Training Archive: PGIn the 7 days ending 2007-08-25:
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| S | M | T | W | H | F | S | |||||||
Saturday Aug 25 | ||
| Event: Laurentian Rogaine | ||
| rogaining 14:00:00 [1] | |
| shoes: Montrail | ||
| Laurentian Rogaine in Ste-Adele, Quebec, with Barb. Don't know how we did because they hadn't put up results by the time we left. I'd guess we were quite respectable but not awesome.
Brilliant map by Francis Faldereau. Very small scale (or is it large scale?), 1:40,000 with 10 meter contours, but the contours were very good and the mapping of trails was superb. The terrain used is in the Laurentians, NW of Montreal, hilly, rough woods in a lot of places, but also lots of roads and trails. So routes tended to be further from the beeline, and my assumption is that a good score required a lot of running. Which we didn't do, though we probably ran an hour or so in bits and pieces. So we moved rather slowly, but excellent navigation, don't think we missed more than 10 minutes, if that. Good to have a partner with good O' skills, and also with young eyes, especially at night. Stayed out the whole time, just a couple of quick stops for foot care. Rained the first 4 hours, then again quite hard in the late afternoon, then again in the evening. And the vegetation never dried out, so everything was wet pretty much the whole time. All my usual blister spots were fine this time, but I got a couple of big ones in new spots for me, back of each heel. Only really bothered me the last 3 hours, and even that was tolerable. Barb had trouble with one knee, took a hard fall at one point and did something unpleasant to it. Thereafter downhills, and especially steep downhills, were often slow and painful. My legs were pretty good except for the blisters, though I'm sure my fall count was well over 100. My balance and coordination just aren't there any more. Highlights were a few patches of really good night orienteering, a stream crossing (waist deep or a little deeper, good strong current, really good teamwork to both stay upright), some good French with the locals, excellent temps (we each wore just one shirt the whole time, not too hot, not too cold), excellent map. Lowlight was one 25-minute battle, and I mean battle, to try to contour across an area that turned out to be horrible (thick summer vegetation waist to head high, hiding rocks and deadfall on the ground). Never made it across, quit and retreated, but still felt at times like we would never get out. And I kept getting upended by encounters with rocks and logs, head down on the ground, feet up in the air tangled up in the vegetation. Not fun, and I don't even think Barb was laughing, even though I'm sure I presented quite a scene at times. And I suppose another lowlight was passing by a variety of commercial establishments that offer massage, or hot tubs, or fine French food, or even just a place that was dry, and not stopping in at any of them. Though it sure was a topic for enjoyable conversation. Got partway home, stopped a Montpelier, only got that far after drinking 3 Cokes, first semi-serious caffeine a quite a while. Did the job, but I didn't really want the 3 more it would have taken to get me home. | ||
Friday Aug 24 | ||
| Note | |
| No mice caught, but also no mouse shit. Progress? Or are they just playing with me. | ||
Thursday Aug 23 | ||
| Note | |
| weight:135lbs | ||
| Busy day, time to be setting the traps tonight, and I haven't even gotten around to the details from last night, when (drum roll please!) --
One victory for the old-fashioned wooden traps -- 
It's a bit hard to figure out just what this fellow was doing when the trap got sprung, since it seems to have been caught with its head out to one side and its tail out to the other. And one victory for the newer "quagmire" traps -- 
This fellow just got in and couldn't get out. Some only marginally connected observations -- 1. It seems that both our counter tops and our kitchen floor are the color of mouse shit. 2. Why is it that when I look at the mice and their current predicament, the word "Iraq" comes to mind? 3. The mice caught by a wooden trap the last two nights were caught by the same trap. That trap now has two victory marks on its back side. Keep this up, and pretty soon it will remind me of college football players that seem to wear helmets with a bunch of marks on them. I had always thought those marks indicated outstanding plays. Is it possible they indicate mouse kills? 4. Another day without training, but still an active and happy AP log! | ||
| C • ? 4 | ||
| Note | |
| Off to Montreal for the rogaine in the morning, and my taper is going very well. Though my mind continues to fail. Made up a quite beautiful and well-constructed piece of string with knots every 5 km, and different colors for the knots every 10 km, and very pleased with myself, until this evening, when reading the rogaine info on the web, I discovered that the map scale will be 1:40,000, not 1:30,000 as I had thought.
I can still use it, just every knot will be 6.67 km, hmmm, think I better make another one.... | ||
Wednesday Aug 22 | ||
| Note | |
Just 1, batting .250 last night, but given recent history that's progress. :-)
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| C • Mouse 5 | ||
| Note | |
| Ok, bedtime and the traps are out again, 4 fine wooden ones and 2 sticky trays (held in place by some blue duct tape). How many will be successful when I check in the morning?
Better not be 0.... By the way, the last time I remember having to go on a serious trapping program, maybe 4 years ago, I think we logged about 25 kills over about a month before the population seemed to fade away. | ||
Tuesday Aug 21 | ||
| Note | |
| weight:136lbs | ||
| Lots of good ideas for catching rodents, killing rodents, and disposing of rodents (either dead or alive), but in all honesty, given the situation early this morning, none of that advice was worth a damn.
Back to yesterday evening, when an inventory of mouse-catching stuff showed that we had 2 old-fashioned wooden traps that didn't seem to work, 2 plastic catch-and-release traps that didn't seem to work, and one sticky-stuff tray whose partner had seemed to work pretty well. So at bedtime, out on the counter went the tray. And when I come down early this morning, probably after a pleasant night dreaming of many more victories over the mice, though I'm not sure because I never remember my dreams (except the anxiety ones), anyway, when I come down and turn on the light, what do i find? Nothing. That's right, nothing. Not just no stuck mouse, but not even a trap. The tray is gone. I look all over and under and around and behind everything, and it is definitely gone. The mice stole the fucking trap, or to be more polite as Cristina would be, WTF! Or maybe even WTMF! And of course there is the usual assortment of mouse shit. -------------------- This is getting serious. It is now afternoon, and I am the proud owner of 8 more traps, and I hope to use some of the fine ideas from various folks to make them more effective. And I am already dreaming of a massive slaughter tonight.... Though perhaps what I really need is an infrared webcam so I could find out what is really going on in the wee hours. | ||
| C • Totally!! 6 | ||
Monday Aug 20 | ||
| Note | |
| weight:135lbs | ||
| Another major AOWN moment early this morning, though I need to give a bit of history to put things in perspective....
Executive Summary -- we have a mouse problem. More details -- Well, we live in the country, so you sort sort of expect to have a variety of visitors and try not to get too excited about it. Bats in the living room, turkeys and coyotes and foxes in the driveway (at different times), deer helping themselves to Gail's flowers, a bear trashing our bird feeders, and then getting driven off by a very macho PG when it tried to trash our replacement feeders, a skunk in the garage, a downy woodpecker in the refrigerator, black rat snakes all around the house, bald eagles soaring overhead, plus the usual assortment of bugs, beetles, some very large spiders, wasps, hornets, ants, and, over the years, a whole lot of mice. We had a cat for a long time, Thumper, but fine as she was, she was totally worthless as a mouser. So the traps were put out on a fairly regular basis. First, the old standby wooden one, bait it with a little cheese or peanut butter, extract the dead mouse in the morning, grab it by its tail, step outside, whip it around and launch it into the bushes and forget about it. After a while the mice seemed to get good at consuming the bait without setting off the trap, so we moved on to these little grey plastic traps, put some dry cat food in, the mouse enters, its weight cause the trap to pivot just enough to drop the door. In the morning, while out getting the morning paper, dispose of the still very much alive mouse in a nice spot on the far side of the Connecticut River. So much more civilized, though not quite as civilized as a friend, who when she disposed of her live mice, also left a little supply of food just to get them off to a happy start in their new surroundings.... And that seemed to take care of matters quite well, and the last couple of years had been pretty much mouse-free. Until a couple of weeks ago, when we became aware of the patter-patter of little feet, and also of the nocturnal visits of the critters to our kitchen counters and sink. So out came the traps. And the old standbys, the grey boxes, caught not a thing. Maybe the cat food was no longer appealing, so I tried some very fine all natural peanut butter, but still no takers, and each morning I got to clean up more mouse shit. Back to the old wooden traps, baited with peanut butter. That worked, meaning they sure liked the peanut butter, but it had all been licked off and the taps were still set. Gail started doing research on the web, telling me about various electronic gizmos that, according to reader reviews, either worked like a charm or didn't work at all. Meanwhile, I went to the hardware store to see what they had. I wasn't quite ready for the bag of mouse poison and the traps they offered seemed no better than what we had, but they did have this product that claimed to take care of mice much the same way our blue caps take care of the FDFs, yup, a small tray of very sticky stuff that the mouse supposedly step in and then can't step out of. So I sprung for a box, contents were two trays, maybe 3" x 5" each. The instructions said to put them along the wall where the mice go. I put them out. Next morning I check, no mice, but a lot more mouse shit to clean up. Next night I put the trays out up on the counter, right where I've had hard evidence each morning that the mice are visiting. Next morning I check, again no mice, but once again a lot more mouse shit to clean up. Which brings us to last night, when I put out my latest inspiration, the two trays, each with a nice dollop of peanut butter in the middle. I sleep well, past 6 am. Down to the kitchen. And there has clearly been some action. The first tray has moved about a foot and it's upside-down, and there are little bits of sticky stuff on the counter. Signs of a fierce battle, but unfortunately the mouse escaped. Shit. But then I look at the second tray, and it's moved some too, and stuck in the middle of it is a mouse. Excellent! Except it spots me and starts to struggle and I think it's going to get away, but after a few seconds it sits still again. And I'm thinking, now what am I going to do with it. And I need to do something because every couple of minutes it starts moving again, and I'm afraid it's going to escape. Now Gail said later, when I was telling her about it, that I should have just killed it, whacked it, with what she didn't say. A hammer? A book? The Sunday paper? My laptop? I do believe I told her that next time I would get her up and she could come down and whack it. I do believe she withdrew the suggestion..... But I am AOWN, so I slid the tray/mouse into an empty box (originally used as packaging for 6 very tasty chocolate/caramel/peanut food bars, one of which I enjoyed greatly on my Wapack out yesterday, and another of which I offered to Barb, but she declined because she was slimming....), closed the lid, sealed it with some nice blue duct tape that I happened to have more of than I seem to need at the moment (did I mention that there have been no FDFs around on my last two outings?), and then delivered the nice little package to the trash can at the local gas station. Brilliant, or so I thought, although, as I said, there was a suggestion that I should have just whacked it.... So was this guy the only perp, or is there a whole gang of them still in residence? Will this be the end of it? Or will I have to buy more trays, and many more chocolate/caramel/peanut food bars (in order to get empty boxes), and maybe even more blue duct tape? Or maybe take a karate class? Or get a testosterone injection? We shall see.... And isn't it nice that you can write whatever you want on AP.... :-) | ||
| C • as a professional in this fiel... 11 | ||
Sunday Aug 19 | ||
| run/hike (with pack, 9 pounds) 3:30:00 [2] | |
| weight:136lbs shoes: Montrail | ||
| With Barb on the Wapack Trail, one more outing before the rogaine next weekend.
I had originally said Sunday was out, but then realized we could do something early as long I was done by 11, so we met at the trailhead at 7. 45 degrees, cool and invigorating, she said let's run some to warm up, but after a couple of minutes of that there was the feeling that oops, that wasn't a good idea, her asthma was kicking in. Let's go back and get your inhaler, I suggested, but she was trying to kick the habit, in 30 minutes she'd feel better she said, so on we went up and over Mt. Watatic and Nutting Hill, with her apparently breathing only occasionally. And since 30 minutes had passed and she was still not breathing well, back the shortcut to the cars to dope up. So that took care of maybe 55 minutes. And then out again, back up the shortcut to the north shoulder of Nutting Hill, then a long running section to the end of Binney Pond. Then hiking the ups and running the flats and downs until in the gap between New Ipswich Mountain and Barrett Mountain where it was time to turn back, same process on the way back, running quite a bit as Barb seemed to be feeling quite spry. Amazing what a little oxygen will do. Nice outing. And I picked up her tent and a bunch of other stuff to take next weekend when I'm driving and she's flying. My only question -- I assume there are no controlled substances in here just in case they decide to take a close look at the border? | ||
| C • No controlled substances 12 | ||
| Note | |
| Second part of the day's duathlon was the so-called Divorce Open, aka the husband and wife annual golf tournament where we play. Divorce Open, because it's alternate shot, so if you hit a bad shot, it's your partner that has to deal with the consequences, and that can, well, test the relationship.
And we hit a good number of bad shots, I hit some shots from places I'd never been, Gail had the same opportunity, probably even more so, because on her own she's very accurate, whereas I hit the ball a whole lot farther but it sometimes doesn't end up in the most friendly places. So I put her in the trees a couple of time, and in the long grass a couple of times, but she never once took a swing at me. And she put me in a few spots, but then I had a beer after a few holes and was feeling quite mellow. And we both made some really good shots too, and knocked in several long putts, and finished with 79, a whole lot better than what we deserved. A fine day. AOWN moment on the way to the course, cruising northbound up I-91, spot a woodchuck up ahead in the breakdown lane looking like it wants to cross. Moderate traffic. It starts out into the travel lane, gets a couple of feet, looks towards the oncoming cars, realizes that our car and the one in front are way too close. Backs up just in time as we go by, and then I watch in the rearview mirror as it heads off in the next gap in traffic and just makes it across. Who knows what happened then, but several hours later there was no sign of any roadkill on I-91 south. Maybe it made it.... | ||