Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Woke up and looked outside to a very white world, everything coated in snow. The windows, the ground, the air, the skies above--all coated in snow. Very directional snow, given the wind. Nice to see that this storm was balancing out the storm earlier in the week. The previous storm featured excellent winds out of the east, and today's winds were even more excellent and out of the west.

Not exactly a shocker that the interstate was closed, and remained closed all day. For anyone who was in Laramie and wanted to get out, or for anyone who was out of Laramie and wanted to get in, too bad. Somehow the Post Office had some mail to deliver today; my guess is they must have dipped into their "emergency" mail stash.

I saw someone biking on a standard commuter type bike on one of the major roads in town, which was somewhat odd given the road conditions and fierce winds and cold temps. Odder, however, was that they were biking in the middle of one of the road lanes rather than to one side, and odder still was that they were in the wrong lane altogether and biking into traffic going the other way. Maybe it seemed like a good idea at the time, though it's hard to see how.

My knee felt better again today, though I had no thought of trying to run on it just yet. Sometimes you just need to "Wait Until Tomorrow".

When I got up, my knee felt better than yesterday, but not good enough to entertain the thought of any running. But since skiing yesterday went well enough, I headed back up to the trails after work and was happy with that.

There was plenty of wind to make up for yesterday, and lots of snow was blowing across the Happy Jack Rd for that nice icy coating we all love so much. It's almost amazing to me that in all the time I've been here, I've never seen any winter wrecks on the stretch of road between the Visitor Center and the Tie City parking lot.

More trail had been packed, and it looked like all the effort today had gone into that. At least I didn't see any signs of new corduroy today. I skied well past nightfall, still being pretty careful with the effort level and where I was skiing so as to not do something to aggravate my knee. By the time I finished up, it had started snowing.

Tomorrow could be a wild day. The winds are supposed to be rippin', and there is plenty of snow already for the wind to work with. Road closures would seem to be all but inevitable.

I was surprised when I got up in the morning and discovered my right knee wasn't feeling so good. No outright pain or soreness, but it didn't feel good, and even after "warming up" (just walking around doing normal stuff) for a while, it didn't loosen up or change for the better. It didn't get worse, either, but clearly the traditional long run on T-Day wasn't going to happen, and when I tested how it might be on the indoor trainer, that wasn't so good either. I had hoped to make my skiing debut for the season--some trail packing had taken place--and figured I could still drive up and at least give it a try, since skating involves different motions from running or cycling.

What was odd was that the knee had felt 100% while I was running yesterday, and then I had gone shopping and had walked a while on it, and it felt fine then, and I had ended up doing some indoor biking in the evening and that had been absolutely fine. And it felt fine after that right up to when I hopped into bed. Best guess was that I must have tweaked or torn something just enough for it not to be a problem while I was exercising, but for enough fluid to leak out into the joint over night for things to feel not so good in the morning.

As it worked out, I got up to the ski trails just as the groomer was finishing doing the rolling he was going to do, and as he was about to switch equipment and put down some corduroy. There wasn't a whole lot of trail that was done, but it hardly mattered--there was enough. Skiing went okay. I took it easy (a given for the first time out in the season anyway), and while I could feel the knee, it felt manageable and not like I was doing anything that was making matters worse. Of course it was great to be out on the snow and see some familiar ski faces!

Because the sun was out and there was zero wind, it felt a good bit warmer than the advertised 40F.

Finished off the last bit of Yowsa! this morning, wishing it could have been a little more, and wondering what things might be like up top. Work was busy and I couldn't break off until nearly 3, but then I headed right up. Roads were a little icy eastbound, but not bad, and traffic was light. When I made the the turn on the curving downhill on the Happy Jack road I could see the parking lot hadn't been plowed. Cars were clustered in the near half of the parking lot, and the snow was deep. I crashed on in and found a spot, thankful for 4 wheel drive. I saw Randy's truck, so was pretty sure he must have been out on the trails getting grooming going. Not knowing what conditions would be like, I hadn't bothered with skis and had planned on running.

Luckily--really luckily--someone or several someones had gone out on snow shoes from the parking lot onto the snow bike trail, because otherwise running would have been impossible, what with 18"-20" of new snow on the ground. I was really surprised it was that deep; it would rank in the top 3 or 4 snows I've seen at Happy Jack, and by far the largest I've seen this early in winter.

The snow shoe track went for about 1 1/2 miles, and I ran back and forth on it several times because there weren't any other options.

Skis will come along tomorrow. It will be excellent!

The interstate never opened up today, and therefore no way for any trail grooming to have have gotten started. Based on the 6"-8" of snow in town, and knowing that it snowed a good bit more than that in Cheyenne, it is reasonable to think the snow amounts at the Summit must have been decent, and surely enough to warrant at least rolling the ski trails.

There was some fine Yowsa!, with snow that was perfect for the task--neither too dense and heavy, nor too light and ephemeral. There were a couple of nice drifts to work through, and deep coverage on all the lee sides.

I ran north of town and through some neighborhoods at the end of the day as the temps dropped down into the low single digits, which was good because it really felt like winter the way proper winter should feel.

At one point I could see all the way to the north edge of the Snowies, a view that takes in 20 or so miles of intererstate. Usually at night it is a well lit snake of traffic, but tonight the only lights I could see was one set of blinking lights, identifiable as a snow plow.

Big Kahuna Snow is expected today, with a little more tomorrow. Well, just 6"-9", so maybe not Big Kahuna, but when pared with wind amounts that will be more than ample, close enough. It only takes a tiny amount of snow with typical winds here to create travel hell, and in acknowledgement of that fact, UW this morning cancelled all classes for this week. It only took about 15 minutes for town to empty out, and the 5 or 6 of us left have free reign to do whatever we please.

No doubt some folks out there are vaguely excited about World Cup 2020, but for me, I am super excited to be able to do a long run inside Walmart today! Last time I did this several dozen of the associated gathered together and gave me the rousing Walmart cheer as I ran through the Automotive Section, which is one of the best parts.

And even though the storm wasn't supposed to kick off until 11, I can look out the window and see the first few snow flakes have just started to fall.

The groomers will be so happy.

C • Cancelng class 6

The storm came in just as promised; I had been running for a while and at about 5 pm was headed back for my truck, and considered whether I might tack on a little bit more before stopping. But it was approaching dusk, and a good bit of snow had fallen, and it seemed it might be a better idea to head on back down the canyon before it got totally dark. Glad I did that, because the interstate was shut down less than an hour later.

Came home and applied myself to some wonderful Yowsa!, with more snow arriving the whole time, borne in by a strong wind out of the east.

It was a few degrees warmer than yesterday by midday and the sun was out, so I took the chance to do some more biking, and timely given the forecast for tomorrow is looking like snow is on the way. Plus there was some decent breeze!

Then ran, looking unsuccessfully for fresh moose tracks. Plenty of fresh snow bike tracks, however. It looks like the work on the new cut and "s" curving track across Alder is done and that it is ready for snow.

Ran trails after biking. I checked out one of the new coming ski trails, and found a small crew of two (Randy, Bill) were out there working on the cut and clearing off vegetation. Excellent!

My legs felt basically okay for the running. They are probably happy to be back home. Or maybe it was only the freezing ice fog.

Another grey day, but a good grey since it was snowing. Plus, only light breeze for wind. Ran trails at happy Jack; about 2" of new snow.

Two pieces of good news today:

1) A whole bunch of new ski trail has been approved by the Forest Service. A lot of it is in the form of re-routes and such, but there is a fair bit of new trail as well. It's enough that it is going to take a while to get all put in, but this is still great to learn, as the local nordic association has been working for more than 5 years to get approval for this.

and

2) It was announced today that the University has agreed to fund the purchase of about 1200 acres of the 5500 acre Pilot Hill tract which various local entities have been working on to acquire. And it's pretty clear the state will acquire the remaining 3300 acres through a series of land swaps using other state lands elsewhere. It looks like everything is on schedule to be completed sometime next year. Once everything is done, it means that public lands will connect from the east edge of town all the way up the National Forest and it so many ways it will have significant positive long term ramifications for Laramie.

It's an especially big win for the outdoor community, and perhaps biggest of all for mountain bikers and trail runners.

Gray day all day long, so perfect for idly thinking back to days even greyer long ago, when united as one we would call for Odin. I did not call for Winter, but it came anyway, riding a cold wind from the north. Snow began falling by around 3:30 pm, and with any luck it should fall for a while and amount to something worthwhile--which the skiers would much appreciate.

I ran for an hour and a half, slowly, but with legs that felt much better than yesterday, and seeing nobody but a couple of old crows. Someone else might think that I am mixing poorly "crows" with "nobody". but then I was there and they weren't. I was also there when someone fired a rifle in my direction at quite close range, and the bullet ricocheting off of something and flying over my head with maybe 30'-40' to spare. Because of a slope I was below, I was in no danger of being struck, but still, when you can hear a bullet going by and it's pretty close, it does bring about a certain amount of...clarity.

Yesterday's moment of clarity was when I was running and looked down and saw fresh tracks in the snow, larger than the size of the palm of my hand. Mountain lion.

C • Combat LROC patch? 3

Very nice, quite mild day, and so perfect for a longer bike ride around town--which was also perfect for my legs. Tacked on about 40 minutes of easy running at Happy Jack on trails and road shoulder, and my legs were feeling at least 50% better than yesterday. Got home, rifled through some of the mail, had a quick dinner, and quick haircut, and a super quick dousing in the shower, and then--zoom!--off to the basketball game.

Post-race note: I was looking at the course and map some more today, and noticed some weirdness in the contours in the bottom right corner. And then I looked at the way a couple of details were drawn in other parts of the map. It was only after all that that I finally noticed--for the first time--the map scale: 1:7500. I had no idea whatsoever what the scale was during the race!

C • Haize 2

Drove the rest of the way back to Laramie, getting back early enough to stop[ by the Visitors Center for short run. Which would have looked funny to anyone who saw me, because my legs were so sore that I could have hardly have moved any slower for the first 15 minutes or so. Things gradually got...less sore. Still good to get to stretch out for a few minutes after all the driving.

Possum Trot

This was my first time at Possum Trot since 2008, when I was unable to finish the race that year because of my (now completely expected and still unexplained) problems with my upper front leg muscles seizing/cramping up while running hard after traveling long distances. It's a very full day of driving from here to Kansas City, and after driving that long, I'm going to have problems racing, guaranteed, and that's the main reason I hadn't been back until now. I didn't do any races at all last year, and hadn't done any races in the US this year, and it was either going to be Possum Trot or no races again for 2 years running. Plus, Mike Shifman had traveled out to Laramie to issue me a personal invitation to come to what he said would be his final stint as course setter for Possum Trot (well he had also come out to take part in a training camp we had this summer, but you could tell why he really came out.)

And that's what the problem has been for me for a good many years now. There are practically no races to speak of without traveling quite far, there is no point in my going to a race unless I can be there long enough in advance to get my legs settled down, and therefore a race has to be really special (in my eyes) to justify the time involved.

But I already had plans to see some of my family sometime this fall, so I organized travel to go back to the homelands first and hit Possum Trot on the way back, by which time I had hoped my legs would be okay and ready to run.

I stopped by the most excellent Hawn State Park and ran some trails the day before Possum Trot. I ran easy and my legs felt good (having already gone through the seizing up thing duringthe prior week). It was beautiful out, and as usual I thought about what a shame it is that no races of any consequence are being organized in this area anymore. Hawn is a terrific area.

One of the peculiarities of Knob Noster is that it always takes longer to get there than you think. I mean, you look at the road map, you think about it in terms of being a PTOC map, you think the greater Kansas City area or something like that. But really it's quite a long ways from KC. And then, when you finally are at the right exit for Knob Noster, you think you are almost there, but you really aren't. It's *still* longer than you think. And if you're unlucky and there has been a lot of rain, you might even find out along this last stretch that you can't get there at all from that direction, because there is a stretch of road that can get flooded out, with no option but some very long detours. You really have to *want( to get to Knob Noster. Once you're there, it's still worth it though, because it is the closest (to KC) piece of interesting terrain with what passes for open forest in that part of the country. Much of the forest/vegetation around KC has the quality of being the type of thing that once you get in it, it is an open question as to whether or not you will ever emerge. At least without the effusion of much blood.

I got to the parking area for Possum Trot with plenty of time to do a good warmup, and my legs felt good and light. It was overcast and cool out and it looked like there could be some light rain or drizzle, or else not. Really good racing weather, and no need for anything heavier than a light O' top.

At the start, I was surprised there were as many people as there were--and mostly folks I didn't recognize. I knew there was at least one really good orienteer there (Simon Thrane Hansen, who I had never met) but didn't know much more than that. I figured I would just do the best I could and see how things shook out.

As it went, I'm not sure I ever even saw Simon. When the start signal was given, I took a quick glance at the whole course to make sure there wasn't any obvious skip and especially not an obviously better skip that had to be taken early in the race. But even those few seconds of looking over the course meant that many people were ahead of me at the short first control.

By about halfway through the second leg, I knew there were runners about even with me to either side, but that's all I knew, and I was mostly concentrating on getting through the blander area here and getting into the map and terrain and hitting the 2nd control squarely. It wouldn't have surprised me to learn there was a group ahead of me and out of sight, as I really had no idea if that was true or not.

On the climb to the top of the big ridge after #2, it seemed to me the folks that had been around me were dropping back (just from listening; I was paying attention to map reading and wasn't looking) and as I crested the ridge and started down the other side, I couldn't see anyone ahead of me. I didn't see anyone again until I got to Camp Shawnee. On the way down from the ridge, I could feel some leg twinges, and by the time I was heading down the slope from #4, my upper legs were letting me know they weren't happy. From there on to the finish, I could run fine on uphills and where it was flat, but going down any steeper slopes I had to back well off to keep things in check (by the end of the race my legs were very sore, but at least I could finish.)

Somewhere between #2 and #5 I had taken some more glances at skipping options, and I had settled on the #19-#20-#21 star, and eventually I had decided that it would probably be #21. Also somewhere in this section some briar cane or multiflora scraped across the top of my compass hand and even though it was just the usual sort of nothing scratch, something must punctured in just the right spot, because there was a surprising amount of blood coming out of what was a quite tiny spot for the rest of the race, and for a while after I finished until finally I put some pressure on it for 10 minutes or so and got it to start.

There were a lot of runners criss-crossing through Camp Shawnee, but nobody I recognized, and nobody who was running faster than me. I couldn't tell if these were folks running the full Trot, the half Trot, or a mix.

I passed someone at #10 or right after, and whoever it was dropped off on the way to #11, and that was the last person I saw for the rest of the race (other than a couple of people late in the race that were walking what clearly had to be some other course.)

Leaving #18, I took a wide detour early to avoid the green; I had already seen the light green depicted a very wide range of vegetation densities, including some nastier stuff I had no interest in tangling with. While I was crossing the big ridge before #19, I looked up and down the ridge, saw the woods were wide open and nice, and based on that nice stretch of what would be downhill running out of #21, changed my plans and decided to skip #20 instead. In retrospect, I think #19-#20-#22 would have been faster, but not by much.

The splits show I dropped some time on #23, but I didn't have any sense of doing anything wrong or a mistake--I think I was just slow getting through some of the green, and then I stopped about 150m out to scan the slope in front for the reentrant I was looking for, but couldn't see what I was looking for, and so went carefully in from there.

Fun race, and overall I'm satisfied with how I did. I had good focus the whole way and never got distracted from the race, which is key. I managed my leg conditions as well as I could have, and had good push when I had trails and good forest and up hills. Map reading was good. Of course this type of forest is quite different than anything here at home, and no doubt with a few weeks of running in this type of forest I would be able to get through some of the thicker stuff and even just the normal undervegetation more efficiently. But in sum, again, I can be happy with how I did, with no direct mistakes/misses to speak of.



Afterwards, I managed, just barely (by the time I could get shoes changed and grab a jacket, my legs were already wanting to call it quits) a brief warmdown, and then I hung around long enough to download (ooops!, you do need to download!), sample several cookies, and say hi to a few folks. Then I hit the road to get far enough along so that I would have a more manageable drive back to Laramie on Monday.

Very fine race, many thanks to the organizers. It is all but astounding to me that sport has got to a point where this was the only *race* (as opposed to local club events, etc.) that I was aware of that was within about 500 miles of where I live this year, but so it has.

Full Possum - Splits

Today I went to the very edge of the Deep South and back in order to visit a couple of bogs.

The first took quite a while to get to for the distance traveled, because of traffic and numerous stop lights. It proved to be a little disappointing; maybe because it started off on a not great foot when it turned out the couple of vehicles had guys in them, there in the middle of the day seemingly with nothing to do and no evident interest in the nearby bog. Probably there looking for hookups. There was a short boardwalk into the bog, which wasn't at all large. In all, I wasn't there for more than 20 minutes.

The bogs turned out to be very much a barbell experience. The last one I visited was very easy to get to from the interstate, the parking area was empty (both when I arrived and for the entire time I was there), and the bog was nothing short of incredible--even though this was beyond the end of the growing and flowering season, with many plants entering or already in senescence. There were 5 types of pitcher plants there with many sub-varietals from interbreeding, sundews, and butterworts (though I didn't see any), and numerous other rare and unusual plants. The bog was a seep bog in an area being restored to long leaf pine habitat, with prescribed burning being used to bring about the transformation.

The open areas looked like this:



The bog is perhaps best known for the large displays of S. leucophylla:



The plant can vary from an almost white top to this:



Not sure what this one is, maybe a cross between a purple pitcher plant and one of the other pitcher plants in the bog:



And a purple pitcher plant here (examples of a purely green sub-variety can also be found in the bog):



After I finished walking around for a bit and taking some pictures, there was the question of running. There was a grassy walking trail going through the bog that looked like it might be 500m or so long, maybe a little longer before it probably stopped in the trees. I didn't want to run on the highway, which was narrow with no shoulder, and which went past houses fairly nearby (could be hostile dogs.) I could take my chances finding some other place along the way. Or I could just use the path and run back and forth--and since I wasn't planning to run long anyway, and since I was here, I figured why not here?

Which really worked out well, because it turned out there was much more to the trail than I realized, and that it incorporated a larger section of "small hilly" pine forest. I ran for about 80 minutes in all, which was great, and it was fun running, exploring an area entirely new to me.

Later, after departing and investigating more on the web, I realized that the whole conservation area consisted of several tracts of land and that the entire thing was *much* larger than I had thought, with several different access points with a separate and much larger trail system than the one I had run on.

I had thought I could make it to Vicksburg in time to get in a short run, and in fact I did, arriving at the entrance gate about 10 minutes before the last vehicles would be admitted. That was a surprise--I couldn't remember any previous battlefields I had been to before that were gated. I was more surprised, however, that the price of admission was $20, and if you are used to running for free, that was too steep a price, when all I wanted to do was to run for a half hour or so. It was late enough in the day by then that I figured I would just push on and skip trying to do even a short run. However, a few miles out of Vicksburg my I noticed that a dirt road in forest was paralleling the interstate, without any sign of any houses. The further I drove, the more promising it looked and soon I came to a sign alerting the next exit was only a mile away, and for that last mile, the dirt road never deviated. So I exited, the dirt road intersection was right there, and there was a little place to park that looked safe enough, and so I got running clothes and headed for the dirt. It worked out perfect. There was zero traffic on the road, and the road regularly went up and down little hills so it was a great way to thoroughly stretch out my driving weary legs. The whole area appeared to be loess, revealed occasionally by deeply and steeply incised creeks. I finished up right about when dusk went over to night.

Found a kind of scruffy place to run towards the end of the day, out in scruffy land, but at least I was able to get out a stretch my legs out a little.

By scruffy, I mean the intersection I pulled off at was scruffy, with one semi-modern gas station/convenience store, and several other shuttered and derelict businesses on both sides of the highway. And the nearby fields were all overgrown, and the surrounding woods were thick, second growth forest. The houses in the area were scattered, and a mix of kind of rundown places and (mostly) abandoned houses back in the woods, with yards growing back in. There were some active gas and oil wells, and a number that hadn't been active in years or even decades. The area was utterly lacking in any sign of prosperity and the type of area where nearly all the young people with any hint of ambition leave as soon as they can.

I left as soon as I could, too, after running about 40 minutes, which bumped me up against dusk.

Dagets Bild:



The message on my phone from some dude named John (Hiatt?) was to "drive south", so I did.

Though it doesn't show in the photo, there is a fair bit of thin snow cover out there in the grass. The best part does show, though: the stop sign for cows in the foreground. As if cows could read!

It was later than it looked, possibly because they changed the damn clocks again back to real time. In a surprisingly short time later, I took another photo of approximately the same setting, but from a different location.

Nattens Bild:



Så mycket som jag kunde bestämma, det saknades helt någon natt orientering i området. I kväll, i alla fall.

My favorite 2 things come across in the past 24 hours:

The first: Blair Trewin's mention of "miscellaneous sauce". I see many applications for this in the future, and almost surely I will start with Pizza with Miscellaneous Sauce. I can hardly wait for my guests. I doubt if Blair ever wanders over this way, but I will thank him anyway: thanks, Blair! It was good for smiles with more to come.

And then, the delightful little piece in the NY Times on Memo, the minimalist. Besides being funny in a good way, there was something core solid that anyone could take to heart if they chose, which are his 3 beliefs:

1) Hard work
2) Never giving up

Anyone curious about his third belief will simply have to look for themselves.

I suppose I could add a third favorite thing of the past 24 hours, because there was snow in the morning, sun in the afternoon, packed-for-snow-bike trails to run on (still no sign of grooming for skiing, so a bow to the bikers for unlimbering and getting off the first shots of the season), and a crescent moon guiding Jupiter and Saturn to end the run by. A pretty fine day.