Training Log Archive: iansmith

While my performance at this meet was my best at an A-meet, my long race featured a catastrophic error from which I didn't recover. I was tired from the previous races, and my muscles were very sore, which may have contributed to my bad decision. I wasn't moving that quickly, and I had a few bobbles on early controls - a few minutes at 4, for instance. However, I was satisfied with my run given the wear on my body and the difficult footing and swamps to negotiate.

I fundamentally misunderstood the large swamp crossed by the major trail in the middle of the map. There was a parallel, narrower stream a few hundred meters to the south, and for whatever reason, when looking at the map, I treated them as the same feature. En route to 10, I meant to attack after I ran south of the narrow stream, but completely repositioned myself in my head and attacked early - after passing the swamp band. This really confused me, but I did eventually find the control after some confusion. However, I didn't take the time to figure out what was the source of my problem.

Controls 11 through 13 went very well, but on the way to 14, I made the same error, meaning to attack after the narrow stream but instead attacking after wide swamp band. This was completely wrong; I had planned to follow the water feature to 14, but following the edge of the lake north of the wide swamp band lead me back to the major trail. This was my opportunity to correct my error, but I figured I had accidentally turned around and charged into the vegetation on the northeast edge of the lake. I then idiotically followed the edge of the lake for several hundred meters - about a kilometer away from my control. I realized I was in trouble some time later when I saw a house - which was not on the map. I was increasingly frustrated with this problem; I saw a field on a ridge to the north which I thought could be the field to the west of 14. I ran to it and eventually realized I was not where I thought I was. Moving east to relocate on the trail, I saw Joseph Huberman walking Presto near the fire station to the northeast of the start - where the parking was.

I can't describe the shock at seeing Joseph effectively, but I realized that I was both off the map and over 2 kilometers from my control. I decided to go to the control anyway (even though I had wasted about an hour in total) to more accurately figure out my error. I would have finished the course, but I knew the Hubermans were waiting for me before the could start the long drive back to Boston, so I skipped controls 17-20, which were in the same area as controls 11-13.

I'm glad I understand my mistake, but this is easily the largest navigational error I have ever made. It seems appropriate that I would attain so many superlatives at a single meet - my personal best sprint, personal best middle, and personal best catastrophic error.

Blue - Splits

The 2008 North American Orienteering Championships middle distance course. I have a very poor historical record of Middle Distance races at A-meets, with runs at the 2008 US Middle Distance Champs, 2008 West Point meet, 2008 US Team Trials, and the 2008 Canadian Championships.

My first observation of today's race is that this was the best Middle distance course I have ever run. I navigated well to all but one of the controls, and I ran well - though sluggishly - throughout the course. The map was very good, but the control placement was not as good as I had expected for a middle distance and a championship meet. Many of the controls had strong catching features, and there were a few controls where some trail running was the optimal route.

Historically, I have not done very well on middle distance; each of my five previous middles has had at least one major error (> 10 minutes) with the exception of West Point. On this course, I made a very conservative route choice - running to the road on control 2 rather than attacking directly. It was reasonable in the sense that I expect difficult navigation on middle distance, but given that the road was a close catching feature, I should have attacked up the reentrant.

I ran conservatively for the next few controls, but stayed in strong contact through control 12. I overshot control 6 by about twenty meters after going over the hill; I just didn't see the control. I had an unfortunate encounter with a field of stinging nettles en route to control 12.

Another great weakness of mine is encountering other orienteers - especially extremely good orienteers. While I was running on the trail toward 12, I saw Eddie Bergeron approach from the south. I was ahead of him, had great contact, and had chosen a good attack to the control, so I pushed my pace and beat him to 12. I saw it about 20 meters before the flag, even though it apparently was in the wrong place. However, because I was trying not to think about Eddie, I hadn't considered my route to 13, which was one of the more complex legs. Eddie took off, and I considered it unethical to follow him. So, I ran in the same direction, but slower than Eddie; I lost sight of him after perhaps 90 seconds and had no idea where I was. I relocated off the plateau south of the control and probably only lost 2-3 minutes.

Areas to improve: reading the map quickly and efficiently, running endurance and speed, encountering other orienteers (hopefully pursuing them), and route simplification.

Blue - Splits

Event: North American Championships
 

The NAOC Red/Blue Sprint Final. The technical difficulty of this sprint was low - somewhere between yellow and orange level for most of the sprint. From the preliminary sprint, I gleaned that the fastest route typically was taking roads and trails rather than pushing through green or even open woods, but I did make at least one route "error" where I traveled directly rather than taking the road (from 14 to 15).

In general, my only criticism of my run was that I was too slow. Sprints thus far have been my forte; of the courses, my sprints have the smallest percentage difference between my performance and that of elite runners. Unfortunately, my training was not up to the day's 5.6 km of all out sprinting.

I believe that with a bit more running over the past 10 days, I could have pushed my time to 21 minutes or less, but that's all fruitless conjecture. In general, I was pleased with my run given the difficulty of the course.

My biggest errors were a slow route choice from 5 to 6 (I ran south along the green to the trail, but I think pushing through the green would have been faster), choosing to travel directly from 14 to 15 rather than going north to the road, and overshooting control 24 by about twenty meters.

Warmup before the sprint final. I felt a bit tight after the preliminary round and the long cool period, so I ran considerably more than earlier in the day at a very gentle pace. Brendan and some other runners were also warming up about this time.

The 2008 NAOC Sprint preliminary course. I think I have a more liberal definition of "spiking" a control than most based on comparative statistics of other orienteers near my level. I define a spike as approaching a control and finding it exactly where I expect it to be. I suppose I often include errors of order 20 meters within a spike - say for instance I came over a hill expecting to see a control in front of me and it was to my left. There isn't a large space of approaches between my definition of a spike and an error, which I suppose I should amend in future logs.

Anyway, this was my best sprints to date relative to the field. I had one significant, 30-second error approaching 4 because I hadn't really planned for it. The first three controls were so easy that I was not planning ahead as aggressively as I should have. That noted, there were really only two faster routes - I charged directly at 4 through the green and hit the larger clearing about thirty meters east of the control. I spent about fifteen seconds hunting through the green for the smaller clearing and found I had moved too far to the north.

Apart from that mistake, a few seconds lost looking for 5 and a moderately poor route choice at 8, the run went about as well as it could have. I started to fatigue, but my average speed was acceptable. With the exception of Erik Nystrom's 10:30, the leaders finished at just over 11 minutes. The navigational difficulty of this course was very low, but a delta of 20% is acceptable at present.

This was also the first time I have ever beaten Brendan (by 3 seconds), who went into this course expecting more navigational difficulty and didn't push his speed as much as he could have. I need to focus on running faster and on making quick route choice decisions in sprint conditions, especially with more challenging navigation than what this course and location presented.

Warmup before the preliminary sprint. Legs felt stiff.

Sprint Red/Blue Final - Splits

Sprint Red/Blue Preliminary - Splits

I started my workout with a 15 minute warm up on a stationary bike at my gym. It was relatively uneventful, primarily because stationary bikes are incredibly boring. I started at what felt like a comfortable pace, though it seems to have been faster than I intended for a warm up. I suspect the bike may have been miscalibrated.

I continued my workout with a weight training sequence, with the following (not necessarily orthogonal) components:

- curling
- squatting
- quadriceps machines
- lateral raises
- abdominal and core exercises
- pullups
- lunges

Yeah. One of my favorite exercises is an abdominal contraption where your upper body stays stationary while your legs swing up during exertion. The exercise is demanding, but not as strenuous or painful (for me) as crunches or leg lifts, so I can repeat 50 times in a set readily. Abdominal exercise is not one of my fortes, though I think this is more due to my weight than to weak abs.