Training Log Archive: PG

Made good progress is cleaning/organizing/discarding stuff in the garage, got about half of it done. It's remarkable how something that is not at all unpleasant while doing it, that is so very satisfying when done, can be so difficult to get started on.

And by mid-afternoon, the old lawnmower, placed down by the road with a "free" sign on it, had already been claimed. :-)

C • "free" 3

C • so difficult 3

Turners Falls, Gill, Northfield, Millers Falls, and home, gently rolling except a little less gentle climbing out of TF. Good steady effort, legs getting tired as the miles passed. Wind from the NE, 10 mph +/-, so pretty much into the wind the first half, with it thereafter. Nice afternoon, about 60 and more sun than clouds.

With Gail, across the river to South Deerfield, Whately, and south a bit. Real nice out but windy.

Old roads on the north end of Quabbin. Lots of debris down from the storm, but the big stuff had already been cut up, so never a need to climb over anything. Crisp, clear, minimal breeze.

Weekly (?) run. Partway up Claybrook.

With Di and Tucker, on conservation land off Harkness Road in Amherst. Never been there before, real nice.

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A nasty storm rolled through late yesterday afternoon. We lost power, though not for long. But it did drop a good-sized branch right across the driveway.

I don't have a working chain saw these days, so I spent an hour or so cleaning up what I could cut off with loppers and a hand saw. And then Walter came by with his chain saw and made quick work of what was left.

And, as Gail said, lucky the branch didn't fall the other way, out on the street. Then we might have been sued again. I suppose we are ready for it, the last suit having been recently settled for a few K by our insurance company, just to put a cap on their costs. I was happy to see it go to court, but that was not to be.

C • Chain saw 5

Trails on North Sugarloaf, lots of rocks and roots.

End of the road on Mt. Kearsarge yesterday.

Finally got around to doing a climb that I'd been intending to do for a long time, Mount Kearsarge in central New Hampshire. It's not the longest or the hardest, but it has some character. The road doesn't get to the top, but that's true of lots of mountain roads.

Being right off of I-89, and a very prominent peak in that part of the state, and with a little bit of a hike needed to get to the top (but not too much), I think it attracts a lot of visitors. So I had no wish to go on a weekend or during the summer, figuring that it would be less busy when schools were in sessions, or sort of in session. The forecast was OK, getting up to about 60, mostly cloudy, light wind from the south, so today it was.

Not quite a two-hour drive each way, not quite a two-hour ride. I don't know if that's an acceptable ratio of activity to travel time for other folks, but for today it seemed fine. An easy drive on what seemed to be remarkably good roads. I always thought NH roads were distinguished mostly by their abundance of frost heaves, but either I was wrong or things have changed. Everything I drove on seemed freshly paved. The same couldn't be said of the mountain road, but it wasn't real bad, just an assortment of modest frost bumps and hollows, no problem on the way up and no big problem on the way down.

The ride was fine. On my own, so happily going at my own pace, keeping the heart rate in the low 150s, which is enough to still be serious work. Anything faster would have been a minor time gain in exchange for a major hurt, and I didn't see any reason for that.

They have a bike race up the road most years (though not this one). Looking at the 2019 results (click on "Overall results") and the route stats (7.8 miles, 2,000' climb net, a little up at the start, then rolling, almost all the climb in the last 3.5 miles, steepest mile at about 12%), I figured someplace between the guy who finished next to last and the guy he beat ought to be possible. And so it was, 1:06:05, totally acceptable. If I had been there during the race -- not that that has the slightest appeal -- I might have gone a little faster. I also might have croaked.

Views at the end of the road might have been good, but not today. Hazy, more and more clouds rolling in. Sent off a selfie to Gail, looked around very briefly, maybe a dozen cars in the parking lot, and headed off.

The downhill was cool, of course. My dark blue steed continues to be awesome on such stuff. The arm warmers were now on my arms instead of in a pocket. It all goes by too quickly, of course, but there is always the option of going up again for another trip down. I passed on that.

Back in the car, getting changed, within 5 minutes it had started to rain. By the time I was on my way home it was raining pretty good. Really glad at that point to be off the mountain.

Certainly not a grand adventure. But enough of a challenge that there is some nervousness on starting out, and that is not a bad thing. For today, it seemed just the right amount of adventure for this OF.

With Gail, south of town. Didn't have much lunch, but fortunately I had brought some along.