Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Started out the day by shopping for a smart phone, vowing not to let another year go by and being one of the 41 people left in the world without one. Ha!--not really, I lived all those other years without la phone, and if I should keel over in 2016, I doubt it will be possible to blame it on the lack of one of those rechargeable ubiquities. I look at all those people walking around hunched over their phones, and I usually think I'd rather be riding my bike.

So what I really did was more the opposite: I ended my TV service and turned in the set top box as the final, culminating act. It was not as easy as I thought it would be. First, you have to find the building, and the cable people are very good at camouflaging such things, using tricks such as changing out street signs and wrong addresses and no trespassing signs coupled with large vicious dogs, etc. Then, when you find the building, you have to find the door, which is cleverly blended into the wall with almost no visible seam and no handle. If you find the door but don't know the secret tapping code (a technique adopted from certain species of tropical ants), then nobody is going to open the door for you. Once inside, you have to go through various bio-metric examinations to prove you are who you say you are, and you have to pass various other tests such as being able to recite the Pledge of Allegiance backwards with no goof-ups (fortunately I knew to practice.) Finally, you have to know the magic words: "I am here to surrender my TV box." If you don't use the surrender word, then you will be summarily kicked out and not allowed to try again for another 12 billing cycles--it's all in the fine print. It almost made me feel like a cadet all over! Mission accomplished.

I headed out in the early afternoon for a short ski--barely over an hour--and kept it short because the main event on the card was the year's first orienteering. 30 controls at Remarkable Flats in the low angle sunshine was the prescribed dose, and even though the sun had set by the time I was on the way in to #18, I made it all the way round with at least a few minutes of daylight to spare sufficient for unaided map reading. Should have made the course another 2 controls longer; why waste daylight?

C • Wait... 2

Warmest day of 2016 so far--it got to at least 36F in Laramie this afternoon. I wonder if it will get any warmer the rest of the year? Ah, who knows.

Anyway, it felt like summer, only better. Skiing was about perfect. Had anyone dared, they could have stayed warm dressed in just a thong. Another day without wind made for trouble for some birds. They're so used to staying aloft in double gale force local winds that without the wind they are sometimes unable to adapt, and plummet straight to the ground. The surprised expressions on the faces of some of the crows are priceless.

Ran a bit after dark, sans any illumination from the moon. All my sins were venial.

Great day to be out, and I was not alone in thinking that; I can't ever remember seeing so many people up at Happy Jack on a non-race winter day before. The snow was very fast. Amazingly, the no-wind streak added another day, and whether it was truly mild or not, in the sun it at least felt mild compared to the recent colder weather we had been having. Skied a loop with Tyler, and then headed out to run on snow trails at sunset.

I don't know how warm it got today, but it got at least into the upper teens today, and considering the recent weather, plus the fact that the sun was shining brightly all day long, it felt really nice to be out.

Kris showed up at around noon, and the reunion of Annie and Kris was a sweet moment to behold--or at least it was until it became clearer that much of Annie's enthusiasm was rooted in the errant belief that this meant she was going to get a doggie treat! ; )

I spent the latter part of the afternoon repeatedly sticking poles into the ski trails at Happy Jack in an effort to pass myself as a possible skier. The follies included 8 x 5 min intervals up my favorite stretch hill, which, if nothing else, revved up my heart rate a beat or two higher than normal.

Day 487. Can so much time really have gone by since the arrival of the black beast? It hardly seems possible, and yet, it must be true. I can scarcely remember anything from LBBB (life before black beast), and I am not sure how much longer I can sustain. I long ago gave up any notion of trying to impose limits upon what the black beast is and is not allowed to do. Resistance proved utterly futile. The black beast does whatever it wants. If it wants to sit on the sofa and watch Big Bang Theory reruns all night long, that's what happens. If it wants to jump in bed and not leave any room for me, that's what happens. If it wants to eat 2 dozen times a day and have a walk after each meal, then it gets to have 2 dozen meals and walks. I try to tell myself to just hold on somehow, that it could be worse, and that sooner or later someone will alert Homeland Security to this grave threat to the nation, but in truth I realize better than anyone that it could not be worse and that if help has not arrived after 487 days of this, then what possible hope is there that help will arrive on the 488th day? My god, how much longer can thi....uh-oh, I hear stirring in the next room, and if the black beast should discover me typing this, I know I will be forced to undergo punishment walks, so I must end this here! If only there were a YouTube video showing step by step how to conquer a black beast and regain your life...

Double uh-oh: the beast has walked in, and caught me in the act of making this entry, and now I am in big trouble! WHY IS SHE LICKING HER CHOPS????

C • I don't get it. What does m... 1

Skied in the late afternoon sunshine at Happy Jack, with lots of other happy people. In fact, there were so many happy people out the parking lot was jam packed and quite a few people had parked across the Happy Jack highway. Usually that only happens on race days. Still cold, but not too cold and the skiing was quite nice. The running on snow trails afterwards was nice, too, and by the time I was done, everyone else was done, too. A nice beginning to 2016!

When I got home you-know-who was waiting impatiently for dinner. Having run out of dog food, I was forced to serve Annie some delicious pizza; it looks like it will be cold oatmeal for me because there wasn't enough delicious pizza for both of us, darn it.

Another chilly day of skiing. Not so cold that the skis didn't work, and it was fine during the mid day with the sun out and just a little breeze, but the kind of day that once the sun set and the shadows achieved unity, you could feel the thermometer headed down minute by minute. Lots of people out, and lots of fun.

Unfortunately, there was another serious sledding accident at the old Happy Jack downhill area yesterday, and it sounds like the Forest Service is actively considering banning all sledding there. Not sure how they would enforce it if they go that way, but that would probably be a consideration, too.

As I was finishing up skiing yesterday, I was talking with a couple folks I know at the trailhead when a sheriff's truck went by on the highway with siren going, and then another truck doing the same went by a few minutes later.

In today's paper there was a sad story which explained the sirens: an 8 year old boy had been sledding with his father on the old ski slopes at Happy Jack, had crashed into a tree, and died by the time he reached the hospital.

Another day where the temps were well below normal. No wind, and plenty of sun, so no problem while the sun was still up. Shaded uphills were definitely slow (at least with my skis) and everything else was pretty good, even with just single digit temps. Got colder quickly as soon as the sun went down though! Many skiers were out.