Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Skied and ran. Really nice out--sunny with no wind. Lots of folks were out at Happy Jack, doing everything imaginable and even more.

C • Stampede 2

Sometimes you have one idea of how things will go, and it turns out you could not have been more wrong.

To wit, today I went skiing, and that went as I planned. I was out for 2 hours, enjoyed some new snow, and finished up a little after dark.

Then I got ready to drive home, and that did not go at all as planned. I was at the stop sign right before the on ramp of I-80 by the Summit Visitors Center a few minutes before 6 o-clock, and so were a a whole lot of other cars in trucks. In fact, the west bound lane of I-80 was filled with bumper-to-bumper traffic as far as the eye could see in either direction. And there were cars pulled off to the side all over the place on the roads around the Visitors Center, and on the on-ramp, and the parking lots were stuffed. And absolutely none of it was moving.

As far as alternatives to the gulch down to Laramie, the detours are all pretty long around. So I decided to join the crowd and wait it out. Maybe a wreck (the warning sign on the interstate read "crash ahead" would be cleared shortly. Maybe it was already cleared and traffic just hadn't been able to get rolling yet.

An hour and twenty minutes later, I was on the interstate. Progress! Though in this case progress meant literally having just leaving the on-ramp for the first bit of physical interstate pavement.

After that, I lost track of movement. Every so often traffic would roll ahead for a few car lengths or maybe more, and then it would stop for a while. Since it was dark, it was hard to see exactly where I was as we slowly creeped along, and all the tail lights and brake lights made it even harder to see what might be going on up ahead. One thing for sure--the interstate was about like a skating rink with ice.

After a long while had gone by and it felt like we must have gotten well down into the canyon just based on how much time had gone by, I finally was able to look off to the side and spot something I recognized out in the darkness--some angled barbed wire fence. That meant I was right on top of the cattle culvert that went under the interstate--the same one we used in the US Long-O Champs several whale eras ago. Which also meant I had only traveled a few hundred meters from the end of the on-ramp.

Eventually traffic started moving with some greater amount of consistency, at maybe about 4 mph. Which was really fine with me. At least we were moving, and the last thing I wanted with those iced over conditions was having some of the traffic moving at a much different and faster speed than everyone else. That greatly increases the chances of wrecks.

By the time I got home, it was almost 10 o-clock, so four hours to cover 9 miles from the stop sign up top to town, and a couple more miles to my house. That's smokin'.

It made me think that must be about what it is like to drive home on I-70 at the end of the day on Sundays from the ski slopes to Denver; lucky bastards!

C • Cattle culvert 2

While I was skiing, something odd, yet somehow vaguely familiar happened. At first I couldn't put my finger on it. Finally, it dawned on me that it was snowing!

It didn't last long and it only yielded about 1/2 cm, if that. But still, pretty neat.

Tomorrow we are forecast to get some *big* snow, however. Keeping in mind that this season is being graded on a curve, and what now qualifies as big snow here would be about the same amount that would qualify as a big snow in Austin or Atlanta or Columbia or maybe even Mobile. So 1" or so would do it. Ski poles crossed.

Earlier in the week something arrived in the mail from OUSA; this is about the time when information usually arrives for club re-chartering and dues paying, but this envelope was oddly shaped and weighted for that sort of thing.

And it turned out to have nothing to do with that, but was instead a buff and a request for donations (money.)

My thought after reflecting on that was that orienteering is not so much in need of more money as it is in need for more races. Without more races, the money thing is almost pointless. So I think the sport would have been better served by asking each recipient to organize or help organize a race, of any size or scope, instead of asking for money. Some will note that events themselves serve as a source of income for OUSA, from start fees to OUSA.

Of course last year was a special year, but the calendar of national events has been noteworthy in recent years chiefly for a paucity of events, especially when compared to earlier times.

Biked, skied, and ran. Biking was the best, in part because skiing was going to be very easy after yesterday's efforts, and in part because I hadn't been outside on my bike in a bit.

While I was riding, I found some sunshine, and also 2 new housing starts, the first of 2021. I was thinking if I looked hard, I might find some lidar laying that someone had thrown out, but I didn't see any of that--not yet.

Some amount of worries I have had hanging over me for a long time about the fate of our country have been dispelled and are now gone. For me at least, it felt like the first really good day for America in too long.

Ski intervals in the afternoon.

Crisp and sunny out. No wind today as it gathers strength for renewed huffing and puffing tomorrow. Skied and followed up with some running, feeling a little drabbed from yesterday's exertions.

My hip is still bothering me, but it's not getting worse with running (though O' running is where it's least happy), and skiing and biking are fine. So I plan to continue monitoring it, and go easy with running intensity for the time being.

3" or so of snow fell overnight, and this was enough to take care of a good number of spots that had been bare on the ski trails. It will still take at least one bigger snow to put things into normal mid-winter shape, but at least things are a good bit better than just 3 days ago. In the higher up woods, the snow is now too deep in many places to run through without really working hard.

Skied for 2 hours and then added in some running after that. On to Cowboy basketball.