Training Log Archive: kissy

Tanner called today from Greensboro, NC. That's where he's living now, with his girlfriend. He enrolled himself in the community college down there, and called today to tell me he got a 101 on his first test in reading and a 95 on his study skills test. "Mom, I love college," he told me. Life is good.

C • Good for him! Now just keep... 4

Stayed inside today because we finally got snow! I took the dogs for a walk, and they went crazy in the snow. They loved it.

Event: QOC: Greenbelt
 

QOC local event at Greenbelt Park. I ran the Red course today just because I haven't been out in awhile and wanted to get in some practice. It was very cold, and I had forgotten my gloves, so my hands were freezing for the first third of the course. My whole body was cold, so I never felt like I was running freely. The cold and, of course, the crappy woods of Greenbelt. I think we should rename this map to Greenbriar National Park.

The navigation went very well today, but I took so many bad falls, that it was just frustrating. At one point, I fell, rolled on back, and screamed an expletive to the heavens. I was getting very sick of falling. I also managed to cut my thumb in one of the falls, and it would not stop bleeding. So, blood dripping down my hand, on my compass, on my map, wiped on my leg. Ick!

This all sounds very complainy, but I did have a lot of fun. The course setters were a group of Juniors from QOC, and I think they did a great job under the expert tutelage of David Onkst.

Red - Splits

A nice run at PWF with the dogs. Started at TREC, out to Taylor Farm Rd., cross Scenic Drive and down Burma Road to the end...and back. I had to add a loop around the campground at the end to make it an even 5 miles and 1 hour. There were a lot of people out today and a lot of dogs. All of them leashed but one, but they turned down the North Valley trail before we passed them.

It was a little chilly today, but more windy than anything. I was dressed fine and the puppies behaved themselves.

Okay, Mapboy, here is your hat. Are you going to Greenbelt this weekend?

C • Wow what a great hat. I'm r... 2

Still not 100% recovered from whatever I had the other day, so just took the dogs for a walk in PWF. A good chance to try out my new Forerunner. There are a lot of bells and whistles to figure out.

I can already tell I'm going to be a mess on Tuesday. I couldn't even get through the coverage of the opening day concert today without crying! I'm just so proud of this country and where we're going. I'd better stock up on the tissues.

C • Just to get the tear ducts ... 16

I drove up to Basking Ridge, NJ, yesterday to host an all-day meeting today, and then heading back home after that. Well, Fate had another idea as I caught some kind of bug (or it might be food poisoning), and have been throwing up all day. And, to top it all off, I'm still in Basking Ridge, being too sick to drive home. :-( I'm hoping I get out of here tomorrow. So far, I'm only at the ice chip stage.

Travel day home. Everything went well except for a change of planes in Minneapolis due to a frozen toilet holding tank in our original plane. It was like -30 degrees there. Crazy! Delayed by frozen poop.

The last day of skiing for this season, and it was a perfect day. Not too cold, with nicely groomed trails. Truly beautiful.

A beautiful day on the trails at Happy Jack. It was a little chillier than last time, but the snow was much faster. The trails had been groomed since the snowfall of the other day, and they were so nice to ski on. There were also more cars in the parking lot, but I still saw very few other people out there. I worked a little more on my form, and it seemed to be getting better, but just as in past years, it gets better just as I'm ready to go home.

A pretty lazy day. The weather continues to be unbelievably mild. I just went for a short run through the hood.

It had snowed a bit in town overnight, so I was hopeful there was more new snow up at Happy Jack...and there was! The trails were so nice, with fluffy new snow, but not too deep. It was still flurrying a bit when we were up there, so it was picture perfect. And the trails were basically empty, with next to no one else out.

I felt good for this session, but at the end, I started feeling a little nauseous. And now, a few hours later, I still feel sick. I hope it's just a passing thing and not anything that wants to stick around.

I biked around Laramie, doing some errands. I went to the knitting store for some yarn and needles to knit a hat in the Swedish colors for guess who. Then, on to the kitchen store for a cookie plate to bring over, replete with cookies, to a dinner with the neighbors on Saturday. Then, buying a paper at Grand Ave. Newstand, and dinner ingredients from the grocery store.

A beautiful day in Laramie, attested to by the fact that I was bicycling in January, and most of the time, without gloves because it was so warm. Crazy global warming!

C • I could use a hat to go alo... 3

I took it easy today so I could get acclimated to the altitude and to being on skis again. I just did three loops around Phil's Folly. The weather was nice, very windy but not too, too cold. The trails weren't in top condition, with tree junk blown on them and not much new snow has fallen for awhile.

C • X-C 3

Travel day to Laramie. I had to sprint through a few airports, but I won't log that. :-)

C • Laramie 3

This takes on a whole new feel when you actually have two dogs wrestling around you as you are in a downward dog position. Or licking your toes as you are in the Warrior position.

C • Join the Club 1

Score-O at Manassas (75 mins.). I was excited to go to this event because I had never orienteered there before. I'm not sure how I've missed the Manassas events for the past decade or so, but I have. And I've never been on this map before, so it was kind of exciting. Plus, it was a mass-started Score-O, which also sounded cool. And it was. This was really a fun event...fast running through many fields, and a lot more people than I had expected. I felt pretty good out there, no real navigational errors, just a few brain-dead errors. I'm convinced I could have swept the course but I totally screwed up my planning. For one thing, I didn't even see #126 on my map...I practically ran right by it. I didn't realize that until I was on the other side of the map and running out of time. Then, the stupider mistake was, for some reason, thinking I had to be in at 1:10:00 instead of 1:15:00. And, I was 3 minutes early at that, so I had 8 more minutes to get the two closest controls to the finish...if I had not been so stupid. BLAH!!

An early morning run at PWF with the dogs, and it went much better than normal. I've gotten two Gentle Leader collars for them, and the collars work wonders at reducing the pulling. Except for one stretch, where both Jack and Lucy started pulling and pulling and whining, so I figured they were following something on the trail. And, lo and behold, not too much further we came upon a woman and her dog, not on a leash. I called ahead and asked her to leash it, which she did, and we passed uneventfully. But, I guess she unleashed it again after we had passed, and soon, her dog came bounding up on us, which wouldn't have been disastrous, except that we were *just* crossing a stream on a small log and both of my dogs went in the water, and I almost did, too. Stupid non-leashers.

I went to PWF, sans dogs, to go for a New Year's Day run. It was very brisk out, but it wasn't so bad once I got going. I felt pretty stiff for the first 10 minutes or so, which isn't surprising since I haven't been running at all. Once I got loosened up, it went much better. I ran down the dirt road to the pyrite mine, and up the North Valley trail until it meets the Geology trail. From the Geology trail, I did a little off-trail running along Quantico Creek until I hit Lake One road, and took that back up to the scenic drive. It was a busy day in the park, with a lot of trail runners, which was nice to see.