Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Did a decent rode bike south of town to The Buttes and back for something a little under 2 hours, and then followed that up by some double track mountain biking (read: lots of flailing with not falling being the prime objective) at Twin Boulders late in the day.

Some days are more special than others, though it's not always easy to pin down exactly why.

Today was a good example. While it started out in the usual way with some oatmeal and coffee while reading the newspaper, it quickly got better: I walked around amidst the flowers in my yard and then...went bike riding! Very fine.

Then it got better. Just as I was finishing the bike ride, I spotted a familiarish car rolling down the street. Bike on top, Colorado plates, could it be? Yes, it was, it was Kris! Who would have guessed!

So that meant some more walking amidst the flowers and even a few large bumblebees and we made places for the afternoon. Very fine again.

Then, omg, it got even better still! I had just turned on the printer to print out some maps so we could vet some control locations for the O' Fest, and while the printer was warming up and making various random printer noises--plus I had some music playing and Kris--I thought I heard an odd note, but I wasn't sure. Could it have been the doorbell? I called to Kris who was in another room closer to that side of the house and asked her if she had heard the doorbell. But even though I was thinking it was more likely it was just some note i the music that had popped out than the doorbell, I was already headed for the door.

And, it *had* been the doorbell. Someone was standing by the door with a clipboard. I thought, oh, great, some salesperson here to sell me a miracle cure for ugly toenails or maybe something that will take care of all the dandelions in the world once and for all.

But, it wasn't. So much very finer again, it was my very fine good friend Liz Cheney!!!

From publiken

Liz is running for Congress and stopped by for some campaign advice. I told her she would probably be best off running for a seat in a state with a heavily Republican dominated state like Wyoming, and, oh, by the way, did she know that it just so happened Wyoming's lone seat in the House was going to be open this year? As it happened, she did know. Clearly a case of minds thinking alike, though in different ways, maybe.

You might think things couldn't possibly get any finer than that, and you would be right, but they did anyhow, because what can be better than looking at control locations with actual controls, and in snow?

That is when something shocking happened! Right as we (this is Kris and me now, not me and Liz) were getting started and look at the first control location, a control hurtled down out of the sky and landed right in front of us, and somehow framing the only tiny patch of Alpine Forget Me Nots within 200m! Holy blue floweriness!!

From publiken

What are the odds? Incalculably small. But, when fortune favors you, you favor fortune and seize upon it, which I think is how that old saying goes, so rather than just hanging an ordinary old plain jane streamer, we hung an actual control instead. One, which, I will remind you, rather remarkably fell out of the sky, landing at our feet and perfectly framing a tiny patch of Alpine Forget Me Nots with photo shown again for added emphasis:

From publiken

Unless someone can point to a prior example, I am claiming this as the first deliberately repeated photo in AttackPoint history, which I have slim hopes might deliver me a MacArthur Prize or something similarly noteworthy.

But never mind that, here is the very fine control hanging, in the snow:

From publiken

I'm telling you, for June, the Laramie Range is looking awfully snowy. And so fine.

Biked south of town, came back in against a pretty stiff breeze out of the north, and fared pretty well in taking it on.

Maybe I'm only imagining it, but it's starting to feel like my neck is a little less uncomfortable when I have my head tilted up to see further ahead, and that it's not getting as tired as quickly in that position. The pulled back muscle is no problem for biking, so that's good.

Very nice day out, and I concluded the daylight portion by mapping some trail revisions out at Twin Boulders for the coming O' Fest--always nice to have the trails up to date! Probably need two more medium-ish outings to get it all done.

Decided to see if I was able to bike all the way up Rogers Canyon, which I hadn't tried yet since the bike accident. I don't know what the grade is, but it's a decent, sustained climb, and the best bike climb near town.

I wasn't sure if I was going to make it all the way to the top without my lungs at full capacity, but as it was I made it up without much difficulty, not so different from the way it usually feels, though I'm certain I was moving more slowly than usual. And it had to have helped a bunch to have had a tail wind while climbing. Had the same wind been a head wind, well, I'd have to guess it would have been an iffy thing as to whether I would have made it up or not.

The top end of the canyon passes through a single, isolated section of land owned by the BLM. It has been a notorious spot for years for illegal dumping of all sorts of household trash and furniture (and you have to pass right by the city landfill to get there), and target shooting right by the road, where the shooters as often as not leave behind a mess of shot up glass, electronics, furniture, and spent shells. The BLM hardly has the resources to patrol it, it's very low priority for the county sheriff (at least I assume littering and such is pretty far down on the list of things they have to address), so the mess goes on. Maybe people occasionally are caught and cited for leaving trash behind and other illegal and/or dangerous activities (there's no way that shooting right by the road is safe for passing traffic, whether by bike or auto), but if they are, you never hear about it.

After biking, I headed up top and ran for a half hour or so at Happy Jack. Though slow jog would be a more accurate description. My back was uncomfortable enough that it wasn't fun running, though at least it didn't seem to make things any worse. I'll give it some more time before trying again.

C • Moving target 2

First day of the year that felt summerish. I left some tomato seedlings outside in the sun nearly all day long thinking they might draw encouragement from the day, but if they did, I couldn't tell it (they are all about a staggering 1" high, and given the short growing season here, they really need to get hopping soon.)

It was far too nice to stay inside all day, and I didn't. I spent some time gardening, I took a walk through the neighborhood, I mountain biked from home up in to the hills, and then I road biked. There were quite a few mountain bikers out on the trails, and even some dogs! The prairie was spectacular with flowers.

Took a few minutes before going to bed to walk outside and take a look at Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars. Pretty cool. By observing subtle differences in the intensity of the brightness of different portions of Mars, I could infer the location of the thin crescent moon below the horizon, but I was unable to make out any controls for the Team Trials this weekend. I was an ancient mariner sailing across seas of prairie!

It seemed like there were unusual numbers of toads around today, especially around the river, but maybe that was just me.

Biked out to 7 Mile Lake, which is actually 8 miles out of town. It used to be named 8 Mile Lake, but when the US entered WWII, many local place names involving numbers were deceptively changed in order to throw off the German or Japanese forces should they ever had mounted an invasion and made it this far. It was too much trouble to change the names back after the war, so there you are--7 Mile Lake, 8 miles outside of town. Yeehaw!

Biking felt okay with my back, and I reckoned running would only re-aggravate things, so biked around town and a little out into the countryside and passed on trying to run/jog. The town really felt emptied out though here and there it was possible to detect wafts of smoke from people grilling some of their favorite vegetables.