Training Log Archive: Charlie

Event: Hudson Highlander 2007
 

Hudson Highlander XII. Much better experience than anticipated. Very hot, and pretty darn slow, but very few errors and really good navigation generally. Courses were quite fun. Alone almost all the time, except for a few sections with Tori Campbell. Generally quite satisfying.

HH XII - Splits

Spent a good part of the day moving a load of riprap up the hill at one of the land trust preserves to fill in some erosion gullies. Some not insubstantial time in getting my friend Frank's trailer and loading up my tractor, and then about 3 1/2 hours bucketing rocks up the mountain.

Rhonda's morning class (without Rhonda who is in NYC visiting Jessica).

Nice visit with my old friends at the Codgers Club. They have moved their Wednesday breakfasts from 7 am to start at 8am instead, which fit in better with yoga class. Particularly pleasant to have two visits with Art Sweeton in the same week, and to see some of my other old friends. These guys are mostly well into their 80s now, and I was glad to see so many of them still in good condition, as I hadn't been to breakfast with them in at least 3 years.

Tunxis Trail run with Kathleen. This was her first time on this particular run. She is pretty tough on me on the uphills. Had a few minor adventures. Found a couple of mailboxes in the woods along the lower part of Doyle Rd. Since I knew who they belong to, I retrieved them and carried them along for a bit, dropping them off at Tom's house (since one of them was his). There we ran into some guys in an unmarked police car who were looking for a different address on Doyle Rd, and advertised themselves as being FBI guys who wanted to speak to a woman at the address. Assuming they are who they say they are (which seems at least somewhat doubtful), I am not impressed with their investigative skills, since the house with the number they were looking for was pretty clearly marked and they had driven right by it. Pretty mysterious.

Showing off the recent terrain modifications to my friend Betty, including a jaunt around the Art Sweeton loop, and a minor amount of laurely thrashing.

Got there a bit late for the abs portion of this, as I was snoozing until I heard the door when Rhonda went out to the gym at 5:30. This was the cardio circuit day, with just Kathleen, Betsy and Sue in attendance.

Switching off 8 minute segments on the various machines. There are four of the spinning bikes, one treadmill and one rowing machine, so always more opportunities on the bike.

On the treadmill, alternating 2 minute segments at 10 min pace and 7 minute pace. An extra treadmill spot available as Rhonda wasn't doing it today.

A pleasant hour of laurel wrangling, then a trip to Simsbury for a little emergency rogaine practice. Played with a gentleman I met on the tee there, and had a nice chat about this and that until I asked him what he did for work. "I'm an actuary," he said. I said, "Well, that's interesting." And there ensued a rather lively conversation for the rest of the round, as he works for a company I worked for up until about 25 years ago, and he knows many of the people who were young folks when I worked there, and who now are quite a bit older.

Then off to Open Space Commission meeting, which made for a late evening.

Rhonda's 5:45 am class. Not a good sleeping night - up since 2:45, so not much trouble getting ready for a 5:45 class.

Interesting article on the use of sausage in control of fox populations.

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Had a nice visit today with my friend Art Sweeton. He is now 94 years old and my old hiking companion prefers "sit-down hiking" these days, so I invited him over to ride in the Polaris Ranger down to the beaver pond and to see the bridge I put in two years ago. Here he is at the bridge.



Along the way I showed him one of the town boundary rocks that is on my land. I found it several years back from a map Art had drawn. Years ago the town selectmen's duties included perambulating the town boundary once a year. The selectmen we have now would not be capable of that sort of activity, and the law has been changed now for quite some time. When he was a boy, Art accompanied his father, who was the First Selectman at the time, on the last official perambulation.

Art introduced me to a number of things besides town boundary markers. He got me involved in the Land Trust, and also introduced me to the Codgers club, from which I have been missing for a while. He told me today they meet on Wednesdays at 8 instead of 7 as they used to. They used to be primarily a hiking club, but now they are mostly a breakfast club. Art's son Fred is retired and is now a member. That may make them the only father and son members in the club, although Zack has attended in an unofficial capacity in the past.

C • Art Sweeton 2

Pleasant half hour of laurel wrangling at dusk.

Then some chain sharpening. I had hit a rock on Friday morning and didn't have time to deal with it. Have to take it down quite a bit to get past the damage, so didn't finish, mostly because of my short attention span.