Training Log Archive: Swampfox

More Yowsa! Excellent.

Trails rolled again this morning, and coverage is significantly improved. There are still a few things poking through here and there, but what has been rolled is probably at about 95% or better now, which is a big improvement.

Bumped into Gwynn and Dustin and skied with them (they were clearly faster), and then ran afterwards until past dark. No lions, no moose.

Yowsa! (Also forgot to note Yowsa! on Thursday.)

At last some decent snow, and if it settles in place and doesn't get blown too much, it could be enough to finally get the ski season up and water crystaled.

Ran for a bit over two hours in the snow, with more snow falling every step of the way. I had the idea the temps were mid-20s when I left home, but by the end it felt colder than that. When I got back home and checked, it turned out I had been right--it had dropped down into the single digits, plus there was our good friend the wind. By the last half our or so the new snow was deep enough that it upped the ante noticeably on the running effort.

Based on what I had heard and seen following the recent snow, I decided I would get skis out and give the trails a try. I used old skis that hitting any rocks really wouldn't matter much. As it happened, I didn't hit anything, but I was pretty careful. There were more almost bare or very thin and dirty patches than I had thought there might be, and with such little snow, everything was very uneven (which I expected.) Balance and arm strength was much better than I had expected, and though I had planned to only go for about 30 minutes or so, in the end I did double that. Other people were out, and it was fun, but it will be more fun with more snow, and I'll probably wait until we get more snow before I give it a try again.

In the meantime, running remains very good, especially for December. There's really nowhere the snow is too deep to run, and for the most part hardly any places where it's even close.

I saw plenty of fresh moose tracks both while skiing and while I was running after. But seeing an actual moose is more fun than seeing tracks, and so I saw one of those too, a cow moose lurking in the woods off one of the trails. I also heard two large animals crashing through thick fir forest, and almost certainly those were moose, too.

Okay, yesterday, running at Pelican Bay, it was in the upper 40s. Today, running at Happy Jack, it was 5F. I could feel the difference!

The lesson learned/ Run more at Pelican Bay. ; )

Happy Winter Solstice!

O' pass at Pelican Bay, 10.2 kms, 24 controls, sunny, mild, windy. FIgured I better take this one last (?) chance to get out on a course, because the next few days at least are forecast to be much colder, with several chances for snow--making me think this could be the last orienteering for 2017. I did everything well, so if this is the last for the year, then at least I will have closed out on a good note!

Nice day out, sunny, with some melting of snow/ice on side streets. The busier and larger streets are dry, and I was able to get out on my bike and bike around town, including a visit to some brand new road on the south side of town I'd never been on yet. Ran snow trails at the end of the day.

Plenty of wind with travel advisories on the interstate for light and high profile vehicles, and not much sun, either. That combination in the winter usually makes for chilly conditions, but it was mild enough that it was fine out. And when the sun did come out, too, it was even quite pleasant. Ran snow trails and didn't see a soul the whole time.