Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Sailing on Winnepesaukee, from Ellacoya Park. I failed to see the parking lot that the iceboaters were using, so I parked on the side of the road and walked in through the snow. Not a big surprise when I got to the ice and saw a bunch of them sitting by the shore (I think they've been camped out there for a couple of days) and one out on the lake.

This was basically 100% sailing. Breeze was light, ice wasn't bad, though there were areas to avoid. One section consisted of snow that had drifted into sastrugas, then gotten saturated, then frozen. Very rattling when going perpendicular to the ridges, so I got out of there. There was also a section that was beautiful black ice, nice enough to make you nervous that it might be thin. Looked adequate to hold me up, and I was maybe a little extra cavalier because I was wearing a PFD (why not?).

There was a group of people with skates and poles who were going out for a tour, and I chatted with one of them briefly. I considered putting the sail away and tagging along, but decided to keep sailing. The SE excursion was when I decided to pursue them for a while, and the ice down that way was very nice. I was gaining on them, but then the ice felt like it was starting to get soft, so I turned around and headed in so I wouldn't get stuck.

First time ever on the ice on Winnepesaukee, about 65 minutes (the rest was walking to and from the car, putting on my skates, etc.). It's a big lake, I covered only a tiny portion of it. Top speed apppears to be the same as last time, 18.8 mph. I sharpened my antique skates myself for the first time last night, using the antique tools that I inherited from my father (fortunately, there are web pages explaining how). This sailing isn't much exercise, but it is tiring on the arms eventually. And can be cold for the fingers.

Ohana Family Camp, 60-minute score-O with Dad's snowshoes, 2.76 km straight line by the control order that I took (31 33 32 45 40 39 38 37 52 41 34 43 35 44 42 49 51 48 47 53 46 50 54). I think that's all of them, unless there was a 36 out there that I can't find on my map. I couple of the control order choices were not the best (should have gotten 31 later, and 50 earlier). The only places where I lost some time were on the way out of the start triangle (duh); on the way to 38, when I paused, looking for a nonexistent control (it wasn't a purple circle, it was a roundish contour in an open area that was about the right size); and 48, where I was standing right next to the control for a few seconds but looking the wrong way. #32 was misplaced, but didnt cost me any time since it was really visible. I took the snowshoes off to go on the road from 40 to 39, don't know if that saved me any time or not. Took straight lines where possible, including crossing the swamp on the way to and from 41.

First time orienteering on January 25.

Second fastest to get them all (Carl Childs was faster with I believe just regular shoes).
meaningless splits

Holman Street out and back, In The Dark. Ihad plans to do something different, skating at Delaney. If I had gone before work, that likely would have been fine. But I waited until after work, and the temperature had gotten up into the mid 40s F during the day. The ice was plenty thick (I gave up on trying to chop through when I got down 10 cm or so), but the warm day had softened up the top cm or so, and the skate blades sank into it. My GPS watch had gone dead anyway. So I gave up after about a minute, came home and grabbed my other watch, and went for a run instead.

I recently started a blog about my father's artwork, of which I'll be trying to post an installment once a week. Feel free to stop by, or you can subscribe if you want to have it come to you.

The letter carrier misread the house number 871 as 371, so I received somebody else's W2. I delivered it, In The Dark. Heard a pack of coyotes howling somewhere near Lanni Orchards on my way back.

C • Misdelivery 2

Robbs Hill, In The Dark. Parked on Burrage St., and the majority of this was snowmobile trails, with some snow bike trails and some trails with just a little foot traffic. Navigated strictly by topology, which worked out fine. Temp a few degrees below freezing. Nice night, nice place, hadn't been there in a long time.

Down the bank of the Nashua River from 225 and back, In The Dark. Turned around at the private property sign. A few inches of snow, some of which was packed by snowshoes and some of which wasn't. A little slow going when I cut through the woods to get back to the trail. Temperature in the high teens F.

Willard Brook NW. I could have sworn that I had more than one pair of XC skis, but maybe when we had the dumpster to clean out Mom's house, I tossed the others because I decided they were junk. Well, the pair I have left are junk, too. Maybe the skis are barely okay, but the boots and bindings are definitely junk. (The poles, however, are quite good.) So this barely qualified as skiing, but since there was snow out there, and not enough to justify snowshoes in my opinion, it seemed like the thing to do.

The snow was crusty in the open but softer in the woods, and the first trail I was on had a lot of running water. The bigger trails had had a snowmobile or two go through, but it wasn't packed down enough to skate. On the way back I decided to take a small trail that I remembered, in hope of bypassing a bit of climb and some of the wet sections, but I forgot that it was going to dump me out in the back yard of one of the houses on Vinton Pond, so it ended up doing neither, and I went through a bunch of woods.

Nice to be outside, though.

Snow dealings, round 5a: Alan's driveway. We spent the night at my brother's place, and he has a guy who plows, but I spent a couple of minutes cleaning up the edges and corners.

Snow dealings, round 5b: Nancy's driveway. We parked at North Street Auto and walked down from there, and there was 3-4" of snow. I shoveled a path up to the top, and then this stuff was to the liking of the electric blower, so it did the bulk of the work, and I just needed to do the plow snow down by the road with the shovel, while Nancy cleaned off her car and did the top part.

Snow dealings, round 5b: my driveway. Parked by the mailbox with the flashers on and blowed a wide enough corridor to get the car in, then blowed the rest, including the mailbox (which was challenging because it got muddy right in front of it, then a tire track/rut/ridge formed and froze, so it's a bad surface under the snow). Pleased that I had enough gas left to get this done. I didn't measure it, probably about the same 3-4" as at Nancy's, which was presumably more before it warmed up today, but it was still pretty fluffy.