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I woke up around 8 AM at the Yellow Pine CG, feeling none the worse for the previous day's effort. Swampfox recommended the campground because it's only a few miles from the various start areas. As I was getting packed up, I saw a 2.5 inch hummingbird fly over to a flower next to my car and feed for a few seconds. It was green, so I think it might have been a ruby-throated, but I couldn't catch the flash of red. It turns out they must be common here, or at least near the campground, since I saw a number of them while here.
Today was a 10 AM course at Jubal E Spring. The format was four short loops, between 1 and 3 km each. I had a pretty good run - getting used to the terrain - but the altitude was a little bit hard to take. Luckily, I could rest between loops and that gave me some time to bring the heart rate down. It was bright and sunny. Afterwards I went down to Laramie for lunch and a wireless connection. I found both at Coal Creek Coffee in the old downtown. Laramie, even though it's a Western town, is also the home of the University of Wyoming, and much of it looks just like any college town, including the football stadium, the bars, frat houses, and other assorted businesses you'd expect to see.
Later in the afternoon I drove up to the practice course at Diamond Bay. None of the other orienteers were there, and I had the whole 7.5 km course to myself. I went slower than race pace and tried to read the map detail more, instead of relying on some of the larger features I might use in an actual competition. About a third of the way in, I suddenly heard a crack of thunder from directly above me, and a couple of minutes later rain started to fall. Usually rain isn't a problem, unless it's pretty heavy! I've also run a couple of good courses earlier this year in steady rain, so that counts as one of excuses I'm not allowed to use. As it turned out, the rain stayed light and cleared up in about ten minutes, although the thunder continued as the storm moved off to the east.
Two-thirds of the way through the course, I was running over a set of two ridges transverse to my direction of travel, and in between them I nearly ran into the middle of a herd of cattle that were foraging in the swale. I had to put the brakes on downhill, as the herd started to get a little nervous and all the heads popped up from the ground to look at me. I detoured a couple hundred yards around them and finished the course with an OK time of 67 minutes. When I got back to the car, the sun was out again and the storm had started to build as it slid down the east side of the mountain range toward Cheyenne. The rain was heavy enough and the sun was low enough to show a
rainbow just peeking over the hill to the east. I sat in the sun and celebrated with a Fat Tire as I watched the storm slowly move into the distance.