Training Log Archive: Tundra/Desert

Flew out to LGA, took Metro North to Peekskill and a cab to Blue Mountain. Some sleep.
Got in time for the 2nd training session of the day: shadowing younger juniors. Jeff handed me a 15-year-old kid named Michael Sandstrom who'd been orienteering for 6 months. Off we went on an Orange course (2.9 km straight-line). The first leg involved a slight-uphill run on a forest road for about 600 m, then attack a hill from a road junction. As we ran on the road, I went superlactic in about a minute and anaerobic after about 2.5 minutes. We promptly missed the attack point but recovered in no time, and nailed the bag after a furious uphill scramble. The downhill to the next control was equally furious, with Michael jumping over downed trees at more than half of his height. The run continued in the same key until the end, the intensity only tapering down slightly. My only chance at surviving the exercise were Michael's map-reading breaks. The kid is going to be something. We passed many shadower/shadowee pairs, some multiple times.
Splits for future reference (you never know): 5:28 2:00 4:25 1:42 2:48 1:38 1:48 2:03 4:30 1:21 1:00 0:52 (Michael was 0:47).

We ran to Depew Park from the lodge, to warm up for the mile. The mile was the third training session on this Saturday.

The Jr Camp mile. Started well; thought it was too fast but it wasn't. Had to pass bomfunk shortly after the start. Boris and Ross made way upfront after the first 200, and I never had a chance of catching either one. Sandstrom held on for most of the first lap. On the second lap, I started to feel the earlier "interval"session, and slowed down dramatically, to about VO_2max pace. William was more than 5 seconds ahead after the 2nd lap. The third lap was no better. On the last lap, however, it all came together, and I almost caught up with William, finishing fourth.
The splits were inaccurate because whoever was taking results at the finish line also had a transmitter which blocked out the interface on mine. Still: 76 81 82 76, for the total of 5:15.0 (total is accurate).
I am tempted to say that the 76 is my "real" lap pace for the mile. The mile is run with a substantial dip into one's anaerobic energy reserves, which are limited. One of my books has plots that show that the total amount of VO₂ equivalent of one's anaerobic capacity is constant, regardless of race duration. You can use it all on the first lap and slow down after, or you can distribute it all through the race for even splits. In my case, I'm tempted to say that I used about half of it an hour earlier, chasing Sandstrom, and only mustered 81.5 per lap for the middle two laps because 81.5 is close to my fully-aerobic pace.
Given all that, I postulate that Vdot = 57 (time for 57 is 5:11). It has not improved since last month, which is reasonable given two rest weeks.
The heart felt totally fine for this session and the previous ones.

Back to the lodge from the track.

The morning sessions were followed by Richard Blom's presentation on technical training. Typical Swedish stuff. There were two things in the presentation that most people would agree with, and I think they need serious re-examination. One was the following statement:

"Main reason for mistakes: Running speed exceeds navigational capacity."

I agree with what Mr. Blom wanted to say, in some sense. Most coaches would endorse this. But as I start thinking about it, here's what I get. Speed is an easily measurable number; meters per second. What is navigational capacity? How comes we have an inequality (one thing greater than another), and we don't even know what the dimensions are on the right-hand side?

The "navigational capacity" would more properly be described as "the maximum speed at which you can perform navigational tasks". But then, the fallacy comes out. You can complicate the problem on hand and put yourself through too many nav tasks, or you can simplify and face less objects that come out at you per unit time and you have to interpret, hence increasing your maximum-correct-nav speed. Furthermore, Mr. Blom seemed to have futher defined the "navigational capacity" as running at a speed at which you have 100% knowledge of where you are. But why do you need 100%? Can't you reasonably expect to fulfil the task with some other percentage, dependent on the nav regime (coarse/fine), of course, say 70% confidence for coarse and 98% for fine? You'll be taking risks over the length of the course, but the chance that they go against you is small.

The reason I don't like the wording is that the most natural response one would have to the logical question, "How do I reduce my mistakes?" would seem to be "Reduce speed", and it shouldn't be. Increasing the speed at which you can navigate with some confidence that you are happy with is the right answer. The other thing he said was

"Be a `There I go!' orienteer, instead of a `Here I am...' orienteer."

This is sort of true for people for whom a proactive style works. I am one of those for whom it is not the best. For me, `Here I am...' works out just fine. But even if the task were to coach everyone to become a proactive orienteer, regardless of her natural perceptive framework, then `Here I am...' must come first. In other words, instead of "instead of", the above postulate should say "in addition to". Making grand plans ahead and visualizing isn't worth squat if you don't have a well-trained skill of working out where you are, based on the information around you.

I hope this makes sense.

I did, however, feel the redeye, and also the possibility that the heart would not feel so fine if I did yet another training session. I thus passed on the fourth session of the day, Contour Line-O; I only helped Alexei set controls for it. I walked for that. I could see that the run would be technically hard.

People were so wasted that they passed on the last (5th) session of the day, Map Memory-O. Most sat around playing cards instead, while the die-hards, Ken and William, went out for some night-O. Afterwards, we were scheduled to "see Peter run", but instead, watched a bad video of the 2001 JWOC (with a cheap-porn soundtrack to boot), and a much better O.MOV, the latter probably for 27483492th time for most juniors.
Since the first video showed an interview with Andrej Khramov (1999 and 2001 JWOC winner), I put his 2002 5 km track time up on the whiteboard. Some dropped jaws there.

One of my teeth broke. Because of this, my heart troubles, and other stuff, I skipped food for 48 hours (Tue night to Thu night). Felt generally better on Thu evening than early this week. Did not do any running.

Missed the #23 at Wolfe and Stevens Creek, so ran home (in work clothes and with pack). Felt fine.

Even walking this morning to get breakfast, I still fell like the brain was not getting enough oxygen. Sitting around was the only task that felt fine.

Home to Fair Oaks and El Camino, then back with some groceries.

Helped Penny and Harold all day at the BAOC "rogaine". Did not run because I was not feeling well enough even for a 4-hour. Went to pick up controls afterwards. This was a run up the hill on a road. As I was going up, I felt progressively worse.

I picked up controls at Briones. Started out with some jogging, and changed to mostly walking—rogaine pace, partly to figure out the possible pace in the terrain and to find out whether it was possible to get them all. Felt gradually worse and after about 25 minutes, I got a feeling, for the first time in the history of this particular ailment, that I may possibly expire right there at that moment, near Control #31, on a pretty oak-covered hill among the meadows, overlooking San Pablo Bay and Martinez. It felt like the brain was not getting enough oxygen, and like the heart was about to go arrythmic at any moment (it didn't).
I walked the rest of the control pick-up, never feeling much better than at that worst moment.