Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Ran out to Sometime Spring to see if it was flowing. It was but it wasn't strong so maybe another week or two or three and then that will be it until sometime next year.

It looks like a 125 tower wind farm is in the offing for a site NW of Laramie. As a Texan might say upon observing the 5000 or so gas wells dotting the DFW airport, it's a start.

Additional note: several homes were destroyed by a tornado around the Ames Monument. The monument, having been built by sturdy railroad men (and being rather sturdy itself) was undamaged.

Visiting the Ames Monument is a popular activity indulged in by many orienteers racing and training in the Laramie Range. Tradition has it that if you take your compass to the Ames Monument and touch the compass to any part of the monument as high up as you can reach, it will probably develop a bubble eventually. But you never know, and it never hurts to try.

I came oh-so-close to stepping on a baby elk today. My next step was going to end up on it.

It couldn't have been more than a few days old, especially given that it had no signs of hail damage from the storm last week. I'm not sure which of us was more startled/scared by the experience--maybe it should go down as a split decision.

Saw quite a few antelope, one lonely coyote howling for some company, a lewis carroll bird, exactly zero sub-morons, and--the best part--the first moose of the year. It was looking very gangly and ready to eat succulent water vegetations.

My gas mileage couldn't have been better.

If you don't know how the Team selection process works and give even a quick look at the Team Trials results, the natural question is: how does Leif Anderson not get picked for the WOC Team? You ask people to show up at a set place and time to lay down their very best, but in Leif's case with results better than 3 of the 5 people taken for the team, it still wasn't good enough. Once again, a flawed process yields a flawed result.

C • How? 23

After mapping; a decent enough day, and the winds even relented after about 4 days of strong blowing. Ran off-trail for about 95% of the way.

Ran around town to try to get some sense of when power might come back up. Nice to not get hailed or snowed on again.

Pretty flat legs, which is about what I expected after yesterday. So I took it easy and ate waffles! Yum!

To follow up on Bubo's note, it was still Sommar today, but maybe tomorrow we slide back towards Spring a bit. There are still some big snow drifts dotting the area I'm mapping, but they are melting fast and soon it will be time for the first Running of the Cows (for 2008)!

Since we don't have Swedes, we must use cows instead. And that's just the way it is.

C • Swedes... 1

C • weather alert 8

I have only two words for today: Cowboy coffee.

Quick ride down to the river, which in response to several mild days in a row, is starting to rise. It's gonna go higher...

Super nice Sommar weather out!

8 x 5.

Sommar.

As good as summer, except for some late day wind that was a touch too frisky for true Sommar. But I may have frukost tomorrow anyway.

Brilliant day--at last!!

Some signs of spring making a slight return. Whew!

C • Signs of spring? 3

C • The results are in... 3

C • Raspberries 2

What say ye, fawn Spring? Have we paid dues enough, and done with Winter's driven ice and shrilly peals this day at last?

9 x 5, from home, and then breakfast--just in time for noon!

A much nicer day, one day too late for graduation.

More snow in the afternoon. Happy Jack was looking like a perfect winter postcard!

C • :-( 1

I don't know what it was, but I was filled with an overwhelming desire today to get up in the morning and dust my broom. Most peculiar!

Snow and a stiff wind led me to throw in the towel on mapping earlier than I would have otherwise, and instead I took a loop around on some of the ski trails--which are still on average better for skiing on that running on.

I had to hurry up on home because I was meeting a photographer for a glamour photo food shoot. Afterwards, it did seem like the pizza tasted better than usual. But maybe it was just the MSG.

Lots of firsts for the year today: first run where I felt like I was moving almost as fast as a fat, farm raised, basting turkey can waddle (yes, training really works!), first rain, first thunderstorm, first run in thunderstorm, first hiding under tree during thunderstorm, and first hail. A few lightning bolts came down within a mile or two of where I was, but I was under a tree by then. Now I think I am re-acclimatized to lightning bolts for the coming season.

Some say never get under a tree during a lightning storm. I say if it's lightning and you're standing still out in the middle of a huge open area and getting pounded on by hail and you're thinking: "Well, at least I'm not under a tree, that might be dangerous," you don't even have the common sense of a flea. I bet the indians never wasted any time looking for cover.

I've read that SE Wyoming and adjoining portions of northern Colorado get more hail than any other part of the country. That may be true, but I wonder if there are certain sections of the Rampart Range that might not be pretty high up on the list too. When I was mapping Saylor Park, I never saw so much hail as I saw then.

Pasqueflowers are out and blooming everywhere!

While I was out running, I thought about, among other things, Buffett's astute observation about Berkshire's significant age advantage, given in answer to a question at the recently held Berkshire annual meeting (paraphrased here):

"On corporate America aging issue, I think we are doing fine. Our average age is eighty, so we are only aging at 1.25% per year, lowest rate of aging in corporate America. If you have a 50 year old management team, they age 2% every year, I think you run bigger risk there."

It was absurdly nice out, and all over town contractors were breaking out their dozers and backhoes and scrapers to dig more holes for new hotels. Hard to reconcile a day like this with the blizzard just last Thursday. That's one of the downsides of a place like Athens, GA. Sure, Athens has pretty much got a lock on R.E.M. and B-52s, but if you're in Athens and you want a blizzard, your only hope is to head for the nearest DQ.

2 x 25 loops at secret location.

I don't look at the Kansas City Star as often as I used to back in the days when Spike was a KC employee and assisting head dude sort of guy. But something stirred me to look at it this morning, and right up top was a funky picture of Mayor Funkhouser, who used to be Spike's boss.

What made the photo funky was the house in the background, which wasn't looking too happy. In fact, it looked like it had been beset upon.

Last night some strong Wyoming winds snucked across the prairies and, when nobody was looking, pounced on portions of Kansas City and did some appreciable amounts of destruction.

Judging by the blizzard roaring through Laramie this morning, Kansas City may need some shelter from the (coming) storm.

Around town at end of the day (highways closed all day.) Some snow, a bit more wind, but the worst of the wind was off to the east and so it wasn't so bad.

In between repeated snow squalls, there were moments when it wasn't snowing. Technically, this qualifies as snow intervals. For some reason, I felt like a harmonica every time a new squall blew through. When I got home, I got an atlas, opened it up randomly several times, and each time I stabbed a finger down on it with my eyes closed. Must have been some kind of hoodoo voodoo going on, because every single time my finger ended up on top of Marksville, Louisiana. Very strange!