Training Log Archive: iansmith

Attackpoint is a powerful training tool. It enables thorough analysis of training activities, identifies patterns and trends, and stores useful information, like splits, gps tracks, distances, and paces. It has had an invaluable impact on my life much like orienteering has become increasingly more important to me. But in its most important role, attackpoint is a community.

Orienteering has proven itself to be a great way to make friends. The people are amiable, interesting, and encouraging. That the community is small can be an advantage - it's easy to know a majority of the individuals racing at a local meet or an A-meet. I see many of the friends I have made through orienteering seldom, but attackpoint enables feedback and some measure of interaction. Perhaps that interaction is a motivating force for the complexity of many discussion threads on AP - the notion of interacting, dialog, and exchange is appealing.

I hope and trust that the next few years will be at least as wonderful as the past few have been. To everyone who has impacted my life in some way through orienteering: I thank you with the fullest measure of sincerity (unless you're a Canadian).

C • You should thank Canadians more! 13

Given that I was planning on going on an evening run, I checked in with Lori to see if Presto had gotten his daily exercise. She had decided to take a day off after her bike ride, so I stopped by her apartment to pick him up. As we departed, he urgently scampered to the yard in front of the building to urinate, then moved to go back into the apartment. While I took several detours to pass over grass and dirt, Presto decided a sidewalk at an intersection was the optimal place to defecate. After a lackluster start, he brightened up a bit after I did some strides and we passed a flock of geese. And, for unexplained reasons, after we cross Mem Drive to the inland side and started going north at Western Ave, he broke into a run. I estimate the pace was somewhere around 4:30 / mile. I let him run a bit before reining him in. While running with a dog demands some attention I would otherwise expend musing on life and interesting problems, it is pleasant.

My right calf has a bit of a twinge; I will treat it gingerly leading up to the ARDF Champs this weekend.