Training Log Archive: iansmith

Hilarious: https://www.orienteeringusa.org/rankings/rank_show...

C • it takes skill and dedication 9

Training camp at Harriman!

Event: Harriman Training Camp
 

OUSA BoD is having a phone meeting on Monday, November 28. The agenda is available at the following link, though I've pasted the text below because I imagine the agenda will be taken down after the meeting.
http://www.us.orienteering.org/upcoming-board-meet...

Some notes from me:
1. Athlete insurance is not required by IOF; see IOF Rules of Competition for Foot-O. Section 6.4 states "Competitors participate at their own risk. Insurance against accidents shall be the
responsibility of their Federation or themselves, according to national regulations." That said, I was able to find travel insurance for a hypothetical 2-week trip to Estonia for a 32-year old for $15, or about $1/day. Apparently the teams spent $8472 last year at the insistence of OUSA; this seems gratuitous. Most of the teams will have groups of ~10 traveling for about two weeks, which at $1/day would amount to expenditures of $150. Suppose the junior trip had 20 people traveling for 42 days (six weeks); this would amount to $840.

2. The sanctioning item seems fairly routine. To be honest, I'm not sure why the Board has a role in this; the sanctioning committee seems better suited to these decisions.

3. No idea what the JTESC rule change request is.

4. The safety guidelines seems more of a procedural task than one designed to have an impact. It's important to jump through the various hoops to ensure the validity of our insurance, but I don't get the sense that OUSA approved safety guidelines are going to impact orienteering in the US very much. National events nominally have a safety plan, but at the events I've helped organize, there didn't seem to be any external enforcement of our plan.

C • sanctioning 3

C • Insurance 5

Climbing at Brooklyn Boulders with Joe, Melanie, and Bgallup. I was climbing better than last week though still only adequately. I nailed my 5.9 orange nemesis almost perfectly cleanly, then did a series of 5.9s with a 5.10b thrown in for good measure. I finished up with some bouldering, though I'm worse at bouldering than straight up climbing. I think learning how to boulder well and correctly would improve my top rope/lead climbing.

Wee morningjog. I woke at 8, uploaded the Traverse splits to AP, and dozed for a good hour before finally getting up. I suppose I felt sluggish after the race yesterday. Whether because of the cool weather or not pushing hard enough, I didn't feel especially tired at the end of the Traverse - though my body was weary at the end of the day.

Event: NEOC: Traverse and Mini-Traverse
 

Welp, I suffered a thorough defeat by feet defeet. It was nonetheless a rather spectacular day in Mt. Holyoke Range, and the course by Phil Bricker was entertaining and made great use of the terrain. I found the Earl's Trails part more interesting than the Norwottuck part, but both were suitably challenging.

My day started with an egregious oversleeping of my alarm; I was awakened by a phone call from Jeff Schapiro, whom I had arranged to give a ride so he could sleep on the drive. We quickly figured out that there wasn't going to be time for me to come get him, so he decided to drive on his own. I was furious with myself both for missing my plan and for letting Jeff down, but during the drive I tried to relax, clear my mind, and get a grip. No amount of rage on the drive over could rectify my error, and trying to arrive a few minutes earlier was not worth the risk of unsafe driving. I arrived at the event site at 10:53, went through my mental checklist and jogged to the massed competitors at about 10:57 feeling fairly calm.

My main mistake the past several mass start races has been going out too hard and either blowing up with navigational errors or physically falling apart. I resolved to start conservatively and to settle into the race. The first leg was very similar to the Billygoat leg 1 from 2013, which I have analyzed - I elected to stay high left of the line and shorten the navigation by running to a trail junction. Feet (who was delayed 20-30s by a dog) and I came into the control at the same time from different directions, with Ethan ten seconds behind. En route to 2, we crossed a line of about ten cadets running in the wrong directions, which was entertaining. I figured they would piece it together given that Ethan, Will, and I were obviously running to 2, but I don't think they did. Our three routes diverged to 2 once we passed over the saddle, but we arrived at about the same time and ran together to 3. Feet put a small gap on me on the climb to 3, and executed 4 well enough that he was out of sight as Ethan and I were running to 5. In hindsight, I should have increased my pace to stick with feet at least through the first map, but the plan was to stay relaxed. I dropped Ethan on the downhill/sidehill to 6 and ran alone for the rest of the course.

Control 7 has a malfunctioning e-punch, so there isn't a split, but it was a good leg. I took a Gu at 7, 39:30 into my race. I felt rather weak on the climb to control 10 (split 9) but was generally feeling spry at the halfway point. After the road crossing, I was a massive 2:45 behind Will, and I am not fast enough nor Will sufficiently mistake-prone for me to make up that gap. The race was over when feet gapped me at 5.

The second side of the course was on the dodgier Norwottuck side - a much older map with substantial distortion in its basemap. I made a 60s mistake to 14 when I zoned out reading ahead to 15. I elected to take the road to 15, which I think was the best route, though I lost 20s to Will. Controls 15-22 was an unmitigated beatdown on CSU 3.0 by CSU 2.0, where I lost every split to Will, dropping four minutes. I made a dumb choice at 21 when I changed my plan from running low to the right to going up and over when I realized how high I was on the saddle, losing about a minute. I passed the occasional mini-traverser, including Stephen Richardson twice, but as I was up 10 minutes on the 3rd place runner, I was basically alone. I made a small push at the end apparently, but ended 6:30 behind Will.

I didn't take a second Gu, and I felt close to bonking at the very end of the race. But my legs and body didn't actually feel that tired by the end. My legs felt sluggish - as though they weren't turning over very quickly. Clearly my fitness was not adequate to compete with feet today, and it's hard to believe I could have kept up with him for the entire course. I was decisively second, which is a double-edged sword. I think more long runs at moderate intensity are in order.

Cool down jog with feet. We discussed life. Dancho finished just as we were ending our jog.

Traverse - Splits

Easy run with a stop at EMS to buy Gu.