Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Was considering flying today, but I couldn't convince myself that any of the sites were going to have the right weather, although it sounds like Mt. Tom (and maybe some other places) would have worked, but that involves a long hike and I'm trying to rest my foot. So instead I did a little raking, a little rebuilding of the stone wall in front of my house where a car crashed through it this week, and then decided to go for a mountain bike ride.

Rear tire has had a slow leak for a long time, so I pumped it up, then headed out for a loop around Willard Brook on trails I was running in the summer. I took the civilized route for the climb, which was technical in the lower stretches, but not bad once I got to the serious switchbacks. The bike started feeling a little squirrely on the northbound trail up top, and when I hit the halfway sign, I noted that it was 31 minutes, which seemed okay, because I figured on an hour in order to have time to get home, shower and meet Nancy at 2 PM, and it was gong to be largely downhill.

But at just about that point, the rear tube shredded and the tire came off the rim. No pump, no spare, no way to fix it. Fortunately, I knew the shortest way back to the car from there, so I shouldered the bike and started walking. So much for resting the foot. (In case it's not obvious, "multisport adventure" translates to "this didn't work out the way I intended".)

13 ring pullups. I felt a tinge in my left forearm as soon as I started, and considered stopping, but I stuck it out for a decent number. I don't seem to have done any damage.

14 ring pullups.

12 ring pullups, probably pretty sloppy ones.

Phil commented that Ratlum Mountain was likely the map he has run the most courses on. I initially thought that might be the case for me as well, but I reconsidered, and ultimately decide to investigate. I have a list of the 1364 courses I've run, but just sorting them by map name doesn't work as well as you might hope, because some maps have gone by more than one name (e.g. Hale Reservation/Powissett Peak), some maps have sub-maps with different names (e.g. Florissant), some have vaguely defined boundaries (the Laramie maps kind of overlap one another, sometimes significantly), some courses have used more than one map and the sorting ignores all but the first one, and I also have the occasional typo. But the bottom line is that Ratlum is definitely not on top. The top 12 seem to be:
10) Fox Forest (13)
10) Powissett (13)
10) Pine Hill (13)
9) Sebago (14)
8) Florissant (16)
7) Surebridge (17)
6) Mike's Maze (18)
5) Beaver Brook (20) (including my first and my most recent)
4) College Woods (23)
3) Ratlum (26)
2) Blue Hills (34) (considering it as all one map, but most of those went through the Houghton's Pond area anyway)
1) Pawtuckaway (50) (yikes!)

I think I've also set courses on at least five of those.

C • Nice list 7

Beaver Brook, 5.8 km, 200 m. Beautiful warm day, and a great run for me, among my best orienteering victories ever, great way to finish up the year. Ernst had a small head start, I spotted him coming out of #1, caught him at #2, he got pretty far ahead on the way to #3, but I almost caught back up when he hesitated before attacking from the trail. But he left too soon, I went further, and was pretty sure I got to it ahead of him. Never saw him again. Quite clean the whole way around, the only small error on #10, where I went just a little too far, about to the far edge of the circle, then got it when I turned back. The course was extra challenging due to the fact that the brown was damn near invisible (and there were a lot of places where reading the contours was essential), and in some places I might have said that the fieldwork was out of date, although the consensus seened to be that it was in the wrong depression. I wasn't sure there had actually been any fieldwork. The last control was in an area where I have always had trouble, and this time I spiked Anyway, I think I was clear in the lead by something like 17 minutes. I'll be interested to see if I had many best splits, particularly because Clint was likely doing well for the part of the course that he did. (Note that the control numbers are all off by one because I apparently bounced the button when I started.) First time I've orienteered between RHIN-O and the end of the year.