Training Log Archive: iansmith

I obtained official OUSA numbers from Robin on starts and membership from 2006 to the present. The numbers paint a clear picture: OUSA is in decline. Link to spreadsheet.

Starts and events from year to year are obvious noisy and subject to fluctuations. For example, I speculate that the ~5% dip in starts around 2009-2010 is due to the recession. National meet starts also spiked by about a thousand in 2012, and NAOC likely contributed. To mitigate these fluctuations, I fit a simple regression of each of these quantities against time (year). The change with time is as a percentage of 2007 numbers is:

Local Starts: +0.3%
National Starts: -2.9%
Club Members: -2.3%
OUSA Members: -1.1%

OUSA and orienteering in the United States is in decline. It's not obvious how much various efforts by the federation and clubs have affected this; perhaps in the absence of some initiatives, we would be down much more? But what is most striking is the fit change over the past 9 years (for which I have data):

Local Starts: +2.7%
National Starts: -26.3%
Club Members: -20.8%
OUSA Members: -10.2%

C • Making numbers dance 23

Run to CSU track workout with Ethan.

CSU Track workout. There was much better turnout this week than last - in addition to the usual crew of Kevin, Amore, Terry, and Patrick, there were about fifteen other people. Alex and Ethan represented the O-crew, and special guest Gswede and Juan also joined us.

I elected to run the shorter workout of 800, 1000, 1200, 1000, 200, 200. It was enough.

Splits: 2:49, 3:32, 4:25, 3:30, 35, 33

Aimless cooldown job with the crew. Mostly chatted with Gswede about stuff and things. You can tell Greg wants to join the North American Tove fan club, but he is disqualified because he lives in Spain. :(

C • Stuff and things 3

C • Tove Fan Club 1

So it turns out Thierry starts 9 minutes after me in the classic champs. He's going to come blasting past me at some point during the race, and I'm *so excited.* It might not be optimal, but I plan to run hard out the gate to try to hold him off as long as possible and maybe cling to him for the 60s it takes him to run out of sight. And bonus! Sunday, TGIF starts IanSmith +6 minutes!

I do not fear death, and I have nothing to lose.

C • being chased 4

Day 2 blue course, listed 6.6 km. Ethan and I decided to mass start to make things more interesting; we also decided that the leader would stop every third control to wait for the trailer. We ran together for the first two controls with slight route variations, but I pulled away en route to the 3rd while Ethan made a big mistake. I chilled at the 3rd control for a bit while he relocated. Despite minor route variation, we came to the 6th control about 10s apart. I exited 6 poorly and executed 7 slowly, so Ethan waited about 90s at 9 for me. I chose a route to 10 poorly, and got to 12 about 30s behind Ethan. He waited a little, and I managed to catch him on the run in. Mass starting definitely motivated us to push harder than we would have running solo.

The shorter, classic length courses are definitely great for camping weekend. The blue courses were under 8 km, and I still orienteered about 23 km in a 24 hour period.

After arriving home, LocalSportsTeam prevailed in its Sportsball match.

Pawtuckaway Camping Weekend, Day 1 Blue course. Distance: 7.1 km, 14 controls. I felt sluggish, and my legs felt heavy. I haven't been sleeping well this week, and I could tell I was fatigued. It was a reasonable effort with some good execution and route choice, but overall lackluster.

Canoeing with Keith. We only realized halfway through the course that the controls had different values. Oops. Finished second behind Aims, 2 minutes over time. A fun outing.

WHNO! This course had an excellent format - the first control had 3 butterfly loops coming off it, and you could do these loops in any order. I almost missed the start because I was taking a nap after the potluck, but I showed up at the pavilion with about 15 minutes to spare. My headlamp battery wires disconnected at corn maze, so I ran with Flashlight, the mighty hand cannon. I felt confident that I could outnavigate my competition at night, so I planned to deliberately run the loops in a weird order to break away. I ran 3-1-2, and I was running well enough on the first two loops to have a lead in the splits. Ethan and I both made a mistakes of about 1-2 minutes. Unfortunately, approaching my penultimate control (leg: 57:31 - 1:06:01), I ignored the obvious trail route in favor of trying to go straight, and I blew four minutes. I eventually came in second, about 3:20 behind Ethan. Disappointing.

I saw a few people now and again, but ran the course entirely alone. It was sublime.

This amounted to about 2.5 hours of climbing at Brooklyn Boulders with Joe and Ben. I climbed a dozen or so pitches, including a 5.10a (though I did fall once). The 5.10 tore up my forearms gripping. I did a handful of 5.9s and 5.8s after that, including my favorite blue overhang. I had Joe make a video so I could studying my weaknesses, but the commentary is entertaining. It has a nice slice of Ben's instruction and heckling.

At the end of the night, Ben and I had an amusing showdown. I started by attempting a 5.9 with a slight overhang and running out of forearm strength 2/3 of the way up. Ben then attempted the same pitch and failed slightly higher. I then downgraded to a nearby 5.8 and faltered; Ben attempted it and faltered slightly higher. We thought it would be funny to keep pushing, so we started dueling on 5.7s to see who would break first. I finished all the 5.7s, though I did fall twice on the last one. The trash talk was perfectly juvenile.