Training update

I’ve been trying to fly every chance I get, which means lots of pre-sunrise mornings and late nights and one tired old lady. I’m trying to muster up all the grit I have and just do the work. The hot, sticky, early-morning work.

Yesterday I got to join a little cross-country flight down at my training grounds in Lake Wales. It’s cow country down there (about two hours south) so there are lots of cleared fields, which means lots of what we call ‘outs,’ which are emergency landing areas. Up here where I live, it’s mostly trees which, as you can imagine, would not make for a safe or fun landing.

So after a slight alarm-clock malfunction, I woke up an hour late to make the 2-hour drive down to Lake Wales. Whoops. I made it just in time to join five other pilots.

{You can click each image to enlarge.}

Sunrise! Something I’m seeing a lot of lately.

One of my instructors, Jon, led the group. When we’d get too dispersed, he’d let off a little smoke so we could all see where to rally back around to the pack.

A couple of my fellow xc-ers.

Mid-race fuel. #rungum {Side note: Kyler – my husband(!) is a RunGum ambassador and you can get $5 off with this link: i.refs.cc/DIG25JHY. It’s great for times when you want an energy drink but not the potential digestive issues that come with it. I can’t exactly skip to a bathroom easily from 1,000 feet in the air.}

In addition to cow fields, this area of Florida has a lot of what I think is phosphate mining.

It makes for some very strange terrain.

As we got closer to our planned landing site, it was a bit cloudier than I was comfortable with, and I realized I had no idea what the plan was once we got there. I knew I had enough fuel to make it back to our starting point, and I wanted to practice navigating and flying by myself so I left the group early.

In total I flew 50 miles in a bit under 2 hours and had about 1/3 a tank of gas left — a far cry from the 25-mile, 2.5-hour first leg of Icarus X on a full tank! Once everyone else made it back we got to hang out for a bit, which was awesome because I’ve been getting a little worn down by all the lonely training at my home flying spot.

This was the longest flight I’d done since the March race, so now I’m super energized again for the big race! I just like to go far, man.

Want to help me race Icarus?

Posted by Lara Kjeldsen in training