Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Chilly day for April, just in the 30s, and much chillier than the past week. What was really pushing the chilly feeling, however, was some decent wind gusto that had travel advisories up on the interstate.

I had planned an easy day, which worked well because my legs were a little sore from yesterday. Ran up top on a mix of bare trail and hard, re-frozen snow pack.

After biking around town some, I headed out for the main effort for the day: an 11 km course at Remarkable Flats, which got an extra bump from some pretty decent amount of breeze. I made sure to include a control at Remarkable Boulder. The area was deserted, since the gates to the jeep road remain locked for now. I was easily the flashiest thing around--not because I was moving so fast, but because I had on a blue and yellow top and flo-jo pink tights--with the nearest competition coming from scattered groups of early blooming lavender pasqueflowers. Birds constituted the only wildlife that I saw, including one blue heron.

Today was the opposite of yesterday: another forecast for partly cloudy conditions, which turned out to be wholly cloudy conditions all day long. But still mild out and generally quite pleasant--just on the grayer side of the spectrum.

It was a year ago today that I found myself sitting on the ground after a bike crash, wondering what had happened. Must be about time for a new
misadventure! ; ) Or maybe not--sometimes there's something to be said for keeping it boring.

A forecast of partly cloudy considerably understated what proved to be the nicest spring day we've had so far. It seemed like a great opportunity to get out on the bike and wheel around for a bit longer than I have any other time so far this year.

While out, I stopped by the Forest Service HQs and finally met the new recreational permit guy, and quickly discussed my still vagueish plans to have some kind of O' event here over Labor Day weekend. Probably 4-5 days of a mix of races/training. But I may have to see about procuring some additional supplies of low tech punch cards. Are they even still made? But we're still in pretty darned good shape when it comes to supplies of map cases. : )

Ran at Happy Jack after biking, and saw all the signs that ski grooming for the season has finally cast it in for good. Still plenty of snow in the trees, but skiable snow would be another thing.

C • eclipse-O 4

Fairly low Inferno Index reading when I woke up this morning--just 11F out. Snow the day before and clear skies overnight will do that for you sometimes, though.

Brilliant day out with a shocking amount of sun, and so even though it didn't really qualify for a first O' outing of the year (wasn't even close to the what the protocol calls for--60F, vs. the actual high 30s or whatever it was when I was out), I went ahead and donned O' shoes and O' pants, and went out with a map and thrived in one of the more open sections of Pelican Bay. In the woods there was almost no snow at all, and the only places there were significant amounts were in some of the larger, more steep sided reentrants in the open.

Very fine, and need I mention I saw no badgers? (or cow carcasses, either?)

As per usual for the last three springs now, all the gates off the hardtop roads were locked, and so had to run in a few hundred meters to get to where I wanted to be--oh, the hardship! ; )

Excited to wake up and see a fair bit of snow had fallen on the ground and that it was still snowing. Eagerly made plans to get breakfast together and then spend the rest of the day happily at Yowsa!!!

What I didn't realize was that, very unfortunately, the snow on all the hard surfaces was melting from underneath at a quite rapid rate, such that by the time I got outside to begin Yowsa!!!, there was almost nothing left to do. : (

Oh, well! It's unlikely that we've seen our last snow this spring, so we'll just have to hope for better luck soon.

To make up for the disappointment, I went back inside, fired up OCAD, and drafted in several contour lines worth of detail from surveying last season at Diamond Bay. It's not Yowsa!!!, but it is more very high quality O' terrain.

C • badgers 3

Yesterday I planted 10 extra strength Amsterdam tulip bulbs and today it snowed most of the day; the line connecting these two things is bright and clear. I wish I had known how effective those bulbs are, because I would have held one out and put it in the pocket I usually put a reserve compass in for races. With that bulb, there's no telling how much faster I would run, but a lot faster for sure. (As far as I know, the IOC still hasn't taken a stance on tulip bulbs, and especially not bulbs that are GPS enabled.)