Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Beaver Brook, SkiO-2, 5th (last) place, but not all that far back. Making Things Difficult For Myself, Part 1. I looked at the course offerings, and only the longer SkiO really appealed to me, though maybe I would have been better off with Tan or Orange. But this was longer, so I picked it. Navigation was for the most part straightforward, but I think everyone else who did it used skis, which had a distinct speed advantage in some sections. I used Dad's snowshoes. I probably would have been better off carrying them for the early part, where the trail was well packed down, but they were definitely needed once I got to the west side of the marsh. I took what may have been a more direct route than the skiers on the first part of leg 3 (but it did wander some), I contemplated a slightly shorter route on leg 4 that would have required crossing the marsh at a place with no bridge (didn't do it, that would have been dumb), and on #6 I lost the trail somewhere and was following a set of snowshoe tracks that went off to some weird place, but I popped out on a trail about 125 meters north of the control, and correctly ascertained where I was.

Forgot the GPS watch at home.
results

RHIN-O, Ratlum Mountain, 2.7 km, 80 m, 2nd. Making Things Difficult For Myself, Part 2. I know this place really well, made the first version of the map, and since I arrived late, the snow was all tracked up, simplifying the navigation and making the running easier. So I took advantage of the special offer to run on a 1:15000 inkjet laser print of the map. I had to wear two pairs of glasses to get this to work, my normal -1.5 distance lenses perched high on the bridge of my nose, and a pair of +2 reading glasses down low. And I had to keep tilting the headlamp in order to use one pair of lenses of the other. No way at all that I could read the map unless I was at a dead stop, and even then it was slow. My splits were overall mediocre (only got 2nd fastest once), but my disasters were very limted. The only thing that SA calls a time loss is #8, and I'm pretty baffled as to how everybody else did it so much faster. I took Derby Rd. to the Buttonhole Trail, then came off at the bend and was a bit too far right, but didn't feel like I lost much time. Did everybody else go straight? I guess so. I didn't do that because I expected to get stuck in laurel, though the map does show it as white. That's what happens when you go on memory because it's hard to read the map.

splits

C • not inkjet 1

Nancy got herself out and cleared most of her driveway in the morning, then dropped her car off at my place so it can get some repairs done (and sit in the garage) while she goes on a trip. I drove her home, then spent a few minutes touching up some corners and whatnot.

Looks like another 8.5", which, on top of yesterday's 10", makes 16". Still snowing as I write this.

C • Hayden said he had 20+ in G... 2

Snow dealings, round 2a: my driveway. Apparently this counts as a second storm, even though it barely stopped in between. The depth on my deck got to at least 19", there was another 10" in the driveway when I blowed it, and it was still coming down at that point but didn't amount to much more. No problem clearing the driveway, but I put off doing the mailbox. About 45 minutes, I think.

10 gagarinches of snow on my deck. It does not seem fluffy. That means it's time for...

C • 10 inches here too, looks v... 4

Snow dealings, round 1a: my driveway. The mighty Ariens easily blowed everything, the whole driveway plus the mailbox, in about 40 minutes. This included the time to rearrange stuff in the garage to get the snowblower out of its summer resting spot. Fired right up on the first pull.

This was preceded by 45 minutes of swapping the snow tires onto the car, which went pretty smoothly.

Had plenty of time to do this because there was a delayed opening at work (10:30).

Snow dealings, round 1b: Nancy's driveway. She worked from home and put a pretty good dent in it herself, and I swung by after work to help out. Had to park at the car repair place and walk over, then I did a combination of shoveling and using the electric blower to clear a path one car wide so that she can get hers out. Any more seemed like it would be wasted effort, and it was snowing pretty hard while I was doing this. The drive home was slow and cautious and I was glad I had the snow tires on.

There was a delay in the automatic upload of tracks from Garmin, so I manually uploaded a TCX file instead. Eventually, the automatic one showed up, but oddly, it had the same time and length, but got interpreted as 11 meters more climb. Puzzling why it wasn't identical. But I deleted it, so it will remain a mystery.

Mt. Tom, Western Connecticut Rules (I'm probably the only person who recognizes the difference between that and Western Mass Rules), all 18 controls,, 6.14 km straight line by my route, 2nd place. Control order was 8-7-18-17-16-15-14-6-10-5-9-4-3-13-12-2-1-11.

Nice course, nice map, nice terrain (except for the basalt underfoot), and pretty decent weather: overcast, probably just below freezing, and not snowing yet. Somehow failed to start my watch at the start, so the track picks up from the first control. Started out climbing in an attempt to work hard enough to get myself warm. Very little running in the early part, mostly just determined walking, though I did run a bit in the latter portion. Navigated very well, with the only error being a loss of about 3 minutes on the very easy #1, which I was approaching from the SW. I had it in my head that I was going to be coming in a bit lower than the control, so I was looking up to my left for the form line hill, but I was in fact a bit high. Circled around and got it on the second try.

results
RouteGadget

C • I certainly don't know what... 11