Training Log Archive: iansmith

Day 1 of the UNO Boulderdash A-meet, a classic race. The course had many linear features, and technical races are not my strengths. Overall, I moved well and aggressively; through control 11, I was only 4:30 behind Brendan. I fatigued on the long uphill leg to control 12, and lost about ten minutes relative to what I'm ideally capable of in the last 3.5 km. I spent 42 minutes on these last legs.

In a tragically amusing result, I finished 16 seconds behind Emily (who was sick). While I had hoped to beat her, such a close result is significantly better than my usual performance. Ross crushed the field with a 72 minute result - six minutes faster than Sergei. I beat some of my usual targets, like Jeremy Colgan and Nick Lewis-Walls.

Good results: I had good flow and process during the race. I made generally good decisions, and my errors, while nontrivial, were not severe and were exacerbated by fatigue rather than technical incompetence.

Areas to improve: I still lack the vitality to push hard throughout a race. I moved strongly on the trail legs - controls 9 and 10 - but either consequently or independently lacked energy to push as hard afterward. My technical skills are not strong enough to compete at the highest level, and I still am not sufficiently good at synthesizing pertinent information from a map. I do not do well navigating in the absence of obvious features, and my two worst legs - controls 13 and 14 - were among the most technical.

I was tentative and hesitant at times on the first eight controls, but my only errors of note were on the second control (moving through rough open, I drifted left) because I was not yet into the map and on the eighth control, when I made a poor route choice decision and went right to the field. My route to control 3 was not very good.

I attacked control 12 via the rock wall on the edge of the map, which was safe and fast. I should have pushed more aggressively, and a straighter route rather than one that went directly to the wall would have been faster. On control 13, I navigated on the side of the hill poorly, overshot, and relocated off the top of the hill. On control 14, I checked off cliffs and contour features to the trail, but somehow drifted about 80 meters right. I pinpointed myself off a big boulder in a reentrant, but clearly my compass work and reading of less obvious features needs work.

Additional remarks in the split comments. Controls I failed to spike were 2, 7, 8, 13 and 14.

Warm up and run to the start. I arrived at the start well in advance of my start, so I had lots of time to prepare.

Picking up eight controls near the start. I was out about fifty minutes, but I was only moving for the time logged.

Blue day 1 - Splits

Event: UNO Boulder Dash
 

UNO Sprint - 1 second behind Emily Kemp.

My default easy run - a loop through Porter, Harvard and Inman Squares. Uneventful. This week has been very trying, which has had an adverse effect on my training.

My halfhearted efforts to get down to 170 lbs will continue to be fraught with failure if this deli down the street from my office continues to serve excellent rice pilaf.

Alex's Training plan notes from the car ride back from the ROC meet:

Goal pyramid:
Absurd dream goal: Top 20 at WOC
Requires -> Final at WOC
Requires -> International Experience
Requires -> US WOC Team
Requires -> Team Trials top 3
Requires -> Ranking points > 90
Requires -> Training

Technical weaknesses:
1. Assimilate info - simplifying, reading on the go
2. Route Choice
3. Reading ahead
4. Relating map to terrain
Strengths:
1. Seeing map in head
2. Traveling in a straight line
3. Compass/sense of direction
4. Process/planning ahead
5. Analytical

Physical Weaknesses:
1. Endurance - race
2. Speed (e.g. 5k, 10k, half marathon)
3. Speed in woods
4. Uphills
5. Heavy
Strengths:
1. Finish Chute (can put on afterburners for short periods)
2. downhills
3. Green vegetation
4. Strong

Process goals:
Technical: run 1x/week with reading material - focus on reading
- armchair exercises, 1x/week; focus on route choice and simplification
- run in terrain 1x/week
- map hike (slow, deliberate terrain examination) 1x/month
Physical: 400 hours/year -> consistency
- threshold intervals - help out for long races
- VO2 max intervals
- hills (plan each of these workouts into each week)
Maintenance:
- 1x/week - strength/plyos
- 1x/week - ankle strength, balance

Time Trials
- mile < 5:00 (reach); < 5:15 (attainable)
- do a half marathon (target time 91 minutes)
- at least one 5k
- at least one trail race
- at least three time trials to measure progress

Each week:
- 1 long run
- 1-3 days of intervals (depending on training phase)
- 1-2 days of strength
- 1+ recovery run/bike
- 1 rest day
- 4-5x on a map
- 1 day maintenance

Training schedule: month: hours, phase
Nov: 30 Build
Dec: 38 Build
Jan: 43 Volume
Feb: 40 Volume
Mar: 38 Vol/Quality
Apr: 35 Quality
May: 28 Race
June: 35 Quality
July: 38 Quality
Aug: 35 Quality
Sep: 28 Race
Oct: 25 rest

Bike to and from Menotomy Rocks.

I woke up at 12 PM after twelve hours of sleep in the aftermath of my White Mountains expedition. I felt pretty good, so I rolled out of bed, ate some food, drank some water, and set off on my bike to get to Menotomy before the NEOC starts closed (1 PM).

I arrived and discovered the three courses were WY and an Orange Sprint with two maps. The postage stamp sized map really can only be used for a 3k course without a map exchange. I noted that Ross finished in 1650 on the sprint, so I set off at a hard pace.

I ran the first sprint in 927, then picked up a map from the Sprint B box. I noted that the map said "white" when I grabbed it and I did a double take, but I confirmed that I had grabbed a map from the "Sprint B" box. So, I ran the white course in 606, then discovered that my worst fears were realized and the white course was not the same as the Sprint B map. I exclaimed my woes, then grabbed a Sprint B map and took off.

I had pushed really hard on the white course, so I didn't have as much energy left for the Sprint B, which I ran in 1100. Had I not run the white course, I might have been able to shave one or two minutes off, but I highly doubt I could have caught Ross. Dancho Hristov, who is of comparable speed to me, finished in eighteen minutes and change, so that might have been a reasonable estimate.

Meg Parson, who was manning the finish, conferred with Tim Parson and decided that it was fair to deduct my white course time (6 minutes) from my run, so officially I ran in 2033 or something. It's a fun, local meet, so I didn't care that much about the result. My run was generally good; I had good flow (despite the frustrations of pin punching), stayed in contact, and made no meaningful errors. I did attack control five on Sprint B expecting that it would be on the top of the hill, only to discover that it was in fact at the bottom on the east side. That probably cost 15 seconds that could have been saved had I more diligently checked the codes (though I think the map and the control placement did not agree).

C • I wanted to go 4

Picking up controls at the Menotomy Rocks NEOC meet.