Training Log Archive: iansmith

Easy river run. Listened to hard core history - the Prophets of Doom. Anabaptists are curious.

Event: NEOC: Noon Hill
 

Hanging controls for the Noon Hill event.

Today was the debut event at Noon Hill, a map made in 2015! Noon Hill became something of a project of mine - I first visited the terrain in April 2015. Marcello had some extra time after finishing the High Rock map, so after some consultation with the mapping committee, I directed him to map Noon Hill and Upton Town Forest. Noon Hill is complete; Upton is usable for a 5-6 km course, but a little less than half of the total available terrain. Noon Hill is about 2 sq km and has a varied mix of rocky hills and rolling flats with marshes.

The map was completed in June of last year, and would probably have been used sooner but for the national meet this spring at High Rock. I designed courses up to a 5.8 km red course. A few places I wanted to set controls were a little too thick when I vetted in September, but I imagine the patches of light green might be manageable closer to winter.

Despite a dreary day with perpetual mist and fog, we had respectable turnout with 80-90 people. Parking was just adequate, with good packing of the lot at the start and spillover onto the gravel Noon Hill road. Care must be taken to park on only one side of the road and to make sure dog walkers and other park users feel welcome.

I have long been an advocate of minimizing the organizational cost of local meets. An organization like NEOC has soft constraints on its volunteer manpower, so minimizing the logistical cost per event or per time spent orienteering enables more events. I spent about ten hours designing courses, vetting the locations, and updating my designs - course design is much easier on a new, accurate map, though I did change several locations due to vegetation or ambiguity. I personally spent about twenty hours on all other aspects of the meet including recruiting staff, gathering equipment, inquiring about permissions and so on. Sunday was a marathon; I woke up at 5 AM and finished at about 4 PM. My volunteers were fantastic - Tim Parson, Andy McIlvaine, Richard Powers, and Peter Amram executed the first hour of registration without any guidance from me; Tim Booth and Bo Nielsen ran results; Keith Durand, Bo, and John Kernochan worked registration for the second part (Magnus stopped by for a bit); Tim P, Tim B, Dave Yee, Izzy, and Ethan orchestrated the cleanup; and Dave, Izzy, and Ethan picked up controls. Tim Parson was the MVP, arriving at 9 AM with tents, setting up the site, working registration, and cleaning up at 2 PM. Having such a great, independent, and competent team of volunteers makes event direction easy and compensates for some of my own organizational shortcomings. I estimate the staffing cost at 20 hours; allotting 10-20 hours for the administration arranging permission, the total cost of the event was 70 hours of volunteer time.

For Phil Bricker: I personally hung all 33 controls (including one highly technical one without a compass), and I heard no complaints that anything was on a wrong features. One of the controls - #166 - was listed as being at foot of a 1.5m cliff, but I hung it on a tree at the top. This was deliberate; I didn't see a good spot to hang it below the cliff, and as yellow was one of the courses using the control, I wanted it to be visible. I suppose this makes your conjecture true, though only in the most generous sense.

Control pickup. Ethan, Izzy, and Dave also picked up controls. I found my compass, which I had dropped at one of the controls while hanging. I was a bit tired at the end of the day, but manageably so.

After some Board work with Barb, I joined Joe, Cal, and Ben at Brooklyn Boulders for some climbing. After warming up on a nice 5.8, I really taxed my muscles on a 5.9. I feel like after two weeks of racing, I lost a bit of climbing strength. My endurance seemed a bit weak today, and I was more outclassed by Ben than is usual. I may have pulled a small muscle in my lower left back during strength circuits, but it is minor.

I have been tired these past few days.

My OUSA agenda for October:
0. I had a chat with Glen Schorr 9/25 about OUSA finances and plan. I think there's still a gap in our perception of the path forward, but we have much common ground.
1. Review OUSA budget and finances with Pat Meehan, Barb, and the finance committee. Summarize what exactly we are doing and spending money on.
2. Review and evaluate the OUSA committee structure, probably with Boris; determine which committees are effective, which should be retired, and what the hierarchy is. Report to Board and AP.
3. Communications: relating to (2), we need to work on both transmitting and receiving information from the community. Right now, my main channel is AP.

(1) Budget review leads naturally to a budget proposal for 2017
(2) Org evaluation should hopefully streamline OUSA towards our priorities
(3) Communication will help us tell everyone about our stuff

Outstanding: Arrive at Board consensus on priorities going forward. Requires (1) budget analysis.

Completed tasks:
1. Got elected (still surprised)
2. Ran preliminary, unofficial discretionary budget analysis: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3BpNAJOC1aRLWky...
3. Finance: took over team fund accounting from Peter Goodwin

I probably need to cut back on my AP log words.

Evening training with the gang; we ran to a park nearby and did microsprints that Alex designed. Fun times. In attendance: Pia, Izzy, Tyra, Anton, Alex, Ed, Ethan, Dave. Afterward, I ran a short river loop with Anton to take on a few kms.

The more I learn about OUSA finances, the more concerned I become.

C • Wow 3

From the haunting horn solo to the tender rising winds emerges the rich, warm, steadfast string section. Sublime, like watching the sun rise on a spring morning over a vast mountainscape.

Run to CSU track workout with Ethan. Garmin was uncharged, so details are a guess. We arrived in time to finish the last drills with them.

CSU Track workout. I accidentally wore my watch that doesn't take splits, so I have no idea how fast I was running. The workout was 2x{800, 600, 400} + 2x400, 2x200 with 60s breaks and 2 minutes between sets. I hung with Terry for basically everything, which is easier for me to do on these short bouts. The longer workout was 3 sets of 8,6,4, before the 2x200. Ethan and I ran 2x400 while the others did their third set. Legs felt a bit tired, but still spry.

Easy jog with Kevin, Terry, Ethan, and a new guy around the field followed by returning to Cambridge.