Training Log Archive: mayer22

Mini walk w/Zitch/Skip/Nut to play in the leaves some. The dogs took off right when we got back to the house.

Searching for Zitch/Skip on Homeplace. Found them on the FS road while I was talking to the neighbors. It became evident that they found a dead deer to feast on.

Traditional Keffer Oak hike w/Nut on our way to pick up the Christmas tree.

Ride in. Heavy pack. 40deg swing from Friday's ride, 30F and 15WC. Wind settled down after a bit. Had to ride back up the driveway b/c I forgot to put on my helmet. Was wearing too many clothes to notice.

Mill Mountain Adventure w/Zitch/Skip
Drove out with BSwede for my first Muddy Squirrel event. Temps were great but 20+ wind at the top and NE side of the mountain. On top of that we had 5 pieces of paper for a 1 hour event not to mention keeping 2 labs in check in a somewhat urban park.

RD said the park requested we stay mostly on trail and the CPs were all near trails. In other words, interpret this loosely and use trails when possible. There are enough trails here that it makes sense most of the time anyway cutting only occasionally to switch trails or avoid a dog leg.

Pages provided:
Overall map of park with CPs and some topo
Overall map of park with good topo but no CPs
Map of top of Mtn with CPs
Punch sheet
Clue sheet

I spent a minute or two after the start trying to transfer the clues to the two maps with CPs. Had trouble managing all the papers at the start and the two excited dogs on leash. Once I got a little ways away I was able to let the dogs go and manage papers a little better.

I picked a route that had me climb the mountain twice but saved significant distance. After the trouble at the start everything was going as planned until about 25 min in I decided to angle back to a trail instead of going right back to it. Ended up paralleling it in and out of small reentrants. When I got back I couldn't confirm my location despite a trail intersection, b/c it wasn't mapped and also b/c there were no topo lines in this area, so I had to switch to the topo map w/o CPs. I located myself and began using the topo map to navigate to what I thought was my next CP. With a 400m left I realized I passed a CP and had to backtrack 500m to get it (lost 6 mins). On this detour I realized in the mess I lost my punch card thought that was a lost cause but fortunately found it where I had noticed the mistake. Luckily there was no wind here to blow it away.

Also had some trouble with the next CP trying to converge the trail map (which wasn't clear/accurate) and had no topo lines. Also saw Matt B from Odyssey riding his bike. From here ran back up the mountain to get the nearby CPs and finish.

Late ride in. Heavy pack. Almost 70F

Midnight Moonlight Hike w/Zitch/Skip/NUT!
Nut's first moon hike. Short. Dogs on leash the whole time. Helped pull us on the uphills.

Later found out that it was an official supermoon. Not too shabby. Beautiful night.

Homeplace w/Zitch/Skip
Nice to get out. Shwacked down to the forest road. Creek was real low.

Dogs found a deer carcass near the creek in the woods and Z was carrying a hindquarter. Had to play chicken with him for a bit to get rid of it.

Fast ride in. Heavy pack. Legs felt loose/light early on. Dumpelmuur PR despite the heavy pack. Finally had to wear extra clothes (arm warmers) today 45F and a bit of TW.

Mtn Lake w/Zitch/Skip/Nut. 45# pack.
Went up late after the time change. Realized we were gonna get a nice view at the overlook if I timed it right. So we went out towards Johns Creek to try and get some GPS tracks for our BROC map. Made it some of the way down (and thought I was already off property) before I started having to fight through overgrown rhodo and blowdowns, which isn't easy with Nut in the pack, so we turned around.

On the way back realized I wasn't off property but that's ok. Quickly mapped the start of another trail (off John's Creek) that needs to be further mapped. Also mapped another trail leading off property on the main ridge.

Was looking to map a section of trail just S of the powerlines that used to be on the trail map but didn't see it anymore. Then mapped the overlook and cliff trails before finishing at the overlook for sunset. Snapped some picks, enjoyed the view and then let Hazel run down the mountain back to the car.

Quite a bit of walking (hills, mapping, and Hazel running).

Pandapas w/Zitch/Skip
Out for a quick ride with the pups. Filled the slow leak in my rear tire again expecting it to last the ride but it was completely flat after about 30 mins. Gave it some CO2 shots periodically for the rest of the ride to make it back to the car.

Ride in. Ultralight pack

Met KT and Nut at the park/playground. Saw the electrical workers who were fixing the power outage.

Ride in. Light pack.

Ride home. No pack. Pretty good speed. KT/Nut passed me right after Keister's

Ride from VPT

Ride home. No pack. 75F (in Nov).

BROC Halloween Book Hunt
Book placement by Ben. It had a fun forestry flair. Enjoyed some of the interesting book placements. The cave under Derring was the most interesting for me.

Hit a small book on the way to a big book and got behind a fast team. They were enough ahead of me to not see me attack and find the most difficult book which was placed in stadium woods off a trail but also off a hilltop just down a spur. Being able to read the terrain made this a fairly easy find but the other team spent 7 mins searching the woods. They later lost time searching for two other books.

Finished with over 10 min to spare. I was able to find all books with little to no searching (testament to good clues and maps) which I think contributed to the fast time. I did (unsuccessfully) search for one book for 3 min but it was apparently picked up by a bystander because no one found it.

I did have a bit of trouble with 10. There was no good way to include it and when I finally did decide to grab it I almost attacked the wrong building but saved myself at the last second.

I won by 6 books but only about 500 points (out of 4000+) due to the other team's strong strategy of dropping 4 low value books and 2 medium value books. If they had seen me attack in the woods it would likely have been a very close result.

Cleared the North books on my road bike. Forgot to start watch, twice.