Monthly Archives: August 2021

Blues skies and Ester Dome PRs after 1.5″ of rain

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After several days of rain in Fairbanks, the SCUM were delighted to find blue skies on Ester Dome. There are no photos of the climb since Bernardo and Bill were moving WAY too fast. Bernardo had just returned from Palm Springs where it had been 109 deg F, so it was 70 deg cooler when we started climbing at 9 a.m from St. Pat’s. Seeing as Bernardo has absolutely no body fat, his “strolling” gait overtook all of us. Meanwhile, Bill was on a mission to get his ascent time under 50 minutes and achieved that by chasing Bernardo.

Bernardo and Bill in shorts had seasonal PRs on their Ester Dome ascents

After Bernardo was duly reprimanded for not using his poles correctly, we asked Robert Hannon to demonstrate good technique. Robert was just returning to action after being on the SCUM disabled list for a painful hip. Here’s his demo with his right leg:

and his not-quite-so perfect left side:

The SCUM were impressed by the cloud formations in the valley below us:

Awesome clouds below

before switching to conversations about state politics. Mom stopped to take photos of our more interesting local surroundings:

Robert urging Mom to hurry up

All of us agreed that the workout was amazing and even for those of us who fell short of making a seasonal PR, the effort, company, and beauty made the effort worthwhile.

The gray cars driven by the gray haired and bearded SCUM

Soaked SCUM ascend FWW ski hill 5 times

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With recent record high temperatures now in the rear view mirror, the SCUM decided to start August off with 5 ascents of the Fort Wainwright alpine hill.

Of course, SCUM being SCUM, Dan Johnson queried when the “rock rucking” would begin. For those of you not familar with rucking, here is the definitive source that Dan provided:

https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/the-benefits-of-rucking/

Not wanting anyone to question his manliness, Bill “rock rucked” 2 of his 5 ascents. Here is Bill near the top of his first “rock ruck” ascent:

Bill with his 25.2 pound rucksack (weighed post workout with extra rain included)

Meanwhile, Dan Johnson, a late arrival to the workout, appeared with raincoat as we were making our third ascent.

Here’s a view of the two soaked SCUM making their 5th ascent (Dan, with raincoat is making his second or third climb):

Bill and Carl finishing their 5th ascent; Dan in raincoat did 2.5 ascents?

After Don Norris ran past us on Beacon Road during his lunch break from work, we knew we couldn’t be crazy to be training in the steady rain. Here’s proof that we made it back to the Birch Hill parking lot intact:

Dan in rain coat is the only smiling SCUM after our 5 ascents of FWW in the rain–photo by Bill Husby

Here’s documentation that Carl Hemming, Bill Husby, and I did our 5 ascents:

Mother SCUM’s HRM trace showing 5 ascents plus partial ascent to urge on the other soaked SCUM

The Polar Vantage M data also showed that we did 960 m of ascent (for comparison, Ester Dome from St. Pat’s Road to Ullerhaven is about 520 m of climb); 12.0 km of distance, and burned 1083 kcal even without carrying the rock.

Ruck on —photo by Dan Johnson