Training Log Archive: iansmith

Event: Middlesex Fells Skyline Scramble
 

US Championships Classic course by the Badger Orienteering Club in Greenbush, WI. The medial moraine terrain (as Leif told me) is very technical and difficult; relocation is not trivial. At the "model" local middle distance terrain yesterday, I noted that hills made good attack points because they are easily distinguished and are visible from a distance. I decided that my strategy was to sacrifice speed for accuracy; I wanted a clean run at almost any speed.

I succeeded in that goal; I had an immaculate run. I'm sure I lost time with poor route choices, and I was not as fast as the top runners, but every time I expected to find a control, I found one - usually directly in front of me. There was a cost to moving through the terrain; it required a lot of mental work and focus, but this was one of my best races, and about as good as I can realistically hope to do at present. Simplifying was very challenging. On a few legs, I planned a roughly straight route, then tracked from feature to feature on a computationally intensive path.

I lost 26 minutes to Will. I estimate something like 50-75% of that was from mental challenges (simplifying, e.g.) and hesitations, and the rest was from not running as fast. I was 16 minutes behind Boris, Eric Bone, and Ken.

I think this may be my first 80 point classic run; we'll see how the numbers come out. More analysis later.

C • Spectacular effort 3

Warming up while reading the model map before the US Classic champs. I mostly visualized running various combinations of the existing controls from the model course. I think running the model map the previous day and spending time getting into the map helped me during the race.

Blue Day 1 US Champs - Splits

Event: US Individual Champs 2009
 

Running the 4.5 k middle distance course at the Badger Orienteering Club local event; this course was essentially the model event for the US Champs.

I took my time reading the course, stopping to examine features and think in detail about my route choices. The forest is clear, and the contours are both informative and tricky. I only made one mistake, losing about thirty seconds, but I wasn't moving at race pace. The terrain is gorgeous. I was focusing on running cleanly in an effort to simulate tomorrow's race, and I was pretty good at picking good attackpoints to get to the controls. Deciding at a glance which was is down or up in a particular contour region can be difficult, so I may spend more time reading my map tomorrow.

Long run in the prairie near Mary's apartment.

Running on the Fermilab bike path at 7 AM. I warmed up for 25 minutes, then ran 3x (3 minutes on, 2 minutes off). The morning was beautiful; in the distance, I saw the very distinctive main building (Robert Rathbun Wilson Hall).

C • Fermilab 5

C • Was the main building in th... 1