Training Log Archive: CleverSky

A northward loop on the Incubus, pretty much the shortest loop that involves going to another state. I'm glad things have improved so that I didn't need to do a quarantine upon entering New Hampshire and another one upon leaving. Definitely hot out, even when I was going fast enough to be generating a good breeze, but any other exercise would have been worse. The road connecting across just north of the border was no bargain, especially with skinny tires. After all the effort climbing Barker Hill Rd., instead of getting to nice relaxing coast, I was riiding the brakes on a rough dirt road to lose all that altitude. But why would I expect anything good from something called Morse Road. Maybe next time I'll see if things are better on the next one north: Jackson Road. :-)

I wore both FR10 watches, looks like they agree almost exactly, and maybe the new one has slightly better battery life. I don't (yet) have that one uploading to Attackpoint, unless Attackpoint saw the two tracks and decided that one must be a duplicate.

Little bit: dragged most of the contents out of the small shed. No idea what purpose it served. It does appear to be somewhat sturdier than the large shed was, but I don't expect any trouble in ripping it apart.

A double indication that things are closer to normal: I was able to bring my reusable shopping bags into the supermarket (the staff were not allowed to touch them so I had to bag things myself, which is no problem, I'd used to always use the self-checkout, but that has become 14 items max (don't know how that slows the spead of virus)), and although I hurried to get there in time to be done before the 9 PM closing, I noticed that they're back to closing at 10 PM, which is good for me, as I prefer to shop late. But an indication that things are still unusual was the email that arrived today saying that work-from-home will be continuing for me through the end of the calendar year. Which is also fine.

C • All UConn staff who are not... 7

A stroll around Timberlee Park, with Nancy, In The Dim. We had lights with us, but never needed to turn them on to see where we were going, just a few times in the latter part when cars were coming to make ourselves visible.

I picked up another Garmin FR10 on ebay for $20 including shipping. Meanwhile, I was trying to drive the battery on my original one into the ground in hopes that it would come back to life. And it did... but... it looks like the real issue was a matter of cabling. The original cable that came with my first watch had gotten flaky and finally became too unreliable to use, so I bought a replacement. The replacement cable was excellent because it was a cradle with a micro-USB socket. That meant that if the cable failed, I could just replace that part, unlike the original with a built-in cable. But when the old watch came back to life, I had it connected to the cable that came with the new watch. And neither of the older cables works with either watch. So it looks like what actually stopped working wasn't my old watch, it was the replacement cradle (I had already tried putting several different cables on it). But now I have a spare watch (and both of these watches can upload without the Garmin site being up). I'll see if I can do anything about the replacement cradle, or if not, buy another one.

Helping Stephen move from West Hartford to Middletown (CT). His old place ("The Dump") was on the second floor, and his new place ("The Ridge") is on the third. We did a good job with packing the vehicles: we did one trip with a 9-foot U-Haul van plus my Crosstrek, and a second trip with the Crosstrek and the Vibe. In between we brought a few thigs down to drop them off in North Haven. We arrived at The Dump at about 3:45 PM, figuring that we'd be better off working in the evening than in the heat of the day, but it was still pretty hot. I think it was still over 80 when we headed home close to midnight. Most of the stuff was pretty easy to move, the one exception being this sectional couch thing that he has that's very hard to move through doorways or around corners. All that's left for Stephen today is a few small items and cleaning supplies.

Wandering around the south side of town at a pretty relaxed pace, on some little-traveled roads, and some more familiar ones. The best choice with so many FDFs around.

10 ring pullups. Charlie has been doing some of this lately, so I figured maybe I should, too. The last one was kind of tough.

(Putting in the comments because I'll probably forget them by the time Garmin Connect recovers. I'll be interested to see where I went.)

Squannacook River WMA. I timed this well, it had rained hard during the afternoon, then I saw on the radar that I had a break, and near the end of the ride I heard some thunder and it rained again on the drive home. Temperature was okay but it was wicked humid and my glasses were fogged to the point of uselessness pretty much the whole time. About halfway through it occurred to me that I was going by the stretch of the river that I paddled last month. Flat and easy riding, quite relaxing. Some of the trails were nice and wide and grassy, but with a narrow gap in the grass, and others were very narrow and I was continuously hitting wet vegetation on both sides. There were a few puddles, but it wasn't really muddy.

Last time I rode this bike, there was an annoying clunking coming from the front end, and I had forgotten to do something about it. Still there, of course, but it was hard to figure out where it was coming from. Seemed like a loose headset, but the headset wasn't loose. I did manage to diagnose it while riding. Turned out it wasn't from the front at all. I made the mistake of putting the multitool into the little saddlebag before the spare tube, and every time I hit a bump, the tool would bang against the seatpost.

C • Interested to see where I went 3

WIth Nancy, around the Westford Schools campus, In The Dim. Starting to sprinkle when I picked her up, increasing as we went along (no big deal since we were mostly under trees), and steady rain when we finished and went for ice cream.

My Garmin FR10 seems to have completely croaked. Won't connect or charge. So I went on ebay and bought another (used) one for $15 plus shipping.

Out on the Incubus again, a little cooler today than yesterday, and a bit more of a plan in my head. I don't think I'd ever been through Timberlee Park the back way before; I used to deliver newspapers there when I was a kid, but that was before they built the Zodiac section. Curiously, almost the same amount of climb, and exactly the same speed as yesterday.