Training Log Archive: Swampfox

A crisp -16F this morning with the sun well up. That is the right temperature for Valentines Day lovers, or at least lovers of crispy temperatures. Decent chances for new record lows both today and tomorrow.

Unsure what to do about outside exercise today, but while cleaning off the sidewalks in the morning in the sun and with no wind, I noted that it didn't feel too bad. My rule of thumb is that if I know it's below zero when I'm going to set out, I'll pass on skiing, so that was out, but I reckoned I could go for a run and cut it short if necessary.

Up top, some people had been skiing, and there were a few snow shoe tracks and bike tracks, but it was clear most people had stayed home. But still no wind, and full sun, and off I went, looping out to just short of the Troll Bridge at Brown's Landing. And while I had to keep adjusting my neck gaitor up and down depending on how my face was doing, otherwise it was fine.

I checked the temperature as soon as I got home, and whatever it was up at Happy Jack, in town it was -10F. If the skies stay clear tonight and the air remains still, it could get quite cold.

Wasn't supposed to be roasting hot today, and it did not disappoint. Not only was it not roasting hot, it was even less not roasting hot than predicted. But there was some fresh snow for a change, so you go with it, and I went.

I think it was nuzzling zero while I was skiing, maybe a hundredth of a degree over that for a microsecond or two. Skis were surprisingly fast and I couldn't believe it. Of course the irony was it was cold enough that the last thing I wanted to do was to being going fast, especially into the breeze. So we made some occasional velocity compromises so that I could rewarm hands and face as necessary.

Old timers around here recount that stretches of temps never getting above 0F for 1-2 weeks at a time were not unusual. I have no idea if that was true or not. At any rate, I'm glad to not have to deal with that. Combine zero or sub-zero temps with some wind, and you got some chillin' on your hands.

-3F when I got back home, so who knows, maybe it had been under zero the whole time up top while I was there.

There was a shimmer of something outside when I woke up, which turned out to be the tiniest amount of snow that had fallen overnight. Not close to being enough to get me back out on skis, so I went running instead.

Coming off a trail going down the Crow Creek drainage, I picked up a short piece of dirt road before swinging back up into the hills. I was surprised to find a long line of tracks going down the road in the direction I was headed. Just one set. My first thought was "those are pretty large tracks", and my next thought was to wonder if it could be a wolf. But I couldn't pick out any toenail marks. Could it be the snow was too unformed to take a toenail impression, or could it be toenails in the wild are more worn down than that of a domestic dog?

The tracks weren't old. Very light snow was falling and that meant I could judge the tracks were probably 1-3 hours old at most.

Gradually I started thinking more it had been a mountain lion, and then I started to think how large a lion it would take to make prints this large. Probably pretty large. Eventually the tracks left the road and began to diagonal up a steep slope.

When I got home I took a look at some images of tracks in snow, and decided it had been a lion. Maybe a bold lion, to be walking down a road in full daylight.

Ran trails in some nice breeze. Heard skiers off to the side at one point, though whether they were skiing with their skis or running with their skis would be a matter of conjecture. My guess is they were doing some grinding along with some gliding. Last "mild" day in a while, by the forecast.

Sunny enough and un-cold enough to allow for some comfortable biking, despite some very ample amounts of wind. Since yesterday's ski conditions were poor enough that I had already decided to skip skiing today, be able to get out on the bike was a happy circumstance. I tacked on about 90 minutes of running on trails after that, which took me right up to dusk.

While I was running, I thought about how, after a few weeks of weighing the pros and cons, yesterday I reached the decision to begin accepting bitcoin. And how, today, I went to my mailbox with great eagerness to see how many bitcoin had arrived--only to discover the usual few bits of paper, mere ephemera. And I further thought about how it had only been one day, maybe too soon for the bitcoin to begin arriving. Then I thought about how, maybe it was for the best, since I didn't even know yet what bitcoin even looked like! I resolved to find out what bitcoin looked like when I returned home. Then I considered some more: if I didn't know what bitcoin looked like, could it be that the ephemera I had discarded in the trash had actually been not ephemera at all, but valuable bitcoin? So when I at last returned home, I headed straight for the trash and happily went through it until I had pulled out all the discarded ephemera, and, piece by piece, carefully examined it. Alas, it really was only ephemera and not bitcoin.

Probably the bitcoin has only been slightly delayed, and will begin arriving tomorrow.

C • bitcoin 4

I'm not sure it's fair to snow to describe what we have on the ski trails now as snow. Probably "crud" is better, or "dirty crud where there is not dirt". And a good many sections of the multi-use trails are starting to gain a fun level of slipperiness. If the sun should come out again for a few days and intersect with some mildness, that's going to pretty well take care of things and we will be reduced to listening to "The Ski Trails A' Go-Go".

I skied a little bit anyway before packing it in, and running down as far as the former Wallis Picnic area. And you know baby I can't scratch it.