Training Log Archive: PG

On the Montague plain and Willis Hill after dark with Bob Perry from Bikes Unlimited plus 7 others. Interesting experience, felt like a long interval workout. There was a modest range of abilities, with me certainly not the fastest but fortunately not the slowest, so we'd go for a bit and then the fastest would wait to group up. So I'd go as fast as I could to try to keep up, and then stand for a couple of minutes. I suppose I could have just gone at a nice even and modest pace, with no stops, but that didn't really occur to me. :-)

For about the first 4 stops I tried to stop/start the 305, but that got to be too much trouble and I just let it run. I think there's a setting I can put it on so it only goes when you're moving.

Beautiful evening, low 50s, clear, waxing moon. A mix of old jeep roads and narrower stuff, a lot flat, some up and down at the north end.

Quite enjoyed it. Knew a couple of the other riders (clients of mine).

Had my light on the handlebars. Some did that, some had it mounted on their helmet, not sure which is best (well, I suppose best is two lights, one each way).

C • Yup, two lights 1

Out the back way, I got up to the top of the first hill and had no desire to keep heading up, so I turned to go over by the town park and proceeded to have one of my best AOWN experiences in a long time.

My first thought was that it was a cat sitting in the middle of Park Road, but as I got closer I could see it was a barred owl. Stopped as soon as I realized that, I was maybe 15 yards from it. And it was just sitting there looking at me.

It was sitting a little awkwardly, so I thought maybe it had been hit by a car, though cars come by there rarely and slowly. So I started to circle it, getting no closer than about 10 yards (and something in me was wanting to see if the owl would rotate its head a full 360 if I kept going), but I noticed a couple of what looked like twigs sticking out from under the owl.

At some point as I was circling it, it got a little nervous and took off, but it barely got airborne before settling back down a couple of yards from where it started. But it got airborne enough for me to see that the twigs were the rear feet of a rabbit that the owl was hanging on to. Well, it was quite cool, except if you look at it from the rabbit's perspective, I suppose.

Took a last long look at the owl, noting all the field marks, then figured I'd leave him alone. Down the roads a way I looked at a patch of woods I'd never been in, thought why not, it turned out to be the nicest forest for orienteering anywhere in Massachusetts, too bad it's only about 5 or 10 acres and privately owned. Just gorgeous. So twice on this run I regretted that neither my 305 nor my ipod had a camera.

And then back to check out the owl scene. A couple cars had come by before I got there, now instead of the owl/rabbit in the road there was a kid, teenager, very nerdy looking, with binoculars. I stopped, he pointed out where the owl was up in a tree, and where the rabbit was, a couple of yards off the road. I assume the owl will be back to fetch it before long.

C • Birds of prey 5

Decided this morning I should go to the NEOC meet at Wrenthem, even though I was pretty sure the woods are quite unfriendly and the map is suspect. But I've been doing very little O' this year, and wanted another run under my belt before the champs next weekend.

Overall, glad I went, even though my run still left a lot to be desired, a number of mistakes. But I put out a decent effort, ran more than I expected, and tried to remember how to orienteering. So moderately successful, and at least my attitude was improved over its low state after the Highlander.

Oh, the woods were rather crappy, best to stay on the trails as much as possible. And the map was a little suspect, and also hard to read, especially the black. I'm not sure what it is but really hard to read. On the other hand, only one control misplaced and only a couple others where the map in the circle was a little screwy.

Course was advertised as 6.2 km, 330 meters climb.

I'd thought of trying to hook up with Phil, if he was going (the event wasn't listed on AP), but I had in mind that I might manage a round of golf on the way home at someplace I hadn't played before. And in fact that transpired, just snuck in 18 at a decent course near Sturbridge before it got dark. Very enjoyable.

Only down part of the day, and fortunately it wasn't serious, was that I missed my exit to get off I-91, just not paying attention for a moment. It was dark, and there was steady traffic coming south, so trying to do an illegal u-turn seemed foolish, so I headed up to the rotary in Greenfield. Which is where, in the course of about 20 seconds, I almost got nailed by the same car twice. I kid you not. First it made not the slightest effort to yield (as required) when entering the rotary. I hit my brakes, immediately abandoned my plan to exit the rotary and started another loop around. And then, the same car, now in the outside lane of the rotary that gives you no option other than to exit, suddenly tried to take a left turn from the right lane. Would have had me again, but I saw it just in time. Used the horn more than I have in years.

A New Hampshire car, Live Free or Die, they say....

One other thing about the O' meet. It was one of the most unsocial meets I have ever been too. I don't mean unfriendly, the organizers I dealt with were uniformly friendly and competent. It was just that I saw just a couple other orienteers before I started (despite maybe 30-40 cars in the parking area), and just one afterwards (Pia with her kids). I finished, downloaded, looked at the ma a bit, no one around so I walked bak to the car. No one around there, so I changed. Chatted with Pia a little, no one else around, so I left. Quite strange.

Here's the course (the Red course).

And here's my route.

#1. Just didn't feel like running down the road. Nor like going through the woods.
#7. Took a while to find, forest quite thick, map not too useful.
#8. Control was on no feature in particular. Just happened upon it.
#9. Thought I'd gone far enough south to pick up the trail, apparently not. Control was on the SE edge of the circle.
#10. Thick, both on the way and at the control.
#11. Took a while to find the trail on the first hill. An extra hill and wall near the control (reminded me of mapping a long time ago).
#12. Thought I'd skirt the edge of the marsh through the nice forest. Except it was full of greenbrier and pretty much impassable. Beat a retreat, not soon enough.
#14. Feeble.

Thought for a long while I'd be about 70-75 minutes, but then things deteriorated in the second half of the run.

C • unsocial 8

What qualifies for an over-distance run these days. But a lot better than nothing.

Signed up for the NEOC/CSU meet, last day before the late fee kicks in.

Checked out the maze. There are about 25 permanent controls, not sure if I will use those or not. I have to go back because I couldn't find my friend, someone said he was in the maze. It will be quite cool.

So I need to get my act together to organize the sprint at Mike's Maze --



The thinking is either Wednesday or Thursday, very late afternoon, of the week between the US Champs and the CSU/NEOC A meet weekend.

Cristina/Biggins, any idea what your schedule is and what day might work best? I can't remember whether either day is better or worse for Ali/Alex (I think Wednesday?). Phil, I'm assuming as a philosophy prof that either day is fine....

Any others interested? Charlie, George, Ken Sr. (and spouses)?

Of course, it will be followed by a party just up the street chez PG and Gail.

C • when 20

Nice ride on what seems to becoming a standard route -- just over an hour, no hills I can't manage as long as I pay attention, and a nice variety. Beautiful late afternoon, though it's getting dark earlier and earlier, glad I didn't start 15 minutes later.

Leftover item from yesterday evening -- talked to Laura Lane some, found out she is the curator for the New England Quilt Musuem. I'm not a quilt fan, but I know a bunch of quilting orienteers (or is it orienteering quilters?). It's in Lowell, MA.

C • NEQM 1

Dinner at Phil and Margi's, even more gorgeous young women than usual (usual = Alex and Ali and Gail and Margi), as we were joined by NEOC president Pete Lane and his wife Laura and daughter Amy, the latter living out here, an excellent runner and skier and occasional orienteer, whom Alex is now working on to recruit to the ski-O team, plus Phil's friend Betsy, who got mangled in a bike-car encounter recently, absolutely no fault of hers, but she is on the mend.

Great food, great vibes.

Not sure if there will be a party next week, short week with holiday on Monday and Sprint Finals on Friday, but certainly the following week, maybe even more than one, with Cristina and Biggins and who knows who else is in town.

And looking down the road a bit, seems the CSU adventure weekend will be here the first weekend in December. Excellent.

For those who still haven't figured out the secret to a successful orienteering program, just think great food and pretty women. Everything else will follow.

C • Adventure Time 5

Running around the little trails over by Cranberry Pond. Tolerated another day of running, progress.

Would be a nice little area for orienteering, were there a map....

So the proposed OUSA budget for 2011 has been released, plus a memo regarding it.

I wish I wasn't disappointed.

1. There is no information about how we are doing in the current year. That seems to be in line with OUSA's financial reporting in general -- figures are released monthly, but there is no explanation, no highlighting of good news or bad news, no nothing.

I was hoping for something about progress that we are making with Glen on board, or problems we are encountering, or just something about how we are doing. But nothing.

2. There is a budget for 2011, with comparison to 2010. The 2011 budget proposed has a deficit of $41,800, which the Finance folks think is acceptable. It would be nice to know some of their reasoning.

3. There is what seems to me a quite convoluted statement about financing for the teams. Right now, there is a team fund for each team, money raised by each team goes into its fund, money spent comes out. And to the extent possible, money also comes in from OUSA's general fund. In 2010, this was limited to 2K for the Junior Team.

For 2011, the proposed budget has no support for the teams. (Interestingly, the proposed budget also lists a number of requests that it is not funding, and there is nothing there listed for the teams. So maybe they requested nothing?)

The budget also moves in the direction of having one unified team for financial purposes, but it is not clear to me what is actually being proposed. Perhaps someone else can read the wording in the memo and tell me what it really means. In particular I'd like to know, if I give X dollars to a particular team, or put on an event to raise X dollars for a particular team, does that team get it, or does it get doled out by the Board, or the Finance Committee, or some unified team ESC? It would be nice to know.

4. The budget for ONA drops from 24K to 18K. It would be nice to know what is being planned.

5. It is requested that the official channel of discussion about this (prior to the Board meeting nest weekend) is the BoardNet. I'm curious to see if that happens. It's been pretty much a dead discussion board in the past. I'd expect a more lively, and probably more annoying/obnoxious discussion on AP. :-)

C • Donations to teams 7

Out the back trail up to Gunn Mt. road and back.

I was planning on walking up the first hill, got out a couple minutes and realized I'd forgotten my 305, no point in running without it. Came back, picked it up, got the ipod too. And then managed to run all the way up and back, accompanied by some country music guy. Not my favorite but better than nothing.

And the fact that I ran up is quite spectacular.

Also, having hit the automatic time-to-start-eating-a-little-less point a week ago, when the G touched 145, maybe a little slimming will help too. Got to do something.

Light to moderate rain. Legs/heels not too bad.