Training Log Archive: Swampfox

While waking up and looking out and seeing snow falling in the morning here in Laramie doesn't normally qualify as a rarity, when it's June 23 it does. The weather man says we will head more back towards summer tomorrow.

Plus, rain for 22 out of the last 23 days is keeping the frogs and ducks very happy. It floats their boats.

O' at Granite Planite

If you your preference is for cooler summer temps, Laramie could be the place to be on this first day of calendar summer. It's *only* 31 degrees below the normal high, and with totally overcast skies with intermittent rain, it seems unlikely the temperature will go markedly higher, at least not without help from a couple of good sized thermonuclear explosions. And with today's rain, it has now rained 20 out of 21 days of June (though I will admit that 2 days ago all the rain I personally experienced was just a few brief drops.)

According to the forecast, next week will offer much drier weather, and even maybe some sun!

Whether it's because of the late winter weather we had and a very cool May and (so far) June, there have been almost no mosquitoes up in the hills so far. Maybe it's just a randomness and one of those years with a low mosquito hatch for whatever reason. But my working guess is that the season is just delayed.

Though for all I know it may have been officially warmer, the high I saw for today was 44F. And, as a bonus, while I was running there were several brief periods with scattered snowflakes in the air. That's some good summer weather.

C • Orienteering in the Tetons 10

A late afternoon storm swept in late in the afternoon, with some very powerful winds arriving in advance and kicking up large amounts of dust. I was out biking but only a few blocks from home as the first rain arrived, and I was able to get inside before getting soaked.

Later still, now in the early evening, I ran trails at Happy Jack, and saw that the storm brought down quite a few beetle kill pines across trails I ran. More work for the chainsaw gang!

Went running at the end of the day and took it easy--same as yesterday, out of concern to not make whatever is going on in my knee worse. Oddly, to me anyway, each of the last three days this knee has felt slightly stiff or with some other sensation that isn't quite right/usual when walking around early in the day (but if I go out for a walk, the longer I walk the normal it feels), and then back home after running at the end of the day. But while either biking or running itself, it has felt 100% fine. It seems like, if anything, it should be the other way around if something seriously bad was going on, but then lots of things with the body seem weird (at least to a layperson.)

Up at Happy Jack, the first of the races of the local summer mountain bike race series was underway. I hadn't known it started today, but with all the trail markings and bikers going by, it was pretty hard for even me to miss. They were lucky that the day's rains had ended just in time. (We've now had rain every day this month except for one, I think--and that's a lot for the arid west!)

I ran out to the end of the Headquarters Trail to the eastern overlook and checked out the snowfield. It's still there, and hanging in pretty strong. For sure it will make it to official summer, and maybe it can last through the rest of June. Depends on how cloudy and cool it stays, one would suppose.