Training Log Archive: bl

Event: NEOC: Cemetery Hill
 

Sprints at Cemetery Hill. Nice sprint map/courses. Thanks, Phil! Perfect weather! as long as not standing still too long. Inattentive at times, too little route contemplation.

Should have contemplated the history of NSH & the poor souls who existed & died there! Ran off, forgot to.

First sprint: missed #7 because I expected to see it easily - did not focus on what feature was. Had I known I was looking for a boulder cluster, I would have gone right to it. At least a minute.
15 - needed to stay high, did not & then had to climb - maybe 30" & then did not go directly - another 20"?
17 - too far right, not careful enough - maybe 45".
18 - right below me but did not see it/leading feature - 15"
That adds up to 3', so some more somewhere. Lost the 305 (looked at wrist after last cp - not there). Hindsight - should have gone right back & redone the entire course. Did not have any falls with which to help pinpoint where - & no split recording. A mystery.....

The discussion

C • 305 4

Better - chase start. Dean S ahead. Caught him at 1 when he ran by it. But he was up the hill faster - in sight thru 4. Very wet feet south of 4. Caught Dean again at 7 when he & Steve & Mika all convened there. 4 of us to 8. Then Dean got in green so three of us. Mika got thru some green faster, got ahead of Steve & I 11 & we were bit to right at 12. I stupidly ran into a cul-de-sac to 13, effectively letting them go on their merry way. Lost 90". Had a face-to-face on the way to 15 with both! Joe B coming the other way & then he caught me on way to 16 - then I recognized it was Joe, hop on his coattails. - he got to 16, led to 17, waited for me in a tease-fashion & we "sprinted" in, Joe making sure he punched first:-). Not sure the cameras were whirring. Hamstring is not grumpy this morning which is most encouraging.

Nice time. Beth & dogs along, Beth got to shop in Northampton. She has ancient hx here as Peter, her ,deaf son, attended Clark school there 40 years ago. 202 W & route 2 east - bare, pretty countryside.

After, visited Colleen & Jim.

Would the real Mocha please pause for recognition?

Long Sprint - Splits

Final Sprint - Splits

PM DP, gray, rain-like. Left work early - had been there 12 days in a row. To slough & back. Sprints tomorrow, not much to do but see what goes. Encountered a woman (seen her before but not talked) with 4 goldens. Chatted briefly. Z&M surprisingly not so interested. M in heat, one of the g's was most interested - M is a lesbian bitch, tho! We decided that after trying to mate her with various suitable suitors.

Mouse chronicles, Friday pm....

Caught a mouse last weekend. Tried to get it in a cage & it got away from me - ran into adjacent bathroom sink basin & considered diving down the drain:-). Oh, what a pain that would have been! Left him to himself in the BR & he made it somewhere else w/o mishap. Beth put the trap on the floor in the bathroom, & voila, next am, same mouse, same irresistible peanut butter. We got sl. smarter, put him in the mouse box (with the gauze top) we'd used for Tiki. Well, next thing, this mouse had figured he could cling to the gauze & push a hole thru with his nose & be free (in the bedroom this time). But, trusty peanut butter, same result. Now the mouse is waiting for the Tiki (who hasn't seen another mouse since 10/09 when Beth found) intro exp't. to continue. 2 mice in a cage...what is likelihood of little mice? options: 2 males, 2 females or one male, one female= 1 in 3, 33%?. Actually, answer is 50% - not intuitively obvious to me but I am not a statistician (could be one female and one male...).

How wacky is this? Not as wacky as the behavior of the state house Republicans, I'm sure of that.

Circling the drain last week:

towel covering overflow hole which a former mouse had used...


# mice evicted for not paying rent after returning from Scotland O meet, '09 (c. 30).

December! Started toward slough but didn't care for the wind. Went to kettle hole and then thru Sandbox. Bright blue, brrrish, 31days til 2012....

SPS wander, past spanking new soccer field with artificial turf, later new science building - impressed how g-maps sat photos are UTD - even have contemporary Sandbox contours out back. Ham throbs. Did some 40 on, 15 secs off for touch anaerobic. Not really tickled pink with the throbbing. HP meet was rough on it, in hindsight. Saturday's sprints should
be interesting.

SPS

Had SPS wander in mind but when the two routes diverged, opted for audobon woods. Ran along Turkey Pond, fair amount of wet trail, left trail a few times for higher ground, got on what turned out to be a loop but did not realize that. Was having fun wondering where I was going/would come out. Saw what I thought was a white plastic greenhouse-type structure - got closer & realized it was Turkey Pond... then saw the wood walk by the pond I'd seen earlier & then, looking over my shoulder, a sign: "Turkey Pond loop". A nice deceipt (& cont'd by failing to make a loop on gmaps...). Slow going on wet, rooty, rocky trail.

Audubon woods


The last day in November and this RF poem came to mind when viewing the brown landscape and the gray sky and water by Turkey Pond.


My November Guest

My Sorrow, when she’s here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She’s glad the birds are gone away,
She’s glad her simple worsted gray
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.

DP Walk along stream, goal was the hop-across point. Did that, came back this side, largely mucky marsh. Walked along neighbor's yard perimeter for drier ground. No houses to be built out back! Mocha black-bottomed calling for special attention.

Nearing hop-over point

Double DP to avoid long faces, Beth in Stow. Warm again, 55F at 5:15. Dark but either moonlight diffusing thru cloud or reflected from Concord or bit of both. Was going to rest another day from right ham complaints but decided to try it out which worked ok. Fun in the dark, too.

Such a warm November. Dug up a National Geo article for Beth this am: "Hothouse Earth" (10/11/PETM) when summer water temp at the North Pole was surmised to be 74F. Color change in the sediment core tells that story in so few words (from 56 million years ago). Good story to keep in mind.

DP, warm day in the making. Brilliant sunrise but not convenient to capture.

Was thinking about yesterday's Harold Parker map. Would think NEOC would have updated that conveniently located forest by now. Much in need of additional green, paths and water feature revision. A belated mapping project in desperation! Seems like an ideal place for intro O as well as more advanced with more judicious course setting. On green, 2, 3,6,7,8 (even 9 if judging by proximity to trails)) were yellow level (or near) controls.

C • Map Updates 5

Faraway series, photos from elsewhere, #84

Western Pacific sunset enroute the Philippines,1970 (from the bridge of USS CHIPOLA, the navy oiler I served on as supply officer)

Event: NEOC: Harold Parker
 

NEOC local at Harold Parker. Near 50F tho minimal sun. Lots of cars on road, full parking lot - not something I usually see at a local meet. I'd give my effort a B/B-. Sufficient energy, misdirected initially.

Took the very first possible wrong turn on the way to #1 - but only 15" loss ...but dumb. Then got on the path across the road - from the sharp bend there was an unmapped path proceeding in the direction I was going. Took it for awhile & then into reentrant. Then up the contours - according to map, a rock face was supposed to be staring me in the face. Saw no such RF, circled, wondered, came back & went maybe 5m more in original direction. Then I saw a cp about 10' below at the foot of a RF - it appeared to be in a depression or something left over from old digging. Didn't match the way mapped at the brief glance it got but it was the correct flag. To #2, somehow got on path segment I had come up from the road. Had intended to go back to that path, take a right & proceed. Found myself on the road 100m north of where I expected to be. Did figure it out readily enough but, but... Too much of a hurry! Then took path looking for wall - did not see it so went in woods, figuring to hit the stream. Then saw wall to L, went to it, followed to marsh corner. Wall now gone & large linear unmapped 'pond' on my right. Came to another wall running SW. Had to be the one I figured it was or I was cooked. Had to walk thru 1' of water, into thick green trees but land rose & a cp appeared...mine...phew! Sloppy beginning. Rest were ok enough til 10. 8 to 9 was just a road run except, turns out, 300m or so was crappy, poor vis woods. Ditto for 10, missed it but recovered w/o too much injury. No idea how comparative. E punch & start when ready. Beth's map literally fresh off printer! Green could have been more challenging with shorter legs minimizing trail use. Nice meet by NEOC.

Map & route.

Beth came along, did orange. Was getting late so I drove off toward the path that would take me to her last cp - a whistle from me produced a desired result, nearby presence. She'd found them all, was pleased with a nice pm in the woods. I drove her back the last leg...perhaps the fastest on orange? Unfair? oh, my...

Looked at prior maps...besides the '84 meet, was here 5/6/90 for a local, 10/14/95 for 1st day of an A meet (NE Long Champs) and 12/3/00 for NEOC club champs...the old and the new. Drove away slowly looking at map changes, mostly houses. Indeed a 'land grab' environment. Drove up a Windkist Farm Road lined with MacMansions. Had walked up this lane on a lovely May day in 1984 while fieldchecking. Passed thru orchards and fields to a tasteful home at the top & a large barn. They were still there but of course the field/orchard had become weed choked with our "fruitfulness". The old now served as an equestrian center.

From 1984

Windkist Farm Road climbs the largely yellow hill on the west edge with the large building on top.

HPSF parking...our turn?

C • Driving the last leg 2

Green - Splits