Training Log Archive: RLShadow

Scrooge-O at Camp Eastman. Not a good outing.

Started out OK, doing the controls counter-clockwise. Was kind of enjoying the night orienteering in the snow, although I should have done it as more of a memory O like Stina did. Did around 8-10 of them (don't have the map in front of me at the moment), then got hit by a scrooge. Took a while to get rid of the scrooge light/card; went into control 18 I think it was (by the 5 or so knolls in the woods), hoping to find someone unsuspecting, but for some reason, everyone there (and there seemed to be a lot of people at the control, for a relatively remote location) seemed to sense that I was a scrooge, as they just hung right at the control.

I could have out-waited them but that didn't seem like fun, so I headed out to the field and found Joel to unload the scrooge curse onto. The punch card I picked up from him, of course, had totally different controls done than what I had done (and fewer of them). It took me a while to get oriented in terms of which ones I needed to go to. So I trudged on, working on some more controls, some of which I had already done.

Then I got hit by another scrooge, so start the process again ... It was getting a little late by that point (it had been announced that the time limit was 45 minutes, with people prohibited from coming back until the last 5 minutes), so I decided to work my way back clockwise, doing the same controls that I had done counter-clockwise at the beginning.

Then, for the third time, I got scrooged. It was in a field; he handed the red light to me and it was still on, I wanted to turn it off but the switch seemed to stick. Finally got the switch mastered and the light turned off, and I headed out to look for someone to unload it on. I quickly realized that I didn't have the scrooge punch card -- not sure if he never gave it to me, or if I had dropped it when I was focusing on turning off the light. I headed back to the approx spot on the field where the exchange happened, and spent a few minutes searching -- no luck. Not real easy finding a white punch card on a field that had a lot of white snow on it.

So at that point, it was around 42 minutes into things, and I didn't think I should scrooge someone else with no scrooge punch card to hand over, so I headed back to the lodge. I met Elizabeth on the porch, mentioned that I was a scrooge but with no card, and anyway, it was around 43 minutes at that point, so I was just bagging it. She then informed me that the time limit had been changed, to something like 50 minutes or so. I obviously hadn't gotten that memo! But anyway, I just bagged it in disgust at that point.

The good news is that I went home with a candy cane full of M&M's as a prize for being scrooge.

Whiting Rd trails, with Homer. Trails very slippery in many places, especially annoying on the downhills. No real surprise, considering we had about 2 straight days of rain, followed by around 3 inches of snow.

Hojack Trail run, with Homer. Trail was pretty wet between Klem and Van Alstyne, so on the way back, I took roads to detour that part of the trail. Other than that one section, it wasn't too bad.

Low 30's, modest wind from the west. An inch or so of snow on the path. Not a bad day.

Slept much better last night so therefore felt much better this morning. Didn't want to brave the wind and the rain to run outside, though, so I did a treadmill run at the Webster rec center.

I was a total wimp and didn't run today, despite the near perfect weather. Haven't slept well the last couple of nights, and while I'm basically recovered from the Thanksgiving Day stomach flu, my systems don't seem to be quite back in equilibrium yet. Just didn't have it, for some reason.