Training Log Archive: PG

Wicked Hard Night O' at Pawtuckaway. Supposed to be about 7.5 km and harder than last year, which it probably was, but on the other hand it was a beautiful night, not the rain (or heavy rain) of the last couple of years.

Walked the whole thing and the feet still hurt. My O' was shaky for quite a while, lucky not to make any significant misses, and then really sharp the last half, totally in touch with the map and nailed everything.

Here's the course. And my route.

C • WHNO 12

Wicked Hard Night O' - Splits

Long day, to Greenwich (CT) for a funeral of an aunt. Took my bike along and took a mansion tour afterwards. Quite something.

A bit more about the "mansion tour." I suppose Greenwich is a step down from Beverly Hills, but it has more than its share of really really large homes, even though you can't really get a sense of a lot of them because they are hidden behind these mammoth stone walls, nothing like the stone walls you see on an O' map, these guys are 8 or 10 or 12 feet high and uncrossable for most of us.

But you do get a better view on a bike. Especially since, Greenwich being a rich town, there is no such thing as a pothole, the pavement so uniformly good that you don't have to watch where you're going. And the traffic was quite light, just a few chauffeurs, plus all the gardeners going to and from their jobs.

I do believe there are more gardeners in Greenwich than any other place in the country, even though I think hard times have hit here too. There were a number of mansions where the grounds seemed to suffering a bit -- a brown spot or two, a hedge not perfectly trimmed, a few leaves not vacuumed up. Who knows how bad the unemployment rate is among Greenwich gardeners. Is it possible that there are owners doing their own mowing? The shame it would be.

So it doesn't take much riding around to come to the conclusion that not only should the tax cuts for the rich be extended indefinitely, but preferably even cut some more. The gardening jobs that would be created, why, it would pull us right out of this slump.

Back to the funeral, it was certainly not a jeans and T-shirt crowd, but I had dressed up properly and felt quite at ease. Sat with an aunt and uncle (#1), he is fine, she is fading. Saw another uncle (#2) afterwards, he's 91, still downhill skiing regularly and full of zip, his wife died several years ago and he has received a number of marriage proposals since then. And then one other uncle (#3), widowed just last week, he seemed fine, though I remember him being much taller than I am. He must be shrinking faster than I am.

A lot of driving, but very glad I went.

Uncles #1 (left) and #2 --



Me and uncle #3 (he's also a PG, I was named after him) --

C • uncles 4

Whately, then back road to Conway and home. Trying to not work too hard.

The weather is changing. Less daylight, a few leaves are falling, fall is in the air. The best time of year.

C • Best time 2

The heels seemed OK during yesterday's joglet, but they started to hurt afterwards, and were quite sore this morning, especially the left one. Discouraging.

So I took some vitamin I and headed off to Sessions to field check points for the WCOC local meet there on Sunday the 19th, not quite two weeks, definitely time to start getting my act together. Tromped around for almost 4 hours, just walking, quite hot and humid. Felt very frail. And quite beat by the end. But a nice outing, and quite a variety of forest and orienteering.

The plan is sort of a score course, except there's no time limit. There will be 30 controls, you get your choice, pick any 10, or 15, or 20, or 25. No bonus for getting more than 25 (since getting them all actually makes it less interesting).

One of the reasons I wanted to do this was it offers a chance to put points where courses don't usually go. And I think I found some spots that no one but George (the mapper) has been in the last decade (or century?).

The other thing I wanted to do was see if anyone could figure out a way to get any advantage from having the GPS coordinates available (and available well in advance). So part of my field checking was to get the coordinates at every point. I think I managed that without screwing it up.

The other reason for field checking is that, it you are doing it right, it usually means tossing out maybe a quarter of the points you were intending to use. Some places just don't look quite right, or the feature is not as distinct as you'd hope. So it's better to pick another spot. I think I moved 8 of the 30 points.

I'll post the coordinates before long. That's not giving anything away. They'll be available on the day before you run, just as the maps (and pre-printed control sites) will be available. If you care to look at it a lot before you run, or a little, or not at all, whatever. It's just a local meet, for training. Hell, you can just click on my globe and see where I went. :-)

Reminds me, for those on the 2000-control quest, better to have the possibility of 25 on your course than some smaller number, plus the chance for bonus controls when you help pick them up.... :-)

I think this will also be a National O' Day event, for which I think we get a few prizes to pass out. I think I wll be biased in favor of any able to use GPS to their advantage.

C • 2000? 5

I'd brought my bike with me, figured I might as well ride someplace different than usual. At some point while finishing up my field checking it occurred to me that a ride with Charlie might be a possibility, perhaps at one of his usual places, starting at Pleasant Valley. So I called him up when I got back to the car. No answer, so I left a message and headed off to PV.

Headed off on the bike, a mellow route planned up to the state line and back, and after about 7 or 8 minutes the phone rings and it's Charlie. And my immediate thought is, great, I'll turn around, meet him back at PV, will be nice to have company. But he is sick, sounded like he is feeling quite awful, he'd just been to the doctor, and a bike ride was definitely not in the cards.

So I continued on, feeling quite beat, got up to Route 8, decided that was enough, turned around and headed back.

One bit of excitement on the return trip. I had just come down a slight grade, it had flattened out, I looked up and saw a sign saying the speed limit was 25, looked at my speedometer and it said 22. Thought to myself, I know what Alex would do, so without any more thought I mobilized the dozen or so fast-twitch cells in my legs and managed to crank it up to 26. Quite pleased with myself. Though, to be clear, it only stayed at 26 for a moment, but that was enough.... :-)

Had a nice chat with Charlie after I was done.

Quite wasted (probably dehydrated) by the time I got home.

C • Mark Voit story 2

So I might have bought myself a used mountain bike. Not yet sure but I think I have a deal.

Bear in mind that I have no experience in such transactions so I hired an agent, my friend Walter. This is similar to the time I needed a new watch, my old Casio having died, and at that time my agent turned out to be JJ. He didn't start out as my agent, just my finder, let me know he found a guy selling such watches on EBay and he was selling boxes of 5 of them for $85.

So I told JJ that sounded great, but I had no experience buying things on EBay, and would he care to be my agent, the commission being one watch. And that sounded fine to him, and in a few days I had my 4 watches and JJ his 1 and all was good.

In this case, Walter, a master of never buying anything new, called me up this morning, he had found a really nice bike on EBay, bidding closed in a couple of hours, I should take a look. But I was off riding with Jeff and Judy.

I took a look when I got back, the bike hadn't sold, didn't meet the reserve. Called up Walter. Talked about it, he thought it was a great bike, I should just call up the seller, his number was listed. I said I had no talent for that, how about if he called, one way or another he'd get a commission.

He called back a few minutes later, everything checked out, the guy was also interested in selling a couple of spare parts (i.e. Walter's commission). So I said go for it. Another set of calls and we supposedly have a deal.

Nothing is done until it is done, but this has good possibilities. Would be cool. Very good bike, full suspension. As Walter said, with it, if I have any problems riding I can't blame it on the bike, just on me.... :-)

C • agent 9

With Jeff and Judy, a nice tour of some of the local back roads, including up to Wendell. Beautiful day, great company.

A little longer, but still just a joglet. Certainly helps that it is cooler.

River Road - Old Deerfield loop, very windy from the west, so usually a cross wind. But lovely day, low humidity. Totally different feeling than on a mountain bike, just hard work.

With Walter over near his place, using his hardtail, which seems noticeably less stable when going down over rough stuff at some speed. Other than that, who knows, but that is certainly a consideration.

So we cruised around for a while, fell off a few times, including a couple of times when Walter (who has done a whole lot of mountain biking) did not extract his feet from his eggbeaters. The latter time, set in motion by trying to extract a stick from some place while climbing, he lost his balance, down on his side, the tire banging on a couple of rock points, and then next thing you knew he had a flat.

We pumped for a while, no CO2 cartridge, but neither would have helped because there was a hole in the (tubeless) tire. So we switched off, he walked/ran the bike down to Norton Hollow, then I walked/ran it the rest of the way.

Nice outing, best part of it being, given that both bikes were his, that he was the one who got the flat. :-)

And then stopped on the way home for a short jog. Legs were tired.