Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Winter started the day with snow and spring closed out the day with some sunshine and warming temperatures. Skiing at the end of the day was definitely spring conditions, with many spots reduced to thin layers of dark ice/slush. A couple of mild days now will end (my) skiing for the season, I will guess. Ran after skiing until it was too dark to say my name.

Well, well, well, besides being the last day in March and a precursor chemical to April, it's also Game Day, and a lot of people will be heading downtown to their favorite restaurants and sports bars, and even just regular old get drunk cowboy bars. In order to keep things as orderly as possible, the City Council has issued some special regulations governing conduct downtown for the hours from 4 pm until 11:59 pm:

1) If you're not going to be dressed in Brown and Gold, you must be dressed mostly in blue and have at least one KU sticker prominently affixed to any outerwear.

2) If someone greets you and it's not someone you are acquainted with, instead of the usual response "Go Cowboys", it will be acceptable to say "Go Jayhawks" instead, but it should be said with less exuberance than would be used with "Go Cowboys".

3) Patrons will refrain from cheering when the VIllanova team makes any dunks or three point shots. Light applause will be permitted if they make a free throw attempt, as a show of good sportsmanship.

4) When ordering any alcoholic beverage, patrons must demonstrate spelling proficiency by spelling correctly the name of any Kansas player the bartender or server names. Misspellings of "Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk" will not be counted against the patron.

Other than that, it will probably just a be a usual Saturday afternoon in downtown Laramie today.

More winter today, though temps were on the milder side of winter (30s in town, somewhat under that up top.) Biked some, which was about as chilly as expected. Skied some, too, with some new snow and grapple coming down right before I started. Even did some running, and by far running proved to be the best choice for the day's conditions.

The sun was 100% not fun and in fact was 100% nowhere to be seen, all day long.

Some decent wind today made for some decent biking. And it also elicited some vehicle restrictions on portions of I-80.

Skied also, with conditions very different from yesterday--the snow had warmed during the day and was refreezing by the time I was out. Still, the trails weren't much chopped up and so even though things were getting crusty and fast, it wasn't rutted and perilous. Full moon was out, but was being filtered by thin clouds where I was, so it didn't really feel full. The werewolves must have felt the same, because I didn't see any.

More snow, more winter. Ideal skiing conditions, so skied long and skipped running again, until the nearly full moon was high in the sky. Dead calm towards the end, which left the crows baffled--being used to gliding with little effort wherever gusting winds will take them.

Back to winter; it snowed most of the day, with substantial accumulation up top at Happy Jack. Looked like the groomer just kind of mailed it in, quitting way before the snow did, so the trails were deep in new snow and very soft. Skating was still possible, if you were willing to work at it.

I skied longer (2+ hrs) and skipped running, which looked like it would have been quite tough on the unpacked snow bike trails.

The water managers must be breathing easier with these late March snows.

A swing back to spring today, with 100% sun, and while it never got outright mild, it was trending that way by mid-afternoon. Nice enough for biking in shorts even so.

Trails conditions at Happy Jack were also springish, with softening and some melt in the thinner, more sun exposed spots, and things re-freezing late in the day. Ran after skiing, and saw one really big bird taking off through the trees, but was unable to determine what sort of deadly bird of prey it was.

Essentially winter again up top. Crisp temperatures, decent breeze, dry snow, nice grooming. Top skiing conditions! Extra nice that after an almost all gray day, some sun emerged for the last 2 hours of the day--wouldn't have experienced that without the clock change and longer days.

Ran into Phil as he was skiing and I was running (after skiing) and we caught up some for a few minutes, by which time I had become surprisingly cold. Had to pick up the pace after that to get the furnace going again, and even then my hands never warmed up entirely even by the time I got back to my truck.