Training Log Archive: Swampfox

With the storm ended, the interstate re-opened, and sun appearing in the late morning with practically no breeze at all, my thinking was to head up to Happy Jack in the mid-afternoon and check out the trails and all the new snow. Surely by then some snow-bikers or mountain bikers would have been out leaving behind tire tracks to run on. So my thinking went.

The first sign that things might not work out the way I was "thinking" came about 500m before the Summit Exit, when all traffic stopped. What was going on? The interstate was open! And how could there be crashes with plowed roads, the sun out, and no wind? But there must have been crashes. The highway did still have snow and ice on it in various places, and there's no accounting for drivers going too fast for the conditions.

But traffic was inching forward bit by bit, and I didn't even need to make it to the exit ramp--just needed to get close enough to get on the shoulder safely and then I would be free. Which I did.

I figured I would head for the Tie City parking lot. The state highway had been plowed also, but had a good bit more packed snow and ice on it than the interstate, so I slowed down. It didn't take too long before another vehicle closed in from behind and got close enough to make me nervous, because I knew I was going to be slowing down on a downhill curve ahead to turn (hopefully) into the parking lot, and they didn't. I slowed some more and as the parking lot came into view, tried to assess it; there were several vehicles in the lot, but the low was unplowed and the snow looked deep, and I knew that the parking lot surface had probably been well above freezing as the storm arrived, and therefore that some amount of snow had probably melted and then re-frozen on the surface, turning into ice. I decided not to risk going into the parking lot and getting stuck inside it. Plus I could also guess that the untracked snow was going to be too deep for running, that there hadn't been anywhere near close enough foot traffic to beat a path into the snow, and no signs that any bikers had been out either.

So I didn't turn and kept going. Now the problem was to find a place where I could turn around, which wasn't going to be possible with traffic behind me. That meant driving several more miles down the highway of snow and ice before I hit a spot where I could turn around safely. Then back to the interstate.

At the interstate, I could see the eastbound lanes were still clogged with traffic as far as I could see in either direction, and not moving. Too bad for them, but I was headed west, so down the on ramp on onto the interstate, where almost at once there was a highway sign warning that the road was closed. Which I doubted; far up ahead I could see a couple of cars and a truck going down the canyon slowly. And then right after that another sign was turned on and warning the no parking was allowed on the highway. So I was definitely going to go on down. Which proved to be no problem except for when a snowplow appeared, plowing the shoulder, but going *against* traffic flow--that was a first, never seen that before. But once past the snowplow, it was clear sailing the rest of the way, just needed to stick to the reduced speed limit for the conditions.

It was a long way to go without getting to run up top as I had hoped, but the odds it would work out seemed reasonable at the outset.

Instead, I ended up running for home for about an hour, in conditions that were quite cold as the sun set, and much colder than they would have been had I not tried to run up top and just run straight out from home an hour earlier instead. I think it was about -3F after sunset, and cold enough for October.

C • Would have been great conditions for snowshoes 9

Conditions today are straight out of "Dr. Zhivago", though windier. Normally that would mean the interstate is closed--which of course it is, and it looks like it will be closed the rest of the day. Trying to think about exercise outdoors today, and one possibility is biking south of town on 287, which would be completely exposed to crosswinds and offer challenging (for a road bike) snow drifting! I can hardly wait.

So much for the old record low (6F vs 3F right now) for the date.

Indoor exercise was some indoor cycling. Outdoor exercise was some very fine Yowsa!--extra nice because the hard surfaces were still too warm and were melting the snow from underneath, leaving it heavy and sticky, pretty much ideal Yowsa! conditions. Did the sidewalks and some of the driveway today, being careful to save some so that there would be something to look forward to tomorrow.

On a side note, sometimes sports can be such a bummer for the athlete when they get injured. Last year, Wyoming's starting quarterback was injured in game 8 (I think it was), requiring season ending knee surgery. This after breaking his leg as a freshman the previous year.

This year, recovered, fit, better than ever, and ready to go, he didn't take nearly so long, breaking his *other* leg on play 3 of the first game (yesterday) of this season. And it happened on a rushing play by him, ironic considering after last year's injury the plan had been to be more protective of him and not have him running with the ball as much this season. So, hopefully, in about 10 months time, he will be out there on the field, recovered, fit, better than ever, and ready to go again.

Though it was overcast and windy, at midday conditions were not yet cold, so I got out on my bike for a spin around town, and then wasted no time changing into running clothes and heading out for an O' run at Pitcher Hill.

By the time I got out there the already decent winds had picked up, and there were occasional snowflakes in the air. But it still wasn't cold and I was fine running in a long sleeved t-shirt and no gloves--though I did have a knit cap on (a baseball cap would have blown off immediately.) I was happy about getting another O' run in because it definitely won't happen over the next couple of days.

Did a short run at Happy Jack hoping to run into Randy, but he wasn't up there (or at least his truck wasn't), and so I continued on downhill to the day's main running venue--Crow Creek behind Vedauwoo.

When I started out it was gray with a raw feel that made it feel colder than it was. There was breeze out of the east, straight into my face. After getting started, gradually I warmed up, and after a while it began to lighten up as well, without there ever being any actual blue sky with sun. In all I ran just under 2 hours, and didn't see a person or animal (not counting fishies) the whole time, though I did hear voices from a trail on the east side of Vedauwoo at one point.

So far I haven't seen a single hunter hunting or even driving around, and still have no idea what season(s) are in effect. Nor have I heard any elk bugle, and at this point in the game it's getting late for that.

On Tuesday while running I stopped to take a look south at the Cameron Peak fire area to see what the smoke plume looked like. There was still a plume from about where the SE edge of the fire should have been, but there was also a decent sized plume coming from somewhere off the west side of the burn area. That really didn't make sense given the winds out of the west/NW, but maybe it could have been some unburned area that the fire had passed by, and which was now burning. But when I looked closer, I could see distinctly it was coming from somewhere on the other side of the Medicine Bow Mountains, and the Cameron Peak Fire had been entirely on the east side as far as I knew.

When I went home, I looked for information about some new fire in the North Park area, but couldn't find anything. Curious, but sometimes it takes a while for fire information to find its way online, and many times with our local fire (Mullen Fire) 24 hours or more could go by without any updates even when the fire was very active.

By yesterday afternoon when I was running, the unidentified smoke plume had become *huge*, far dwarfing any other visible smoke sources. So again when I went home I searched to see what I could find, and at first I couldn't find anything about any new fire, etc. Until I got to a fire map of northern Colorado, and there was a fire shown somewhere west of Granby that I hadn't known about. At first it seemed too far west and south for the smoke plume I had seen, but distances can be tricky, and after thinking about it a little more it seemed clear enough that was in fact where the smoke plume I had seen was coming from. As news coverage this morning has made clear and confirmed.

So that makes five big fires in this greater area in the past two months or so, none of which can be attributed to lightning or other natural causes, with no other information other than presumably they were human caused.

C • East Troublesome fire 10

Sun before noon followed by totally overcast with low clouds and fog and much colder air after noon, followed by some snow commencing in the early evening. Windy day streak ended today, giving all the windmill operators a chance to get up into their machines to administer maintenance and fine tuning of the blades.

Took an easy day and ran trails at very low intensity. The parking lots were jammed yesterday and in contrast today they were empty. Didn't see a soul the whole time I was out, though maybe the fog helped with that.

My crazy dream was Clint Morse came out to explore the flora on some of my local maps, and he especially wanted to check out a tiny blob of dark green (fight) on one of the maps. I couldn't remember anything about it and was shocked when it turned out to be a clump of impenetrable rhododendron about 20' high because I couldn't remember ever seeing any rhodo within about 1000 miles or so from here. Clint was ecstatic over the discovery and while he was thinking about what to name this new species, I was more concerned about the state of the leaves, which were all curled up--indicating a looming change in climate.

And a change in climate is coming soon!

But first, there was today, a sterling sunny day after three nearly sunless days, a high of 66F, and more wind (Day 11?).

I did some biking around town midday, and then headed out to Granite Planite as soon as I could, to take another crack at the course I have been running out there. And so what if it was windy--there is some chance today could be the last nice *warmer* day of the year (as opposed to a nice colder day, good for skiing, etc.)

After warming up, I went to the start and tried to steady myself against the wind by holding onto several trees at once, and just managed, and then I was off, resolute!

The first half of the course was all down wind and the last half all upwind, with the last 3 legs pretty well fully exposed. I busted my way through the wind over those last legs like a cowboy hellbent on a sip of whiskey before the bar closed, and staggered across the finish in time to nip 12 seconds off my previous best time. That was satisfying, but by far and away the best part was that neither my compass nor shoes blew off me.

C • Fool's Huckleberry is a Rho... 2

The Mountain West will begin the football season this week. Wyoming will open up against Nevada at Nevada. There will be no fans in attendance. That will probably be a lot like orienteering in a race usually is, where you're off in the forest by yourself, and if you want some energy, you have to generate it yourself. Probably this week the football team is doing a lot of orienteering in the forest, to simulate what it will be like in Reno.

They are probably also spending a lot of time listening to and studying "All the Way to Reno" by REM, to find out even more what the trip will be like.

Wyoming will have 4 home games, and it looks like they may have won on front, though fans will not have: all 4 games will be night games (well, one starts at 4pm but effectively that will be a night game, too.) It will not be warm for any of these games. It may be quite cold for any or all of these games, Wind will be a given. The stadium here in Laramie will feature the harshest conditions in Division 1 football. The opponents will suffer.

Opponent #1 at home will be Hawaii. How could Hawaii possibly hope to properly prepare for the conditions they are likely to face at night in Laramie on the last day of October? The answer is they can't. They will just have to do the best they can to prepare to suffer.

Holy cow, UMass has done the impossible!

And, completely unrelated to the above, bye-bye Pooka.

C • KU Football 2

Day 10 of the Winds. Maybe the streak ends tomorrow, maybe not. Either way, there will be more wind down the road, sooner or later. Probably sooner.

I snuck out for a quick loop in the School Yard, and was happy to come back intact, not having dashed (or been dashed, by the wind) myself against the waiting rocks. The rocks are patient.

The day was supposed to be partly cloudy, implying partial sun as well, but as it developed, the parts that weren't partly cloudy were also partly cloudy. There was no sun to speak of, and the afternoon ended prematurely.

While it was ending, I was running intervals at Happy Jack: 6 x 5 min cruise intervals. It is time to re-orient the day, because the Day of Doom will be here too soon.