Training Log Archive: Ari-o

Off to run at the Blue Hills between meetings. Watch didn't start until I was 8 minutes in (really, can someone design a watch which can find satellites while you're running if it doesn't start right away?) so I had to stop and restart. It was a beautiful day out, 80s but in the shade much cooler with a dry breeze: 47˚ dew point!

Not very busy in the Blue Hills. Ran there partially because on trails there seems to be a healthier mask use rate: people don't use them. Here's my rant about masks:

Masks solve the droplet issue, which is someone sneezing and droplets being expelled. If you're running, all a mask does is move the air around, unless you're sneezing. In which case don't go running. In close proximity, masks are very important, for the droplet issue (this is what hand washing is about). We've mostly solved that.

For aerosols, masks probably do help when people are in proximity to each other, but ventilation seems to be much more important. For example, there have been basically zero reported transmission on airplanes or transit vehicles. I think there is probably some sort of equation for transmission along the lines of:

((1/air change rate / rate of ventilation)) * (time spent in proximity) * (viral load of person spreading) * (density of people)

let's call this 1/a t v d

If any of these are close to zero, then the entire equation goes to zero. In general, v is unknowable, but people on hiking trails are less likely to be shedding virus than people, say, in a hospital. But on hiking trails, especially the wider ones like the Blue Hills, a is very high, which means 1/a is quite low, especially on a breezy day, although even a 5 mph breeze across a 10-foot-wide path at a 30˚ angle would change the air over every five seconds, or 720 times per hour. Airplanes change air 20 times per hour. t is also quite low: even overtaking another runner, you're only in their slipstream for a few seconds, and that's assuming no cross breeze, and d is also low, especially if you stay off the busiest trails.

C • Unmasked on trails 4

So beautiful today too bad it has to be a Monday.

Ran with sister to KH trails, ran some of the trails, then back around on the roads. So nice to have a 4-5 mile loop!

The ski trails back there are great for bounding.

Yesterday there was an effort, using a small tractor, to clear out the old road to Kent's Hill, which means with a mile of trails there is now a lovely 7.5 mile run around the lake cutting out the longest hill and some of the road.

This is not a bad run! Mostly in the shade with the sister this morning, reasonably cool even at 9 a.m.

I was thinking I wanted to do more today since it was a beautiful day. Trail run? Maybe, but the mountains are a lot of overhead. Rollerski? Perhaps, but I did it yesterday. Oh, wait, working bike!

I plotted out a 40 mile ride with only about 2 miles on state road, and set off. The closed road by Richmond Mills is still just a closed bridge, but people have cleared a bike/ped path across it, so it's just a road with no traffic on either side, didn't even have to clip out. I did figure out that a limit screw needs to be adjusted, so if I shift to the big ring with the back cog on a small cog it will jump the front, but was mostly able to avoid that. Otherwise the bike works fine.

Found some nice climbs and descents. 45 mph on some downhills, 14% grades on some uphills. Found some nice new pavement and some sorry barely paved pavement. But a lovely day for a ride on a cool day in western Maine.

Just a beautiful Chesterville rollerski with my dad along for the ride on a bike. Saw other rollerskiers! Tried the new road, where the new pavement turns to old at 20 miles exactly. 20 miles on new pavement is pleasurable. 74 and dry helps, too.

Transition to old pavement is fine, so I could do a nice long ski one of these days up the hills towards Farmtown.

Run with sister. Went and did the loop through the KLT trails. Turned on to Hathaway Road and it was repaved. It's a dead-end road (pretty much), it has no traffic, it's about a mile each way, and has some hills (not a ton, but enough for some intervals). Not sure why it is getting pavement; the old road seemed fine, but it seems like a nice place a 7 minute drive away to go do some rollerskiing. Too bad it's not skiable to get there (a couple of death hills).

Anyway, on the trails we were having a lovely run in 70 degree temps with dewpoints in the 50s, and I looked at my watch and realized that I had a 9 o'clock meeting. I told my sister run to the road and take a left and you'll know where you are and peeled out and got a couple of speedier miles in and made it just as the host was saying "let's wait one more minute for late arrivals."

Morning run down to the trails for more sweaty running. Short, because I had a call to get back to. One of the trails was pretty new: no treadway but they cleared a lot of branches. Would be nice O terrain down there. Not many point features, lots of stone walls, pretty open woods, good topography.

Humidity broke today, but it was still warm (and not that dry) when I went for my run in the evening. Loop of the lake was sweaty, but otherwise mostly nice. Didn't run yesterday, it was real hot and humid. But the next few days look much nicer. Maybe, just maybe, we've gotten through the worst of the summer (touch wood).

Been making a daily trip up the hill, too, for corn. Today instead I hacked through the woods to the post office to pick up my classic rollerskis (new to me). There's about 400m of trail that I sort of brushed out with a rake, but still need pants and long socks to get through it. However, there is a plan afoot to have one person go out and clear the necessary logs by chainsaw and another bush hog the road (it's a public ROW) and then it leads right on to the trails over there.

Would create an 8 mile loop around the lake lopping off the top of the hill (which would make it easier, sure, and also fit within an hour) but also give access over to the ski trails there, which are being mowed, for some trail running. I need to work on this!