Training Log Archive: iansmith

Easy run around the river. I'm surprised my heart rate was so low; my perceived intensity was higher - in the neighborhood of 160 - 165, with 3/3 and 3/2 breathing. I am listening to the audiobook Game Change, which has been riveting so far. It's interesting to note how different reality is from the artificial appearance of political campaigns.

In exciting news, the Bach-Busoni Chaconne in D that I ordered a few weeks ago has finally arrived. I should have it learned in a few years.

Clem introduced me to Swampfox at BOK; while we have debated the most contentious issues of the day on attackpoint, we had never explicitly met in person. After much negotiation, we reached consensus on the merits of both pizza and burritos, and in the spirit of good will and human dignity, the Asheboro NC Accords were verbally ratified. Let the resolution of the holy war serve as a lesson to all strife: the key to peace and the advancement of the human spirit is empathy and mutual respect. Through our discussion, we came to see that pizza is little more than a topologically rearranged burrito (despite its obvious cracker properties) and vice versa.

It is with great regret that I was unable to patronize the Asheboro "Sir Pizza" establishment; when Neil and I drove over on Sunday afternoon, we discovered it did not open until 4 PM, far too late for our airport plans.

C • properties 1

Eight minute core workout: tuckups, oblique crunches, kayakers, plank, supermans, alternating side supermans (lifting an arm and opposite leg), side plank (30s each), and tuckups (again).

I ran to the start as a warmup while reading yesterday's map to prime my brain. After I arrived at the start, I reset my watch, restarted it, and had the start crew tape it. I continued to warmup until my start time for a total of about ten minutes.

Day 2 of the Classic Champs A-meet at BOK; while today was an improvement over yesterday, it was still disappointing. I finished in 81 minutes, well behind z-man, ken and Giacomo in 66, 66 and 67 minutes respectively. While I avoided a complete meltdown like yesterday, I had a terrible 5 minute error on what should have been a 90-second leg. While it's frustrating that I can't seem to orienteer well for an entire race, what's more disenheartening is that I was so slow even when I was orienteering well.

Course analysis to come, but I shall renew my efforts. The season is young, and I have much play time in the woods ahead of me. I have resolved to go to the Pig, and I am making adjustments in my life that will allow me to focus more on orienteering now, while the opportunity presents itself.

I wonder sometimes if my efforts are entirely misplaced, if the best I can attain won't even be good enough for a decent showing at a US A-meet. I don't believe that is true, but even if it were, I would not be troubled. My objective is to find how good I can become and achieve that; I cannot influence how well everyone else runs. Relative metrics are useful for gauging progress, but ultimately, I am racing only against myself. I still have many specific (and essentially relative) goals, but they are arbitrary benchmarks to attain rather than ends in themselves.

I had pleasant social activity this weekend - particularly with ndobbs and ken.

Quickroute. Apart from another meltdown at 9, I did a much better job orienteering today than yesterday. I was more careful - which slowed me down, and led me to choosing safer microroutes, e.g. at 11, but I was very slow. For instance, at 17, which I executed exactly as I planned, I was 40 seconds back. Even at 2 - at the beginning of the race, on a well executed leg, I lost 45 seconds.

The disaster at 9 emerged because I had a dodgy plan. I figured the safe route was to run just left of the line, hit the spur + reentrant above the control and march down the spur into an obvious and highly visible feature. I would cross two erosion gullies, one of which was small. Except I was two high, and mistook my target reentrant for the second erosion gully (since a HUGE reentrant and a gully below me look the same). I then meandered around on the wrong spur. The plan was ok, but there was bad compass, bad terrain visualization, and bad map reading.

C • Experience 4

I broke attackpoint's elevation correction. Also wheeee flying.

C • broke 10

Blue day 2 - Splits

Event: Birkhead Wilderness Classic (US Classic Champs)
 

Day 1 of the Classic Champs A-meet at BOK; very disappointing. Unremarkable physical performance was compromised by a ten minute error and some small losses. I had a helpful chat with PG after the race about that control and ways to improve in this terrain, and I'm excited about the potential for tomorrow's race.

Heart rate data is spurious because I let the HR strap slip to my waist because I thought my taped-over Garmin was not recording. Pleasant surprise to discover my track.

Quickroute - wow, catastrophic meltdown at 17. I wasn't even able to reconstruct my error before glancing at my GPS. My other major error was at 9. I clearly was doing a terrible job with my compass, which was suicidal in this terrain. My exits from 1, 3, 7, and 8 were off. (Note that I only fixed two points in the QR - 14 and 3.)

Leg comments. Need to practice compass work, terrain visualization, and verifying orientation of linear features.

C • good luck 1

C • #9 3

Cool down with Kenny.

A short control pickup loop with five controls. I think there exists an impetus from the community to help out at A-meets - particularly since a substantial fraction of the attendees lack the technical proficiency for control pickup or are constrained by children or logistics. At the same time, my primary objective at A-meets is to compete, and especially at championship events, that must be the guiding principle. I volunteered to pickup without considering the range of possibilities, and as course closing time neared, it became clear that the load required was more than I was willing to give. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, a number of the BOK people assigned to control pickup were unavailable. After some negotiation, the organizers managed with considerably reduced participation from the out-of-towners. I felt bad that I reneged on my commitment, but it is clear that volunteering to pickup controls was a mistake. I'm happy to help out after all the competitive races are done, but it is clear that I must husband all my resources if I have any hope of a good performance.

I mused on this issue while picking up five nearby controls. My mood was not improved after face planting hard and immersing up to my collarbone when I slipped crossing a deep stream. Fortunately, the perpetually buoyant Giacomo was at the car to lift me from my brooding.

C • Control pick-up at A meets 3

Blue day 1 - Splits

I seem to have mildly tweaked my back, though I don't recall a traumatic event. The heaviest objects I have moved lately are laptops, though I did run with a bag. The discomfort is minor, and I am resting before the classic champs anyway. Hopefully, my back will not be problematic during the races.

It turns out I can make a round trip from Boston to Blue Mountain (i.e. Neil's pad) for $59.50 with a total transit time of about twelve hours. It might make sense for a three day weekend - leaving a bit early on Friday would give me about sixty-five hours in Peekskill.

Three O-projects I am thinking about doing:
- A web application in which you could load O-maps, rotate the O-maps freely (much like you could with a physical map), and maybe even draw your routes. The tools on WorldofO don't allow you to rotate maps, and there isn't a dedicated application with lots of maps already available.

- A set of articles about O-training, from introductory basics to advanced training exercises. I found the existing documentation woefully inadequate when I was learning. I conceived of the idea because I want some content for the NEOC website, though this could be used in ONA. I don't know of a coherent, pre-planned series of articles in the US O-literature.

- Promotional videos, esp of US team people. Most of the videos on youtube about O suck. There is room for promotional videos and informative videos.

C • Training archive 4

Ugh. Mornings.

I finished the Hunger Games Trilogy audiobooks; I found them unremarkable, but acceptable. The challenge of surviving in a contrived, adversarial multi-way duel to the death was what initially attracted me to the books, and that is a component of them. My three main objections to the books are in my February 29 entry; succinctly, the trilogy is inescapably from the young adult genre, and is far less compelling than books like Harry Potter, which appeal to a broader audience.

I started listening to Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture; I highly recommend the youtube video of the presentation he gave to Carnegie Mellon. For those of you unaware, Randy Pausch was a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Before he died, he gave what was colloquially known as the "Last Lecture," a seminar where professors challenged to give a lecture as though they were on their deathbed, communicating their life lessons. Pausch had the unique circumstance of meeting the otherwise hypothetical criteria. The book followed the presentation, and has been very good so far, though I think a video presentation is a better format for his message.

There are many excellent life lessons in Pausch's lecture.