Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Rain and hail in the morning made it 4 straight days of wet stuff, but by midday clouds were starting to lighten up and eventually conditions returned to full sun again. I ran off trail at a decent place, and in margaritaville style I blew out my flip-flop, except that in this case it was a running shoe. I hit the stub of a fire burned sage brush right above the toe of my shoe, and a few steps later I realized that things felt loose down there. When I looked, at first I didn't see what had happened, but then realized that the entire front half of the upper had ripped away from the rest of the shoe, starting at the toe and extending along both sides of the laces. That's never happened before in all the years I've been running. But once I got out of the sage and onto a dirt road where nothing could stick into my foot, it actually wasn't bad and I ran back like that for the last 25 minutes or so.

C • Margaritaville 4

On the way home, I noticed the price of gas had soared to $1.09. I stopped and got some anyway, since I needed some.

Skies turned gray early and I was only able to bike downtown and back before the first round of heavy rain hit. It rained off and on for most of the afternoon thus biking plans had to be postponed, and the main exercise ended up being a longer run at Happy Jack at the very end of the day. Lots of snow had melted off since the last time I had run there a few days earlier, and as one way to measure this, the last time out there the Troll Bridge had been completely out of sight, buried by a vast snowfield, and now it was completely snow free.

Drove up through the season's first hailstorm to go running. The hail was splooshy and didn't last long, but the accompanying rain kept on going on going. Plus it was very windy. At the parking lot, I sat in my truck listening to the news, and napped, and waited. After something over an hour, it wasn't looking any better, and I was completely under-dressed for the conditions.

So I returned home, by which time it was clearing off in the valley, and ran in the School Yard.

A little excitement was provided by some folks who had driven out to shoot. I didn't think they were allowed to do that there, but I wasn't going to confront them or even get near, not being able to see them or see which direction they were shooting, so I kept on going, and only a few minutes later I heard shots coming from a different area and this was much more alarming because these shots were ricocheting and it was impossible to tell where the rounds were going. I headed for a small canyon nearby and saw a mountain biker stopped down in it, and I hoped he would stay there long enough for me to reach him, to see if he had a phone. By the time I got to him, he was already in the process of phoning in a report to the sheriff. As I was about to leave the trails area, a sheriff's deputy arrived, and I ran over to his truck and gave him some details, but this was about a mile from where the shooters had been, with no way to drive directly there without having to drive a long way around. I have no idea how it all ended, but probably the shooters left before the deputy could reach them, as by the time all this happened it was already dusk.

Ran School Yard trails in strong winds. The trails are dry now and in many places now have their usual thin summer veneer of sand. On days like this, it doesn't take the wind long to wipe the trails clean of any tracks--kind of like what a high tide does at a beach.

I just learned of another orienteering teammate from West Point who has died earlier this year--Mike Peffers. Some here may remember him. His obituary: https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/sanantonio/obitu...

I ran easy out at Remarkable Flats, spending a fair amount of time in one area circling around in one area looking for a shed. I didn't find any, but I did spot some people tracks, so maybe they did.

Then I ran over to a different area to conduct further searching actions, and while I didn't find any sheds over there either, I did find a marmot, which was chirping/whistling loudly at me. I couldn't spot the marmot, but it was obvious the sound was coming from a small group of rocks, and eventually I narrowed down the sound as coming from one particular rock. And when I bent down to look under the rock, there was the marmot. I couldn't tell if it wanted a grape, or wanted me to go away. I didn't have a grape, so I went away.

Later I heard more sounds, this time coming from a giant boulder cluster, and when I went to investigate this new marmot--even though I still didn't have any grapes--it turned out to be two people. I think they were surprised to see me, more or less in the middle of nowhere, and I was surprised they weren't a marmot.

That's my story for the day, and I stand by it.