Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Linked up with Tyler to run through the One Cowboy Relay course. There was dense fog up top stretching up form the south and you could see it was at least as far north as past the Visitors Center, but it was hard to tell how much further north it was. It turned out to be lightly foggy in the course area, but mostly it was just overcast with subdued lighting. We wouldn't have had to go far in different directions to get either full sunshine or else full on scary monster fog.

I made the mistake of not telling the folks helping with control pickup to leave the streamers in place, so there were only a couple of controls still marked. But no big deal, as it was no problem to be sure about where the controls were.

Running the course for myself, I can see it really worked out about the way I had hoped. The first 4 (motala) loops were out in part in open sage with a spur/gully character, and in part in a more granity area of a controlled burn pine forest. Then, when you crossed the road for the final loop, the terrain and vegetation changed markedly. There were several potentially tricky sections of aspen forest where if you weren't paying attention, you could easily have drifted well off your line and dropped a good bit of time--especially if you dropped elevation in the process. There's a good bit more mapped on the other side of the road that we used or that people saw, and it's good, hilly terrain.

Warming up, we saw three moose, and we tacked on another moose while doing some jogging through forest after running the course. When you see 4 moose, that's a pretty good day.

As I was parking at the Finish, I noticed that right across the road there was a fair amount of fresh slash--green pine limbs--scattered on the ground, as if someone had cut down a pine tree and had discarded the smaller limbs right there. It turned out to be a good bit more than that, and it looks like just in the past week or so the Forest Service had been out in the area of the final loop and had cut down many smaller pine trees. I really have no idea what objective they are striving for, or, if what they are doing has any chance of achieving that objective. But I have come across many areas now on various of our maps in the past two years where small trees have been cut down or where tracked equipment has gone in and masticated (chewed up, ground down) small pine trees. It's weird to me, because having no real idea of what is going on, I would have guessed that if anything was going to be addressed vis-a-vis trees up top, it would be doing something about and useful with all the beetle kill trees. And I would have been wrong!

Kansas is one of the very first teams to be playing today, and they're doing well right from the start, down 7-0 to West Virginia. I think Wyoming will be one of the last two teams to be playing today (it helps when you're playing a night game and two time zones west of California)--though technically, if you're going by East Coast time, the game actually starts tomorrow. But we will go by Mountain West time, so it starts very late today.

A bit more pleasant out today, at least when the sun was out (and not in.) Biked in the early afternoon, and it was fine enough for shorts, but I wore a medium weight jacket for the wind, which gradually picked up. And as the wind picked up, more clouds moved in. By the end of the ride, I was chilled enough so that some hot tea back at home really hit the spot.

Did some work, occasionally checking on how some of the Bottom 25 teams were doing, and then headed up to try to do some running. "Try" because by then the weather off to the west looked bad, and like it was closing in, and the winds were up more, and there was fog stretching across the top of the Range. I figured I could deal with some drizzle or light sprinkles, but if it was going to be rain with temps in the 30s, they would just have to find someone else to do the running up there today.

And there were some light sprinkles on the way up the canyon, but by the last third of the ascent, sprinkles had changed over to light snow, so good. From there you could see ahead that the further east you went, the cleared it was, so I continued and had a fine outing, with most of the time doing hill repeats on a section of gravel trail heading up to one of the lesser known climbing areas. I was by myself from start to finish--no surprise at all, given the weather.

Warnings are now out for winter weather conditions starting tomorrow afternoon and continuing through Monday. Awesome!

Went out on my bike to run an errand, and before leaving, checked the temp online: 52F. It sure didn't *look* like 52F. It's been gray and windy all day.

And it didn't feel like 52F either. It felt like the onset of winter, and by the time I got home, my fingers were pretty well numbed. I checked the temp again once I got back, and now it read 38F--and even at that, it seemed generous to me. The fact that there were some small bits of ice falling through the air may have influenced how it felt to me.

Had to happen sooner or later, and it happened sooner: went up top to run late in the afternoon, and ran in...snow! Winds were howling out of the north, throwing down snow, and feeling very chilly, which is always going to be the case when just 2 days ago it was still t-shirts and shorts weather. That's okay. I'm sure in another 24-48 hours I will be fully acclimatized to winter and ready to take on the worst it can bring. Ha!

There were not many other people out taking on the weather. In fact, I only saw one mountain biker the whole time I was out--and I was out for more than 2 hours.

From time to time I think about who I see and how many people I see out on the trails, and it still surprises me how few college aged people I see given that UW is right here. It seems like there would be a lot more of those folks out mountain biking; that so few (it's practically none) are out running on the dirt is less surprising to me. And as for high school aged people? It's zero.

Big wind roared through the valley late last night, and were still going pretty well this morning. During the day several brief showers passed through the area, and each shower seemed to herald a reinvigoration of the wind.

I went up to run at midday, and just a few minutes into warming up, I looked behind me and saw a wall of dark clouds sweeping in to cool things down, and decided I better conclude the warming up with a sprint to the truck. I just barely beat the arriving rain, which quickly passed over to horizontal pea sized hail. Or maybe it was large grapple! I like the idea it was grapple better, so we will call it the first grapple of the season--so fine! Altogether it was nearly the first significant precipitation since the O' Festival. Definitely Fall.

The moisture made the landscape so much quieter to run through. Nothing was dry and scratchy; everything was damp and refreshed instead.

Ran an O' course at Granite Planite, taking the course in reverse and then running it forwards, back-to-back.

A quick review of the Bottom 25 rankings reveals that neither Wyoming nor Kansas made it in after losses last weekend. UMass and UConn are doing well, however. And how about Nebraska at #2! Wow!!! Some people would probably not be surprised at Nebraska at #2, but not *this* #2. Over in Lincoln they are already looking forward to basketball season.

I will guess that if both Kansas and Wyoming lose again this coming weekend, at least one will get in. Wyoming's chances for the rest of the season have improved considerably with a season ending injury to their punter. When your offense isn't doing much, you better have a good punter. Now they don't have a real punter at all--they'll be subbing in a body and hoping for the best.

O' at Twin Boulders in the morning, using southern portions of the map, mostly. Ran where I wanted to, however it didn't feel like I was moving with any great amount of speed. Part of that could have had to do with it feeling warm when the sun was out--and it was out nearly the whole time. So back to unseasonably warm weather, which registers as quite pleasant for October as long as you aren't trying to get up a south facing slope quickly.

No smoke in the area and it was hard to make out any kind of a smoke plume today, at least in part because there were many low, scattered clouds to the west. It could be that given the direction of the wind today that the fire has consumed most of what is available along that axis of movement.

Yesterday while running I came across another trail runner who was just about to get started. He wanted to know if I had seen anyone in the direction I had come from--he was thinking hunters. I told him no worries, it would only be bow hunters out, if anyone. He said no, it was the first day of a general season, and that he had just checked it on his phone. I told him that maybe I was wrong, but inside I was thinking maybe I was right. I hadn't see a single hunter, or any flash of orange, hadn't seen trucks driving around bristling with hunters and orange and weaponry, and hadn't heard a single shot. That would be pretty darn unusual had it been the first day of (rifle) hunting season. Today I didn't hear or see anything either, making me feel even more sure that a general hunting season hadn't started locally.

But in fact it's hard to be sure--there are many different "seasons", based on animal, sex of animal, weapon, and the particular hunting unit (area) in question. After I got home, I checked, and it looks like a hunting season *did* start yesterday--for black bear. I have no idea how many tags there might be for the area I was in, but it's probably a few at most, if any at all. Bear hunters hardly concern me for even a moment.

C • Black bear 4