Training Log Archive: Swampfox

O' pass at Granite Planite; ran the Green course from last year for time. There was some strong breeze that sometimes pushed and sometimes pulled, but mostly it just felt like at home on the Range.

It always helps to go into these workouts with a Power Song in mind, and today's Power Song was the classic "Firehouse", by those fun loving kids in face paint--Kiss.

While I was warming up, I ran by an old brown beer bottle. I wanted to pick it up and recycle it but 1) there is no place to recycle glass in Laramie, and I'll be damned if I am going to drive all the way to Dallas just to recycle one beer bottle (maybe if I had two or three, though), and 2) even though it's early in the season, brown beer bottles make really good homes for stinging hornets. Why take any chances?

C • Habitat 3

O' pass at Granite Planite.

For the first time when I was there, the natives were also out in the forest.

O' training at Granite Planite with Tyler. Snow melting away from the most recent storm--and nowhere at all a problem to run through, some decent breeze out of the SE, and sun and clouds overhead with temps in the mid 40s or slightly higher. I went out in a t-shirt with a knit cap and was perfectly comfortable after the warmup. The effort was race pace but so early in the season race pace has a good bit of room to improve. In particular I could note some leg sag going up the steeper bits along the course.

I did everything well except the part where I started going backwards down a leg from a common control visited by several legs on the course. Ooops! But better done during training than during a race.

It looks like the next few days spring will be back around, before we get another (rumored) visit by winter next week. Can hardly wait.

the rest of the story... While I was driving out to run at the anticline area this past Saturday, and still a few miles east of Medicine Bow (the village/road crossing), a Wyoming state trooper car went by me at very high speed, lights flashing and siren on. It came up so quickly from behind I didn’t even have time to finish pulling over and stopping before it had already passed me. I didn’t give it another thought until I turned north at Medicine Bow and got on US 487, the highway to Casper. Outside of town, there was a highway hazard warning sign, and it was turned on. It read: “Wreck ahead, 45 miles.” That’s as good an indication of just how big and empty the state is, because US 487 is in the middle of nowhere, and gets very light traffic at best, and here they were warning of a wreck 45 miles ahead!

And during the time I was warming up and still in sight of the highway, I saw two rescue or fire truck type vehicles go by, an ambulance, and another state trooper car, all moving fast and flashing lights. It seemed clear that they were heading for the distant wreck, and lord only knows how far they had traveled to get to where I was. But then I was off and running, and I put that all out of mind, more or less, until this morning, when I saw the front page story in the paper. One of the co-owners of the famous/infamous/notorious (fielder’s choice) Buckhorn Bar in Laramie (the claim is it is the oldest continuously operating bar in Wyoming) had died in a wreck on Saturday, on US 487. Usually when you go by a wreck, it feels kind of anonymous. You don’t know the circumstance or who was involved. This time, even though I didn’t see the wreck, or know the family, it somehow felt closer to home.

C • put out of mind ... until later 1

Still April, and still plenty of time for April snow. What was only at first supposed to be a few flakes here and there worked out to be better than that. Ran late in the day at Happy Jack with 4" of fresh snow already down, and snowing continuously for the run.

The roads back home were treacherous with ice, and I came damn close to leaving the on ramp and entering the interstate via the embankment at the top of the ramp. As I was skidding with no traction towards the edge, I thought: "Well, at least I have my seat belt on!" I've been looking for some excuse to get rid of my old truck, but this really wasn't the way to go.