Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Easily breaking a record high for the date--it's already 56F vs the old record of 51F. Substantial!

C • Substantial.. 1

Counting today, I've skied the last 8 days in the new year. Most years, I would have skied the last 19 days. I don't know if I'll ski tomorrow because conditions are again getting thin in more and more spots. Some snow may arrive tomorrow, and we'll just have to see.

On the other hand, I've biked outside quite a few days this year, and most years that would show a zero.

And normally the valley here would be white. As it is, if you look to the mountains to the south and west, they are snow covered. But the valley is very brown, as is the western facing slope of the Laramie Range--as brown as one of those old HVO suits (or am I thinking of Ramapo? not sure.)

Ran after skiing and saw a grand total of 2 mountain bikers after dark, and no moose.

Sunny and crisp out today, starting out cold at around 0F or just below, and warming up until the early afternoon. I had some errands and decided I could bike around in shorts from the way it felt, and did, but there was a colder wind out of the north that I couldn't feel in my yard, but which could be felt while biking. Fingers in regular biking gloves got somewhat icy, but they survived, and otherwise it was fine--beats melting down in high temps and humidity, that's for sure.

Then skied and ran some later in the day, finishing up well after dark. I cut the running short and did everything at a very easy effort level, because I had the vague sense my body wasn't quite there today. Nothing I could pin down as incipient illness necessarily--just kind of felt like I might be feeling very mildly achy all over, and feeling ever so slightly flattish. And yet, in my mind and head I felt fine, alert, and happy to be outside. Anyway, it seemed like a good idea to take things really easy and back off a bit, just in case.

There were as many bikers out after dark as I've seen all season. And some of them have lights that can burn holes through your eye sockets if you look straight into them. It's amazing to see how these lights seem to get more and more powerful each year. I'm sure the bikers must sometimes blind each other as they approach; at least I can step off the trail and turn my head away (which is what I do, and I don't mind yielding to the bikers at all anyway.)

It was very clear out and stars were extra visible tonight--so much so that a constellation was almost harder to pick out because so many fainter stars that you never usually see were easily visible also. I saw a very cool meteorite that was a good bit larger than most are, and which seemed to be moving more slowly across the sky than most do. After transecting a large arc, it disappeared behind a hill off to the west.

C • Meteor 6

Nice to have another very sunny day, but extra nice to have a sunny day that actually felt like winter for a change. Decidedly nippy in the cab of my truck on the way home, which is the finest measure of if it's winter or if it's not really winter. Lately it's been mostly the latter.

Trail conditions were mostly good, and considerably improved by some shoveled snow onto several critical spots.

I was on guard because I had seen a suspicious car bearing Colorado plates in the parking lot, but even so I was unable to avoid running into racer X8A7. Drats. And I had thought for sure if I simply avoided all the beginner trails I would be safe!

So we skied together from then, which was fine, though oddly we spent the time mostly talking about Hershey's Semi-Sweet Chocolate morsels. Well that wasn't the odd part. The odd part was we were both arguing strongly that semi-sweet chips were the best, and didn't realize until we were nearing the end of the ski that we both favored the same chip position. Miscommunication at its finest!

After X8AZ headed back to Colorado, with some favorable winds to speed his progress eastward down I-80, I headed back out on several select snow bike trails for some running, thinking about a bit of wisdom a snow biker had passed along recently: "Remember if you see a horse out in these woods, it's really a moose, and if you see a moose instead, then it's a moose, too; cows don't count, because you won't see any cows up here in winter."

Skied for a while, first by myself, and then I ran into Frank B. and skied with him until it was time to remover skis and don running shoes. Then ran well past dark, with two up-n-close personal moose sightings for added flavor and excitement. One was a bull moose of a few years of age with a middling set of antlers, nothing great, but at least more than just spikes. The other I couldn't be sure of, because it had no antlers. This is the time of year when antlers are coming off, so that's no longer a reliable sign. It was quite large though, and some combination of size and general appearance made me inclined to think it was a bull, too.

Beautiful sunny day, mild during the middle of the day in town, with the usual afternoon winds kicking in as the sun lowered.

Yesterday morning, returning home from some random errand, I happened to notice an isolated cloud situated over the Happy Jack massif. It looked like it might be dispensing snow, of all things. But I forgot about it, until later in the day, when then I went up to run, and found there was a fresh and unexpected 2" of snow. I think some passing crow must have noticed the bared grounds, and, taking pity upon the local skiing conditioned, signaled to some powerful god--or could it have been North Korea, instead--to deliver some snow.

My plans had been to run, and in any event I hadn't packed skis along with me, so running it was, and it was a delight to see the new snow. And it looked like it was enough to refresh the trail conditions in most parts back to "decent".

Today I knew better, and headed up to take advantage of the improved skiing circumstances; no way to know how long it will last, and without more snow, it will probably get thinned out quickly enough in the more notorious sections of the trail net, and then it will be back to all running and no skiing again.

First time out this year, on the 13th, which is remarkable when compared to any previous winter. It sets a new standard for a skinny snow season, almost no matter what might follow from here.

I was checking out one spot that is especially prone to be windswept when a figure emerged from around a bend, and started waving at me. At first I couldn't figure out who it was and the context of it was what threw me, because it was Doug Berling, and I just had no reason to think I might run into him up there.

He had some startling news: just in the past few days there had been an influx of large numbers of Norwegians to the Denver area, and the authorities were quite concerned: what if they were there to spread their jeans, or were planning on relocating to Nederland to embark on raising high altitude hip hemp? I wondered if any of them might have compasses and finger sticks with them, but Doug did not mention anything about that.

Strange times indeed, but after all the skiing was said and done--easier said than done, I must add, because my skis were sic slow--I went running anyway, looking for and finding several moose in the dark.