Training Log Archive: Swampfox

There was some nice breeze out of the west, so I opted to emphasize bike riding and rode assertively straight into the wind. I must have been riding fairly strongly, because I passed a fair number of cars that were poking along, and even two motorcycles, though the dudes on the motorcycles were pretty fat so maybe that was why. Good ride.

Ran afterwards, and caught the super fine super moon. Though at least around here the King Tides were a disappointment, as I didn't seen any signs of a high tide or even catch a whiff of the smell of sea water.

O' at Remarkable Flats; thought elk season had started (it has) so went out in the middle of the day, which worked out fine--I didn't see any hunters out and about, or even driving around. Another brilliant day, with a little more breeze than we've had for the past week.

Busy day at work today, and that meant exercising got pushed back some. Biked first on what was yet another very nice day, and with a nice bit of breeze from the east--in contrast to the last several rather breezeless days.

Then I headed up to Happy Jack for some trails, and with regular time now guiding the sun down an hour earlier, by the time I stepped out of my truck, it was already just about dusk.

But no matter. I didn't have anything more than running easy planned, and had a more than half full moon to light the way. Didn't see a single mountain biker, which is funny--I hardly ever see any mountain bikers out after dark, whereas once snow arrives, I hardly ever see any snowbikers *except* after dark.

Then I came home, and while re-fueling (dinner) and perusing the detritus of the election in the NY Times, this caught my eye:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/sports/football/...

For some context, Rock Hill is where I grew up, and Northwestern is where I went to high school--twice! (The high school and a junior high were constructed side-by-side at the same time, and while neither got finished quite in time for the opening of the school year, the high school was close enough for classes to get started, but the junior high was not. The district solution? The new high school was adding a second high school to town. So what would have been the Northwestern senior class stayed at Rock Hill High and grades 9-11 went to the brand new Northwestern, along with my 8th grade class. By the next year the junior high was finished, and my class went there for our 9th grade, and then went back to Northwestern for grades 10-12. More than anyone ever wanted to know about that--ha!)

And not only was Coach Echols the football coach at Northwestern, for that first year he was also the tennis coach (I played tennis.) He didn't know one iota about tennis and was strictly filling in the gap in an apparent act of total desperation (he was also overall in charge of Athletics for the high school), but he did know something about weight rooms. During our pre-season, we spent *a lot* of time in the weight room. Which is how swampfox got so burly that to this day it's all but impossible for me to squeeze into a t-shirt that is anything smaller than, say, Medium.

I remember Coach Echols would frequently tell us: "Men, you have to maintain." To this day I'm still not quite sure what that was supposed to mean. But that's the kind of thing he would say rather than something like trying to get a higher percentage of your first serves in, or something specific to tennis.

The football team was only mediocre while I was there, but one guy in the class ahead of me did go on to the NFL (Rick Sanford, played for the New England Patriots), for the first to do so from Northwestern.

Until I read the article linked above, I had no idea Rock Hill was considered to be such a football hotbed, and didn't even know Jadeveon Clowney was from Rock Hill, since usually in the drafts and subsequent mentions in the NFL you hear which university such-and-such played for, but not as often where they came from.

And none of the above has anything at all with the damn election! ; )

The weather gods dialed in another exquisite day of weather. Nobody objected and I certainly didn't. A t-shirt was remarkably fine for running in the sun, and not near enough once it got past dusk.

I went back to the course I started yesterday, and began all over again from the start, and got an earlier start in the afternoon. But not that much earlier, and I judged I could finish up the whole thing, as long as I pushed the pace along. Which I did--both things. Navigated well even though my concentration was wandering now and then, and just managed to finish up with enough light to still read the map. The coolest thing was seeing a bull moose out in the big open area where the Twin Boulders are physically located.

I was out doing some biking earlier, and really the exceptionally nice weather and sunniness helped in some measure to assuage the feelings about the events of last night.

The stretch of beautiful weather extended another day. Biked, and then tried to squeeze in an O' run at Twin Boulders before it got too dark, and I only made it through 40% of the course before I couldn't read the map anymore. Ran a piece of the nearby Enduro Trail back, which would have been easy enough anyway, but with the illumination from the 1/2 full moon, there was plenty of light to see by.

On the way out, I stopped briefly at a creek, which turned out to be a mistake because as soon as I opened the truck door, there was an overwhelming smell of something very dead. I couldn't see what it was or where the odor was coming from, but it had to be pretty close, and my guess is either it was coming from a gut pile or else a shot animal that a hunter didn't find.

Removed another hedge plant; I think that makes 4 this fall. If nothing else, it serves as a good indication that my shoulder and upper arm have recovered from the bike crash and surgery, as getting one of these things out of the ground involved some real grunt work. And in fact it now seems to me the shoulder and arm feel almost completely normal now (except for some numb areas from the surgery) and with just as much strength and range of motion as before. Quite a satisfactory outcome in that sense.

Another unusually nice day, and almost no breeze either. The extended weather forecast shows more of the same coming up--very odd.

Biked and then ran, choosing to run down along Pole Creek and taking a higher trail back to finish the loop. I saw a bull moose across the creek at the Devil's Playground, and noticed it had only one antler. I'm not sure if this is when moose beginning shedding their antlers, and while it seems early to me, I guess proof is in the pudding. I suppose it's also possible you could lose an antler in a contest with another moose for dominion.

Did a longish bike ride north towards Bosler, mostly against a pretty decent, steady headwind, and when I had gone long enough timewise, turned back home, for about 2 1/2 hours of riding. Then didn't tarry long at home before heading up to run trails at Happy Jack, since it was already nearly 4 o-clock. When snow arrives it won't matter so much that it gets dark an hour earlier, since it's pretty easy to see well enough after dark with snow on the ground.

There were more scattered clouds in the sky today than either of the last 2 days (which were essentially cloudless), but still quite mild and really fine for November, I opted to put more time in on the bike and less on the trails, getting out late enough up at Happy Jack to do most of the running after sunset. Didn't lose light until about 6:30 though, so it all worked out satisfactorily, and another day of not getting shot. Last day I can run this late and still have light, with the time changing back to normal time tonight.

I hope folks realize I'm just joking about not getting shot--in terms of the actual risk, which I rate as well below the risk of getting hit by lightning during the summer. Over the years, I've met lots of hunters around here, and uniformly they have been friendly and have struck me as being responsible. I do take some sensible measures about when and where I run, and what colors of clothing I wear. For instance, I don't run in wooded areas off trail late in the day, just knowing that is the best time to be hunting (plus dawn) as well as when the most hunters are likely to be out, plus the dimming light and growing shadows lead to some increased risk of mis-identifications.

I worry *much* more about folks who are out to just shoot their firearms and who are not hunting. I have often seen irresponsible shooting (for instance, shooting at a target with no good backstop) and we have had several "near miss" incidents in recent years in the area. When I am out running on our maps and I hear shooting going on, I steer well clear no matter where the course is going, and try to estimate the direction of shooting and where bullets might be going.

O' at Remarkable Flats, mid-day to minimize chances of running into hunters. Full sun, very little breeze, and just beautiful and beautifully mild--perfect for what I was doing. About 10 kms with 26 controls was the prescription for the day.

If fall was like this every year, I'd speculate a lot more people would be living in SE Wyoming than presently do. Winter will show up sooner or later, I'm sure.

C • Saturday is only the second... 2

Last Saturday, after I finished the last little bit of map I was working on and as I was about to leave, I turned back around and took a second look at that last little bit, and was unhappy to see the relationships of the features weren't as good as I had thought. It wasn't *bad*, and it really wasn't that important either, as anyone running through the area (maybe 70 x 80m) probably wouldn't notice anything amiss, and probably even a control on one of the few features in there would have worked. The problem was there wasn't enough supporting detail on the base map in the little piece to work from, and I hadn't gotten things nailed down in the right places--and I could see that, but it wasn't easy to see exactly what was wrong and how to fix it. So....good enough.

But it nagged at me over the ensuing days, and so I took a look at Google and Bing imagery and decided I there was enough vegetation detail from that which I could use to augment the base map with, and give me several nearby features which hopefully I could use to better fix my position(s) in the area.

And, with the augmented base map, I went back in the afternoon today, late enough that I almost bagged it as soon as I arrived, figuring I would be running into deep shadows in the forest and that with nice weather for the next few days, it would be better to choose another day. I decided though that I would give it a try anyway, and if it wasn't a quick fix, then it wouldn't matter, and the 20 minutes of jogging each way would just be part of my running for the day.

As it turned out, with the additional vegetation details it was pretty easy and quick to make some adjustments, and this time when I finished mapping and walked back through, things looked better.

Of course, the best thing of all was another day out in the forest, and not getting shot by any hunters.

After mapping, I kept on running until dusk. It was clear out with full sun all day long, and became quite mild by mid-afternoon, after beginning the day with temps at 21F or colder. Despite the very mild conditions, frost lingered in shaded areas on northern slopes all day long, and today was the first day I saw any rim ice in several of the beaver ponds I ran by. When the sun went down, it began cooling off immediately and sharply--the first day it's done that this season. It's really late for this, and overall fall continues to be unbelievably mild out.

My streak of running every day this November so far went really well, and I got in a good one with light graupel mixed in with teensy rain--which kept things from overheating nicely. While running I considered the question of whether Clinton has vowed to never use email again. Semaphore or even just plain old smoke signals might be better choices going forward.

Looks like Kansas did a good job of tightening its grip on the #1 spot in the Bottom 25 Rankings, though why on earth they would tempt fate by attempting a field goal if there was even a smidgeon of a chance of making it is beyond me.