Training Log Archive: kissy

An early morning ride on the Battlefield road, after a trip to the farmer's market. Yum.

Ran the SSS in Rockville, put on by David Onkst. At the beginning of the summer, I had told Patti Mace that we could run together at some of the SSS's for some practice, and today was the first one I made it to, so we did the short course together. It was a training session with corridors (and the complete map on the back, in case of emergency), and I thought it was really good training.

We did pretty well, with me messing up the most! Hope Patti doesn't learn from that! I'm finding it difficult again to read the map, so I might have to start looking again into alternative vision enhancements while orienteering, although I'm not sure what that could be other than wearing reading glasses while running. Yuck.

Caitlin came along to this training, but when she realized it was corridors, and she had to be back by 6:00, she opted to stay behind and watch Max, since Nadim was on a crutch.

After the training, we all went to California Taco (or Burrito) and Ben & Jerry's. Good woods, good food, and good friends. Life is good.

C • Reading Glasses 10

I went back to PWF to retrieve the first control from my SSS last weekend. Vic had gotten the others, but he couldn't #1 either. I went right to where I had hung it, and there it was. I then did a little map checking and the ditch that's mapped is a little wrong, and there's another ditch that's not mapped. The one that's mapped should start more to the SE end of the parking lot, nearer the knoll, almost in the small reentrant there. And then it curves around and ends where it's mapped. The other ditch starts where the mapped ditch starts on the map and hugs the north side of the ride, down to the fence. When I placed the control, I came over the knoll, along the side of the formline spur and dropped in to the ditch, so everything looked fine. And when I passed over the ride towards #2, I just figured the unmapped ditch was just the side of the ride. Hopefully that will get corrected in the next mapping exercise.

After I got that control, I went for a shortish trail run. It was later than normal, and an awful line of thunderstorms was getting ready to pass through the area, so I didn't want to be out too long. Too bad, because I really felt great on this run. I kept thinking of movies along the way. In the beginning, I felt like Jody Foster in "Silence of the Lambs," when she's running on the trails in Quantico. Then, at the end, when I ran through William's ballfield and there was a herd of 6 deer grazing, I pretending they were buffalo and I was Kevin Costner from "Dances with Wolves," and I stalked them with my spear...well, my stick. I saw a total of 11 deer tonight and one fox, unfortunately not of the swamp variety.

And it was a good thing I cut the run short. Just as I was getting in to my car, with the door still open, a huge bolt of lightning hit very, very close by and the thunder was deafening. I quickly hightailed it out of there.

C • Map 3

I wasn't feeling 100% today, and the awful heat and humidity didn't help. I took a relaxed day today, and ended it with a nice hike in PWF with Caitlin, Jack and Lucy.

C • Did you see any white squir... 1