Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Took in April Fool's Day with another run in the fog up top, this time without any freeze to the fog. Saw absolutely nobody, which proves you don't have to go far from town to be in utter desolation (at least if town = Laramie).

Heard several robins off in the fog somewhere, and then actually saw one flitting by before it disappeared. The first robins this year, and so I suppose spring has really arrived. Didn't feel like it though! : )

Kind of a mixed bag day--some sunshine down in the valley, but very heavy fog up top, and with bad weather expected to be moving in late in the day.

I ran in the fog, which turned out to be a wettish ice fog, riming up the trees and barbed wire fences in heavy rim. And while it was wet on my face, while I was driving back into the wind on the way back home, the wet fog was freezing instantly on the windshield, meaning I had to drive slowly for a bit and stop to scrape the windshield. But once I could tun west onto the interstate it was fine, and by halfway down the canyon the fog wasn't freezing anymore.

Once home, there was just enough time to put on my costume for the final game in the CBI series between Wyoming and Coastal Carolina. I had chosen something that I was pretty sure would make it easy to pick me out from the crowd.

I had purple leggings, purple shoes, and I was going shirtless, with my shaved chest and back and arms completely painted in purple. I sprayed on some darkish skin tan color on my face, which approximated a fairly typical hispanic tone, and I had already been growing a thinly clipped moustache and groomed short goatee. And I had let my hair grow out some, to which I had added some wave and texture. When I was all done, I stepped back and looked in the mirror: perfect! I was a Giant Purple Jellybean! Off to the game!

But once I got to the Double A (the basketball arena), I realized that things were not going to go as planned. People kept on pointing at me and saying: "Look, it's a really old Prince!"

Each time I would have to stop and explain that a) I wasn't Prince, I was a Giant Purple Jelly Bean, and that b) before Prince died, Prince and I had been almost exactly the same age, and that was not even a year ago.

But after a while, I got tired of that. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow, so I became Prince! But not a really old Prince.

And really it was better that way. At every timeout, I would jump up and start dancing and playing the air Prince-O-Caster. Totally awesome.

I really wanted to sing "Darling Nikki" during halftime if I could get down to a mike, but I kept on thinking to myself "man, I don't know" (the lyrics are a little naughty.)

Then I had a better idea for halftime: I would go down to the cheerleaders and see if any of them wanted to go out with Prince. Probably they would *all* want to!

I wasn't sure if I should use a falsetto voice or not though. In the end I decided it might be better to just stick with my regular. Maybe I should have gone with the falsetto, because the reception was, shall we say, less than positive.

I got down to the very last cheerleader, and when I told her I was Prince and did she want to go out with me, she said: "You're not Prince, you're just a Giant Purple Jellybean, and I wouldn't go out with you in a million years." Finally! Finally someone recognized the brilliance of my costume!!! My guess is she must have been majoring in the Performing Arts with a minor in Avant Guarde.

Wyoming won the game, which was cool, and was the last team standing in the Mountain West. For that matter, it was one of the last teams standing in the country. Sure, maybe the CBI isn't the NCAA Championships, but you don't have to tell Wyoming that--it already knows, since the last championship it won was the 1943 NCAA Championships, 74 years ago--talk about really old.

After the game, the head basketball coach addressed the crowd and thanked them for showing up and giving energy to the team. But I knew he was really addressing the Giant Purple Jellybean, and was constrained by the situation and not able to speak quite that directly.

All in all, it was a pretty good outing, and I hope all my friends were watching and saw me on TV!

For some nice local variety, it was rain all day in the valley, and snow all day long in the hills--while out running trails, it looked like there was enough snow to allow for some decent grooming, so may take skis up with me tomorrow, just in case.

Following yesterday's rain/snow, today brightened up, with sun out by late morning and getting sunnier and milder as the day went on. Quite nice out by late afternoon; the new snow was melting fast up top wherever it was in the sun. Footing was good on the bike trails.

I ran for about 80 minutes in the snow before heading back down to be in time to catch the Wyoming basketball game, which Wyoming ended up winning. I've been lucky this season in that Wyoming won all of the games that I went to.

Been back home for several days after being away for several weeks, mostly to help Kris during her initial recovery phase from knee surgery. Kris has done a great job so far, and it looks like her surgery and outcome will be quite good. All that with no complaining--which is something, because this is no easy stuff. Many people are getting their knees replaced these days, and while it may be routine surgery from the side of the orthopod, from the patient side it's anything but routine. There is pain, and there is a prolonged recovery period, it's not fun, and patients who are not fully committed to doing their exercises and therapy and basically doing everything they can do to get a good outcome may well end up with a knee joint that was no better than what they started out with.

It also reinforced the idea for me that in so many ways, we are all much better off for staying in the best shape we can. Besides all the well known daily mental and physical benefits, if you should have the misfortune of having some serious illness or injury, you are much better off in terms of your chances of a speedier, better recovery if you you were in good shape going in.

I came back to find the dregs of winter in place. There is no snow in the valley itself, and while there is plenty of snow in the forest in the Laramie Range, with portions of the ski trail net still getting groomed, I have no idea why that's still happening--you'd have to be pretty desperate to want to keep skiing with what is left. The ski trails have many bare spots, and the snow is pretty dirty. So I've been running and biking, and am now looking forward to some warmer and sunnier days. But around here, you never know--we have another 5-6 weeks where big snow storms are nothing unusual to get, and a single big storm would totally reset skiing conditions.

C • Update 1