Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Rode out to Herrick Lane and as far as the underpass at I-80, and turned back from there. Good for 2 1/2 hours; steady strong wind out of the west, which is why I decided to head west first.

The underpass has served as a nesting spot for a colony of mud swallows for as long as I can remember, but I only saw one today and some of the nests didn't look to be in good shape, which makes me wonder if something ha happened to this particular colony.

There was a conspicuous, dark plume of smoke coming from the fire to the SW by early afternoon. Light haze more or less everywhere, just as it has been for most of July.

Ran late in the day to close out the month, up at Happy Jack. As usual, saw many mountain bikers, and no runners. Never could figure out the skies to the west--whether they were dark clouds of rain that never rained, or dark mixtures of clouds plus forest fire smoke. Now no meaningful rain at my house since July 4, and may have to uproot everything and prepare a conversion to cacti and yucca soon.

Streamering at Pelican Bay. Saw many cattle, few (no) orienteers. Ran through a lot of bitterbrush.

Orienteering at Remarkable Flats. Sunny and warm in the sun about 95% of the time, cooling relief 5% of the time when clouds interdicted the sun. Legs were working better today, with some amount of spring in them rather than stiff clumsiness, so some more progress.

No cows, but I did spook up 2 pretty good sized bull elk with impressive antlers. Also, one mountain biker had parked near my truck and was just getting ready to get started as I was finishing up. It wasn't anyone I knew but I said hello anyway.

Funny/strange to me that for the past few weeks the light for the middle part of the day seems bright white in nature, and very different than the way the light seems at an equal time interval on the other side of the summer solstice. Somehow for a given temperature, it seems warmer than it would back in May. Maybe it has something to do with the amount of smoke haze in the air now.

Streamering at Bisbee Hill. Lots more downed trees than when I've last been out in the wooded areas, and in places there is a good bit of young aspen growth emerging to take advantage of the removed pine canopy.

Saw two moose. I thought they were cows, but I didn't see any calves with them, and didn't get great looks at them as they were in an area of thickish forest.

Sad news this afternoon about the passing of Mil Plant. While I was driving out to the hills, I thought about both Mil and Jim. They (and their van) were fixtures at the 1000 Day, always smiling, always helpful. I used to make more regular trips between Laramie and Lake George, and I stopped by their house in Frisco any number of times. They were always so welcoming!

I did some streamering at Forrest Meadows, and ran easy while I was doing that. I could feel my legs a little from yesterday, which I regard as a good sign--it means I was actually doing some effective work.

In places the map is showing some age--mostly some new aspens springing up, and several groves now having grown larger. And of course any number of areas where pine trees have succumbed to beetles. But mostly it's still good, certainly good enough, and it's always fun to run there.

With so little rain the past few weeks, the under-vegetation is getting rather crunchy.

I found one nice mule deer shed, and brought it back home with me. I also found a small herd of cattle, but upon reflection, I left them where I found them.

Quite hazy in the afternoon with smoke from the fire off to the SW. According to the Denver Post, "hot, humid weather and strong winds fueled extreme fire behavior" today. Though I wonder about the humid part of that.

Biked to do errands and some extra biking in the afternoon. Then did a set of cruise intervals late in the day. It looks like the suggestions I got from physical therapy are helping. At least something is helping, because my leg problem is slowly getting better.

C • PT 1

Warm out today. Biked long, ran short.

BIking was mostly out to Rogers Canyon plus one trip up. There's no set start point (that I know of), but having wondered before how long the trip up is, yet never having bothered to time it, today I did: it's about a 12 minute climb. Probably a good bit longer (and definitely tougher) were there to be downhill winds.

Ran up top at Happy Jack, late in the day. In lusher parts of the aspen forest there were still decent amounts of mosquitoes waiting in ambush for the weary or very slow footed, but they weren't bad, bad, bad anymore. Lots of dragonflies.

I took a route through the Tie City campground loop. For the first time in a good many years, the campground is open again, and for that reason the Forest Service declined to permit the local summer mountain biking series form using its usual start/finish line at the entrance to the campground. I'm not sure why that was considered to be a big problem, but I guess it was. At any rate, there were zero campers using the campground as I ran through it.

Orienteering at Remarkable Flats, using an old, re-worked course with lots of new connection lines and direction arrows added. It was an exercise in paying attention to the right lines and order. There was harpoon grass, several hundred cattle (at least) and at one point I almost thought I saw 3-4 ants, but it could have been a case of mistaken identity.

Surprisingly cool and pleasant while I was out, in contrast to my expectations for some warm running.

Driving home last night, a roundish, bushy, grey colored object about the size of a medium sized dog appeared suddenly in my headlights. The color was flat and blended well into the dark beyond, and by the time I saw it, it was too late to do anything to avoid it. I was expecting a pretty jarring impact, but was surprised that there was hardly any sensation at all--just a slight thump, much as you get when you drive over a tumbleweed. It was so minor and happened so fast that a few minutes later I began doubting what I had seen and wondered if it had been anything more than some bit of road trash, some plastic sheeting or something.

This morning when I went to take a look at my bike and got started on patching the flat, I glanced at the bumper of my car. There is a little sheet of rubbery plastic that hangs down under the bumper, and when I looked at that, I saw what had happened last night. Quills, therefore porcupine. Which explains also why the object in the road hadn't moved.

Ran an old course at Pitcher Hill, late in the day, finishing up a bit before dusk with some nice up-lit skies glowing from the already set sun. Didn't remember anything from before, and hit everything cleanly. Saw one group of mule deer does, and a trio of mule deer bucks with antlers in velvet. And drove through a lot of cows to get there!

Biked and ran. Also patched the flat tube in the morning, only to see that the patch failed by the late afternoon, after having ridden for 90+ minutes on the repaired tube with no sign of leakage. Oh, well! Re-patched and it looks like the new patch is doing better (this being written a day later.)

Which makes me wonder: how many times do folks usually patch tubes before tossing them? Are there some tubes out there that are ageless, and nothing but patches with only vestiges of the original tube? I suppose the folks at the bike shop could shed some insight on this.

C • patches 25

Orienteering at Remarkable Flats in late morning, warm and sunny.

Took a short ride late in the afternoon, and noticed several hours later the back tire had gone flat. At least it didn't go flat while I was riding!

Biked and then ran double track up in the hills. Tried some harder running for the first time since late last fall, though nobody looking at me would have guessed it (felt pretty slow for something that was supposed to be faster.)

Came across an odd looking disturbance in the ground near the jeep track I was running on, where obviously a backhoe or some such thing had been involved. It didn't look official (Forest Service) and yet I can't imagine who else would have been out there with earth moving equipment--nor how they would have permission to dig and cur down trees. I plan to make an inquiry/phone in a report to see what the heck might have been going on.

C • Backhoes... 4

Biked long, and then ran trails in the early evening. Another day of weird weather; for much of the day it looked like it could be rain, possibly in vigorous amounts, but in fact when all was said and done I counted about 14 rain drops in all. It's been 2 weeks now since the last rain.

Orienteering at Diamond Bay in the morning. It proved to be warmer than I ha realized it was going to be, and I arrived at the Start feeling less hydrated than I would like to have been considering the temps. Therefore ran a little more conservatively than I would have otherwise. It was still enough for a pretty decent effort, and crossing the beaver marshes was the same fast or slow--plenty of nice dark marsh goo to infiltrate the shoes and socks with, which was awesome. And, as a bonus, discovered one of the marshes I had never run across was a quaking marsh. Those are the best sort of all. Finished up by locating a few choice beer cans to bring back during the cool down jog.

Went around the One Cowgirl Relay course again. In contrast to Wednesday, my legs felt quite a bit more lively and occasionally it even felt like I had a tiny bit of speed. The sage still felt like the sage, like sage always feels. ; )

Somehow, it never feels like you are moving fast through sage. Rather, to me it usually feels like clumsy-ish running where it's easy to imagine that everyone else is getting through much faster with little difficulty. (Which, in the case of larger animals such as cattle, elk, etc., seems to be true--it's hard to detect that sage slows them down at all.)

All biking and no running today. Smoke was confined to the southern end of the valley all day, so an improvement from yesterday.

There was curious activity underway by late afternoon in the parking lot east of the UW track and field complex--it almost looked like a Grillers Cup congregation. But my BBQ alarms did not go off. Maybe it was some kind of deception operation?

Ran the One Cowgirl Relay. It was sunny and warm, with enough breeze to help mask the heat. I thought I was going at it with a pretty good pace, and that was the idea, but the time was surprisingly slow, even allowing for legs that felt flat. A bit puzzling, however, it bears keeping in mind that essentially until about 3 weeks ago I had done relatively little running since last fall, and almost none of that in the woods and at race pace. Not to mention the 2 month unplanned "rest period" in April-May. Still a good effort, good efforts are cumulative, and not every day will be great. Some will only be near great. ; )

C • Cowboy Tough 8

Biked, and checked streamers at Pitcher Hill from the One Cowgirl Relay.

By mid-afternoon, much smoke had blown into town and right over all our mapped areas east of town. I wasn't going to run hard anyway, and the smoke was an extra reason for taking it easy.

A short run at Happy Jack at a very mellow pace, mostly to check on the mosquito populations. Numbers are dropping quickly, and at least on the main trails should a mosquito buzz out, all you have to do is stand still and in a moment or two a dragonfly patrol will appear and take care of the mosquito with all the dispatch and efficiency one could hope for.

Very windy all day, and the for third straight day the wind was blowing a lot of smoke into the valley out of the fire to the southwest. But luckily the main plume has either been to the north or south of Laramie nearly the whole time, so the air quality in town has been fine.

Re-ran the Red course from Diamond Bay. All the streamers were up and flying well, and there were many fewer cows around in the woods this time--clearly the anti-cow deterrent paste is proving to be highly efficacious, exactly as I had hoped as I was designing the formula. The balancing of the various plant based compounds appears to be perfect.

Didn't see a single mosquito while I was getting ready, running, or while cooling down, and it's hard for me to adequately convey my happiness about that.

The best thing, however, was the running myself. It's not a stretch to say it's probably the best my right thigh/groin area has felt since late November, and while I had a smallish spot of discomfort right from the start, it never got more intense, moved, or got larger, despite my pushing along at the best pace I could manage. So now I don't think I'm just imagining some improvement. Still no zip though, and that was noticeable on some of the easier (running) parts of the course where it should have been possible to fly along.

C • logo 2

Big smoke was blowing into the valley by yesterday afternoon, so much so that I was all but certain a new fire must have broken out in the Snowies somewhere. I biked out to the airport, where the air had a surreal yellowish quality to it with thick blue haze all around accompanied by a strong smell of smoke.

But it proved to be not a new fire, but an old one--the Beaver Creek Fire--re-exerting itself. Perhaps because it was feeling neglected, with very little news coverage for the past week and a half or so.

Fortunately shifting winds cleared all the smoke out of Laramie itself by the early evening, though perhaps those in the medical oxygen business saw that in a different light.

Today's exercise centered chiefly around re-streamering the Red course at Diamond Bay from last weekend. Others can judge whether it was a labor of love or simply a labor, but I will state for the record that it was not a lonely labor--it seemed that at no point was I ever more than about 250' away from a cow, they were everywhere.

And, as a bonus, my reward was coming across a 3 point mule deer shed in excellent condition. I ran it back in, taking care to keep the tines pointed away from me at all times, not wishing to impale myself should I have taken a fall somewhere.

Having the streamers up again on this particular course will make it a lot more fun to use for training.

C • A society grows great 13

Ventured out for a first stab at an O' run since mid-March. Took on the Day 3 Red course. Would have been nice with streamers at the controls, but the pickup dudes picked up everything, including streamers, those meanies. When I think of all the time I spent so lovingly hanging those streamers....

The rust showed on the way to #2, which I thoroughly lost all control on midway through the leg. Good everywhere else, just slow with no zip in the fast parts where no zip = lost time. The time would have qualified me to wear the t-shirt a guy on the XC team in my high school had which read (front) "I am third" and on the back "but you are fourth".

The course was quite interesting--many changes in terrain, runnability, and difficulty, plus some parts which demanded some amount of fighting spirit. Somewhat amazingly, my feet never came close to getting wet. It helps to be light, I guess (ha--just kidding, you couldn't have gotten around dry with an autonomous flying saucer.)

One small herd of elk and many cattle passed for company along the way.

We'll see how my leg/groin feels tomorrow after what passes for a decent effort these days.

Day 6 of the O' Fest is in the books, as is the O' Fest itself, other than a few odds and ends that always await after the final racers are in. Overall it seems to have gone quite well, with lots of smiles on the faces of the folks who ventured to these distant frontier lands in the Laramie Range.

I thought I got through it all without getting too worn out. And while I still think I did, after stopping on the way home to run up the HQs trail to check out the snow patch (it was gone) and then doing some quick sorting of water stop trash back at home, a nap seemed like a good idea--especially since it was raining--and I conked out for an hour and a half instead of 10 minutes. By then the rain had stopped and there was still enough time to sneak in a bike ride before dark, so it all worked out fine.

Somewhat odd weather in so far as the forecast leading into the event called for 6 days of sun with very little chance of rain, while what actually transpired included rain every day (though mostly in the late afternoons), with 2 days of cool, overcast weather. I'm not sure rain fell while any racers were running, but it certainly fell while controls were being retrieved and set out.

Many people asked "when's the next one going to be" but the truth is that after the events of the past 3 months (bike crash/recovery) I hadn't thought much at all beyond getting to this day. But now that this day is nearly over, now I'm beginning to plan to use the rest of the summer trying to get in better shape again and, hopefully, fixing the running injury that has beset me since late last fall.

Very fun seeing so many old friends and acquaintances, and meeting some new faces as well. That alone made it all worthwhile. Wish other clubs out there were thinking along similar lines. It's not a sign that the sport in the US is doing well or in a good spot when this just concluded "A" event is the only one between coastal California and the Mississippi this year. The numbers in the report that Randy Hall put together are quite telling, and the story they are telling is not a good one.

Day 5 of the O' Fest, at Remarkable Flats. Folks seemed to really enjoy the day, but then if you can't enjoy running at Remarkable Flats, then....

Picked up controls after the race, and was happy to have only one water stop in my allotment today!

Day 4 of the O' Fest, at Twin Boulders. Picked up (my share) of controls after the race, which included 2 water stops. The water stops meant a decision on my part to do it in two trips: one for the controls, and the second just for the water stop debris.

C • Twin boulders 2

Day 3 of the O' Fest, my responsibility here, too, with a course at the hilly Devil's Claw area. Had help bringing in controls so I only had one string to do, and then after that switched duties to help pick up the slack in setting out controls for Day 4 after Graham was laid low by his ankle injury. Luckily the cool to almost too cool rain that started while picking up controls ebbed and then ceased, with the sun back out for much of the control setting. Funny to go from feeling almost cold to almost too warm in such short space of time!