Training Log Archive: inuksuk

A short run around the tea gardens and nursery with La. Did a single lap of the nursery loop in 2:13 -- but felt flat, and left it at that...

Cruisy climb up the hill with La.

6C and hosing down - not particularly inspired to go outside. Pretty much the same loop as Sunday. Started at the weir, climbed up through the grave tracks, across the ugly gully and up to the wet clearing. Sidled across the woody track and down to four corners and south to the creek, around and up to the blue hut, and back up through the tea gardens to the road, dropped down and climbed up the pipe track to the weir.

The first climb went well, but I felt slow to recover on the contour; recovered well on the downhill and felt strong through the tea plantation, though the final slog up the pipe track was a struggle. Footing was marginal on the long downhill on account of the runoff and slick clay -- I consider it a good effort that I managed to fall twice on my already munted left hand.

Lower terraces with La. Down through the quarry, mucked around the mosque for a bit, before crossing the road into the lower terraces. Looped around before climbing back up to uni.

Living in a foreign country, comparisons are an inevitable daily occurrence. Today, during our run, we reflected on two positive things 1) how nice it is to be, in general, free to go anywhere in agricultural and forested land, and no one seems to be too bothered (as opposed to coming within a half a km of a lamb and getting your head chewed off by an irate cocky), conceding that this phenomena quickly breaks down when any sort of paid bureaucrat is involved; 2) the total lack of foil safety seals on bottled juice.

Spur south of uni with La. Crossed qī lóng nǚ xī at the weir and climbed up through the grave tracks, across the ugly gully and up to the wet clearing. Sidled across the woody track and down to four corners. South to the creek, around and up to the blue hut, and back up through the tea gardens, graves and finished with a lovely descent of the pipe track (which has been vastly impoved by the 'sweeping' effect from the bamboo harvesters dragging huge bundles of bamboo off the mountain). A really nice ride. Thinking of doing this loop as a tempo...

Cāng shān with La. Straight up through to Yùdài lù, crossed and continued up to the bamboo/camellia scrub line at about 3200m. Weather wasn't great with thunderclouds rolling over the tops and a hefty westerly blowing over, so we decided to leave the tops for another day. Seemed like a vey quick descent. We had a funny interaction with two little old Bai ladies and their grandchildren, who were out visiting family graves in the forest. In the course of which, we both somehow ended up with these huge pieces of coarse rice-flour cake with boiled broad beans on top. hmmm yummy. No seriously, they were good. And then when we asked what it was, she replied, "Cake," and when we asked about the big beans she said "yes, big beans." Clever lǎowài.

Up through university

Laps in university tree nursery -- a nice mixture of forest and rough semi-open with about 20m climb.

2:13 (1:00)
2:05 (1:01)
2:04 (1:02)
1:57

Pleased with this... I was trying to replicate first control classic, second-to-last control classic, first control middle, second-to-last control middle, even going as far as visualising features/attackpoints (veg boundary, dot knoll, pit, re-entrant) as they should appear on the map.

From last interval maintained "classic" race pace through uni to track

straight into 5x30. By now I'm thinking that the oily eggplant I had for lunch was a bad choice.

Spur south of uni with La. Crossed qī lóng nǚ xī at the weir and climbed up through the pine forest to the wet clearing, down another ridge to the terraces, back up to the blue wardens hut and up the pipe track.

Spur south of uni. Crossed qī lóng nǚ xī at the weir and climbed up through the grave tracks, across the ugly gully and up to the second clearing. I had another bash around looking for the mystery temple. Finally stumbled onto an overgrown stone foundation near the edge of the clearing, but I'm still not convinced... Came down one of the ridge tracks and then sidled through the forest across the ridge in the quickly fading light. Not far from the tea gardens, I stumbled over some freshly dug soil in the forest before I noticed the 12 or so new graves. None of this was really out of the ordinary except that not one of the mounds was more than a metre long.... Hmm, kind of makes ya feel all warm and Belanglo inside, eh?

University nursery with La. Up through the uni gardens to the nursery forest. Still tight.

Kunming with La. Made pretty much a bee-line to Salvador's for coffee and a breakie quesadilla. yum. Slow plod back. Legs feeling better, though back/neck is feeling a bit wonky and tight.

Kunming with La. A circle of the city centre, including the university, green lake, and winding up near dōng sì jiē.

Yùdài lù with La. Crossed qī lóng nǚ xī at the weir and climbed up through the grave tracks, across the 'ugly' gully, and up to the second clearing...

A few weeks back I overlayed the Russian 1:200 000 map on local aerials, and noticed that a temple was marked in the vicinity of this clearing. As the accuracy of these maps are in places somewhat dubious (to be generous), the slope on this part of the hill is over 30 degrees, and the symbol itsself is 500m tall, it is anyones guess where it is. Anyway, the bits of derelict cobbled track through the forest and the obvious clearing seemed like a good place to start...

Scratched around looking for anything out of the ordinary, but didn't find any conclusive evidence of a temple site. Maybe another day. Continued up the old track to Yùdài lù and around to our spur, down the horse track through the forest and back through uni. Loads of azaleas out..

Left quad still feels crap.

Forest behind uni with La. Climbed over the wall and up through the forest to the top fire break -- Had another lap of 'the course' to become more familiar with it. Back down through forest to uni.

On the track. Left side sore. Very sore.

This morning I thought of someone I hadn’t thought of in a long time. I guess we met in a usual way – state approved, school supported, parent tolerated… the real pride of middle America winter sports. A sport where watching your neighbours orca mom stand up in the back to risers to scream “kill him” isn’t exactly unheard of.

His name was Carlos and he was stacked like a 98 pound panther, he was in the seventh grade, and he had the beginnings of a moustache. It was my first bout, and it may or may not have been at that moment on the opposite side of the mat that I, the reedy white kid, suddenly realised that no amount of stairs in the boiler room, spinning drills, knee grabs, or rehearsed escapes could have saved me. I, like everyone in the gym, probably could have predicted what was about to be delivered.

I think it would have been around 38 seconds, give or take. But in that time Carlos managed to efficiently remove my head gear, smash my nose, and pummel me into the red and black mat, so that despite having my eyes clinched shut, all I could see was the afterburn of halogen lights and ceiling fans. No ‘Born on the Fourth of July’ wrestling fairy tales. I had well and truly gotten the shit kicked out of me. Meeting Carlos was like being in a motorcycle crash on a rubber mat.

I haven’t felt that throttled in a long time, but this morning comes real darn close. I guess in a somewhat masochistic way, I think maybe its good we don’t completely forget these moments and how they came about. Maybe it’s hardwired. Maybe it’s evolution. I'm not sure of where Carlos might be today, but I suspect there’s one tough unit not too far from fifth and Franklin in Reading named Carlos, with a moustache.

C • Roids. You needed them then... 2

Wénhǎi, Lìjiāng. A nice ride through the cobbled Shùhé to the Nàxī village of Báishā, up past the Fùguósì to Wénhǎi - mixed sleet and rain towards the tops, but clearing so that we got some great views of the mountain. Dropped down a series of fantastic tracks to the south of the lake to a small pond called, qī xian hú, and ostensibly on the old tea horse road, though I struggle to fully see the purpose in this section... continued dropping through more forested tracks to Měiquán and the green farmland on Lāshì hǎi.

Should have been an easy ride back to Lìjiāng, but had a bit of a crash on the hill between Lāshì and Lìjiāng. In China, large trucks use water to cool the discs. While this bit of engineering brilliance may well be functional and save vastly on the quantity of asbestos dust produced, it also, depending on its efficiency (or lack thereof), has the result of steaming the undercarriage including any leaked oil, diesel, coolant... This results in any steep road or sharp bend where brakes are heavily applied getting a fine mist of mixed hot water and oil. Quite simply, I lost the plot and was going way too fast. Lost purchase on the front wheel on the slick, the right handle bar found my left quad; my left hand, right shoulder and right forearm got fairly intimate with a nice stretch of tar seal. Fairly shocked to say the least, I managed to literally crawl off the road, and to not get run over by any one of the terrifying buses and trucks that I was 'sharing' the road with. Managed to wave La to stop and play doctor with me. Other than my broken body and ego, I managed to smash the rear derailleur, buckle the rear wheel, smash the brake leavers, and bend a crank arm. Glad it was a rental.

C • Man it always sucks when yo... 3

Back to town

Behind university with La.

University with La. Up through the tea gardens and nursery.

Forest behind uni. Over the wall, and up to the first firebreak, up past the temple, across the carriage road and up to the upper firebreak. Back through the grave forest. Finished through campus.

Decided to set up a 'Carsten' interval loop up on the hill where there is a step in the mountain that borders on 'undulating.' Marked it out sparingly with strips of red fabric, and made sure plenty of crap is on the line. The loop is about 80% forest running (quite nice pine forest actually) and about 20% on a soft firebreak through the same pine forest, and has at least three short sharp hills. It takes about 5:30 to get around at a quick clip and about half an hour to get there. We'll see...I'm thinking it will be suitably painful.

Forest behind uni with La. over the wall, and up to the first firebreak, around and up to the gondola, across the upper firebreak and back through the grave forest. Finished through campus. Legs are dull, but otherwise fine. Felt good on the downhill.

Huādiànba epic with La. Epic. Took the Ěryuán bus about an hour north to a place called Dèngchuān which is just under 2000m, I think. We didn't start well, as I noticed my tyre had a split sidewall and the tube was spilling out -- not impressed, I bought some strapping tape and taped up the inside of the tyre to keep the tube from herniating...and hoped for the best. From there, we headed north along little cobbled roads through terraced farmland and little Bai villages seeking out a small road to a mountain village called Lapíng. My knowledge was scant, but people were friendly and helpful, and mostly amused-cum-horrified at what we were doing.. 'not able to', 'too far', 'too late' 'too steep.' Not the kind of confidence you need when starting out on something you are well-aware might be pushing the realm of what is possible in a day. After a few back-tracks due to the great marshland, we finally found an old road that wound around and eventually started a steady climb up to Lapíng. We made pretty good time and aside from the odd tuōlājī, we had the road to ourselves and the wind. We arrived in Lapíng, and although we both agreed it, with its ancient mud brick houses and flagstone alleys, deserved some time, knew we were pressed and continued on up. We did get some of the most comforting advice from a little old lady who only spoke Bai, and translated through her husband, seemed to think we were ok - 'the grassland on top is short grass, not tall grass' and if I could translate her expression said 'good on ya.' As Lara said, "she probably carried a stack of firewood back from there yesterday." From Lapíng we continued up through the red earth fields and pine-oak forest and scrub until the road deteriorated into a rough horse track. The sections of ridable track became less and less, and those that were ridable were for us, technical and exhausting. Alas, we eventually crossed a small pass and saw one of the two features I wanted to see -- a huge limestone depression, near 1.5km across and 100-300m deep -- completely cut off from the world. In the bottom, we could see the speck figures of farmers and huge cattlebeast ploughing fields, horses, yaks, and a dozen small crop fires smouldering. It could have been a scene from a thousand years ago in the same place. Unfortunately, we were still conscious of the time, and continued to climb, at this point mostly carrying the bikes up the rocky track to a small pass at 3225m. Here, I checked out a few possible routes and we elected to go a way I thought might have some ridability, though it meant a slight navigational challenge -- ie no map. We headed up through the lovely yak meadows, until we came to the highest pass at about 3350m. At this point, there was a steep to undulating grazed grassland with intermittent scrub, and thankfully ridable livestock tracks, not unlike near Alexandra. Eventually, we came to the rim of the second depression -- this one was only 150m deep, but spanned more than 5km across. In the distance, we could see great herds of yaks and long-haired goats. Unfortunately, I had missed the track I had wanted to use to drop down into the crater, so we had to carry the bikes most of the way down a rocky slope. Rode across the great grassland -- this felt just like coming off the Rock and Pillar Range onto Mt Ross station, less the tors -- and climbed back up to a track on the other side. Here, we elected for the shorter of two routes based on time (and a hunch on ridability), though it meant missing out what looks like some awesome tarns and another huge sinkhole - basin... another time. Unfortunately, the first section of 'down' track was unridable anyway, and we, now truly stuffed, dragged the bikes down through the jagged limestone boulders and pines to a series of more reasonablly-sized depressions that had nice (some amazing) tracks that lead us to Huādiànba. We arrived at just past six.

Bearing in mind, there is a guest house there, the executive decision was made that with an hour of workable light, we should push on. I didn't argue. But what we had both miscalculated was the ridablility of the 7k down the valley - surely it would be a road of sorts, though should we have given it some thought, we would have recognised that without vehicle access, the 'road' was merely a widened horse track. At one time, it was hardened as a great cobbled road, but like lost roman roads over the alps, this one had long deteriorated into a huge jumble of boulders. With the ever increasing wind, it was not unlike riding up the Godley in a Norwester'. Do-able, but lacking any grace whatsoever.

Eventually, it did get dark and with torches on we eventually walked our bikes down the final short section of steep horse track and then dropped about 700m on a widened tuōlājī track -- much too tired to really enjoy it, but relieved to be at the bottom.

The last 20k back would have been uneventful except for the fact that the road workers have strewn bowling-ball sized boulders over the side of the road to keep trucks from using it. This meant that when confronted with oncoming traffic with its high beams on, riding at speed was a sort of game of roulette - a game which we were clearly not very good at.... Stopped for a pizza and a beer in town, making the final 200m climb much more pleasant.

A 12 hour day, in total. I suspect a good hour or so of shouldering the bike weren't recorded on the odo/chrono....but got a few 'free' downhills.

C • 7 hours - what are you trai... 5

Forest behind university with La. Up to the firebreak, to the carraige track, and horsetrack to the upper firebreak. Back down through the pines and graves and through campus.

Down to old town with La to get the bike fixed, then around the movie town tracks.

University with La.

Spur south of uni. Crossed qī lóng nǚ xī at the weir and climbed up through the grave tracks, across the 'ugly' gully, and down the brushy track (now not quite as brushy -- though still good for removing most of the skin below the kneecap and knuckles), around the tea plantations and back to the wardens hut, back up to the top of the graves and down the pipe track to the ford. Got a great look at a male Lady Amherst pheasant tonight on the track. Great ride except for having smashed my derailleur coming down the pipe track -- certainly felt the rock, but didn't see the full damage until I got to the bottom of the hill and tried to change down. ughhh. At least I didn't take out the spokes as well, and could push home in high gear...