Training Log Archive: Spike

Ft Leavenworth Adventure score orienteering. We didn't have to run in the forest, but we got some time on the trails. that was fun. The trails are in pretty good shape and were wet but not muddy. I started late enough that early runners had dealt with the spider webs.

I'm not good at spotting the best route for score courses, so my decision about the order of controls was sub-optimal. That's ok, it is fun anyways.

Nice conditions, cloudy, cool-ish, and damp. That helped my legs feel ok once they got going. No warmup, so I warmed up on the way to the first control. That felt terrible, but once I was going I felt fine.

It is always fun to run inside the walls of the old prison. We also had a nice downhill leg in the "ruts" of the Oregon and Santa Fe trail.

Was surprised to see Reta out there. That was cool. She said she can't yet run. Saw Dick N and Paul S. Gave Dick the compasses I'd borrowed for the KU class and loaned Paul my laser range finder.

Met and chatted briefly with Callahan (sp?). He studied and orienteered in England. I think he's going to the GCSC at Leavenworth. He was fit looking. I think he beat me by a good 5-6 minutes.

5

5

The final NoLaw 5K of the year. I felt pretty good. The temps were comfortable. I was still a minute+ slower than the May race, but I was still happy with the effort. I'm just so slow these days.

2

Warm up jogging with Fritz. Mostly on the levee.

Grading papers. Kind of interesting, but also kind of a chore. The assignment is an audit critique of up to 2 pages. Each student picked a different report, which is both good and bad. Good is that it is more variety. Bad is that it makes the grading a little more time consuming. Also, "up to 2 pages" means 1 page is ok, but only one student did just one page.

I jogged around on West Campus. It felt ok. I went slowly.

I saw Mom's car by the Monarch Watch building. A group of people were outside. I guess she was there, but I didn't stop to check.

1

Today was the orienteering course for the class at KU I helped out last week (which is not the class I'm teaching this semester). The class is for freshmen only and is part of KU's first year seminar series:

https://firstyear.ku.edu/fys

The specific class is ANTH 177 Boots, Machetes, and Lasers: Lost Cities and How to Find Them.

https://firstyear.ku.edu/first-year-seminars-2019

The prof got the idea of including orienteering from an archaeology colleague at University of Alabama Birmingham named Sarah Parcak. I've no idea how she knew of orienteering. She's known for remote sensing and archaeology.

I set a course that went to a dozen spots on campus where the students would find some information to answer a question. Most of the points were a bit out of the way. Gene helped out by putting hot pink tapes at each location. He also picked them up this afternoon, saving me the chore of picking them up.

The students all did fine. They worked in teams of two. They all seemed to have fun. They all seemed engaged in the exercise, not just wandering around. One team got all 12 points. None of them seemed to have any navigation problems (which I attribute to what I taught them last week!). Nice weather helped. The professor seemed happy with how it went and recognized the value of map reading and navigating as a good exercise.

All in all, a good experience.

And something odd and completely unrelated...while I was updating this note on my log, I had some music playing in the background. And The Ark came on with a Eurovision entry...how odd:

https://youtu.be/8WPPeC8Qg_U

A short sprint course on West Campus. Fun.

3

Jogging around to warm up and then to get home.

MTB on a mix of the Lawrence Loop and roads in Clinton State Park. Fun.

The water level is now low enough that you can bike to Sanders Mound. It has been a long time since Clinton was that low. Of course, water is still high enough that the beach and the west boat ramp are closed.

My legs were tired near the end.

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