Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Fittingly to the first day of Spring yesterday, all the snow on the golf course finished melting off, making it perfect for Classic Distance orienteering (aka Real Orienteering) training. Just as fittingly, overnight the snow storm of Spring arrived, and now all the snow is back in ample measure, making it once again, perfect for Classic Distance orienteering training. Not bad for skiing, either.

C • "Classic Distance" 3

The Forest Service and the local nordic group decided sometime today that due to Coronavirus transmission concerns, today would be the last day of trail grooming this season. I have no idea what trail grooming has to do with Coronavirus transmission, and I will put it down with all the other things I don't know. But the season had to come to an end sometime, and if today was the day, I was going to ski. Which I did. Ironically, by late afternoon you could not possibly have guessed that any grooming had taken place within the last century or so, thanks to 8" of fresh snow that fell after grooming.

I skied very carefully, partly because you could tell the snow was laden with Coronavirus, but mostly because beyond being 8" of new snow, it was also very dense snow, and with my spaghetti arms my skate technique quickly dissolved into a flounder that sometimes made some amount of forward progress. It was fun being out with all the new snow anyway, especially after what has been a mostly dry March. And lots of other people were out late in the day, where more normally by now there might be 2 or 3 other folks out. I guess word about the grooming got around fast.

118 days of skiing this season, which isn't so bad for a kid from Carolina.

Now that skiing is over, how will I fill in the hours? Perhaps with dreams of pasque flowers, or maybe idle reveries of the possibility of a future president who could get through a few sentences without saying something that wasn't wrong or a lie.

Woke up in the pre-dawn hours and looked out to see that snow had fallen during the night, as predicted. Only to take a better look, realizing it wasn't snow at all, but rime everywhere, with very dense fog lingering but dissipating over at the golf course. It was very ghostly looking.

I persevered anyway, figuring if it was going to be the demons or me, it better be me. Afterwards the coffee was really good, and I drank it all quickly, in case a line should form up outside, full of the virused and the to-be virused.

Surveyed the ski trails in the afternoon after work, and ran some, too. By this time the day had turned sunny and much milder than forecast. It was pretty near to being awesome. Very, very near.

After weighing all the evidence, I decided yesterday was the last day of late winter and therefore today was the first day of spring.

Went up to ski, and met Mark as he was coming off the trail and I was stepping up the head snowdrift to get to it. We discussed Annapurna briefly and he warned me it was dangerous and the trails weren't all that good either.

Luckily, the trails were much better than advertised.

My legs were surprisingly sore today from yesterday's run. I ran long, but I didn't run hard, so I wasn't expecting any after effects. But running off trail is much different from running on trails, and this was the first time I've run long off trail for a few months. I reckon that being sore is some sign of having done something useful yesterday.

With that in mind, I skied longer today (after skipping yesterday) and did just a very short run after that--enough to pick up a few choice aluminum cans from along the highway. For the time being, this CV is putting a real dink into my metals recycling business, but once Boeing gets going again, they will need my aluminum and will come calling.

For dinner I had Poor Man's Macaroni, as fitting for this special time. When I was in the grocery store a week ago and saw that all the pasta shelves had been swept clean, it made me think about the fair amount of pasta I had at home, and some it for quite a long time without using it. So resolved I would take this coronavirus moment to do something about that. Thus Poor Man's Macaroni. It couldn't be simpler and almost not quicker: cook the pasta, stir in some fiesta cheese (also been around for a long time, in the freezer), and eat. It's not just satisfactory. If you've been out running for 2 1/2 hours across the prairie and through the sage and bitterbrush like I was today, by the time you get home, Poor Man's Macaroni really hits the spot.

Despite running for that length of time, I didn't spot a single larger animal, or even see any fresh tracks (and there was lots of snow to hold them). Just some birds and a couple of rabbits.

Skied and cut it short after enjoying some skittery, icy conditions for the right amount of time. That allowed me to run longer, and I ended up going for something over 2 hours; it's been weeks it seems since I've been out for that long.

I ran down to, and along Lodgepole Creek, eventually off the trail and crossing the creek to visit a control from a Yellow Pine course from several years back--the race there that Ali C. won, whichever year that was. I couldn't remember for sure what the control itself was, and I was kind of thinking it was a lone ponderosa pine, but as I got close I recognized double boulders under the tree, so it was probably a boulder control.

Then I ran through the Yellow Pine Campground itself. I do that several times a year, usually when nobody is there (and it's closed for the winter half of the year). It never fails to serve up many memories, all positive. Today while I was running through it the names that came to mind were the Dominies (don't think I've seen Mark and Barb since the last time they were there), Ross and Sam, and Don and Marit Davis. I always run the whole loop in the campground, and I always think of Marit and Don at the far end, because that is where they were camped in their big truck drawn trailer...

C • Campground memories 7

Biked a short while to check out the scene at Walmart (normally busy) and to take in a couple of city parks. When I came up to one of them, I saw a line of 5 police vehicles and thought that couldn't possibly be a good sign. However, it turned out that a small group of policemen were having lunch under one of the picnic shelters. Glad to see that rather than some of the alternatives that came to mind. At the same time, even though it was a group of 10 or less (current state guidelines/orders call for groups of no more than 10), should they really have been having lunch together like that? Wasn't judging--just had the question in mind. I called out hello to them and waved as I went by, and they waved back.

Then skied, and cut that short as the trails had softened during the day and had by that point started to firm up again, and were rutted. Plus, I have for several weeks now wanted to run out to the far end of the Headquarters Trail, and was waiting for a) when I had enough time to get out there in daylight, b) an occasion when there would be good visibility without fog (we've had a lot of late and early day fog up top lately), and c) a snow surface firm enough to support my weight, because the snow is still mostly much to deep to run through if you're sinking through it. And the reason I wanted to get out there? Because having heard rumors that a big wind farm slated to go up west of Cheyenne was underway, and having seen turbine blades on the interstate being trucked east, I wanted to see if I could spot the towers going up.

So I had enough daylight, there was no fog, and I had tested snow surfaces while skiing and had determined I should be able to run on top of the snow, so off I headed.

50 minutes later I was out to where I could overlook a vast amount of the land east of where I was, and sure enough, there were dozens of brand new wind towers sprouting out of the ground, about halfway between Vedauwoo and Cheyenne, south of I-80. The light wasn't good enough for me to see any blades and so I had no idea if any amount of electricity was already being produced. It was still very cool to see.

Then ran back at a quick pace in hopes of getting to Walmart before it closed--which I did. By then there were only a small number of shoppers, which I was happy to see, and I was able to find everything I was hoping to get.