Training Log Archive: Swampfox

After mapping, did a semi-circumference of Vedauwoo. Saw another moose to go along with the tiny moose (must have been a yearling, because it was too large to be new born, plus no mama was around, yet it was still pretty smallish) I saw yesterday--though today's moose was of a more proper mature bull moose in size.

I have the impression Vedauwoo is kind of legendary among climbers, known for off width cracks and for being very rough on any exposed flesh that comes into contact with the rock.

Continued work at Granite Planite; rich haul from mapping today--besides the usual assortment of beer cans, I also found a penny, a fresh battery, a short handled shovel, and a very large knife just short of machete size (probably dropped there by an MS-13 gang member, I will let the White House know where they should be searching.)

Ran trails at Happy Jack and got savaged by mosquitoes. The whole time I was running I was toying around with the idea of personalized dragonfly drones that would fly along with you and autonomously destroy mosquitoes while you ran. No actual dragonflies today.

Lucky with the wind, because after zero signs of anything left after the weekend rains, the Badger Creek Fire reignited (very windy, and hot out today) and large amounts of smoke were being blown just NE of Happy Jack.

I think record highs were set both yesterday and today. Today was 92F, which passes for hot around here.

Ran trails at Pelican Bay to check out the interior trails. They're been gated off for a year+ now to everyone but maybe a very occasional Forest Service vehicle, and are deteriorating and filling in with new growth more quickly than I would have guessed. I'm downgrading the entire network inside of the gates to "large foot path" as a result of these investigations.

Warm.

Ran trails at an easy pace, mostly on part of the mountain bike series race course, going backwards against traffic. Fun seeing all the riders, most of whom I greeted by yelling: "You're really way behind!" I think they appreciated that. Quite warm today, well into the upper 80s, which is about as warm as it gets here. Saw a bull moose with already quite impressive antlers, which were still in velvet and still looked to have quite a ways to go before reaching full size. But the real highlight was seeing a dragonfly--the mosquito wars are now underway.

Intervals after mapping: 8 x 5 min + 1 x 15 min, on the old Vedauwoo road, 70s, light breeze, beautiful.

After getting the last piece of the Granite Planite basemap on my mapboard, I had envisioned a productive weekend, but it was not meant to be. Yesterday was cool, gray, windy, and some rain, while today was rain preceded and followed by numerous sprinkles, windier, and quite cool. Maybe it made it to the mid 50s in someone's oven turned on high, but otherwise a jacket felt nice. However, the wind, rain, and cool temps were a real downer for the mosquitoes, so all in all in worked out pretty well except for the mapping bit.

Ran trails and by the time my legs got warmed up good, it was already past the 2 hour mark.

I think summer is supposed to resume mildly tomorrow, but we shall see.

There's an article in the WSJ today that states the CDC has found that Lyme disease is severely unreported. A CDC spokesperson commented: "We have found that most orienteers with inexplicably slow minutes per kilometer times are probably suffering from Lyme disease rather than general ineptitude as previously thought. Though it is a fact that some orienteers are just not very good."

The article also reports that a research group operating out of Baileytown, NY, has been accumulating data which suggests that some Lyme disease could possibly be linked to bites from the deer tick. However, most health authorities continue to believe the vast majority of Lyme disease cases can be traced to close contact with compass bubbles and discarded mylar balloons.

The most severe cases of Lyme disease are thought to be untreatable, and should be avoided.

C • I was bit by a tick... 1

Not sure why the Rocky Mountain O' Festival web site still shows the overview map[ from last year's Laramie Daze, utterly fascinating as that map is. For those who are more interested in seeing where *this* year's O' Fest races will take place, a copy of the current overview map has been up for a while here:
https://sites.google.com/site/laramierangeorientee...

C • Map 6

O' at East Pelican, ran Neal's Blue course. One bull moose, one yearling cow moose, elk, many deer, and even some cheat grass spotted.

Cheat grass is pretty much my favorite. When I first moved here, there were only relatively small amounts out on any of our mapped areas. Today? It's rampant. It's amazing how much it has spread. But it's only really bad for about 6-8 weeks and you can reduce it to only a mild nuisance with proper O' shoes, the right kinds of socks, and some gaitors. Still, if I could snap my fingers and make an entire plant species around here disappear, cheat grass would be the first to go.

Started mapping, and within about 15 minutes, the first raindrops of an encroaching thunderstorm arrived. Went back to my truck to wait out the storm and eyed the skies, which contained a second storm lined up to complete the devastation begun by the first storm, so I decided to follow the standard advice to "go west, young man" and headed for Happy Jack to run there. The second storm just skirted by up there so this revision of plans worked out well.

It was also good to see that the mosquitoes were back out. Apparently they had just been laying low during the unseasonably cool weather of the past few days. There's nothing like some voracious mosquitoes to help inject a little zip into the running stride. Though it's still far from a bad season. If you stop, there are usually no more than a dozen or so mosquitoes right there in that instant, and not entire clouds that blacken the sky, as happens in the truly bad years.

Planned to run easy today, which is what I did. Even cooler today than yesterday, despite mostly sunny conditions, with a persistent chilly breeze out of the north. It was borderline chilly for mapping, and a light jacket was not enough. Very glad the smoke from the fire is all gone! I took a glimpse behind me as I was driving out to map, and couldn't see the slightest sign of even any small tendrils of smoke from the fire area.

Very oddly, it seems the mosquitoes have already peaked this year and that it is going to be a very light season. This is usually about when mosquitoes are at their peak, and yet now it's been 3 days since I last saw a mosquito. Granted, it's been quite cool the past three days, but even so... Just compare with 2 years ago, when during the O' Fest then mosquitoes were able to drive even the most stalwart campers out of Yellow Pine.

O' at Diamond Bay, where I took on lush and deep grasses, profusions of blooming Golden Banner, incredibly fast moving herds of cattle, endless abatis fashioned naturally by and of fallen beetle kill trees, and even a few meters worth of sage. In other words, it could have hardly been better. Plus, I even found all the controls! I was so happy.

I wasn't sure what to wear; it was kind of cool, and there was enough of a breeze that a knit cap and jacket seemed like the perfect thing. But I had neither with me, so I had to steel myself and sing my "Warrior Warming Up" song, and then head out. At one point I thought I was finally starting to sweat, but it proved to be only a situation of a few fat falling raindrops from a passing cloud. Next time out I will do a half hour or so of vigorous calisthenics in an attempt to raise my core temperature somewhat before beginning running, and maybe that will lead to some intermittent light sweating.

C • Cadence 14

A squishy day with rain and mist nearly all day. Quite a contrast to the heavy smoky eye conditions of just 2 days ago, and nice to get a cleansing and refreshing of the area. Probably all the moisture and coolness (high in the 50s today) effectively means the end of the Badger Creek Fire, though no doubt mop-up work will be ongoing for several more days at least.

Ran trails at Happy Jack, which were 100% dust free, setting the stage for a brand new cycle of increasing dryness and subsequent dusty trails.

Mapping today was a total no-go, but did a fair bit of drafting done.

Skies were gray all day long and finally by mid-afternoon a measure of rain was issued. Where I was mapping, it merely sprinkled for about 5 minutes, and then later, while running, it was spitting rain every so often, but not near often enough to actually get wet. Town made out better however, and things might resume being green again for a while--especially areas that are favored with in place sprinkler systems.

While it was raining I looked around to see if I could spot Neil's car, but came up empty. I did run into two sets of friendly rock climber couples walking out of Pelican Bay, where they had been climbing.

Came home just as Jukola was ending (well, at least for the top teams; the rest of the field will be dribbling in over the next few days), and thus was able to go through the results leg by leg in just a few minutes. Really it's a much more humane to follow the race, as long as you don't particularly care that much about any given team.

So J-J finished his Jukola leg--well done, J-J!

Prior to the race, on Friday, I went around to our local farmer's market and interviewed dozens of shoppers and touristos and touristas about whether J-J would be able to finish a Jukola leg or not (note that I didn't know what leg he would be running; nor did the people I interviewed.) Overwhelmingly, they were skeptical, most pointing out he had at most a few words of Finnish and unsure if he had the required amount of sisu.

They should have had more confidence. For myself, I had no doubt that J-J would finish, as long as a maximum leg cut-off time of 3 days wasn't strictly enforced.

C • Finnish 2

Finished off the second third of Granite Planite. Some of the mapping the past few days was more workmanlike than a thing of beauty, but then the base I am working from is quite poor, so at the very least what I've done represents a very big upgrade.

Ran trails afterwards. Not so smoky where I was running nor in town today, which had everything to do with wind direction. It was warm, dry, and windy, so not a good day for the fire suppression effort. From looking at the latest maps, it looks like the fire has gone about as far as it can to the east, so unless the winds do something really unusual like blowing hard and sustained out of the SE, I would guess the fire has done its worst.

Checked registration for the Rocky Mountain O' Fest--uh-oh, we actually have some folks coming. No choice now but to finish up this map I"m working on.

Today was the windiest of the past 5 days, an announced red flag day. Red flag days when there's already a fire going are especially bad. Smoke everywhere. Felt like hanging out indoors with an oxygen mask while listening to Alan Parsons Project, but settle for some quality time outdoors with the mosquitoes and smoke instead. Got another small hill mapped and wrestled with a tiny seam in the map nearby. I'm working at such a ridiculously large scale I doubt anyone could notice the seam in a race no matter how hard they tried, but it's a reminder that no map is perfect--or even close, I was thinking to myself today.

Ran up at Happy Jack afterwards and came back with many mosquito smears. It's a wonder that ICE doesn't come and seize me, too.

By early afternoon, the fire off to the SW was going great guns, aided by continued dry weather and some decent wind. Luckily the smoke plume was south of town, and again aimed at Cheyenne. Unluckily, it turned out to be just about centered on the area where I was mapping today. I quit mapping early, at around 5:30, because it basically dusk then, from the thickness of the smoke overhead. While I was mapping, I was joking to myself that the little bugs flitting around and the occasional dandelion seeds blowing past were actually bits of ash. Until I realized they were in fact actually bits of ash. The fact that ash was falling about 40 miles downwind from made me think the fire must have been burning with some real intensity.

From there, I went up to run at Happy Jack, which was just north enough to be mostly smoke free. If you looked at any dirt surface though, it was easy to see the ash on the ground. Ran for just under 2 hours, easy, and ran by a new section of bike trail being put in that hadn't been there yesterday.

More fire, more smoke. The wind direction kept smoke (mostly) south of town, redirecting on a path more favorable to oxygen providers and pulmonary specialists in Cheyenne; and to think there are those who say forest fire smoke doesn't do any good for anybody!

Last rain on May 28th, and things continue to dry out. Maybe a hurricane will show up soon, for a little change in climate.

More mapping, with a lot of gingerly stepping around patches of cheat grass. It's not quite ready to go, but the season of the fatal combination of cheat grass + socks is not far away, and where I was mapping is the last of the south facing slopes I had to face, so from here on out, the cheat grass danger to my personal lower leg integrity will diminish, at least while I am mapping.

No cows yet in the area where I am working, while they have showed up in numerous other pastures up in the Forest. It makes me envious and I wonder if I should switch event areas to take advantage of the cattle where they exist, rather than where I want them to be?

Ran trails, and ran out to the East Headquarters Snowfield, which was gone--it must have melted out over the weekend. Maybe it will start forming up again right around Labor Day, if we're lucky.

On the way home at the end of the day yesterday there was a long, thin smudge high in the sky that made me think of a fire far away, somewhere down in Colorado.

Biking today, however, and looking out over towards Jelm Mountain, I realized it wasn't from a fire far away at all, because there was so much smoke in the western part of the valley that Jelm Mountain had completely disappeared. In time, reports started surfacing on the radio about the fire, burning somewhere SW of Fox Park. Today was dry and windy, so that didn't help. Lots of smoke in Laramie by late afternoon.

C • punch cards... 3

I have mentally divided the Granite Planite map project into thirds, and I finally finished off the first of those thirds--the northern third--today. There's only a little bit left with the middle third, and the southern third is the smallest piece, both by area and estimated mapping time, so hopefully it goes quickly from here.

After mapping, ran intervals. Warm, but breezy, and effectively pleasant. Beautiful summer day from start to finish.

And things are drying up quickly, with no real rain for nearly 2 weeks now.

On the way home, I stopped at the grocery store, and saw 2 groups of 4, all of whom were obviously football players--obvious partly because they all had UW t-shirts on, but mostly because they were all monsters (all linemen and maybe a linebacker or two sprinkled in.) And, surprisingly to me, they all looked like very fit monsters--not a trace of a big gut on any of them, which is more what I am used to seeing. If it's indicative of the rest of the team, the program must be making some real strides in the right direction.

Total summer, legs still somewhat sore but trending towards a more refreshed state. Picked up middle-ish controls at a middle-ish pace. This could have been written just as well for yesterday, minus the control pick-up part.

The grasses are *already* starting to turn towards a yellowish, ripening look, headed towards mid-summer brown and thence senescence. All this is early, too, though it can't hurt that we haven't had hardly anything in rain now for nearly 2 weeks.

Read an article in yesterday's WSJ about the ongoing gymnastics scandal. The sordidness of it all aside, it's fascinating to wonder: 1) why the allegations were not taken extremely seriously right from the outside and handled with the highest priority, 2) if they were taken seriously internally, then why weren't the corrective steps that most would expect taken immediately, 3) and then, at what point did things pass so far over the edge that trying to cover it all up looked like the best way to go?

C • And 4... 4

Middle-ish distance training, with controls, at East Pelican with guest orienteers from near and afar. Some of the controls were even in the right spot--bonus!

Then a quick hop to a nearby area, to run a short,twisted loop at a brisk pace to look at some pretty pink streamers in a section of work-in-progress (Granite Planite) to check out secret sections of bare rock and narrow passages of very large pieces of granite.

Felt 100%--quick illness, quick recovery. Oddly, however, upon finishing, my legs immediately became sore, like they had just done something they had never done before. But legs, we do this all the time, right? Right?

Well, sometimes legs have other ideas.

Unfortunately, there was one serious casualty. When I got back and looked at my compass, there was a large bubble that had not been there before, and a nearly perfectly circle that had been punched out of the top of the needle housing. It looked like it had been drilled. I must have used my compass hand for some added support when I was running through some granite stuff, completely unconsciously, and not thinking about the compass either. Oh well, another boost to the O' economy.

By the time I was heading for bed last night, I had some fever, and instead of going to never-never land, I went to in-between land and started hallucinating. The problem (why I was sick) was somatamee, which meant that something had gone haywire in the system and the 3's were now 4's, and so nothing worked properly. The usual solution was to go to sleep, which, if you were lucky, would prompt they system to reset itself and all the 3's would go back to being 3's again, and you would wake up okay. But mostly it was the word somatamee endlessly repeated.

But I guess it worked, because when I woke up, the fever was gone, and I gradually felt better during the day, with only a mild headache and slight cough to mark that anything had happened at all.

Given the circumstances, I judged that it would be better to pass on any running or biking, but I did go out in the afternoon and do some mapping, and saw a yearling moose.

Ponderosas started sending off big clouds of pollen yesterday, and more of the same today. And bitterbrush has been blooming for several days. Both of these things are 2+ weeks earlier than they used to be not all that long ago.

C • Numbers 1

Felt good most of the day and for some biking, but once out in the woods and mapping, I started to sag. By the time I finished off and got back to my truck to do some running, it took a whole lot of effort to get going--what I really wanted to do was to stretch out and nap. But I ran anyway, I had stuff to get done.

Back home and in the evening, definitely not feeling well. However, if I am coming down with something, then as long as it isn't related to tick-born pestilence, virulent mosquitoes (oh, yes they're starting to appear), whisky, whiskey in bars, whisky with cowgirls, whiskey with frisky cowgirls, poison ivy (you never know), rattlesnake bite to throat, vicious elk attack, or ingestion of loco weed, I'll probably survive. Otherwise, I am doomed.

C • Laramie Super-Storm 3

Has nothing to do with anything I was doing today, but a few days ago I was looking at a map somewhere on line, and even though it looked like a good map, there was something kind of rubbish about it. I realized it was the form lines being drawn in a thinner width that full contours. That may be the new spec, but rubbish is rubbish and I'll keep my form lines the same as it ever was. Oops! Talking Heads reference! ; )

On my way out to mapping, 3 vehicles passed me going the other way, somewhat bunched together but nothing unusually so, especially as they were going up a big hill making it a tough place to pass. I didn't pay much attention, but after I went by the last vehicle--a large white pickup--I realized it was probably an official vehicle and probably Forest Service at that. It was too late to see if there was any lettering on the side, however. Then I thought back: the first vehicle had been a medium size flat bed truck, and it was hauling a vehicle with somewhat splayed tires; the second vehicle had been a regular tow truck. And I put it all together: it looked like maybe a crew had been out to take care of the abandoned sub-moron vehicle I had discovered and reported some weeks back!

Since the abandoned vehicle had been very close to where I was mapping, there was no way I wasn't going to check it out after mapping. And so I did.

I was amazed. Sure enough, the vehicle was gone, and I could hardly find any traces that anything had been there at all, which was substantially more amazing--because that spot had been filthy with debris and trash and broken auto parts, the van itself, and large amounts of broken glass everywhere. I have no idea how they cleaned it all up so well, but I do know that it could not have been easy.

I knocked off another small hill area on the map today, and even though I couldn't begin to justify it to anybody, I added on a number of too tiny bare rock dot knolls. There should be a special mapping hell for people who do this, and yet I did it anyway--definite map porn. It's going to be a pretty crummy map, but I guess it won't matter so much since it's only for an NRE and not an "A" event.

Tomorrow if I think about it, I will try to find some tiny, Finnish style cracks in the rock and map them as reentrants. That will be so much fun!!!

C • Map porn 4

Did some mapping and then ran trails at an easy pace at the end of the day. Pleasantly surprised both that I didn't feel any soreness in my legs from yesterday, and also to find there was some bounce in them. Good!

Less good: while I was mapping, a dun buggyish type vehicle zipped by, smack in the middle of the woods. Not only did it catch me by surprise, I've never seen one of these things off-road in the forest before. I hope this isn't about to become a "thing"--the newest trend. I had already noticed that whereas before it was nearly all ATVs running around on the roads up in the forest, this year I've already seen significantly more dune buggy type vehicles than ever before, maybe not up by an order of magnitude, but not far from it.

C • Dune buggy 5

Tick season officially ended on Thursday, but danged if I didn't get a gratuitous tick crawling on my wrist when I stuck my hand in some bitterbrush to retrieve a can. I may complain to the authorities or even launch a tick action suit, depending on my mood. But cows showed up yesterday, and that should mop up any lingering ticks.

Two ticks for the season is pretty bad, and I may have to rethink my tactics. Some people suggest simply staying indoors until winter resumes again in September, and it is something to consider.

Intervals after mapping, all under a perfectly cloudless sky that not even the gods could have arranged. 10 x 5 min.