Training Log Archive: iansmith

Warmup with some drills and stretching. My left achilles felt inflamed this morning. The pain first appeared on Friday during my easy jog with Greg and Will, and while it held up through the long course yesterday, it was tender after the race. I iced it on Saturday night and stretched it, but I was concerned going into the race today. It seemed to loosen up, though I did run less aggressively as a result, particularly on downhills.

US Championships at Ward Pound Ridge, Day 2 Blue. After yesterday's 13.6 km course, I was tired. Yesterday, I may have started too hard; at control 11, 46 minutes into the race, I was 31% back, and within 42 seconds of Greg and Will. Thierry (9 minutes back) caught me at 10, 39 minutes into my race. But most importantly, my left achilles was feeling tight and hurting. I warmed up, stretched, and did some drills. While I wasn't at 100%, I felt like I could run conservatively, though I would have to be careful on downhills.

Overall, it was an unremarkable performance; I had a few route choice errors, and I generally was moving quite slowly. Part of that was definitely the achilles - I couldn't really open up on trails, but I was also tired and unfit. Still, I had some moments of good execution, and to my great surprise, I held up a touch better than my competition and managed to pick up 2nd place (US). Over 23.5 km, I was 1:00:13 behind Thierry, which is incredibly disappointing. I was about 20 minutes behind Greg (epic fail), and 3rd through 5th were within 63 seconds of my time - suggesting I should actually kick on the last few controls.

RouteGadget, Overall Results

Good on: 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 21

1: I was really hesitant; I came across what seemed like an extra stone wall, and things didn't look like I expected. Amusingly, I was basically exactly on the line the whole time. 30s
2: Planned and executed running a bit right to bounce off the trail. Probably cost 5s; unnecessary given the collecting feature.
4: Ran a little lower than I planned; Thierry's route popped up due west, was a bit shorter, and didn't involve so much sidehill. Greg and Kenny's route left of line through the reentrant is also good. -45s
6: Elected to take the wide left trail, but I don't think I gave enough thought to attacking slightly left of line down the line of water features. My route would have been better if I had been able to haul down the trail. -60s
9: Good line, but missed more right in the last 100m than I thought. Should have sucked it up and gone over the top. -10s
11: Route disaster. I think left (ken, TGIF) is a better line, but my execution was crap. Climbing the nose to the trail would have been much smarter than wandering around, for no savings on climb. -2:00. Dumb dumb dumb. I think best line is left, south of the slashy pond guy, up the small reentrant, and straight in.
12-13: Fine on these, just slow and tired.
14: I contemplated this for a bit before settling on the north, trail route. I figured right would be faster, but I was wary of the green at the end, and the climb to the trail looked unpleasant. I wasn't moving that fast on the trail, but this was clearly the best route. I passed a cadet by 2, who hung with me into 14. Better speed on the trails might have saved 60-90s for a decisive edge. Even still, I was only 26% behind TGIF, which is basically a win for me.
15: Caught Torrance and Kevin at 14, so I put on some speed to try to pass them and the cadet. Very clean execution.
16: Good through the green, but missed a little high exiting and ran above the control. 60s
17: Pissed about 16, ran fast. Also trying to lose Kevin.
18: Hesitant through the green, but ultimately solid. -20s
19: Clean albeit unspectacular. Caught up to Ethan.
20: Not the best execution by me, and caught by GSwede. Followed him and Ethan into the control; pissed.
21: Ran to trail. Better route than GSwede and Ethan.
F: No special effort; cruised in.

Sunday - Blue - Splits

Event: 2016 US Two-Day Classic Championships and Sprint Relay
 

The US AGM was this Saturday after the courses. Based on what I had heard through the grapevine about support from clubs, I was not expecting to get elected. The election result, with vote totals: Boris Granovskiy (795), Alex Jospe (766), Barb Bryant (741), Pat Meehan (559), Ian Smith (559), Gavin Wyatt-Mayer (404), Claire Durand (390), Donna Fluegel (359), Kevin Teschendorf (110). Pat and I were summoned; the options for resolving the tie were a new vote or a volunteer to take the two year term. I volunteered, with no issue of running for reelection in two years.

First and foremost, thank-you to everyone who supported me and the rest of the candidates in the election process. It has been a long and difficult six weeks, with resistance and antagonism from surprising and varied corners. But at the end of the day, we are all working towards the same goal, and the people running for the Board represent a number of prevalent policy views. I think the election results demonstrate that the views the coalition candidates espoused were underrepresented in the OUSA board leadership.

I also would like to thank the other candidates for the Board positions for their candidacy and input into the process. It is not easy to put yourself out there, and I really hope they continue to contribute to the OUSA governance. A board position is not necessary to make a tremendous difference in the organization.

More to come later, including notes on the first hundred days and the board meeting tonight.

C • Congrats! 3

Day 1 at Ward Pound Ridge. I didn't feel very fast throughout the race, and I was definitely tired at the end. I made a frustrating mistake at 11, and some bobbles at 14, 18, and 5. Physically, I felt quite wasted by the end. It's possible I went out too hard at the beginning, but more probable is that my fitness is still not very good. More training is necessary. The result was mediocre, but less disappointing than I had feared. I was passed by Thierry at 10, and it was amazing and all I had hoped it would be. I then ignored him and executed my own route to 11, which was probably inferior.

C • Your next career 1

Warmup and some drills.

Saturday - Blue - Splits

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