Sunday Jun 22 |
 | Orienteering long (Classic) 2:38:44 [3]*** 4.1 km (38:43 / km) +35m 37:08 / km | |
| spiked:6/10c shoes: Black & Red Jalas Integrators |
| Burton Creek. Classic Brown course. Was better nav than yesterday; at least I navigated to several controls. But after blowing #1 and #2 badly (the second with Edwin Gookin for 20 minutes investigating the wrong rocky spur) I just walked dejectedly the rest of the course.
The high point of the day was seeing Soupbone come by me at #6, which I'd finally found with great difficulty, looking fast, in control, and confident. He went on to post a 55:44 for the 5km course and take first in his age group, and 4th on Green overall, beating local favorite Dennis Wildfogel by 7 minutes!
Afterward we scrammed; down to Reno to check in to the Atlantis casino, where I crashed until 11pm, arising to go out to lose $50 at the craps and blackjack tables, where Soupbone found me about 1am, after a fun-filled night of his own...it's nice to be young! |
Saturday Jun 21 |
| Orienteering long 1:49:56 [2]**** 3.4 km (32:20 / km) +40m 30:32 / km | |
| spiked:1/8c shoes: Black & Red Jalas Integrators |
| Burton Creek. Yes folks. I gotta admit. I spiked only the GO control today. What a performance. My worst fears at Spooner on Thursday were realized: I couldn't read shit.
For some reason, I thought I could read all the mapped clearings, and spent most of the day finding that I couldn't. But I didn't change my nav...I continued to plunge into this bland terrain without a safe plan, and continued to get lost, lost, lost.
The Burton Creek map was last revised in 1999 I think (they didn't print mapping info on the map...embarrased?). And mapping was very hit-or-miss: rocks here may be mapped down to 1m, but over there 4m boulders were unmapped. Green vertical bars were identified as "undergrowth" in the legend, but by Sunday I finally realized that these areas signified intense deadfall.
And controls were hidden within the circle, so that you had to search...#5 today being a prime example. A huge boulder 50m away made a rock-solid attack point. But despite 10 minutes of searching by myself and many others, the control couldn't be found. So I bailed, found #6, and navigated backward, only to again come up on that large boulder. Finally I found the control coming from the opposite direction, because I saw the top fringe of the bag, wedged down between several huge logs, and the small boulder control feature was completely hidden underneath the logs.
To add to my frustration, Nancy Lindeman casually walked the course, and from #3 to #7, got there and found each control about the same time I did, while running frantically. I just couldn't leave that woman behind! Aaah the beauty of orienteering! |
Friday Jun 20 |
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| Event: Tahoe 3 Day
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| Orienteering 32:20 [4]***** 2.2 km (14:42 / km) +50m 13:12 / km | |
| spiked:9/13c shoes: Black & Red Jalas Integrators |
| NorthStar Sprints. Friday afternoon at the ski resort. Walked way up the runs and started high. The course was completely a steep downhill challenge: go too far down and you struggle to get back up to the missed bag. I came in 4th in M65+ beating Evan Custer for the only time this weekend.
All kinds of downhill bikers coming through at breakneck speeds. Downhill bikes are a new breed for me: heavy welded machines that essentially cannot be ridden; riders just sit on them and coast downhill, occasionally pedaling in small gears just to increase their speed. Not a particularly athletic sport. Big fat guys do it. We met a family from the Valley whose teenage son was encased in total body armour. As he recounted his adventures to his smiling marathon mom, he took a minute to show us his downhill bike: the thing was practically too heavy to lift off the ground!
Afterwards we went back to Truckee and discoverd Fifty/Fify Brewing Co and Alicia Barr. My review. |
| Carry golf 4:05:00 [3]* 5.9 km (41:32 / km) +40m 40:10 / km | |
| spiked:3/18c shoes: NewBalance 426 |
| Ponderosa GC, Truckee, California. An old 9-hole course that I played twice: first by myself at 8am with the bright mountain sun making it difficult to follow my ball, hence poor scores. And the next time with three California guys, up for a social weekend, attending a wedding. Fun to interact with Californians again. And I shot much better, probably because of their influence. Soupbone waiting impatiently in parking lot when I finished, and we went up to NorthStar to see road bike race. |
Thursday Jun 19 |
| Orienteering 1:00:00 [3]3.5 km (17:09 / km) +110m 14:49 / km | |
| shoes: Black & Red Jalas Integrators |
| Spooner Lake - West. Training with Soupbone after waiting 5 hours for his flight to arrive at the Reno airport, doing sudokus and reading Investors' Business Daily.
I did well in 2003 when I was last on the Spooner map. But today I couldn't read squat; everything seemed mismapped. I know I have been neglecting my orienteering training recently, but isn't it just like riding a bike? You never forget the skill, once learned? |
Wednesday Jun 18 |
| City running 1:12:00 [2]6.0 mi (11:59 / mi) | |
| slept:7.5 shoes: NewBalance 426 |
| Twice up to Newport and back; first to get work started, and again to lock up at the end of the day. Getting packed for an early flight out to Reno tomorrow morning. Meeting Soupbone at the airport for 4 days of high-altitude BAOC fun at feature-starved Burton Creek |
Tuesday Jun 17 |
| City running 36:00 [2]3.1 mi (11:36 / mi) | |
| shoes: NewBalance 426 |
| Beautiful day. But feeling very stiff and slow...barely able to creep along the sidewalks. Don't know what is going on. Last Saturday's 5k was all-time slow pace. Maybe this enforced slowness will allow me to navigate more efficiently on the featureless Burton Creek maps at Tahoe this weekend.
Around the buildings, doing summer maintenance. Showing 400sq ft, 1BR apartments for $1695 and getting good response. New lawyers are now offered over $150k to start here in Chicago; so this rent represents just 13% of their gross. Don't tell me that inflation is under control...the fact that I'm getting interested prospective tenants at these outrageous rents tells me that big changes are about to happen. |
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| C • Do you uss. do back to back... 5 |
| City biking 25:00 [3]5.0 mi (4:59 / mi) | |
| slept:8.5 weight:205lbs shoes: NewBalance 715 |
| Out to dinner on bikes with Sari about 7pm. Beautiful evening. Rode up Clark St. to try a "pizzetta" at Soma. All along the way, people out, walking, jogging, laughing in sidewalk cafés, enjoying the warm, lingering sunlight of a mitsommer evening...4 days to the solstice. Then over to Broadway to a new Thai place, and then home in the dark, gliding along quiet streets, the perfume of blooming alanthus trees hanging heavy in the warm night air. |
Monday Jun 16 |
| City biking 25:00 [3]5.0 mi (4:59 / mi) | |
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