SlimCache

A little something new. For the blog and for me personally. I've not paid all that much attention to the natural world in my life. But since becoming more active in outdoor pursuits I've started making efforts toward learning about my surroundings. The first shock to my system was an experience in North Yarmouth in July of last year. It was impossible to overlook the sheer quantity of wild mushrooms along the trail, and with a little research I found out more about the peak mushroom season, foraging, and the mushroom 'guru' the trail was named after, Sam Ristich.

An opportunity to continue my growth as a naturalist presented itself midweek last week when my company posted a volunteering opportunity to it's internal web page. It was somewhat vague, mentioning that it was a study on vernal pools, and that the volunteers should be good with a map and comfortable in the woods. What could this possibly lead to? I had to check it out. Turns out several towns in Maine are working with some University of Maine professors and Maine Audubon to research potential vernal pools, either confirming them as such by cataloging the presence of indicator species, or de-listing them so the landowner may use that space for development without stepping on a local habitat. The indicator species are the wood frog (pictured), blue spotted and spotted salamanders, and the very rare fairy shrimp.

I learned all this at my first training Monday night. The talk was extremely thorough and I feel energized about going into this project. One of the towns participating in the research is only a few miles from home so that's a big plus. I think I will mostly be counting egg sacs. (Really when they pitched it they made it sound more interesting then when I say it.) I'll be required to provide digital photo documentation. Also, one of the organizers said these towns really love GPS data so my Vista HCx should come in handy.

The next training session is a little ways off but I'll keep you updated as I hear more. I'm just really excited for the opportunity to get out there, get a little dirty, and learn from some of the most qualified people I can learn from. I don't know how often opportunities like this come up, but I would like to work on more projects like this in the future. If you ever have the chance to do so, I highly recommend it. More to come.

It's been a strong week. I'm pretty proud of the fact that I ran the most miles I've run in one week to date last week. 17.1 miles is one long run for the marathoners I follow, but for me it's a pretty big deal. I'm really enjoying logging my workouts on Buckeye Outdoors. There are some handy features there including my full week in summary which I'm consulting while writing this. In looking at previous months I'm seeing an improvement in my average pace by about 30 seconds per mile in the last month. The tools over at Buckeye are helping immensely, and I can't wait to talk to Ben on Runners Round Table. Should be fun.

I'm also real excited about tomorrow's weigh-in. Nothing's official yet of course, but I stepped on the scale this evening to see where I stand going in. I'm down 2 pounds from last week's numbers, and I'm not going to gain weight overnight, so I figure I'm golden for tomorrow morning. No stall this week. Maybe I'm onto something by forgoing the celebratory beers every Sunday evening. I was likely doing myself a disservice. Well let's not get crazy. Maybe just one beer tomorrow night instead of five.

*Shrug* Oh wells. At least it's not a gain. I can definitely pinpoint some things I did wrong this week, or even the last few. Every week lately when I get on the scale and see a loss I feel it's a reason to celebrate. Since I've always heard that most successful diets include one indulgent day, I've been celebrating on the evenings after my weigh in. Call it a reward for the previous week's hard efforts. I tend to go overboard though. Last week it was Victory's Golden Monkey Tripel and Thai food. It seems to put me at a disadvantage going into the next week though, and so I think I've decided to lay off the beer this week and see where that gets me. I'd rather not spend the better part of the week bailing out from the damage I did over the weekend.

There is some good news to share though. Even with this weeks stall, I'm 3 pounds ahead of my goal set for this week, and I have 8 more weigh ins to lose 9.6 pounds. That's not an unreasonable goal. I just have to plan and execute, something I haven't been doing lately. I only put in two workouts this week as a raging cold tore through my house leaving the crumpled forms of my family members in it's wake. It caught up with me at the beginning of this weekend, though not as severe thankfully.

I mentioned in last week's post that I would be putting in some time with The Runners Round Table. It's confirmed. I'll be contributing to an episode in mid-March on creating, sharing, and selecting routes by GPS and sites like BuckeyeOutdoors. Creator of Buckeye, superheroben, will be joining the Round Table discussion. Should be fun. See you there.

Starting weight : 315 lbs. Last week : 224.6 lbs. This week : 224.6 lbs. Since previous weigh in : 0 lbs. Total weight loss : 90.4 lbs

Snowshoeing is certainly nothing new, but new to me. Today I tried it for the first time and found that I absolutely love it. Thanks to my company's wonderful health and wellness department I attended an hour long workshop of sorts introducing me to the sport. Afterward I had to fight off the urge to go out and buy a new set of shoes on the spot.

It was a relatively short jaunt, probably only about a mile, behind our warehouse. We wound around a short walking path, across the train tracks, and into a nearby field where clay shooting and other outdoor discovery programs are held. The snow was deep and untouched along the path. I felt terribly awkward as I clumsily punched through the crusty snow. My form needs work. A few of the attendees were experienced in the sport, and were a massive help to this noob. They told me to shorten my stride, widen my stance, lift my knees more, and brace for my footfall thereby softening my impact. It's a somewhat different motion to get accustomed to, but I think with more experience I could get it down.

I realized that this could be extremely liberating. I knew there was a trail there, somewhere underneath the foot of snow, but the trail no longer mattered. The trail is now everywhere. The idea of a trail somehow now seems limiting. With this new tool I can blaze my own trail.