Thursday Jul 31 |
 | Note | |
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| AOWN: I love these guys:
I provided some minor assistance to the woman who was chasing him off the road and into the marsh. Pretty feisty, he made one vicious lunge at me, though since I was several feet away, it was just comical. |
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| C • turtle 1 |
Sunday Jul 27 |
| Hang gliding! (High Point) 1 [3] | |
| shoes: Wal*Mart Carson |
| Well, I didn't do a very good job of getting loggable exercise, mostly I spent the weekend driving (a lot), and hanging out at reunion parties. BUT! I did manage to fly. In two states (that's a first), including one where I've never even orienteered. I flew for 45 minutes, but only the last 100 seconds were in the other state (the landing field is across the river). The "exercise" consisted of a second or two of vigorous running here:
although I started running further down the slope, out of sight of this picture. The nice complex out front is not a possible landing zone, by the way — it's a penitentiary. This was the roughest air I've ever flown in, with lift getting as strong as 1400 feet/minute (averaged over 20 seconds).
Flying in a new place is interesting in that it's rather orienteering in a new place, but in other ways not. Some things are standard and familiar, just like the places you've done it before, while some of the local terrain details are different and take a little getting used to. But because of the risks, the local pilots chat you up first to find out what your experience level is, whereas with orienteering, you can just go take your chances. |
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| C • And I had you figured for a... 3 |
Friday Jul 25 |
| Note | |
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| In the movie Repo Man (1), Miller says, "The more you drive, the less intelligent you are".
Just in time for a ridiculous moondoggle road trip to Virginia. I'll try to get some kind of loggable exercise in the next couple of days. |
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| C • Virginia? 8 |
Saturday Jul 19 |
| Running in terrain 15:00 [2] | |
| shoes: Wal*Mart Carson |
| Nancy and I went up to Mt. Ascutney to help out with the hill climb bike race. This consisted of pointing to the parking lot for a while, and then handing out cups of ice water near the top (Nancy got stuck mostly picking up the empties). After that, Nancy went for a little hike while I went with the hang gliding club crew to do some trail clearing on the access to the south launch. Wind was not conducive to flying. Time logged is jogging back to the car from the south launch, then jogging toward the summit looking for Nancy. Very hot and humid day, but not as bad on top of the mountain. Blueberries were widespread and nice for snacking.
I also got in about a minute of unicycling when we were sitting in the car at the Dairy Queen in Nashua NH, and a car pulled into the parking lot with three kids in it, one of whom wanted me to try his brand-new unicycle. In one sense this is not surprising, because although I may not be recognized by everyone as a unicyclist, this particular kid was Zack DeWeese. But it is surprising because Zack lives in Connecticut, which doesn't even border New Hampshire, and his being there was a pretty weird and random event. |
Wednesday Jul 16 |
| Note | |
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| A quarter-century ago today was the only time I've ever made it to the top of a 14er:
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| C • How close does the road get... 8 |
Tuesday Jul 15 |
| Running in terrain 45:43 [3] | |
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| Lane-Horse-Seaver-Howl loop. Despite the fact that I've been getting no exercise lately, I managed to keep the effort up the whole way around, and turned in a completely respectable time. Tanned, rested, and ready? The FDFs weren't too much of a problem, but I did swat a couple. |
Saturday Jul 12 |
| Hang gliding! (West Rutland) 10:59  | |
| shoes: Wal*Mart Carson |
| Got out of the truck at the hairpin when we stopped to strap some gliders down better, and then just took off up the road on foot and tried to stay ahead. I had enough of a head start that I easily reached the top first. Then after flying for 95 minutes, I ran back to the parking lot to get the car. Busy day up there, lots of gliders in the air, and it was pretty crowded in the setup area. Looks like I'm about 5 minutes short of a total of 24 hours of airtime. |
Thursday Jul 10 |
| Note | |
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| 25 years ago today, I entered Colorado for the first time in my life, by bicycle, on US36. As has been reported elsewhere, my first impression was that it looked a lot like Kansas. |
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| C • like Kansas 3 |
Tuesday Jul 8 |
| Unicycling 31:48  2.77 mi (11:28 / mi) | |
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| Turkey Hill/Highland loop, garage to garage with no stops. Picked up the pace about 2/3 of the way around. (sigh) |
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| C • 11:28 per mile 5 |
Monday Jul 7 |
| Note | |
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| Yeah, a solid week with nothing resembling exercise. Even though my brother (and family) came to town, and he spent four days doing intense bicycle racing, and working as the race announcer on top of that. I'm not going to log the lawn mowing that I did, or the sprinting on Saturday as I was showing Stephen how to operate a bicycle with derailleurs and chasing him up and down the street (his opinion: "I like gears!"), or the "hang gliding" yesterday that consisted of setting up the glider in my yard, and doing a couple of runs (without harness) down the slope in back, just fast enough to get it up off of my shoulders for the family to see (the neighbor did come by and offer to chop down a couple of decorative saplings so that I could fly into his yard!). We'll see if I can get some kind of aerobic activity in this week, although the forecast seems to be better for making corpse flowers bloom than it is for heavy breathing. Maybe I'll be lucky and can get airborne. |