Training Archive: SwampfoxIn the 29 days ending 2008-02-29:
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Friday Feb 29 | ||
| run 36:00 [3] | |
| Lots of mud out on the the trails in The Flats--a spring melt is underway. | ||
| skiing 1:42:00 [3] | |
| More spring-like conditions, though there were only a few re-frozen ruts at the end of the day, and for the most part the trails were in quite good shape. And, as is usual for this part of the season, quite fast by the late afternoon. | ||
| biking 44:00 [2] | |
Thursday Feb 28 | ||
| run 44:00 [2] | |
| There's a huge puddle of meltwater out on the North Prairie that is sure to draw the sub-morons like flies, as soon as they discover it and word gets out.
While I was running I was thinking some about taxes, and how many people might cheat on their taxes a little bit (or a lot of bit.) I don't have any idea, but I'd guess it's probably not a trivial number. It's not so hard to understand how someone whose bank account is all tapped out and has a family to take care might get a little creative with their taxes, if they have the chance, rather than write out a check. It's a lot harder to understand why the truly wealthy are sometimes so willing to cheat on their taxes though. And while I was thinking about that, I saw a Plan B box lying on the ground. That made me wonder if there might be some new trend in contraceptive practices up on the North Prairie. Maybe couples are going up there just intending to, you know, hold hands or whatever, but just in case the moment turns a little hotter and heavier, you bring along a Plan B packet? Well, you just never know. It could have all been the wind carrying that box over from some other point miles away. | ||
| C • theory 2 | ||
| C • Did they find it? 2 | ||
| skiing 1:27:00 [3] | |
| biking 1:00:00 [2] | |
Wednesday Feb 27 | ||
| skiing 1:30:00 [3] | |
| Looked like it snowed a good bit while I was gone, with the trails all plump with new layers of fresh Wyoming snow. Another skier told me the most recent snow had been from an 8" helping last Sunday that had been completely unpredicted.
The UW Ski team was doing something unusual today: a "slow" race, where they were racing, but had to keep to Level 1 intensity. Heart monitors were used, and delivered painful though not dangerous electric shocks when skiers were working too hard. That's cowboy tough. | ||
| run 47:00 [3] | |
| Ran from the parking lot out to Telephone Road and back, checking out the snow cover on the shortgrass prairie. It felt like Tucson. But not really. | ||
| Note | |
| It looks like while I was gone that Laramie's newest hotel opened: AmericInn. It's got free parking, roll-away beds for rent, a cowboy at the front desk (in case your roundups should go astray), and you can even launder your guests. Or something like that. | ||
| C • Free parking? 2 | ||
| biking 1:00:00 [2] | |
Tuesday Feb 26 | ||
| Note | |
| Back home tonight after a great trip down to Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Easy to see why the candidates are spending so much time in Texas, and I still say Austin is my kind of town.
The trip capper was the last 20 miles or so home. As usual, the winds went from nothing at the Colorado border, to a little breezy at Cheyenne, to full gale force winds going perpendicular to the highway with full on ground blizzarding around Vedauwoo, with some icing on the roadway for extra fun--so fine! It's hard to think of anything negative from the trip, while there were many positives. Some of the highlights included: 1) Getting to sample some East Texas terrain. East Texas is a lot like Mississippi except that: it's easier to spell, there are fewer alligators, and there are more Texans. I thought the event NTOA was overall quite nice, fun, and inspiring to see so many younger orienteers flocking out in force and having a good time. 2) Seeing firsthand that Austin is every bit the happening place I always imagined it was. It looked about 300% vibrant! 3) Spotting an armadillo in Hill Country, which most experts will agree is the finest and most difficult spotting locality. I can almost retire happily on this alone. 4) Observing at close hand the famed peccaries and Wired Scorpions of Big Bend. The Wired Scorpion isn't the most dangerous scorpion of the Southwest by any means, but it does have the most fiercesome stinger. I'll toss in some roadrunner sightings too, since roadrunners are cool. Beep-beep! 5) A trail run at dusk in the Chisos Mountains which did not result in my being eaten by a mountain lion, despite numerous sightings up there over the past month. I always enjoy going on runs where I don't become prey. There's some great running up in the Chisos Mountains, and if you didn't know that and were just driving through Big Bend, you might not guess it. 6) Seeing that West Texas really is moving big into wind energy. We saw some enormous wind farms, and read that Texas has now overtaken California to become the biggest wind energy generator in the country. (But I still think Albany County, WY might pack a bigger potential punch. ; ) ) 7) Observing firsthand (if only anecdotally) that higher gas prices are so far having seemingly minute effects on the size of vehicles folks are choosing to drive, and how fast they are driving. There is a lot of 75 mph highway in the West, and lots of people are driving big trucks and SUVs at speeds exceeding 75 mph. 8) Getting to race in some more Tucson terrain at last--it was way too long since the last Tucson "A" event. I thought the Tucson event was quite good in all respects. The impermeable fences were only an added challenge. It would be easy to go really wrong around Tucson--an event in mid-summer in some typical cactus terrain would kill off just about anyone, I'd guess--but this could well serve as a classic example of how to do it right! 9) Haw, haw, haw, haw! How can you mention Texas without mentioning ZZ Top? 10) While there was lots and lots of great scenery along the way, I'd have to recommend the stretch of I-25 between Las Vegas, NM and Raton as being the overall most beautiful of anything I saw on this trip. It's almost remarkably undeveloped and looks aobut like you could imagine it looked 100 years ago in large part. On a different note, if you take the results together from last year's US Classic Champs, the Texas event, and the Tucson event, it's pretty clear that Feet are in really good shape, are in fine form, and are the man to beat these days (BT grammar invoked.) Blue runners, set your sights and get your training in motion! | ||
| C • Zane Gray wrote a rather fi... 2 | ||
Sunday Feb 24 | ||
| Orienteering race 1:28:00 [4] | |
| Day 2 at Tucson "A", no misses, just needed to be able to run faster. And maybe work on fence crossing technique--some of those Tucson fences were extra stout. An M-1 Abrams tank couldn't have gotten past several of them.
Really enjoyed the weekend, and I think everyone was really happy that Tucson put together another "A" event--what a fine winter interlude! | ||
| Orienteering race 1:28:00 [4] | |
| Day 2 at Tucson "A", no misses, just needed to be able to run faster. And maybe work on fence crossing technique--some of those Tucson fences were extra stout. An M-1 Abrams tank couldn't have gotten past several of them.
Really enjoyed the weekend, and I think everyone was really happy that Tucson put together another "A" event--what a fine winter interlude! | ||
Blue2 - Splits | ||
Saturday Feb 23 | ||
| Event: Western States + Intercollegiate Championships | ||
| Orienteering race 1:40:00 [4] | |
| Tucson Day 1. After last weekend's outing in Texas, I was questioning my decision to run Blue this weekend, but as it turned out, the terrain and running was as fun as I had hoped and thought it would be. No mistakes, just needed some more speed in the legs.
The terrain had a lot similar in character to some of our Laramie areas. This was totally spur/gully with outstanding visibility due to the open nature of the terrain, which is a good deal similar to some of our spur/gully areas at home, also with outstanding visibility. But for visual differences: there was no water anywhere, no conifers (or any real forest to speak of, just some loose scattered oaks), and no mappable stone. And the actual running felt quite different too, with a need to keep vigilant against the ever ready catclaw, and a good deal of off-sized, loose rocks underfoot. The grass was a little higher and clumpier too. Overall, really fun orienteering and a great job by Tucson. Oh, and I should mention the weather was super nice too! What a great break from winter! | ||
Blue 1 - Splits | ||
Thursday Feb 21 | ||
| run 59:00 [3] | |
| Trail run in Guadalupe NP at dusk; much cooler here than down in Big Bend. Highlight of the run was right at the turn, spotting something that looked very much like the seldom seen sub-species of the Lympia Gnateater; the Guadalupe Mountains mark the extreme northern extent of its winter range. So fine!
No snow anywhere. Wonder where winter could have gone? | ||
Wednesday Feb 20 | ||
| run 1:40:00 [3] | |
| Nice run at the end of the day in the Chisos Mountains. Fairly rocky footing with multitudes of waterbars. Not exactly the little up little down sort of trail. And like summer in Laramie, only wamer! | ||
Tuesday Feb 19 | ||
| Note | |
| Travel all day from Austin--which is my kind of town--to Big Bend. Texas is big.
But before taking off, a neat incident. Miss Bee and I had gone down to the riverfront and we were getting ready to take a picture at the SRV statue when a runner, a middle aged man in fairly average middle aged condition stopped and asked if we would like him to take a picture of us together. We said yes, and he said I'll tell you a little story while we're doing this. And he proceeded to tell us that back in 1980 he and his wife were living in a little house in south Austin, and were living in the front part and leasing out an apartment in the back, and their first tenants were a young Stevie Ray Vaughn and his wife Lenny. He said that was back before anyone knew who Stevie was and of course they had no idea who he was, just some tenant. He also said he was a very shy person, had very little to say, but that he did ask if it was ok to practice in the apartment, which he was allowed to do as long as it didn't get too loud. So the fellow said he'd hear Stevie back there plinking away at his guitar all the time. True story? Well, it sounded completely credible as the runner talked to us, and not just some tale being foisted off on the touristos at the statue. But who knows. I thought it was beyond cool, at any rate! | ||
| C • Pilgrimage 7 | ||
Monday Feb 18 | ||
| run 1:42:00 [3] | |
| Ran some trails in Bastrop State Park, a pleasant enough outing. I saw some orienteers leaving the park as I was coming in, and while I was running, I was wondering what the orienteering there would be like. An awful lot of what I saw was pine forest with a pretty dense understory of what I'm guessing is some sort of invasive ornamental shrub, and that part of the forest would have been pretty tough going. There were also some more open parts of a scruffy sort of oak dominated forest with some scattered glades that would have been more runnable. Maybe other parts of the park were more like that.
But the highlight of the day was my visit to Austin, where I paid a visit to the SRV statue. Which proved to be much more difficult to find than I would have guessed. I google mapped it before getting there, and the address looked easy enough. In the end I walked around nearly an hour or more before finally spotting it--from the wrong side of the river after having been mis-directed there by friendly Texans. It turned out that an alarming 100% of all Texans I stopped and asked for directions were unable to give correct directions. It was almost like Jaywalk in real life! Bunch a BBQ eaters--what do you expect! ; ) The walk was well worth the effort, however. For one, I did persist and attain my goal of seeing the statue, and for another, the riverside area was plain abuzz with all kinds of runners, walkers, and onhanging dogs, making for great people watching. There was a fair bit of skin in plain view, and even one runner who by look and by form must have been a very, very good runner hailing from some highland region of Africa. Austin is obviously a very happening city and that's why I always say it's my kind of town. | ||
| C • So you're thinking of moving to Austin? 1 | ||
Sunday Feb 17 | ||
| Orienteering 1:20:00 [3] | |
| I woke up this morning with one side of my throat sore, but I didn't feel bad in any other way, and by the time I got out to the meet site it seemed like it was going to be OK to run, so I did. (By the early evening after running, I could hardly feel any sign of it left.)
Wasn't very efficient in getting through the forest, which tended a bit thicker and stringer than the forest we saw yesterday. It was more demanding woods running, and a lot of the time my running felt very clumpy and like I'm pretty de-trained for running through terrain, which is probably about the truth. In a couple spots the map, the terrain, and me were not in happy agreement, but in the end I found all the controls and came back home before the cows did. And not even one single far ant bite, so it was a highly successful day. One weird thing about the weekend was seeing hundred of other runners in the woods, and yet not even one other runner that I could be sure was on my course. There were tons and tons of kids, and relatively few adults, and only one applied mathematician (as far as I know.) Thanks to NTOA for all the work that made a nice weekend of Texas orienteering possible! | ||
| C • coincidence? 6 | ||
Saturday Feb 16 | ||
| Orienteering 1:27:00 [4] | |
| Life as a Red runner today was not so bad. The promised severe weather didn't develop (and still no tornados yet) and at worst it sprinkled a little bit while I was out in the woods.
One leg started twinging with the dreaded Car Travel Cramp Syndrome, but it never got so bad. My navigation was a little bit too much "so there", which wasn't a surprise given that it's the off-season for me. My worst offence was trying to hop over one control, and I suppose I was lucky when the ensuing terrain wasn't making too much sense, and so I didn't let myself get too far off before stopping to see exactly what I had done. It was pretty fun orienteering, and while there was nothing very complex about the terrain, the woods weren't at all bad, and the forest changed in character in different parts of the course. Plus it was fun just to run with so many other people in the forest. There were a ton of juniors out there and someone was almost always in sight (though I never saw anyone that I could be sure was on my course) and usually several people were around. Only one person asked me for help about where he was, and the funny thing about that was that he was asking at a spot in the forest that should have been dead easy. Even though I may not have been the energizer bunny, I ignored the request and just kept on going! | ||
Friday Feb 15 | ||
| Event: Interscholastic Champs | ||
| Note | |
| Saw many fire ant (or "far ant", as many of the south would say it) mounds while driving, so I kept my car doors locked at all times. Also saw a humongous number of giant pickups in West Texas. Apparently out in those parts they don't bother with mere cars at all.
No armadillos and no alligators either. Recommendation: whatever you do, don't ever attempt to drive around or through Dallas/Ft. Worth. Much better to just fly over it instead. For one, that metro area is about as big as the average east coast state in total km2. For another, the highways are jampacked with extremely slow moving traffic, except for when they are jam packed with faster moving traffic. Most of the traffic consists of humongous pickups, so unless you're driving an F-250 or something, you're pretty badly outgunned. But if you do have to drive that way, be sure to allow for several days to fully traverse the area. Why do Texans all drive such humongous pickups? I mused on that a while, and I think it might have something to do with sexual evolutionary biology, and probably a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader won't climb in your truck to mate unless it's a really big truck. | ||
| C • 1 | ||
| C • far ants 3 | ||
Thursday Feb 14 | ||
| Note | |
| I have snucked across the line into the Fire Ant Star State, but don't tell no soul nowhere.... | ||
| C • Taxes... 1 | ||
| Yowsa!!! 1 [3] | |
Wednesday Feb 13 | ||
| run 36:00 [3] | |
| Really nice out, with blue skies and lots of sun; it felt like spring as it is always imagined in these parts. | ||
| skiing 1:33:00 [2] | |
| It was mild enough to create some spring skiing type conditions in spots. | ||
| biking 1:00:00 [2] | |
Tuesday Feb 12 | ||
| run 38:00 [3] | |
| Quick run by the Hilton Garden Inn, which has just opened. No sign of Paris. There was a big sign outside which read: "She's Not Here", which would seem to be definitive. | ||
| Note | |
| I don't know. Maybe I just need more sleep. Or maybe it's something else. Whatever it is, the more I have looked at Charlie's log lately, the more confused I have become. It has become almost religously confusing. It is probably a blessing I never started to watch "Lost". | ||
| skiing 2:14:00 [3] | |
| With all the fresh snow yesterday now nicely groomed, conditions were super fine today--maybe the best of the season, and it's been a good season with a lot of really great days already.
Another nice thing that you start to notice about now is how much lighter it seems in the late afternoon compared with even just a few weeks ago. Now it's possible for little bits of sunshine to glimmer through places in the trees even as late as 4:30. It gives the trails--which trend to the north side of a slope--a whole different feel. It'll almost be a shame to head off for the lands of armadillo and ocotillo. But maybe there will be some fire ants, and that will make it all worthwhile! | ||
| C • The fire ants are hibernating 1 | ||
| biking 1:35:00 [2] | |
Monday Feb 11 | ||
| Yowsa!!! 1 [3] | |
| Significant Yowsa!!! action. | ||
| skiing 1:58:00 [3] | |
| A good bit of new snow on the trails, maybe 5" or so, deep enough to be some work to get through, but not so deep that it became enough work to be unpleasant, and it was fairly evenly distributed so it will really help the worst of the wind scoured areas, as long as the trails get groomed before the winds, and as I was leaving, I saw a groomer headed off to get started. Yes! It's a sentence paragraph!
Lots of places I was the first skier through; it looks like the heavy snow during most of the day dissuaded other skiers from coming up before the storm broke off at about 3 pm. I had a snowsnake inquiry today. It's a remarkable coincidence, because up until yesterday, I hadn't seen any snowsnakes, moose, or elk all season up around our trails, and have only seen a scratchy few deer. In fact, I hadn't even seen a single snowsnake track. Very unusual, but I had deliberately not dwelt on it knowing that a strange sensation vibe could have been sent out and detected by one or more of these nasties. However, while skiing in the Snowies yesterday, twice I was ambushed by smallish snowsnakes, and they almost got me. Although obviously I was able to get away, it did leave me a little shaken up each time, and now I'm re-warified. After close calls like that, the best thing to do is usually to head for Texas as soon as possible, and take your chances with the BBQ eaters down there. | ||
| biking 1:01:00 [2] | |
Sunday Feb 10 | ||
| skiing 1:48:00 [2] | |
| Skied over in the Snowies today; the area I was skiing rarely fails to remind me of some of the fine pine forests I've run in in Sweden, and today was no exception.
Though I've never seen a Swedish forest under attack from pine beetles like this area is. | ||
| run 1:28:00 [3] | |
| It's a rare day when Laramie is warmer than St. Louis, but that it was today, so I seized the moment!, taking a simple saunter up into the hills from home at sunset time. As sunset became nighttime, the highways leading into town from the west became lit up like pearls on a string. | ||
| biking 46:00 [2] | |
Saturday Feb 9 | ||
| skiing 1:28:00 [3] | |
| Another windy honka, but warmer temps too, plus the sun was out and beaming big. On balance the warmer temps won out, and it felt nice and fine, a perfect Mt. Dew day. Fast trail conditions. | ||
| run 1:07:00 [3] | |
| Up on trails at Happy Jack. It felt tough running in the snow, but it always feels pretty tough running in the snow. | ||
| biking 1:11:00 [2] | |
Friday Feb 8 | ||
| skiing 1:33:00 [3] | |
| No shortage of a constant supply of new fresh air blowing through; even with the wind, conditions were pretty nice. Not so many other skiers were out today. | ||
| run 54:00 [3] | |
| biking 1:40:00 [2] | |
Thursday Feb 7 | ||
| skiing 2:03:00 [3] | |
| Driving back home west on the interstate from Cheyenne, it was *really* windy, with lots of grit and small gravel in the air. So I thought it was going to be really windy for skiing too, but later it wasn't so bad. The snow and grooming were great, and overall the conditions were excellent. So fine!
More road closures today, and the Wal-Mart parking lot was looking rather semi again. | ||
| biking 1:02:00 [2] | |
Wednesday Feb 6 | ||
| run 2:16:00 [3] | |
| Down in Denver to examine a post-operative knee and render a prognosis (it looks like the patient will survive), and since I had some time left over, I went running in Cherry Creek Park.
First visit ever there; did a circuit around the reservoir, which ended up being a good bit long than I had guessed. It's the kind of place that looks like it was made for turkeys and eagles, though I so neither. Quite a few geese however, which really isn't the same. RMOC has a map there, and I guess it's a decent enough area for beginner and intermediate O', which may be all that the club does there. Most of the area is rough open (which does look like it's on the rough side), augmented by some riparian woodlands (mostly cottonwoods?) and several beaches around the reservoir, which are presumably used for sunbabing. A little too cool for that today though. | ||
| Note | |
| Afterwards, Kris and I headed over to Protos, where we had some truly excellent you-know-what. Highly recommended. | ||
| C • Pizza 3 | ||
Tuesday Feb 5 | ||
| Yowsa!!! 1 [1] | |
| run 51:00 [3] | |
| skiing 21:00 [3] | |
Monday Feb 4 | ||
| Yowsa!!! 1 [2] | |
| Some Yowsa!!! was definitely overdue. Yowsa!!! | ||
| Note | |
| I just want to state for the record that, having grown up in the American South, I never once ever heard of anyone stirring in pig brains in with their scrambled eggs down there. | ||
| skiing 2:08:00 [3] | |
| Snow was just starting to taper off when I hit the trails, and the sun gradually appeared. The skies cleared off to the south, while snow continued to fall out of otherwise clear skies to the north, creating a very special look of snow crystals glimmering in the air as they fell. Later, heavier snow clouds moved back in and a right proper snow resumed and kept snowing the whole time I was out. Conditions were, of course, superb, especially since if was the third straight day with no wind. What a break! It's almost like being in Tahiti on a nice day! | ||
| C • Just like Tahiti? 3 | ||
| Yowsa!!! 1 [3] | |
| Night Yowsa!!! | ||
| biking 1:49:00 [2] | |
Sunday Feb 3 | ||
| skiing 1:57:00 [3] | |
| Second day without wind. Amazing! New snow too. So fine!
I went up in the early afternoon expecting an enormous Wee Ski crowd, but instead there were sub-normal weekend amounts of skiers. Since the conditions were so nice, the most likely explanation was: Super Bowl. Must be that even Wee Ski doesn't dare go up against the Super Bowl. | ||
| run 43:00 [3] | |
| Would have been happy to have run longer, but the conflicting demand was wanting to get back home in time to see Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
Even though I didn't run long, it was long enough to come across a yearling cow all by itself, obviously having been missed by the fall roundups. It looked pretty lonely and in fact it tried to trot along beside me, but I didn't trust it to behave itself, so I yelled at it and it turned around to go back and stand rather forlornly in the meadow it had been in. I didn't feel bad about it though--after a few months all by itself, there's no telling what kind of bad behaviors it could have picked up from the moose, including charges, stomplings, and frenzied gorings. | ||
| C • Did you catch the opening? 8 | ||
| biking 1:12:00 [2] | |
Saturday Feb 2 | ||
| skiing 1:35:00 [3] | |
| New snow, nice ski. | ||
| run 58:00 [3] | |
| Hoped for moose missing. | ||
| Note | |
| Because of snowfall, the swampfox did not see his shadow and I doubt the badger did either, so theoretically the coast is clear! | ||
Friday Feb 1 | ||
| run 21:00 [3] | |
| Another proper day in Laramie: sun over the valley, snow over the Snowies, big wind running everywhere, and the Big Road shut down again. | ||
| C • How many days does I-80 hav... 2 | ||
| skiing 1:28:00 [3] | |
| Chill. | ||
| biking 1:28:00 [2] | |