Training Log Archive: Lori

Orienteering training at Arroyo Mucho with Presto! Rex set up a fun training event on a moderately field-checked brand new lidar map in Livermore, so Presto and I headed out to check it out. The location was kind of fun with lots of opportunities for a really fun stream crossing. It was the first day we've had in a while above 70, so it was good to get wet every 5-10 minutes :-).

The location is pretty flat with some tiny contour features. The big challenge was the grass, which was at least waist height in most places. There was much wading through the grass and if I wasn't smack on the control, it was just completely hidden in the grass. Luckily the grass is all green and pliant at the moment and hasn't deployed its medieval weaponry yet, so it was fairly pleasant to run through.

I started out by missing the first control in the deep grass (3) by quite a lot. I realized I needed to be a lot more careful after that and was doing well until control 8, which was slightly misplaced. It probably wouldn't have thrown me off much at all, except that I just never saw it in the grass. I looked for a while in the correct area, then ran off to attack from a different location, which brought be back to the same area, where I poked around a bit more, then I just went somewhere else, and poked around there for a while, then I came back... Eventually Steve showed up at the same control and we managed to find it. Other than that, things were pretty decent, if slow. It was super fun to get out on a new map and get some orienteering in!

Picking up controls after the training.

Normal stretching back home after failing to find the taco truck I saw on the way in. Alas, I was looking forward to some tacos!

Running with Sam and Presto after lab! This week is super exhausting. I had to take over teaching my PI's undergrad class because she broke her leg, but I'd already planned a full week of benchwork that I was not excited about postponing, so it's been kind of intense. Luckily it's almost Friday. (Although, I still have to make a handout for tomorrow's lab part of the class...) Getting out for a run was really nice, though. Oh, and I randomly met someone that recognized me as a flute player from Boston today, which was pretty fun :-).

Normal abs.

Normal stretching.

Running with Sam and Presto after lab! My shoes were still sopping wet from Saturday, which is kind of gross, but I figured the best way to dry them out was probably to run in them in dry socks, so I had quite soggy feet on this run. I was pretty exhausted from a long day. My first meeting started at 7:30am this morning. Presto seems totally recovered from the weekend, which is I guess what happens when you get to sleep all day :-).

Normal abs.

Normal stretching.

Skiing with Sam and Presto near Loon Lake! We had a free weekend, and the weather looked nice, so we headed out for another ski trip! We decided to check out the backcountry trails around Loon Lake today. They were actually (mostly) blazed, which was nice, although the blazes did start to disappear into the snow a bit as we got higher. Unsurprisingly, there is still an impressive amount of snow. At one point we skied past what we initially thought was just a small lump in the snow before realizing that it was a completely buried one-story building!

The snow was pretty slow and soft today, which was good for me, but meant a lot of wallowing and post-holing for Presto. At least he'll be nice and tired for the work week :-). We headed out the Van Vleck trail, which was pretty moderately graded most of the way, and then turned at the Shadow Lake trail to go see if we could find Shadow Lake. The Shadow Lake trail sort of abruptly ends at a proposed hut site, but since there is no actual hut there right now, it's just sort of randomly ends in the middle of nowhere. Luckily, we can read maps, so we did manage to get to a local maximum looking down on Shadow Lake. We never really managed to notice Shadow Lake per se (I guess it is surrounded by trees and when covered in snow doesn't look like much?), but the views into the Desolation Wilderness and down to Loon Lake were pretty great.

The way back down was pretty slow, actually mostly due to Presto's wallowing rather than my inability to ski, but we did make it back eventually. Fun day!

Normal stretching back home after a stop in Placerville to visit my cousins and eat some yummy food!