Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Intervals, 9 x 5 min; interesting cattle for company. Who knew a cow could jump a fence? Saw a large snake in the road I was running on, too. Very large.

Of course, up on our maps anything over about 12" counts as large.

C • Mappable? 2

Checked 2 controls at the Granite Planite Middle day; moved one to a nearby feature (first location would have been fine, but it looked a little too visible from the highway and I would end up worrying that someone might see it and take it during the race), and moved the control location on the other to the opposite side of the feature--mainly because that's where the big hornet nest is, should be exciting for the runners and the hornets, too.

I had thought about running one of the courses after that, but I didn't in the end. I wasn't worried about the hornets--I can run way faster than they can (run)--but there were so many cattle out there, and I was wearing my nylon orienteering pajamas, possibly making me look invitingly like a tent to be shredded.

Then did some trail running, and while I was doing that, I heard some big cracking down a slope in the woods--obviously a moose. Except that it wasn't. It turned out to be a miniature excavator, smack dab in the middle of the woods, working on a new bike trail. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how it got there, or how it is being re-supplied with fuel; and there was no signs of track imprints on any of the trails leading into the area.

I wonder how often excavators get misidentified as moose? Probably not often. Rookie mistake--I won't be fooled next time.

Fifth straight day of interesting weather and fifth straight day of tornado watches. Fortunately the tornadoes lately have been quite shy and do not enjoy being watched, and so have stayed away. Plenty of hail and rain though, so it's been good.

Some scary clouds snucked up on me while I was biking and I was so intent on battling a relentless headwind that I didn't even notice until it was almost too late. Like any number of times before I got home just in time before the ice cold rains could hit me in force, and it became quite good exercise trying to stay ahead of the rain.

Ran afterwards, and for a change it was dead calm. I tried to remember the last time it's been like that, and could not. It's been a lot of wind this summer, unusually windy for sure. But maybe this is going to be the new norm?

C • Snucked 2

"Hello there, ladies and gentlemen,
Hello there, ladies and gentlemen,
Are you ready to rock!,"


Today was calling for quite a bit control work, even though the weather was calling for quite a bit of rain, hail, and overall destruction. We would see who would win.

I began by randomly selecting 4 controls to visit from Day 4 for the O' Festival, using an algorithm I wrote and then coded aimed at: *minimizing* the chances of seeing any golfer or even golf balls, being consumed by a devastating wildfire such as those burning up California, and of being attacked by ravenous wolves (the state, for as long as I have been here, and according to nearly any politician in state running for office, has been plagued and overrun by wolves which are ruining everything that is good about Wyoming); and *optimizing* my chances of seeing moose. The entire process only took about 5 minutes, representing a good investment of my time.

So I visited those 4 controls and it all went well. True, I didn't see any moose, but I also didn't seen any golfers or golf balls, I didn't get burnt up in wildfire, and I wasn't attacked by any ravenous politicians running for office. *And*, when I got home and checked email, I found a note from Neil asking me if I could please check out 4 controls--which just happened to be the very controls I had visited!!!! What are the odds! Well, I did that calculation, and the odds were roughly 1 in 4.4 million.

People underestimate the importance of luck.

But that was just the warmup. The main event was checking and streamering the control locations for Day 3 of the O' Fest.

But first I had to consider the cattle situation. There were a lot of cattle out, with a number of bulls. Normally the bulls are pretty sedate, but the bulls with horns really don't like tents. Several of the bulls had bits of shredded tent draped over their horns. One of the bulls had a pair of tights dangling from its horns. I guess bulls don't like seeing tights in the summertime, and who can blame them? Really, if you're going to wear tights in the summer, you might as well head straight for the ballet or yoga class or whatever. Even golfers don't wear tights--at least I assume that's true, though I don't really know. When I drive by the golf course here, I avert my eyes.

I started running/streamering, which was the cue for raindrops to start dropping. It was so scattered however that it wouldn't even have qualified as Swedish sunshine. About halfway through, I could see the skies off to the SW were darkening rapidly and it wasn't long after that the scattered rain became less scattered and more focused. I picked out several controls I could hit on my way back to my truck, and when I wrote down descriptions I ducked into the cover of the best nearby ponderosa.

About the time I climbed into my truck the rain trailed off and then stopped. Excellent! I drove over to another vantage point and then finished off the last 7 dozen or so controls. It doesn't seem like you really need 184 controls for a simple middle distance event, but I you need what you need.

I was happy with the map. There was one spot coming out of a control where there's a small patch of fallen beetle kill trees. It's only 5-6 trees, but still, it's important to have standards and adhere to them, even if the standards are--as they are here--quite low.

There were some campers about 700-800 meters from where I was parked, and, as I was leaving, I could hear an upswell of excited voices and possible sounds of largish creatures. I couldn't make out any words, but the general tenor was of that hostility, alarm, danger, and confusion. There was no way to be sure at that distance whether the bulls had spotted the campers' tents or if a pack of ravenous politicians had spotted the campers. Either way, the best course of option seemed to be to drive home, and to keep my gaze averted as I drove past the golf course.

Day 3 of very active thunderstorms in the afternoon and well into the night, and third day in a row where i changed my running plans from O' related to running trails. Today that meant running in dense fog up top shortly after the last and biggest storm went through. More hail and hail shredded leaves on the ground.

Biked down to City Hall and voted. That took about 3 minutes (the voting, not the biking). Then went up to do some course setting/streamering work, and just as I was about to get off the interstate, an emergency broadcast came over the radio, warning of a dangerous thunderstorm about to hit Tie City, Vedauwoo, and other nearby places, etc., moving--unusually enough--from the NW in a southeasterly direction I looked over to the north, and, sure enough, I could see a very dangerous looking storm not far off, and bearing down quickly. So I parked at the Visitors Center and prepared to ride it out, hoping that the warnings of half dollar sized hail would not come to pass.

Waiting it out took a lot longer than voting did, but luckily the storm just grazed by the Visitors Center, and the hail there was no larger than nickel sized. Good thing I wasn't out 40 minutes earlier, because that would have put me out in the woods when the storm was hitting, and I wouldn't have heard the warning--and the area I was headed for ended up with several inches of hail on the ground. That would not have been fun!

Given what I did yesterday, I was surprised at how much lift I had in my legs today. Cool conditions at the end of the day, and very pleasant running. Saw one bull (moose),