Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Wild Goat at Florissant. Quite the magnificent boondoggle. 15.8 km with my skips, 625 m.

So.

I had looked at doing various things this summer, and schedules being what they were, some worked out and some didn't. Rome did, and it had also occurred to me that I could pop out to Colorado for a one-day meet if I was so inclined. I found an airfare that I could tolerate, with a favorable flight schedule, and booked it. Ground transportation was another matter. Rental cars in Denver are hellaciously expensive, so I put out some feelers to see if I could either snag a ride from somebody in RMOC, or share a car with another out-of-towner. There was some hope of sharing a car with Mike Minium, but he couldn't find a reasonable flight home, and I got an offer of a ride from Valerie Murray (which I'm glad I ended up declining -- read on). Wyatt Riley was scheduled to be headed home to Philly from a business trip in California, and he was up for splitting a car. His initial plan was to get a hotel room in Monument, but I had already arranged to stay at Jim Baker's place in Woodland Park. Wyatt was scheduled to land in Denver at 9:30 PM Friday, and I was due in at 10 PM, so the plan was for him to pick up the car and meet me at the curb.

It was with some dismay that I had to text Wyatt with the bad news that my flight was delayed. The plane was all set to go, but the flight crew was pinned on the ground in DC due to thunderstorms. It looked like at least two hours, maybe more. He wasn't too happy, but shortly came back with the news that the AC on his plane was broken, and they were looking for a different one. Meanwhile, they tried to round up a substitute crew in Boston, and got a pilot and cabin crew pretty quickly, but couldn't let us start boarding until they had a copilot as well. Meanwhile, a new plane was located in California, but it turned out to have a flat tire, and some scrambling happened to repair that. He told me to go ahead and head for Jim's place and he'd get another car and catch up. Our copilot got a round of applause wen he appeared, and we boarded really efficiently, and hit the ground in Denver around midnight. While I was waiting, I tried calling to let the rental car people know I'd be late, and ended up just making a new reservation for a substantially lower rate, almost as good as what Wyatt had gotten with his frequent renter benefits.

After some stupidities at the rental car place, I managed to get behind the wheel, and I pulled into short-term parking and told Wyatt to text me when he landed, which was about an hour later. I got the message a little after 2 AM, and pulled out of the garage at 2:30 to meet him at the curb, and we were on our way to the mountains. I had let Jim know that we were delayed, so he left the door open for us, and we got to his house sometime well after 4 AM. Mass start at 10.

I had slept a little bit on the plane (middle seat), caught a bit in the parking garage, and did what I could at Jim's, but I really don't think I had as much as four hours of total shut-eye, and it was largely in brief uncomfortable spurts. Up before 8 AM to get breakfast at McDonald's, another 30 minute drive to the park, got ready, and we were ready for the walk to the start at 9:30. Jogging back and forth between the car and the visitor center, I had that familiar feeling of not enough air, and figured this could be a tough day. Intriguingly, the start was (I think) almost exactly the elevation of the highest I've ever been with a hang glider.

This was a goat race comprising three loops, with one control skip per loop. I had looked at the start list and initially figured I'd be way last, although there was an option to do just one or two loops. Some additional people registered near the deadline, so there were some names that I didn't know, and therefore might be able to beat, but they might not be doing all three loops. Time limit was three hours or whenever the thunderstorms arrived, whichever came first.

Heading out from the start with the pack, I very quickly got the sense that I was in trouble, because I was breathing as hard as I could manage and struggling. I had the leaders in sight most of the way to the second control, then I fell off the back. There was another guy there with me (Jeremy Goldsmith, I'm pretty sure), and I asked what he was planning to skip. He was looking at one of the later controls, but I said I was thinking about #4, to save climb. He hadn't considered that, turns out this was his first time orienteering. When I headed off to #5, it turned out that he decided to do so as well. I encountered some of the leaders coming out of that control, and saw Jeremy when I was on my way to #6.

The second loop, I was all alone other than crossing paths once with Troy. There really wasn't much worth skipping on this loop, and the skip analysis seems to have gotten all weirded out for some reason, showing that skipping #11 was good for a 7:36 savings (11-12 took me only 2:36), and my skip of #10 was worth 5:37 (not a chance; 9-10 didn't take anyone 2 minutes, and was barely a detour). I made my only small errors on this loop, a small parallel error on #11 (second-guessed myself, looked in the next reentrant, and immediately came back), and a fishhook on #15 because I mistook an index contour for a dirt road. Split analysis shows me with almost two minutes of time loss on the legs into and out of the map exchanges, but those weren't mistakes, they were because I slowed down in order to drink (we were able to leave bottles at the GO control). I had been getting thirsty on the second loop, and forced myself to drink the whole pint.

Loop three I figured I'd be on my own again, but on the long leg I encountered Jeremy, who asked if I was looking for #13. I said I was on my way to #18, and he said he'd been looking for his control for 20 minutes. I asked for his map, and pointed about 50 meters down the spur (I think I heard him yell "thanks" when he found it). Then approaching #19, I saw somebody ahead of me, who turned out to be Ryan Kircher. Turns out he had been up with the leaders on the first loop, then slowed down. The next leg was where I was skipping, and was a long downhill run. I wasn't sure if he knew I was there, but I quickly determined that he was skipping as well. By the time we got down to the meadow I had caught up, and popping over a spur, I spotted the control from about 500 m away. I was on a beeline, and he went a bit wide and came in right behind me. Three controls to go, spiraling in toward the finish. I read the next leg perfectly, and as he passed me, I spiked the control and saw him sail by on the high side. Not figuring I could take him in a sprint, I decided I'd be better off to bluff and make it look like I still had something in the tank. #23 was easy but uphill at the end, and I kept up as fast a jog as I could manage, seeing him approaching as I left. I could still go downhill okay, so I motored pretty good to the last control, and again saw him on his way in, but I figured I had enough of a lead, and sealed the deal by coming within one second of the fastest split for the chute. 7th out of 8 on the full course; Galen Moore had also been ahead of me after two loops, but didn't continue.

Not too much time to socialize, because Wyatt had a 5 PM flight. He was quite a fine traveling companion, providing excellent conversation to keep me awake, and successfully navigating us around the slowdown on I-25 due to an accident. (And despite all the travel absurdities, he won the race!) After grabbing something to eat, I headed over to the Murray's in Aurora for a shower, some more fine conversation, and a nap before getting up at 1 AM to return the rental car.

So sweet to be back at Florissant, such a wonderful piece of terrain to run in. The navigation wasn't rocket science, but it was really enjoyable, and the weather was excellent. I was worried that the forest might have gotten whacked by the pine bark beetles, as so many other areas have, but it's been spared. It's really great that Jim was able to negotiate for permission to use the area again after a decade.

Flight delays, definitely not happy.

Did a little googling on a whim, and I'll be darned: looks like Sture Karlsson is still alive, at age 90 (or as we do our counting, 91). Other than Andy Gagarin, he's the only person born before 1929 to ever get a Billygoat t-shirt. I think Ed Stabler might be around as well, at age 87. (I'll be seeing the fourth-oldest finisher this weekend.)

Powerline test course, and this was a PR. It's easy to set a PR when you've never done something before. And for all I know, this mark may stand forever, given my inevitable physical decline, and the fact that this was pretty ideal conditions -- the whole thing was dry, and the temperature was such that I was able to dress lightly. Encountered a guy in a pickup truck at one point, and exchanged greetings. He was probably pretty surprised to see me.

Lake Rohunta, in the orange boat, with Nancy in the yellow one. I've driven past this lake countless times and it always looked great from the highway, so I was eager to check it out. It has fine parking and a nice boat ramp, but it turns out to be really choked with milfoil and other weeds, and once we had gone about 1.5 km, it was also all lily pads. Water level being low probably didn't help matters. After going through an area of moderate water lilies, we got to a long narrow passageway through them, often narrower than the length of a kayak paddle. The point where we turned back was getting pretty close to the end of the line, it looked like it was shortly going to become impassable. The wind picked up pretty significantly on the return trip, and it wasn't a tailwind. I took a peek north of the bridge, and that part of the lake appeared to be mostly free of weeds, albeit not all that large. (Now I need to make sure I've got all the bits of invasive vegetation off of the boats. And the rack.)