Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Dragging my Falcon up to the Talcott launch on the cart. I started lower down than the track shows, down by the lower gate, which was not open.

Since it was blowing like stink, I took the cart back down to the car (by this time they had opened the gate, since there were a ton of cars parked on the side of Rte. 185) and picked up my phone and water bottle that I had neglected to bring up the first time.

After a while the wind mellowed out and I had a great flight, I think about an hour. While I was up there, with the leaves off the trees, it looked like Talcott Mountain, from the cliffs eastward, is pretty nice terrain, though it's been a long time since I've been anywhere in there but the top of the ridge (which is definitely nice). Might be interesting for somebody with spare CPU cycles to run the lidar and see if it's a lot steeper than it looks from above (I can see from OpenTopoMap that it's considerably less steep than Mt. Tom).

Picked up some trash in the landing zone, Dan said to just toss it in the back of his truck.

C • Sent you a Google Doc link ... 10

Robb's Hill. I had a hard time deciding what to do, because I didn't feel like running on pavement, it was too windy for a bike ride to be appealing, and I didn't want to run someplace rough that might tweak my ankle(s) again. So I picked Robb's Hill because the trails there seem like they're less gnarly. And that worked out fine, including getting to some trails down in the south that I hadn't been on before. Nice conditions, summer running attire.

14/17

Picked up another five streets in Shirley, and determined that one thing that looked like a street on the map is nothing of the sort, and another thing that is definitely a street on the map is actually a driveway festooned with private property signs (I'll fix that in OSM). First time out on the bike this year in short sleeves. I also got passed by another cyclist, which doesn't happen very often, and I'm pretty sure he did not have batteries (we were going downhill, and I think he was putting out more effort than I was).

Returnables outnumbered other containers 13 to 12 tonight, including another can of that clam beer, and a big rum bottle..

Acroos the street, In The Dark. Nice to be able to do this after the sun goes down in a T-shirt. Some ankle problems about halfway through, but I stubborned (as I guess the saying goes) and finished the loop I had in mind, rather than taking a short cut.

Before running I went from the corner across the street down to the driveway of the new house and filled two grocery bags, so this was more sparse in terms of litter. Four returnables and 18 other bottles, heavy on the nips this time. The "highlight" was a 25 oz. Chelada: Bud Light and Clamato. WTF? Is that something you make somebody drink when they lose a bet? I know a lot of people who would not want any of those three ingredients, never mind all of them mixed together in a big can. This may be worse than the cotton candy Bang.

Some loop around the neighborhood, In The Dim, turned the light on fairly early to be seen, and I guess it was fairly dark by the time I was done.

I had planned to pick up trash on the far side of the street from the culvert up to the corner, and that seemed like a decent stretch, so I brought two grocery bags. I'm such a naïf. I accidentally started at the smaller culvert that's just for the ditch on the side of the road, instead of the larger one where the stream goes through. I never made it to the bigger culvert, because within 20 feet I had filled both bags. I stopped when I got to the first Bud Light can. Nine returnables and a dozen other bottles, plus a bag of miscellaneous trash.

Knocked off work a little early since there wasn't much I could accomplish in terms of work, and because it was such a nice day, almost 70 and shorts weather. Picked up five streets in Townsend (one of which is not real, it's just a driveway, albeit one with a very official-looking street sign that matches the name of the homeowner). Coming down Rte. 119 was a bit of excitement, with sustained high speed on a slightly twisty road for about four minutes, and no cars passed me until I was past Trap Falls. It was unfortunately not possible to carry any of that speed though the turn onto the climb of Hamilton Hill Rd.

If I'm going to clean up the world, I might as well start in my own little corner, so I grabbed a plastic bag and set out to tidy up the frontage of my property, and the area across the street where my mailbox is located. A few lottery tickets, a foam coffee cup, a couple of candy bar wrappers, an empty pack of cigarettes, those weren't surprising. The empty Jell-O box and the plastic container that had once held organic broccoli sprouts were more unexpected. Nine beverage containers, of which maybe five are returnable: two nips, one water, one Pepsi Zero, two Miller Lites, a Twisted Tea, some hard seltzer and a Cotton Candy flavored Bang (first I'd heard of it, and I don't plan to purchase any myself).

Pound Ridge, Red, 7.9 km. A bunch of us (me, Clint, Peter, Phil, Charlie, George and Lynn, and Ching-Hua/Matt/Tai) arrived around 11 AM, and we had a bit of visiting and chatting before we headed out. I was on Red, Clint did Green, and the rest of the elders did Brown (C/M/T just hung out at the park for a while). Hard to say how many of these were spikes; I didn't make any major errors, and SA has me down as about 3 minutes of time lost evenly divided between three controls (based on only two others to compare with), and the ones it has as errors are not the ones that I thought were mistakes. Basically a pretty clean run. And then afterwards some more hanging out with folks at the picnic tables (I was the only one of the bunch who hasn't gotten even a first vaccine shot yet).

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C • Interesting, I estimated ab... 2

There were a few bugs out today, not sure what they were, something with wings, but not blackflies or mosquitoes, and they didn't seem to be in the biting business. I also found a tick on my arm on the drive home, and treated it the way a submoron treats an empty can of Bud Light.

And on the subject of trash, I perhaps started a streak yesterday when I extracted a rather large mylar balloon from the forest. After I drained the water, I managed to get it into my pocket. Today I found a normal-sized one that was almost buried in the leaves, and likewise got it into my pocket, then on my way past the parking lot mid-course, Phil said hi and I tossed it to him.

C • Balloon 3