Training Log Archive: Swampfox

I went for a quick ski to take advantage of mild, very pleasant and sunny conditions, following that up with the real advantaging--which was an O' run at Remarkable Flats. It was the first day in several that the Happy Jack highway was at last enough de-iced so that it wasn't life threatening to drive along.

While I was skiing and approaching the far end of the trail net, I spotted 2 unfamiliar, kinda stick figures but not really totally stickish figures up ahead. They were standing at what would probably be *the* optimum spot to stand if you were an ISIS operative. After determining they had no automatic weaponry on them or any grenades--though I could not rule out the possibility of suicide belts--I skied up to them and requested their identification. Which they handed over.

I examined the identification carefully, noting the shoddy construction paper they were made of, the extensive use of crayons, and pictures of santa claus and a bunny rabbit, which in no way resembled the people in front of me.

I passed their papers back to them, while informing them that: "These are the worst credentials I have ever seen in my life." They wouldn't have passed muster in Casablanca.

Anyway, they turned out to be ex-runners on the UW XC team (or so they claimed), and now enrolled in graduate programs at the university. Before meeting them, I literally hadn't seen any runners out on the trails during winter in years; I think almost anyone who might have once been running on snow trails rather than skiing is now snow biking instead.

Remarkably Flats was remarkably fine as usual, and I have to admit it was nice that the winds were down to levels that would be considered a merely normal breeze even in more civilized areas of the world. Plus the sun!

The best thing, though, was what I saw on the way home, after sunset: a large meteor fell through the sky from behind me, traveling in the same direction I was headed, and moving relatively slowly and seemingly pretty low in the atmosphere compared to the typical meteor. The glow it was producing was quite bright, and somewhat pulsating. To judge by it's altitude before it passed out of sight behind a ridge, it wouldn't surprise me if it reached ground.

C • Meteor reporting page... 1

Skiing was on tap today what with sunshine and beckoning blue skies, and so I headed up top. As I was putting on my skis, I glanced up the trail and caught sight of a familiar stick figure--the unmistakable outline of racer X8A7--standing still at the base of the Campground Loop. And I knew what he was doing. How many countless times have I seen him standing there, motionless, trying to decide to go left or right, weighing the pros and cons of either choice? It would hardly seem to make any difference, since either way you go, you end up at the same place on the far side of the loop. Or, if you just keep on going around, eventually you come back to the starting point--it being a loop--and you can make the other choice then if you like.

But I recognize the symptoms and fully sympathize, and am perhaps just as susceptible to the same affliction, having once long ago fallen prey to the same disease. Once you take the introductory course to Geology--"Rocks for Jocks"--you are never the same again.

So I skied up to X8A7 and said hello and asked him: "Stuck again?"

He said yes.

I said: "We've been over this before. You know it's just a loop. It really doesn't matter which way you go."

X8A7 just nodded his head. I sympathized.

I said: "Do you want to talk about the weather?"

Neither of us said anything for a while, except for when someone would ski past, and then we would both say to the them: "Hi, hi, hi." If a dog ran by, we didn't say anything to the dog. No sense in antagonizing a dog on the ski trails.

More time passed and then I said: "Do you want to talk about the government?" It seemed like a promising topic of conversation, but we just stood there saying nothing for a while again, except when other skiers came by, when again we would say "hi, hi, hi."

Finally racer X8A7 asked if I wanted to ski. That was quite startling, since I hadn't even been there for much more than 20-30 minutes of indecision time. I cautiously said that would be fine as long as he didn't race me into the ground (after all, he is racer X8A7, and not tree sloth X8A7), and with that he immediately headed uphill on the right leg of the loop.

I think it was the quickest I've ever seen him make up his mind about which way to go on the loop, so for AP purposes, put it down as a PR.

We spent almost the entire time while we skiing talking rocks-for-jocks type stuff, you know, like rocks and minerals and stuff, except for when we were talking about the weather and the government. Good times.

After X8A7 was done (he started earlier than me), I skied for a while longer, and then switched gears and ran for a 100 (miles? days? minutes? probably minutes) on snow bike trails. There were some new beetle trees down across the trails I ran on, felled by the high winds either yesterday or the day before. Except for on packed trails, running up in the forest at Happy Jack is already pretty near too difficult, because of the depth of the snow that has fallen over the past week.

Lots of bikers were out today, and already I have the impression that snow biking is going to be up again in numbers this season. Mountain biking is way more popular in Laramie than even beer drinking and country music, and it is definitely carrying over into snow biking.

Yesterday was looking auspicious for the start of my personal ski season, but the Road Gods had other ideas, and a wreck (or wrecks) on I-80 had eastbound lanes closed much of the day, including the latter part of the day, which is when I would have gone up to pantomime skiing while mostly in actuality desperately trying to stay warm (it got unseasonably cold as the day wore on.) So that was that.

Today went better and therefore became the day of the start of my personal ski season. I pantomimed for about 40 minutes before things starting to feel more comfortably like some semblance of skiing, and at one point I even passed a pair of dogs that had stopped to sniff something (another dog's pee?) at the base of a beetle kill tree. Of course, they weren't wearing skis so they were at a speed disadvantage anyway.

The best part though was the wind, which was rippin'. Actually the best, best part was the rippin' wind had blown in so much rippin' snow across the rippin' entrance to the parking lot that I made the wise decision to park across the highway rather than risk the entry to the parking lot and/or risk being trapped inside the parking lot. That meant that at the end of the day instead of walking a nearly impossible 50-100' into the death winds, I got to walk more like 300' into the death winds instead. Bonus!

Some things at Happy Jack never change.

Very nice to see the trails already have very good coverage, better than they had last year a full month later into the season.

A low of -7F for the day added to the wintry feel.

Plan A was to run O' at Remarkable Flats, but a formidably icy Happy Jack highway meant a change to Plan B, hopping off at Telephone Road instead, as the dry gravel road was looking a whole lot better than icy pavement. Ran around Rattlesnake Hill on dirt roads with some wandering across snow prairie for added joy.

It seemed smart to start running downwind in hopes that by the time I was ready to do a 180 and head back, maybe the wind would do the same. And gradually smart faded to foolish as the wind only picked up strength, thereby calling into play the old saying "if it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger." I got stronger. Not that chilly, but not that warm either!

Yesterday's winds were mere run-of-the-mill; it must be acknowledged that today we were honored with some truly ferocious winds that the area is infamous for. The big wind combined with an afternoon blizzard that stretched over several hours, making my plan to go up and run on a map untenable. Instead, I enjoyed the friendly winds while running from home. I will be curious to see how much new snow fell at Happy Jack, as well as to see how many trees also fell--the wind was more than enough to harvest some new sylvan victims.

I ran in the snow at Happy Jack, and while it might not have been quite enough to re-water California, it was a lot of snow. It was almost too deep for running, and maybe you could say what I was doing was somewhere between regular running and (frozen) aqua jogging. Not that I've ever aqua jogged before, so I can't really claim to know what that's like.

It was some fun work and stretched well past the 2 hour mark, but not past nightfall, which was just as well, because that is of course when the snowsnakes come out looking for the unwary.

Very odd not to see a single snowbike track. I would have bet good money on seeing at least one biker or evidence of such stuff going on, and I would have lost that bet.

A groomer made a second pass rolling some of the trails, and a first pass rolling some of the trails that had not been hit yet. No more of that "winter is coming stuff" for the Laramie Range; winter is here!

C • Aqua jogging 1

The new Bottom 25 rankings are out, and things are not looking good for UMass. According to Fornelli, UMass might not even manage to stay in the rankings. It would be so heartbreaking to work so hard, and come so close, only to see it all slip away this near the end of the season. But that is sport, and sometimes you just collapse into tears over what might have been.

Closer to home--much, much, much closer, in fact--Wyoming is making a late season last ditch effort to try to reach the pinnacle of sport, and after cleverly luring San Diego St into administering a very physical pounding, now sits at #5, within striking distance of the top if only a few things go the way of the teams in front of it.

But, less close to home, Kansas (#2) at 0-10 still sits Big 12-ishly and firmly in Wyoming's way. Not to mention UCF (#1), which shows no signs of budging. What do they feed those guys before games, anyway? Tripe? Tripe mixed in green jello?? Whatever it is, it's working.