Training Log Archive: barb

I borrowed my neighbor's nice car to take Rachael and Isabel to soccer on Saturday. We were on Route 128 when I started to wonder if I had a flat tire, and another driver confirmed that suspicion. I pulled over - OK, we do have some shoulders on some roads around Boston, but this was not much of a shoulder - and had the girls get out and stand there in their uniforms on the other side of the guard rail and read me the instructions for how to change a tire. I also made motions at passing drivers that they should call the police - I was feeling dangerously exposed there. I was actually surprised that no one stopped to help a soccer mom change a tire. But in the end I did it all myself just fine, and the trooper did eventually show up when I was just putting the spare on, and he stood there and give me advice. I was glad he didn't try and muscle in and actually help because by that point I wanted to show the girls that it's perfectly possible to change a tire by oneself. The tire was not reparable, and fortunately I found out that Brad (owner of the vehicle) had run it into a curb a few days before and so it probably wasn't my fault. The girls even made it to the game on time, though not in time for the warmups. We lost, by a lot. But both Rachael and Isabel had some lovely plays. I have a great photo of Isabel in action that I can't wait to post.

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For the heck of it: Four years ago:

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Event: Hudson Highlander 2007
 

Another gorgeous Highlander! Rode down and back with Dean. The woods were beautiful as they always are in October. It was warm and very humid, but not hot hot. The person I saw most on the course was Peter Goodwin. My right knee bothered me a bit in the beginning, but was actually pretty good overall. It seemed to settle down after I had had ibuprofen. This is good news, because it looks like the injury from the last rogaine might heal up over time. I still have the under-the-kneecap pain from falling on it with my weight and Dave's a few years ago.

It took me a couple hours to settle in and start navigating at all well.

Start to 1: Got to the back of the pack by stopping to pee. It's always a relief to me when I lose everyone and can just get into the swing of it on my own, but that didn't happen for a while. I considered going along the Pine Swamp Mountain ridge to the right of the rocky reentrant, but ended up going in the reentrant and sometimes up to its left until the stream widened out and then I crossed behind Peter. Stayed low and angled around to the left on the final approach; should have stayed lower, but for some reason allowed myself to drift up into the steep rocky stuff which defeated the purpose of my plan. Which was a typical problem for me on this first map: not executing the plan very well. As well as waffling about what the plan was.

1 to 2: got on the trail fairly quickly. where the trail bends from heading W to NW, I knew I'd been there before and had previously headed off the trail at that point into the ferns. Stayed on the trail and ended up leaving it not long after, which seemed silly because it was a bit trashy with ferns and logs across the marsh. Headed up the nice long wide reentrant, and then I think I made a parallel error. My intent was to skirt along the top of the cliffs running SW from where they touch the purple line near the trail bend. but I think I may have followed the steep line south of that band, crossing an intermittent stream where I thought I was threading the needle between green patches beyond that line of cliffs. Anyway, I eventually ended up on the open hill with huge rocky patches south of the words "Hogencamp Mountain" and relocated off the trail there. But I spent some time thinking how interesting it was that so much vegetation had been lost and bare rock exposed since the map had been made. Arg. As I was looking at the map at the beginning of the leg I'd convinced myself that the last part of it was in an area I'd struggled in before, and told myself I had to be extra careful, but I think maybe I spooked myself instead. I definitely had the feeling of not being able to match things well to the map, which was common on this first map.

2 to 3 was OK - really using the compass carefully, but still hesitant as I approached the control which was in fact right on my line.

3 to 4 - stay left of the green, climb to the top, head down the reentrant. Just a bit slow and unsure of myself on the final approach.

4 to 5 - went straight. Attackpoint was crossing the last stream right at a general transition from flatter to steeper. Hesitant approaching the control.

5 to 6 - got a little confused on the second half, just left of the purple line, because I thought the first trail after the road was actually the second trail for a while.

6 to 7 - fine. fairly straight; went over the saddle then down along the marsh.

7 to 8 - waffled on this decision, but eventually took the trail to the south of all the climb, to the road, slow jog.

At 8 they didn't have bandaids (the feet were beginning to blister despite the protection I'd put on) or ibuprofen (for the knee), but it was good to get some fruit and drink and chips. I'd decided not to eat a lot the night before or that morning. Although I was sometimes hungry on the course, I don't think I suffered too much from lack of food, because of the aid stations. I was glad that there was water at every water stop - that was key, and I always worry about it since I visit the water controls relatively late. I wore my Italian trail running shoes. I don't know why I didn't put goopy stuff on my feet; just didn't think of it.

I enjoyed the trail run, so relaxing mentally. But I spent the first part of it confused because I had in my head that it was supposed to be 1.7 km (I was wrong - that was the King of the Mountain length)... At the aid station I got not only bandaids but moleskin, which worked really well on my new blisters, and also some ibuprofen.

To 11: On the Pole Brook map, I started off making an unfortunate choice to go left of the 2nd swamp in order to use the trail at the end to get through the green. Staying right, along the straighter line would have been much better - and apparently there was more trail through the green than was marked.

To 12, stayed fairly straight, a bit left of the line. Peter and Bob showed up and hit 12 cleanly while I foundered toward it having gone downhill too far to the left, due partly to my usual discombobulation when other people are around.

13, 14, 15 fairly straight shots; got a little left going to 15. Trying to stay ahead of Peter and Bob for the heck of it, and just behind a guy who I think is French Canadian because on the way from 11 to 18 he said something in a nice french accent about how nice it was that the marshes were dry.

17 to 18 went right by 11 then threaded through the marshes heading NE.

Funky route to 19: went NW to the road, instead of a more northerly route to hit the road more on my line.

Running past everyone who was done was nice because you get a bit of support, but it was SO tempting (as usual) to just stop and have a hamburger and hang out because I knew everyone might be gone by the time I finally finished. And I seemed plenty hot and tired to call it a day. Had a pretzel and for some reason refused fruit - it didn't look good to me right then but that was probably a mistake.

Going to 20(1) I inexplicably climbed all the way up to the tower.

Going to 21(2), I headed left to the top of the hill just so I'd know where I was for sure.

21(2) to 22(3), went right of the line to take the green-free corridor.

3 to 4: a bit left of the line, above some, but mostly below the cliffs along the way. Approached the control from the south (!), and briefly pulled a 180 coming out of it as a result.

24(5): stupidly fought my way up the thick hillside. At 5 I stopped for a while, drank 4 cups of water and ate a pack of cookies.

25(6): at first assumed this was a spur, until I read the clue sheet.

26(7): back in OK form now; the cookies and water must have helped. Made better decisions locally. A bit of hesitation on the road as I tried to convince myself that I might be mistaken about where I was, but I wasn't.

27(8): Considered going high, to stay along the ridge, but thought going just left of the power line looked OK, and it was. Sure of myself on the final approach.

28(9): Very happy that I was just about done. Trails to road and then in. Weirdly pulled left at first, but corrected after matching some very obvious features like the building.

Yay! I love the Highlander. I'm so glad that people go to all the effort to put it on; it is such a treat!

Rough time estimate. Pushed really hard outbound, lazier inbound. To school, then Arlington. Then DD with Dave, then work. Later I'll bike home. Had fun Taking the Lane and playing chicken with the larger vehicles. (I usually win!) Saw David and his class on the way to the T to go to Alewife where they do fieldwork for science class.

Woke up real early to pull together materials so Isabel and her teacher could run a classroom training this afternoon in advance of Tuesday's orienteering field trip. I'm psyched because it's the first time we'll really pull off assigning roles on a team and doing some actual training in preparation.

Today, Isabel will give a presentation (hopefully while wearing the Hat) about Tuesday's trip (2 parts: urban orienteering to get to the park, then a "team challenge" where there are some shared controls and other team controls with envelopes with puzzle pieces). Then the teams of 4 will get together and assign roles and pick a team name. Then all the kids with a given role will get together and train. The Planners (also the team leaders) will study the maps and decide which team will get which of the puzzle controls. Then they'll do a role-playing exercise to practice leading the team. The Feature Readers will go through a presentation about features and contours, and then make flash cards with the map symbols. The Distance Estimators will go outside and practice pace counting. The Direction Diviners will work with compasses and figure out how to orient the map with the sun. The training piece could have benefited from more than the 15 minutes I had left this morning to pull it together. Next time...

The other thing that is really cool about this is that I won't be there for the indoor training piece. I'm hoping that by handing off some half-baked materials (powerpoint presentation, sloppy instructions, maps), and having Isabel there, everything will go smoothly.

Early morning trip to work and back

Trying to avoid getting the cold that's going around...

Feeling an urge to make some cookies.

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5:30 am to work, then immediately back home since I'd forgotten my badge, then to work, then (in the future, but it seems inevitable) back home.

Dreams last night:
1. I'm in some country where the women are supposed to be covered, and I don't have enough clothes on, particularly on my legs, and so I'm kind of staying in hiding. Then we're in a big nice car being driven around and the locals start stoning the car. Later we're in some tourist hotel but all packed together sleeping in one room with lots of other people...
2. Someone is critiquing some animated (but serious art) films saying they're always morphing into really dark scary stuff, and then in the dream I'm seeing the film do just that.
3. The devil is coming after my friend, it's inevitable. He makes his appearance through the television at first. The devil wants to make a deal with him, eternal life. Don't do it, I'm saying, everyone who does it regrets it. The friend does it. Next the devil goes after Isabel. Don't do it, I say, bad idea. Dream ends.

Kids from our First Lego League team holding a water-filled translucent brick used in the construction of MIT's solar house:





Here is the solar house itself. Below it on the left are huge water tanks they'll need at the exhibition in DC because there won't be water hook-ups. Below it on the right are the battery cases; these also would not be needed if you were feeding juice back into the grid. We found out that in Massachusetts the electric utility pays you WAY less for electricity that you generate than they charge for electricity that you pull from them. But in other places, they pay you the same amount. This could make a huge difference in people's decisions about whether to generate electricity, and how much.





And here Eva & Izzy are examining a model of a green building at the Harvard Graduate School of Design:

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to work and back, then to school for 5th grade open house, and back.

Today I perused the results from a recent NEOC meet. There were 5 families or parts of families at the meet who know about orienteering through us, and 4 of the 5 came to the meet completely independently from us - we didn't even know they were coming. So that's pretty cool - people say that outreach in the schools doesn't help and people never come back to meets, but it is just not true! Dave was telling me Erin's story, how she first orienteered with a 4H club and liked it and kept coming back. I think it's a numbers game. You just have to introduce it to enough people, and some of them will come back.