Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Hiking up and down Mt. Holyoke, partly in snowshoes. Jeff and I hauled our harnesses up, I shoveled off the launch area, then we scrutinized the conditions and decided that the wind was too light for us to be able to soar, and it was therefore not worth the effort to drag our gliders up there. The trail up from the ranger station was all full of nasty postholes, though the trail on the ridge wasn't bad. We wore snowshoes from where we left the road all the way to launch (the start of the trail looked like we were going to need them), but I didn't bother to put them back on when we started back down. We took the road down, rather than the trail, in order to get an idea of the conditions. In my mind, it's too long to be worth going that way unless I were pulling the glider with a bicycle (something I've thought about). In any case, it turns out that they don't plow very far past the ranger station, so the cart would probably have been useless going that way. Didn't get to fly, though it was a nice enough day for a little hike. But Jeff could use a bit of conditioning, he was moving pretty slowly on the climb. :-)

20 pushups, 20 pushups.

20 pushups, 50 situps, 20 pushups.

20 pushups, 20 pushups, 50 situps.

20 pushups, 20 pushups, 50 situps.

Took advantage of a narrow window in the availability of ice. Considering all the snow we got in January, I was not expecting any more opportunities to skate this year, but the 60 degree day on Friday caused enough melting to flood the lakes, and then the cold night Saturday got it all solidified again. I was lazy and drove down the hill, but when I got there it looked good enough to give it a try. Hickory Hills gets quite a bit of snowmobile traffic, so the surface was in most places intolerably bumpy. I skated to the dam and found that the central section was so rough that I was just about walking. I settled on a few coves in the SW part that were untracked enough to have some nice sections near the shore, wide enough for me to be able to turn and do laps. I was surprised to see nobody ice fishing at all, maybe they're sick of it by this point? Just one guy walking his dog. I was also chased by a couple of yappy little curs who seemed very put out by my presence, but I was in my element and they didn't stand a chance. Finished when it was just getting dark enough to make it hard to see the ice texture. I might have been better off to try and find some other lake that for some reason gets no snowmobile traffic, but this was still not bad, considering.

Tenpin bowling, Stephen got 62-83, I got 107-119, and Nancy bowled 119-123. Her second game started out very strong, with X-X-9/, but it got difficult partway through that game when I guess it was 9 PM and things turned "cosmic" -- I found it difficult to focus with the blacklights and heavy metal music. Not that I necessarily dislike that stuff, but it does make it harder to bowl well.

C • probably good training 2