Training Log: Swampfox

skiing 2:26:00 [3]

The sun was out bright but I was OK, I had me on some cheap sunglasses. Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah!

run 1:05:00 [3]

The snowshoe crowd must have still been on their South Padre Island spring break, and I was forced to stick with the same trails as yesterday.

skiing 2:32:00 [2]

Colder than it should have been considering either seasonal averages or the fact that it was the first day of (calendar) spring, but it was quite comfortable in the sun. After this latest storm, the snow yesterday and today is the deepest it's been all season up at Happy Jack, and in many spots all traces of picnic tables, trash cans, fences, and 24 hour Taco Bells have completely disappeared beneath enormous snowdrifts.

The trails were still quite soft with all the new snow, but tomorrow morning it should be perfect. By tomorrow afternoon, I would expect it will be back to spring skiing type conditions.

run 1:05:00 [3]

I ran snowshoe trails until dusk, and when I got back to my truck and turned on the radio, the first thing I head was the last thing I had imagined I might hear: Kansas was shot down by Northern Iowa. Which made me wonder: how do people in northern Iowa celebrate, anyhow? Do they, like, just run around and throw corn kernels in the air? Well, I'm sure they will figure it out. Maybe they'll crack open some cans of beer in Cedar Falls tonight, and dance to "Save It For A Rainy Day".

skiing 2:16:00 [2]

There was a whole bunch of new snow up on the Laramie Range today, and while I was out skiing, regulators were shutting down 7 more banks, including Advanta Bank, which LROC once had a credit card from, before they shut down that business in the early stages of the financial crisis. Good thing, I guess, for the remaining troubled banks in the nation that I didn't ski any longer.

They must have made a bunch of bad loans. Too bad they didn't stick with more customers like LROC, because then they might still be in business.

It was single digits when I left Happy Jack. So much for Early Onset of Spring Syndrome!

run 33:00 [2]

Calm out. Too calm. Eerily calm, even.

Could be it's just what happens right before a severe outbreak of March Madness. Or it could be the calm before a desperate storm/blizzard. Or it might be the two of those things taken together.

You really can't rule out the possibility of a desperate blizzard in these parts until about early June or so.

Note

I have been informed that eel are declining in number and that salmon would be a better choice, therefore no more Unagi for me.

Cannibals who favor Texan cuisine need not harbor similar fears; Texans are increasing rapidly in number and are generally plentiful in most parts of the country.

C • SXSW 3

Note

I have just finished my census form. I am rather surprised that under "Race" they don't have a box you can check for "Texan", not that I have officially declared a personal boycott of Texas yet or anything.

There were also no boxes you could check to indicate whether you like or don't like "Orienteering USA", or whether it should be all caps or some caps or no caps at all except on Thursdays, when it would be OK to begin each word with one or two caps. So, I just wrote in my preference along the edges of the form, because I know this is the kind of information the US Census Bureau really wants.

This took up so much of my energy that I had nothing left to indicate to them how I felt about health care (I would like some, but not if the doctors are just going to make a whole bunch more money performing expensive procedures that just make me sicker, because in that case I would prefer to pay them *not* to do any procedures that make me sicker) or epunching (nice, but really I'd rather have health care, if it came right down to it.) I was so wasted, and you should have seen the pools of sweat that accumulated during the form completion process. I'm really glad this only comes around every decade, because otherwise it wouldn't leave enough time for full recovery.

I hope they don't mind soggy forms at the Bureau.

skiing 2:10:00 [2]

Wind from the north was hurrying in colder air to prepare the way for Winter to reassert itself. The trails were icing back up while I was out.

biking 1:12:00 [3]

skiing 1:14:00 [2]

run 1:15:00 [3]

Ran down towards some of the lower elevation maps to check on snow levels and the forest service road conditions. Found some beer cans and heard a turkey gobbling off in the distance. There were no flowers, but then there were also no glaciers, so, a draw.

run 36:00 [2]

Spring is pitching a shutout this morning.

biking 1:36:00 [3]

A fair amount of open ground extending south a few miles from Laramie melted out this afternoon. It's nice to see the earth is all still there!

Note

Who would have thought that "Moneyball" could be turned into a movie?

skiing 1:09:00 [2]

A little skittery in places, but overall not bad at all.

run 1:08:00 [3]

Holy cow--some sage brush lurking beneath the snow reached right out, grabbed my foot, and drug me down to it's unsavory level. Just wait until the snow melts. Revenge will be mine!

When I got back home, I had dinner while listening to a great interview of Michael Lewis on Fresh Air. He has a special genius for finding interesting things that almost nobody else is thinking about, and then writing about them in a compelling manner.

C • interesting things 1

Note

As a followup to the note about Fresh Air, it turned out there was another great interview later on that night, on Charlie Rose, again with Michael Lewis. Quite a number of fascinating points about the underpinnings of the recent financial crisis were made and explained in a way that was effective and easy to understand.

biking 29:00 [1]

skiing 1:13:00 [2]

run 1:17:00 [2]