Training Log Archive: BorisGr

I am really struggling right now. I've had a lot of injuries before, and many of them got me down because I couldn't run or orienteer - things that I love doing. But the current bout of back pain is debilitating enough that running and orienteering are not on my mind at all - I really want to be able to stand and walk and sleep without being in a large degree of pain. It's really messing with my head and making me grumpier and more easily angered than I want to be. I'm getting an MRI on Tuesday to see if the conclusion that I have a collapsed disk between the L5 and S1 vertebra, combined with foraminal stenosis, is correct. If that's the diagnosis, then it is likely that there is very little that physical therapy or other conservative methods can do until I am in less pain. But I can't be in less pain without doing something about it, so it seems like some sort of vicious cycle. Anyway, sorry for the rant, but if I can't do that on my own AP log, then what is it good for??

C • Pain 15

Slightly longer intervals on the recumbent bike at work. Very sweaty. The walk to and from the gym was very painful.

Couldn't sleep, so went down to the gym to burn off some energy on the recumbent bike. Did intervals, 10x3 minutes, while watching Lawrence of Arabia.

Event: Raccoongaine
 

Event: US Individual Championships (M/L/S)
 

Teleworking thanks to the citywide metro shutdown. Went to the gym at the end of the day.

C • Metro shutdown 3

Some intervals on the crosstrainer bike, 6x3 minutes. Felt hard. Started on a five-day course of prednizone today. Last year they did not help the back, so I have no reason to believe they will help this year, either, but I feel like I need to exhaust all options before turning to a surgeon.

Lunchtime biking at the LOC gym.

Event: QOC Lake Needwood
 

Barnacle and I walked the Brown course at QOC's local event at Lake Needwood, which is the northernmost section of Rock Creek Park. It was a nice little area, with a decent map, which, for some reason featured 20ft contours. No real time losses this time, except for not seeing the flag at #1, and stopping at water controls to let Barney drink.

My back muscles were really tight on the early climbs, but then loosened up.

I got handily beaten by Lennon x 2, so my quest for a walking win of the Brown course continues.

This event also featured a massive Russian-speaking contingent. They took over a picnic shelter and had lots of food, drinks, and activity during the event. A couple of the kids seem to be interested in getting competitive, so I will see if I can gradually get them interested in training for O.

Also, Alli not only had a good run on Green, but also helped out with e-punch. We are both enjoying getting involved with QOC more and more.

C • Yay, epunch!!! 2

Brown - Splits

Bike at the gym. In addition to watching some EPL, I saw a fragment of Rock of Ages, which was epically terrible.

Another bike session, this one at the Library of Congress gym at lunchtime.

My doctor told me that it's good for the back to be active, doing things that don't hurt, so I made a triumphant return to the recumbent bike at our gym.

Event: QOC Wheaton
 

Barnacle and I walked the Brown course at QOC's event at Wheaton. I went without a compass to make this more challenging. Things were going well, and we even had a nice head-to-head matchup going with DVOA's Rob Wilkison, when I saw that Barney was limping and not putting any weight on one of his paws. I freaked out a bit, half-dragged, half-carried him out to a trail and then inspected him to find a huge thorn lodge right in the middle of a toe pad. I pulled it out, the beast licked the wound for a few seconds, and we were on our way again. In the process, though, I managed to completely lose direction, which led to a massive mistake on #7. Gotta keep concentration even when the unexpected happens!

We ended up 2nd on Brown, but top beagle.

Unfortunately, my back is no closer to feeling good again, so not much running for me in the foreseeable future.

Brown - Splits

I spent this past weekend organizing a junior training camp at Prince William Forest in Virginia. I am writing this down here as a way to remember things that went well and things that can be improved on for last year. If anyone has any comments/suggestions, please post them here or feel free to email them to me.

What started out as an add-on to QOC's regular training for its adult members turned, quite unexpectedly, into a massive production running parallel to the adult training. I had expected to get maybe 15 kids from my Mid-Atlantic Junior Regional Team plus another handful who were not team members. Instead, we ended up with around 70 juniors doing some or all of the camp.

This included several large groups a couple of JROTC teams, a boy scout troop, and the FUMA cadets. All these groups had vastly different levels of ability and some of them signed up quite late in the game, after the exercises had been designed and streamers hung.

As a result, I decided that I needed to split the kids up into groups by ability and recruit coaches to help with each group, as well as non-coaching adults to help with logistics, such as making sure all the kids started each exercise and came back from the woods in one piece.

My team of coaches was amazing. Thank you to everyone! Hannah, Kevin, Kseniya, Nadya, Chris, Alli, Jon C, Tori, Wyatt, Angelica all helped with coaching. Jan and Mitch helped with control hanging and with looking for lost juniors. Videlin was seemingly everywhere, hanging and picking up controls, retrieving lost orienteers, and so on. Carl Muench was great at keeping the FUMA and Patuxent kids organized and providing endless support throughout the weekend. Tom N, Will H, and Kseniya all helped with control pick-up. Valerie and Amy were amazing at getting e-punch going early on Sunday to make sure the kids could get started early. Dasa stepped in to do registration early on Sunday, though I had failed to communicate the need to her. Jon Torrance was everywhere throughout the process, making sure the weekend ran well for both the kids and the regular QOC members. Diana Todd took on my group of absolute beginners and did a great job with them.

And obviously, the food team, led by Florence Tan in absentia, was outstanding. So an enormous thanks for making this the most gourmet orienteering camp ever to Shirley, Mary, Tom, Bob, Florence's parents, and Carl Muench's wife (whose name I forgot), who worked tirelessly throughout the weekend.

Alli, in addition to coaching the beginner group of juniors, kept me sane throughout the weekend and took on every task that came up.

I'm sure I am forgetting someone, and I am sorry for that. But the point is, I was very lucky to have an amazing team of volunteers this weekend. Thank you to all of you!!

Now, the details. Things that went well:

1) Organizing juniors into groups by ability was a good thing, given a camp this large.

2) Having a team of competent coaches made things run much more smoothly.

3) Food. Simply outstanding. The decision to move the junior lunch on Sunday outside was brilliant.

4) Weather. Couldn't have been better.

5) Team spirit. I think the juniors really enjoyed themselves and got a lot out of the camp, at all levels. In particular, though, this felt like the first time that my Regional Team kids really interacted and hung out together. That made me happy. They are good kids. It's fun to be around them, and to watch them get excited about the sport I love.

6) Control placement. I think only 1 out of the 60+ streamers we put out was reported as mishung, and naturally, that was one that I put out. It was off by about 25 meters.

7) Accommodations. The cabins were great.

8) Guest course setters. We had exercises designed by Thierry Gueorgiou and Mats Troeng. How cool is that??

Things that could have been better, in no particular order:

1) Assigning adults to different groups of juniors. With the notable exceptions of Carl M and Dasa, the rest of the non-coaching adults assigned to help keep track of juniors either just walked away from the task or decided to go out on the course (and get lost) instead of waiting for the juniors at the finish.

2) Explaining the level of the camp to the groups ahead of time. I specifically advertised the camp as being for juniors who have completed an Orange course by themselves. When we got there on Saturday, it turned out we had some juniors who had never orienteered before, and a number who had done 1-2 White courses. I was admittedly unprepared for this, and should have had a real beginner version of each exercise available. Moreover, the group leaders often did not know their kids' experience levels, and some kids were misplaced from the start. I think the best way to deal with this may be to start off the camp with some sort of "sorting" course for everyone, that would give me a true idea of everyone's ability.

3) Compatibility with the regular QOC training. I think the fact that the regular QOC adult training was happening in parallel to the junior training caused some confusion, at least on the part of the adults. I think this can be fixed through much clearer descriptions on the QOC website ahead of time.

4) Payment. We never made it clear that the QOC night race and local event had separate fees associated with them. This confused some of the groups. I think in the future, these should be included in a single camp package fee.

5) Difficulty of Sunday morning courses. Taken by themselves, they were fine courses. But since I planned to have a second training, I should have made it clear to the juinors to run a course they can complete in a maximum of 90 minutes. Or possibly designed a simpler "Intermediate" and "Advanced" courses for them that would take less time to complete than the QOC Orange and Brown.

6) My physical state. If my back wasn't in excruciating pain all weekend, I'd have been able to hang and collect a lot more controls and would ease the burden on the other volunteers.

7) Terrain. Happyland camp is in a pretty green and physical part of Prince William Forest. Running here once or even twice during a weekend is fine, but doing it five times really drains you. I'd love to have this camp with access to some friendlier terrain, like the part where I set my relay courses. Maybe, if we have to be at Happyland, next year we can bus people to a different part of the park for a one-way training that finishes at Happyland.

8) Level of exercises. As I mentioned earlier, I think I should have a very easy version of each of the exercises available. That would help things a great deal in the event of a large group of inexperienced juniors showing up.

I am sure there are more things. Please add some if you can think of any!!
All in all, I think the weekend went well, and I hope we can have more of these in the future. Thanks to QOC for making it happen!

C • Sounds Epic 26

C • Incredible 1