Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Training Day #2, on what I have nominated as my new time trial course. No chance beetle kill trees will wreck this course like they took out the Killer Bee Test Loop. Probably need a name for this, so: Remarkable Boulder Test Loop.

Ran at the best case I could manage, which turned out to yield a time of 65:08; by the vicinity of #15 the sun/warmth was starting to take a toll, and continued to exact a toll of time for the rest of the way.

From that alone, there is some additional time to win, and then despite going in carefully through the aspens at #19, I missed the control anyway and plowed through the aspens to the west of the control, and after popping back out into the clear and seeing where I was, ran east along the edge of the aspens and then back into the finger of open where the dot knoll sat.

Training Day 1 for the weekend; after getting maps to everyone and off into the woods, I changed over and joined them for the fun.

While I was hanging controls, I had no sense of how visible or not controls might be from the logical angles of approach, and never gave it any thought while drawing up the course. So it was interesting to get to run through the course myself with the flags out, which is the first time I had been out running with actual controls since (I think) Possum Trot in 2019.

#1 was especially interesting, since as I was getting up to the start, I could see several people leaving the start and doing the initial navigation along the lane. That despite the fact that it turned out if you looked far enough up ahead, you could see the control itself from the start triangle. No navigation required; easy control! : )

Biked in the morning and then back home in time to greet Mary and Spike when they arrived after their adventures with Southwest. Shortly afternoon Spike joined me and we headed out to Remarkable Flats while Mary headed for Prexies Pasture for some sprinting.

Out at the Flats, I hung stuff for Sunday and looked in vain for cattle, while Spike checked out some of the fine cattle terrain. Pleasant, sunny weather fo doing all that.

Then back home for a formal (black tie) but relaxed pizza dinner featuring some 'ronis and a dosage of 'lic. Definitely felt as about as post-covid as things can feel, and so nice to have Mary and Mike here! Cindy joined us to make it four, and afterwards we played no limit Texas Hold 'Em and as a result of that Spike owes me 46 pizzas and a whole lot of KC BBQ! Man, it feels nice to win for a change--now I know what it must feel like to be igoup.

Extra nice was the fact that nobody made fun of my resin arm, where I had an unfortunate encounter with (a very sappy) limber pine earlier in the week. I got most of the resin off, but not all of it.

Mary has the world's biggest blender. How she smuggled it through TSA, I have no idea.

Very put out with Southwest--Mike and Mary, the "Two M&Ms" were supposed to be here tonight, and we were going to ride downtown and make the scene, hitting all the best bars and saloons. Oh, well.

Biked with Cindy mid-morning, which was totally weird because by then all the birds had long since ceased their morning choruses and were on to their daily duties of whatever their daily duties consist of--maybe gathering fallen french fries by McDonalds? That's what I would do if I was a hungry bird.

But that's not what I did after biking. Instead, I turned my attentions to hanging out the stuff I had intended to hang out yesterday before the rain follies interfered. Quick changeover and out the door and on to Pelican Bay, where I hung stuff and did battle with deer flies. There was always one fly around me it seemed. Each time I killed one (and I got 5 in all) I thought it would be peaceful running the rest of the way. And each time very promptly a new deer fly appeared. It was like some higher power was in charge and testing me. I think I passed. At any rate, I got done, got back to my truck, got changed, and did all that with about 10 minutes to spare before...an incredibly intense hail storm over-swept the area. In the space of just a few minutes several inches of hail accumulated on the highway, and it was like driving on ball bearings. The accompanying thunder was immense. It was so cool! It was also flash flood city down below, though none of the floods were big enough to escape their channels.

Now on to tomorrow. Hopefully Southwest will have its act together!

Biked midday, which went fine.

I planned to go out in the late afternoon and hang some things for the weekend, and that went less fine. Sprinkles and some thunder were starting up as I was preparing, so along with plan A (go out and get started right away), I had a plan B as well (take book along and read if it was raining where I was going to be working, and wait out the thunder rains.) I also had a plan C, and as I was driving up the canyon on the interstate in extremely heavy, and at times blinding, rain, I realized plan C was going to be invoked--forget about trying to hang anything today, and just run at Happy Jack instead.

Which turned out to be a good idea, because basically for the next hour and a half, it continued to rain as the clouds over the area crept along at the pace of a backwards moving slug. For the longest time it didn't look like they were moving at all. But it was hard to get too upset about it because a) how would it help? and b) it was rain, after all. Probably 99.999% of the Mountain West and everything west of the Mountain West would have been overjoyed with such conditions!

And eventually it did clear off, and running was brilliant with a nice late day lowering sun and air freshly scrubbed of everything but post-rain freshness. So fine.

Tisdag Traning in the morning, 8 x 5 min w/ gentle slope, 2 x 5 min uphill, 1 x 10 min downhill. Clouds of sulphurs on patches of mud at the creek crossing, and one that looked somewhat like a zebra swallowtail, except it was no swallowtail. Sunny w/ a pleasant cool breeze.

Mountain biking up Pilot Hill and back down with Keith on the new trails; ran into Dan McCoy up top. Hazy in the valley, but otherwise beautiful out in all respects.

O' at Twin Boulders, very easy pace.