Training Log Archive: bl

R&R for the beaten body.

Marcello left for home today. Feel sad about that. He was an extremely hard worker. I don't think he missed a single day from 21 Aug thru yesterday. Occasionally, he packed it in when too much rain. He tells me that are "3030 stones" on the map which must approximate 5 km2. Back to a nice cabin in a mountain meadow in the shadow of the Dolomites. A lover of maps, nature, the woods, orienteering and a minimal consumerist.

Event: NEOC: Boxford
 

Boxford SF, NEOC local. Gray, rain/chill day but stopped for most of meet time. Would give this a B+. Need to be accurate there, still a crappy map - not enough green mapped and lots of rock features that haven't made it to the map ever since the USOC in 1978! Could be remapped well and have another "A"-quality A meet there. Can't recall the hx, but believe there was another A meet there in early 80s. Do recall some of the "Northeaster hits Boxford" day, nothing like that today. Nice chatting with Joanne & Roger on same subject.

E punch & self-tending S/F and good rain cover setup. Just needed a few shafts of sun. Concentrated ok, was careful, easy to get mixed up. Had some vis problems, mainly water coming off tree boughs. Also got distracted when the croakie came untethered & was lost.

Started just before dness and saw him at #2. Not sure if right around was best way for first cp - a long slog into the forest to get acquainted - lost contact with where I was on trail...oops. Got ahead of Dean at #3 which needed some tic lines and a cut circle. Was looking for up when it was down. The 150m coming into #4 was gorgeous fern with colorful marsh behind. The uncross marsh just before #5 extended well to SE & should have been corrected to show that. It did not throw me off, however, as I was paying sufficient att'n. #6 was looking for cp on downslope when it was across reentrant on upslope. Lots of unmapped stony stuff just before #7 About 1/2 way to 7 was another lovely stretch of forest up to the wall. #9 - went to a bldr to L some 40m for a look-see. 5k XC run to finish circle. Saw a 45 & 55' (to be young!), Coach 60+, tp 61+.

Map
#3...
much in need of a tic line at the south end of the wall as well as circle cutting x 2 to show the depression which I considered a knoll top
Route

Saw gas on Rt114 for $3.77 on wrong side of road. Stopped at last station (Mobil) on right before 495 - finally looked up to see $4.19/gal. Across the street was a Wave station selling at $3.89 - needless to say, bought as little as possible. Considered going in to ask why.

Ended up a mild day in Bow. Went to see how scouts left things: not a scrap of paper or styrofoam anywhere and a tidy circle of ashes with some 10 pallets waiting to be taken away.

Green - Splits

BB Middle from the other day. Chilly but bright & pleasant Steady pace - only confusion of note was #7. Fairly open - most of leaves are down. Had dogs along. Saw 2 MTBers, a woman with horse & dog and Marcello's car. Dinner at Marcello's tonight, tomorrow is his last day of work!

BB training - Splits

DP, Z barking at what-could-it-be? No vehicles that I'd noticed - but spotted red pickup in large reentrant that was the finish for the '07 A meet. Eben was unloading hundreds of wooden pallets for the continuous (?) fire for the 400 Scouts expected this weekend. Hundreds is not an exaggeration. The jamboree was news to me.

Went back to see in the pm:

Hopkinton: Rollins, Patch cw. Windy, chilly, October pm. Nice lighting. 50/50s uphill on Patch for about 12'. Had a DWG map for company, 1/15 for perspective.

Bought a Garmin car gps prior at Best Buy. About time, I suppose. Typed in Briar Hill Rd instead of desired Beech Hill Rd. Good thing I'd put it on mute as the conversation would have been heated...

Feet on the sore side - need to be shuffling shoes.

DP, Z&M, had no goal but heard, then saw, a 'geezer' pickup headed toward
the slough, so went that way wondering what trouble it might represent.
Contained 2 young men, guess they just drove down for the view, over-sized
tires and all. 3 DPW trucks and a backhoe in departing as well - a busy
intersection this particular am.

Bear Brook after work. Started a middle course I'd made up but stopped when it became apparent I had a problem with scale as well as fact that mag N was 14 deg to left & not marked as such. Makes accuracy difficult. Thot scale was ok as I'd opened a 1/10 CS file in OCAD with the jpg as basemap & believe I exported it as 1/10 (could not print direct fm ocd). Assumed 1/10 would be preserved - it looked it but on second thought was more like 1/8 or so.

Encountered Marcello who was just finishing a far corner. We got MN straight & I spent some time in getting back to the car on a map walk, saving the course for another day. Nice day for a change.

Nottingcook, dreary, dark, raining w/ M. Had too much on so plenty warm in <10'. Covered our adopt-a-trail section. Met a young woman walking her dog. She'd walked across forest on WH road, about an hour RT on this rainy day. That interested in the forest, she was an obvious candidate for BOS membership as well as some Nottingcook maps (mentioned getting lost on SS one midday last winter).

Slough & back with M. Gray & somber, more rain to come. Stark October colors - haven't looked around locally til now. Had NAOC '00 & '06 maps in hand as well as a ROC grn X Ultra-Long (10.4k) from a few years ago - a review of the good, bad and even one ugly. What's with the pursuit of "perfection", error-freeness... endless and often imperfect. Couldn't imagine going any faster thru some of the detail at Rocky Ridge or Shepherd Lake.

Burlington wander from Leddy. First 2.4 with Mocha. Crisp, sunny morning - gorgeous along the lakeshore. Just the right amount of chill after dropping M & warmups off. Located the high school track (with its fancy all-weather surface with spanking new Astroturf football field) and made the visit good for a mile. The visit recalled the last visit more than 10 years ago: the 200m race with Nate. Wandered thru North Beach park and campground and by Gil & Jenn's old place three times...now for sale. 160 mi & we're done.