the mood is linked by the reports of somewhat skimpy snows from the Laramie Valley area. Snow amounts are growing slowly in the Snowies, but the latest intel from Happy Jack is that there's still not enough snow for grooming. The snow snakes must be writhing in frustration.

Intervals in the rain in the drought--hardly gets any better!

Mucho witch hazle blooming in PWF. A majority of the non-beech leaves are down now. It looks like with the New Climate if you want to run in "leaves off" conditions, it basically means a December timeframe. Amazing!

A pleasant, slightly nippy run through PWF, and for a pleasant, small world surprise, as I was running through the Turkey Run parking lot, I heard someone call my name. It turned out to be Rick Oliver, who was there with his wife and two small daughters. Quite fun to see them there!

Rick now works at the Pentagon and lives near there in Alexandria, and has two years to go before he qualifies for a retirement if he chooses. Perhaps then he will head for the west again, and look for some place where it actually still snows once in a while.

Now that T-day has been survived (barely), the next task to look forward to is Possum Trot survival. Since the weather for the Trot usually ranges to mildly abominable to full on killer Everest North Ridge extreme, and since the vegetation ranges somewhere from between industrial strength barbed wire to double extra deadly concertina fortification-like, survival can not be taken for granted. Some people thought Day 1 at the recent US Champs was a little excessively blood thirsty, but nobody heard any comments along those lines from any veteran Possum Trotter, and there's a reason for that.

But there is hope. Last year the timing of a snow/sleet/ice storm was such that passage into the greater KC area right before Possum Trot was only barely possible from some directions. If a big enough storm hits this year even just a little closer on the calendar, the timing will be perfect and no Possum Trot will be possible.

C • Not lookin' like it. 2

In contrast to yesterday, there was no Storamoo available for running with (I think he said he was going to be off tagging or something like that, whatever that means), and it was much colder out. Excellent pound cake weather.

Wtih Storamoo in PWF. Balmy, no rain. Not even any sign of rain, or any cold front either.

Pretty hot dim-sum warm for November, if you ask me. But a beautiful day for a nice pre T-day run, so no complaints uh-uh. Leaves were drifting down in droves.

C • Happy Thanksgiving!! 5

PWF. Pretty nice day to be out running, and I saw not a single soul on the trails. It amazes me to see how little use a good sized park like this and proximate to so many people ends up getting! My dream would be to budget monies for parks in suburbia for land acquisitions so that they could simultaneously 1) expand in size, and 2) reduce the number of commuters commuting.

C • I was thinking of running i... 15

I'm looking outside, and here in Northern Virginia at 5:14, it is already totally dark. Just imagine how bad it must be as you move further north. This is just so obviously wrong, and it may even be some form of a diabolical evil. It ought to be at least 6:14, and whoever it is who makes up the rules about when the clocks change and in what direction they get changed needs to replaced by a sensible human being or other sentient life form.

No wonder markets have been heading south. People think the traders are all freaked out by the sub-prime and credit mess, but what really is happening is the traders are just looking out their windows in the late afternoon and are saying: "Oh my god, why is it so dark already!" And then of course they hit the panic buttons and sell everything in sight.

That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it! ; )

The only way to fight this horridness is to drink some coffee, and that's what I'm doing.

Local QOC event at Pohick Bay. Didn't recognize many contours, and I don't think many of them recognized me either. No Stora Moo, but lots of folks present suffering from the dreaded Attackpoint crud. Was hoping for pizza at #19 (the earthwall) or maybe even the ever ebullient Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders but was greeted by a gully instead.

PWF in the fall is now at last looking like PWF in the fall, with full leaf colors on display. Some people were thinking that locally summer was going to run directly into spring, but I reckon not. This has got to be a couple of weeks late.

At last fall in PWF is looking and feeling like fall!

Sun in trout moon is three.

KM.

C • US Champs 6

Re-fueled after running with a delicious Pepsico beverage of Appalachian derivation which accompanied a perfectly sized serving of exquisite Torino chocolate.

C • the finest chocolate and... Dew... 9

Ran around Reston--probably came close to doubling the amount of running I've done this year on pavement, in just this one run!

It's fascinating to see that the vast majority of the deciduous trees are still predominantly green. Maybe in a few more years they will have to re-classified as semi-evergreen, if the climate keeps warming up?

I think I saw more people today than live in the entirety of Wyoming. Nothing against people of course, but some open spaces with big views are nice sometimes too.

Upper legs were very sore/stiff from yeasterday, so took a long warmup to do the best I could to try to loosen them up. And, thankfully, it had good effect. Even though my legs were still sore during the race, otherwise it felt like I was running almost normally--which was a tremendous difference from yesterday.

Quite satisfied in all respects with today's run, especially when compared to yesterday. My legs didn't clamp/cramp down today, so that meant it was a whole lot more fun physically and I could actually run at something near race pace, whereas yesterday that was impossible. And my orienteering was very clean. I just had two little swings out in the forest when I ended up very near the ring and couldn't quite see the contour details I needed to go directly to the control. I might have lost a little time relative to other runners on the leg to the last rootstock control when I decided to slow up a good bit and go at the control very deliberately for last five or six hundred meters to the control, since it looked like the kind of control that could be easy to miss with a big associated penalty for recovery.

Overall, given the forest conditions and personal circumstances, it was probably about as good a race as I was capable of on the day.

Also overall, I thought QOC did a tremendous job with these championships and I will here single out Nadim for some special thanks and praise, as it's my understanding that he stepped in after the original Meet Director decided to quit, and that he did a tremendous amount of work personally to make the weekend come together so well. Simply a superlative effort, at least from one competitor's standpoint. It was a good weekend for US orienteering for all kinds of reasons.

C • Thanks! 1

Day 2 Blue - Splits

I knew from yesterday at the model that my legs were likely going to be a problem, and took a long warmup in hopes of trying to get my legs ready to go.

US Champs, Day 1, one big miss; not able to run at anything approaching race pace because of leg cramping. But at least I was able to get around and finish. Thought the course was an excellent and appropriate championship level challenge and the mapping was quite high quality of what is very tough-to-map area. High marks to the Quantico Team today!

Day 1 Blue - Splits

Event: US Champs
 

Model, US Champs