Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Don't look now, but Baylor is about to win a game, and leave the ranks of the unwon teams.

C • Rock Chalk? 2

Biked and included a pass through the tailgating prior to Border War with CSU, and then headed up to the hills to run. Heavy cloud cover brought on darkness prematurely, but since it was snowing pretty good by then, it hardly mattered, and I ran for a good while past nightfall in the snow. Not sure what the forecast was, but the way it was looking, it might turn out to be a fairly bigly amount.

Yesterday and today - ran trails at Happy Jack and observed there was in fact a nice harvest of pine trees by the winds.

Also today, took a ski friend out who wanted to give orienteering a try. Remarkable Flats is a friendly venue for folks going out the first time, so that's where we headed. A good choice in so many ways, but even better today because by some nice afternoon breezes were ripping along, and for the most part at Remarkable Flats, there's no hiding from the wind.

Very windy last night and all through the daylight hours today--strongest winds we've had in the new winter season. I expect to find new trees down
at Happy Jack.

Light snow overnight, deep enough to take tracks (and reveal that an antelope crossed over my driveway early this morning), but not deep enough for much else.

After doing some easy running at Happy Jack, I came home to find the updated Bottom 25 rankings.

As expected, UConn is back in there, battling for a ranking, and no doubt grateful to Missouri for making its reappearance in the rankings possible.

Somewhat surprising was to see that UMass's double overtime victory didn't kick them out of the Bottom 25. But they better not win again this week, or it won't be pretty.

Kansas lost and yet still dropped two spots. But with the game against Baylor this week, it's almost immaterial. Kansas has been here before, and knows how it should be played. Can the same be said about Baylor? Still, no matter who loses and how much they lose by, it's going to be hard to displace San Jose St, UTEP, and Georgia Southern.

O' pass at Rattlesnake Hill, 7.4 kms, clear and cold with 1/4" new snow on the ground (just enough snow for the tiny chill ants to hide underneath, and then leap out unleashing their fierce chill attacks.)

Other than the ants, it was pretty pleasant out even though the sun was rather wan by 3 o'clock. There being only the merest trace of a breeze no doubt helped the pleasant vibe along.

At one point while I was running along an open spur, I glanced off to one side at the creek bottom below, and I saw what I believe is the largest, longest beaver dam I've ever seen before. It's so large it must take a few dozen or so beavers just to keep the thing adequately chinked up with mud. But you know how these things typically go--sooner or later someone will install a boat launch, and the jet skiers will take over the water in no time flat. But for the time being--and today, at least--it was a quite peaceful setting.

Have figured out where I want to course set for the days I will be responsible for at next year's Rocky Mountain O' Festival:

Aug 29 - Lights of Cheyenne (been quite a while since we've used any part of this map), mass start race

Aug 30 - Rattlesnake Hill, One Cowboy Relay (I am thinking of sending the final loop out on a piece of adjoining map that has been surveyed for several years now, but never used.)

Aug 31 - Granite Planite, planned/proposed NRE on what will be a brand new map of virgin terrain, and which I think will prove to be an ultra-cool area. But maybe unreadable because of overwhelming amount of detail, so therefore it will be completely up to date as far as current mapping norms elsewhere go.