Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Day 2, West Point, Blue course. Legs better than yesterday (no post-travel cramping problems today) and only a little sore from yesterday. Technique was pretty solid and I didn't do anything that was likely to cost major time. Was fairly conservative with running downhill on any steeper, rockier portions. Main issue was how warm it was, and not much to do about that--I can cope better with heat than I did today, but with this kind of heat so early in the season and coming straight from Laramie, well, unmistakably there was some wilting out on the course, especially on any climbing in the sun. Satisfied with the effort, and the orienteering itself was fun--and extra fun to get back to this old area where I did so much running while I was a cadet!

Blue Long Distance - Splits

West Point Day 1 Middle. Ran Blue. Did better than I did at Surebridge the other day, and my legs held up for the first half of the course. The rest of the way they were more problematic, and I could maintain something like and easy running pace--more than a jog, but not close to hard running. No misses.

Blue Middle Distance - Splits

Mix of trails and woods. Saw a pileated woodpecker, which was cool. We don't have them out west.

Surebridge. This was basically a full jump into the deep end. It's the first time I've been back in Harriman in a good few years, and it felt like it. Coping with the Surebridge map was never easy, and it sure didn't feel easy today either. Reading the map was tough, interpreting the detail was tough, trying to move while reading the map was tough--just tough! ; ) I felt like the turist-O I am. Still, much better than sitting indoors, and a complete contrast weatherwise with WOC 93 (very rainy and quite cool on the Individual Day, versus full sunshine and blue skies today.)

I drew a training course with nothing particular in mind, part of which took me though some spectacularly overgrown areas on some hilltops that were essentially deforested, while the map was showing nice, white forest. The map could stand some updating, or else careful work by a course planner to stick to areas that are mostly the same.

Any number of times--many, many times, actualy--I had to come to a full stop to try to make out what was going on. I had forgotten that the smaller details can be truly minute, especially dot knolls, which in many cases verge on fanciful--or perhaps it is just me that can't find them, which is possible. But even full contour knolls can sometimes have all but negligible height to them. So that takes some extra getting used to.

I don't know how long it might take to get back to being able to run with some flow and confidence in this type of terrain, but I would guess a few weeks at least. Maybe more. I'm a slow learner.

Excitement ensued when I was hopping down a little outcrop, and something plopped down into some leaves beside me. When I looked down, what I saw was the fattest, stubbiest snake I've ever seen. It didn't seem to like my being there and it did some hissing and rearing, and looked very much like a very fat, stubby cobra--especially its head looked cobra-like. I was pretty certain that cobras weren't yet somehow populating the Highland Uplands, and even though I had never seen one (the particular species being a hognose snake) before, I knew there was at least one native snake that would display behavior something similar to what I was seeing, so I wasn't too worried. I told it to crawl on off and eventually that's what it did. I swear it was fat though! It couldn't have eaten a whole pig, but maybe half a pig, if the pig had been cooked by an extra good BBQ restaurant.

Some people I know would have totally freaked, and that's for sure!

C • Pistol Cure 1

Jockey Hollow. I hadn't been back since the Team Trials in '89, and, boy, does the forest look a lot different now than it did then. Barberry has thoroughly infested major chunks of what had been mature hardwood forest as wide open as you could imagine.

I'm kind of guessing that barberry was introduced many, many years ago, maybe even by some of the early colonialists, and if you assume it has been here quite a long time and have seen how quickly it can spread, you have to wonder why it basically hasn't completely taken over all the Harriman/West Point forests and other forests in the region as well. Is it susceptible to some periodic blight or disease that almost wipes it out, and it only gradually comes back? Or is it easily eradicated by fire or some other mechanism?

Maybe the noted resident O' botanist CM knows something about this.

I didn't see a single Revolutionary War soldier, and as far as I could tell, they must have decamped some while ago.

C • 1875 2