EdSoehnel.com

On Thursday, I did an out and back ride on my mountain bike this morning. The road was a combination of paved and dirt over 9.2 miles, 1100 feet total elevation gain and 55 minutes long.I only had 1 dog charge out towards me, but it stopped mid-way up its driveway, and it was only a cocker spaniel. A few weeks ago, a few mastifs came out, but they would not proceed past a line, from which I figured it was an electric fence. Good thing for me, as they were big dogs.I keep forgetting to take along some pepper spray, which I really should have. Since we live in the country, people tend to let their dogs run lose and chasing bikers is good entertainment for them.

Image below traces the route with the elevation and my heart rate displayed in the graph

On Tuesday,  training consisted of uphill running intervals with biathlon practice in between and some rock climbing.

Shooting was 50% on target…not at all good, but better than I expected, since this is the first time shooting under heart rate stress in over 2 years. See attached image. Under calm conditions, I have recently been around 80%.

Intervals feel better this week, but still not great. Attached image charts heart rate and speed and I added shooting points and bouldering/climbing session in the graph.

Images below include the target and the speed and my heart rate displayed in the graph.

This past summer was not quite all about working on the new house and property.  I did take some time in outdoor activities.

Biathlon

Since the property did come with a little shooting range on it complete with timbers as a backstop, no doubt I take advantage of that little gem.  I try to get out once per week and usually take my .22 biathlon rifle and do some running and shooting.  Some targets below I scanned for safe-keeping.

From 2009_Misc

From 2009_Misc

From 2009_Misc

Rock Climbing

From 2009_Misc

I’ve owned a pair of rock climbing shows for 20 years. They have never gotten much use. I don’t own other safety equipment, so my rock climbing has always been staying very close to the ground and going horizontal versus vertical (called Bouldering). I really enjoy it and I now do it at least once per week on our big rock chimney. Maybe after I get our main barn repaired, I can build a climbing wall on it.

From 2009_Misc

Local Area

We have not checked out our local area too much for hiking and biking activities. I am slowly building a map of stuff I find via online research. In the future, we’ll start to do more of these activities.



View Local_Points_to_Checkout in a larger map

Weather

I am a weather nut and love Wunderground for all the weather data and maps it puts at our fingertips. We’ve had a very active summer thunderstorm and monsoon season, so its been pretty wild watching storms come rolling through. The house was hit by lightening twice (minor damage the first strike, but after that, we installed lightening rods), we were hit with 1 inch hail in one storm and I saw a tornado funnel cloud. It did not touch down, but was my first tornado experience. I took two images of local area thunderstorm activity from Wunderground. The little black squares represent lightening strikes. The second image shows a storm that was bearing down on our house and the purple triangle represented a tornado signature. The storm veered north and ended up missing us and also weakened.

From 2009_Misc

From 2009_Misc

Rather than work on the house or around the property, which is all I have been doing lately with my spare time outside of work, I took the evening off and did some easy target practice and biking in between shooting sets. Best of all, I did it on a range that is on the east side of our property. Setup up by the previous owners, the range is in a little ravine and there are large timbers for a backstop. Below is my target results.

From 2009_Misc

This was standing only, no prone (lieing down) shooting position. I need to do a little work to setup a nice pad from which to shoot both standing and prone. For biking, I just rode around the paths on the property.

I left early in the morning from home and drove up for a few hours of biathlon practice and skiing. Conditions were mild (-5C / 25F), with light snow, breezy and cloudy. Trail conditions were excellent. I spent time on the biathlon range the first hour, working on my standing position and skiing quick segments around the penalty loop before returning for more range practice. A map is included below of the range and the penalty loop.

View in Google Earth (KMZ file)

View in Google Maps

My accuracy was about 60% overall in the standing position. Photo below of my shot pattern.

From 2009_Misc

Following that, I packed up the range and skied for 45 minutes, which is mapped below. It was pretty difficult skiing for me, not being in very good shape and simply trying to do anything at this altitude. Enjoyable, nonetheless. I took one digger and slid out onto my butt. I was descending in a curvy section that happened to have 2 classic tracks laid out on the center part of this particular trail. As it narrowed, I was trying to avoid the tracks but managed to catch one ski into a track and lost my balance.

Time: 45 minutes.
Avg. Speed: 5.2 mpg.
Device: Garmin Forerunner 205.

View in Google Earth (KMZ File)

View in Google Maps

Since Thanksgiving was our only free day for the long weekend, we decided to head up to Snow Mountain Ranch near Tabernash, CO for a little biathlon practice ,hiking and general enjoyment of the mountains. We brought Jahzara, our Greyhound and she enjoyed running around and stretching her legs out.

Not enough snow to do any X-C skiing or even snow-shoeing, at least at lower elevations (we were at 8700 feet).  Weather was overcast, but very mild (0 C/32 F) and calm.

Biathlon practice was pretty dismal, but expected since its been awhile.  Popped off 120 rounds. Over a few practice runs, I shot 40%, at best, and that was at a resting heart rate.

Photo on left included my opening rounds for adjusting my sight.  I use Federal Gold – my gun seems to like it the best by giving a tighter spread.  Photo on right was my closing rounds (last rounds fired for the day) to check my sight.  I must have I mis-adjusted my sight by the looks of this, which might explain why I was shooting so poorly.

For most of the session, I was using Tennex ammo, which I wanted to use up.  As seen in the photo on the right, it does not produce a tight spread like the Federal Gold.

From 2008_11_27_Biathlon+Hiking_Snow_Mountain

From 2008_11_27_Biathlon+Hiking_Snow_Mountain

The KMZ (Google Earth) file for our putzing around at Snow Mountain is here.

View in Google Maps