Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Crossed paths with a couple with two boys as I was on my down to the parking lot and they were headed up the trail. I was going to drop something off and then head back up myself. At the point we crossed paths, they were only a few hundred feet from the trailhead, and just past a hairpin curve in the trail; from where they were they couldn't see past the curve to the part of the trail they had just walked up.

After saying hi, and continuing around the curve, next I hit a small copse of trees in between the curve and the trailhead, and immediately by the trail and in the trees was a large bull moose. I was surprised, but almost as surprised that the group I had just passed hadn't mentioned it to me. From where the moose was to where they were when I passed them couldn't have been more than 150' or so.

Later, I passed them all again, and asked them about the moose. None of them had seen it.

Yesterday the smoke/haze was only about as half as thick as it had been the rest of the past week; today the murk was back in full.

Trash Your Legs Saturday, and for today's trashing I settled on running a Green course at Granite Pleasures forward and backwards.

Of course a mere Green course run twice isn't near enough to do some thorough trashing under normal circumstances, so I started late enough in the morning to draw some benefit from the sun and growing warmth, and that helped a lot. Then to that I added a lot of grass seeds. I have to say that this year's grass seed crop seems to be especially generous, and right now it is peak seed-to-sock season. But what really put it over the top was the presence of a pit bull in the middle of the leg to #1. True, the pit bull was on a leash and being held back by its owner, and also true was that the owner assured me it was very friendly. But it was very excited to see me, especially when I was running, and with pit bulls you just never know. A very friendly pit bull and an extremely ruthless pit bull look exactly the same, or at least they do in my experience.

No cows, which was disappointing. But I will live anyway.

Followed on this with a mountain bike ascent of Pilot Hill late in the day, which completely consumed whatever small vestiges of untrashed legs I had left after orienteering. PGD.

Made the decision yesterday to pull the plug on the upcomingTahoe races, and today it's feeling right for me.

C • Why? 13

About equal parts road biking and trail running today, all at quite easy intensity.

O' training at Diamond Bay, 11.6 kms, lots of Cheat Grass--my favorite, especially when you get home and get to pull the seeds out of socks! Warm. Starting to think about winter again in terms of how it will feel good to feel a few degrees less warm.

Spent several hours post-run de-seeding socks; got about 1/3 of one sock done, so pretty good progress. It helps to be a veteran sock de-seeder.

Did some biking, and some easy running on trails at the end of the day after waiting out some rain, so back to back days with some rain--nice!

No doubt the Czech sandstone stuff is ultra cool, but ours may be even better. More runnable (much less steep climbing), no paths, and just look at those trees!

C • click 1

Tisdags Traning: 8 x 5 min dirt road, 2 x 5 min uphill on double track, 1 x 10 min downhill on double track. Solid session form start to finish. Lots of butterflies.

Ran long at Happy Jack at easy pace; biked up Pilot Hill in the evening. One guy flat out bombed by me on a very rocky stretch on the way back down--I assumed he was in control, but he was bouncing around so much on the rocks it was hard to tell. A fall would not have been pretty.