Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Hung controls and put out water in various places. Got hailed on, too, as a bonus. Several cows came around and started chasing me, but I was brave and told them to go away, and they did. They were probably the cows that have been feasting on my streamers.

Sometimes timing is everything. I headed out to run intervals in between thunderstorms (I think 4 rolled through this afternoon), and had just started on my first one when a truck appeared up ahead, I could see it gradually slowing down as we got closer, which is not unusual. Most drivers are courteous enough to slow down when passing someone out here on a dirt road. But then it kept on slowing down as we got really close, enough so that I suspected the driver wanted to stop to ask or say something, and just as I was thinking that, I noticed an orienteering sticker. It was Clint. So, our first Daze arrival, at least the first I know about.

Unfortunately, a new round of rain caught up to me before I got finished, and while I didn't mind the moistening so much, several bolts of lightning within a few thousand feet of me provided an extra amount of excitement that I had not been planning on. At least it didn't hail, also.

Test ran The Unfair Race, and I was surprised at how little unfairness I discovered along the way. It was a lot of fun, though I wish there were more mushrooms. That's probably the only way it could have been any better.

Feeling sympathetic for those poor blokes living in the midwest, because of how warm it has been there.

But not too sympathetic. For one, if you choose to live in a place where it can get really warm, well, it's your choice. Live with it. And, for another, it's not like other places don't get warm, too. For instance, here at 7:30 a.m., it was already an oppressive 58F, as opposed to being down in the lower 40s like it should be. I was wondering how we might get through the rest of the day. But, we'll manage, somehow. What other good choice is there? Complaining won't help. Just have to HTFU and git on with it.

Luckily, 58F is also the predicted high for the day.

I was working on printing maps for The Unfair Race today, and things were going well, and I had about half the maps done and was reading sonnets online by Jimi Hendrix or whatever the hell it was I was doing. And then things weren't going well. There was a sudden, very bad noise from my printer, and when I looked over to see what was going on, what was going on was the printer was on fire! I didn't even know that was possible!!

So I yanked the power cord out of the wall socket, and grabbed the still flaming printer (the flames weren't very big) and ran outside and threw the thing onto the driveway out front. And then thought: now what?

Tough times call for tough measures, and I looked down at my hands and said: "Boys, it's up to you now." Nothing to do but hand draw the remaining maps with my mapping pencils, and while it took nearly 8 hours of steady work and intense concentration, I got done:



Then I immediately headed out to hit the trails at Happy Jack, which put me in a vastly better frame of mind, even though it was raining.

C • Half 5

Rain threatened in the afternoon, with various very dark rain clouds lingering in different directions, waiting, waiting to swoop in. But when I went running in the late afternoon, the clouds sat still and I never felt anything more than the smallest droplet of moisture. It was actually ideal. Since it *had* rained earlier, enough to dampen down the trail dust and to keep the voracious cattle mostly mollified.

Met Sheryl, Steve, and a friend of theirs out at Area 307 so I could hand over some vetting maps, and then I ran through all the controls to check streamers and re-streamer as necessary. Because of the depredations of young calves, it was necessary to re-streamer a good many controls. It helped that I had two sets of streamers at most controls--blue and pink--and it was very clear the cows much preferred the pink streamers. Could it be some kind of a political statement? Hard to know with cows.

The more I run out there, the more convinced I am it's quite a special area--really fun orienteering with a great amount of variation in a relatively compact area. We'll see soon enough what others think!

Avoided grass seeds but not the carnivorous cattle, by running intervals w/ some steep hills afterwards. Luckily the cattle apparently weren't feasting today.

Toasty and very close to a record high for the date.

Got all the map packets for the One Cowboy Relay, so another major task crossed off the list.