Training Log Archive: iansmith

I followed up the competition with an OUSA Board discussion with Tom Hollowell about the relationship between OUSA and IOF, a US Team meeting, dinner, awards, and a game of Seven Wonders. I had a great discussion with my therapist, Thierry Gueorgiou, about the importance of pain and loss in the broader context of life. Pain and loss provides the moments during which you grow, and it is in the context of those times that happiness is truly fulfilling.

Jog, drills, mental focus.

NAOC Long race. There were moments when I felt like I was orienteering well, but there were also a few disaster points. The net result is that I am dissatisfied with this race; my performance had so much more potential to be better. The map at 1:15 was very difficult to read, and there were several sections where I not only lacked flow, but was genuinely confused.

I was careful to 1, as I wanted to start cleanly and get into the map, the terrain, and the scale. I was very poor on my compass exiting from the trail junction and lost about 30s. The marshes were clearly good features to use.

I executed 2-3 carefully but cleanly. My plan to 4 was good, but my execution wobbled near the end, and I was a bit low. Will Critchley (+3 minutes) caught me here, and I punched the control about 20s after him. I was a bit messy and hesitant to 5; I abstracted away much of the detail between the trail and the marsh. I resolved to be more aggressive, and while I hesitated a little to 6, I was clean and had a good split. I elected to contour left to 7, and I was clean. I felt pretty good at this point, though the uphill to 8 was rough. I caught sight of Critchley leaving 8, which was encouraging.

To 9, I drifted high and found myself unsure of where I was, with lots of rock features around me. I thought I was clean on my plan, but while I saw W and two others searching, I decided to bail to relocate. I wasn't far off my course, and relocating off a hill on the trail. After careful attack, I lost about 3 minutes.

I decided to go straight to 10, and while I executed acceptably, I was very tentative on the last third. I think the north trail was a bit better. I really struggled reading the detail on the map, and I was very cautious to 11 and 12. I executed 13 ok, but made a foolish mistake in the last 500m that cost 3 minutes. 15 was a disaster - I felt like I was wandering around for 5 minutes, but it may have only been 3-4. I chose to run just above 7 and go left of the line, but the trail system confused me greatly. I caught sight of Ross at 15, and hung with him to 16. He messed up 17, while I was clean. I put on some gas to try to hold him off, and managed to run through the spectator chute and to 20 before he caught me. I celebrated by messing up 15s on 21 and 30s on 22.

Cool down with a reluctant Will.

Long - Blue (WRE) - Splits

Event: North American Orienteering Championships 2016
 

NAOC Middle Distance.

15 minutes warmup run to the start, 5 minutes poodling around the model map, 5 minutes cooldown with Will, Ethan, Ali, Brendan intermittently.

Middle - Blue - Splits

Tired, presumably from work, travel, and the conference.

This Saturday, 17 September, somewhat to my surprise, I was elected to the Board of Directors. I (and others) ran on a campaign of increased transparency, so I plan to take some of my log's bandwidth to informally discuss what OUSA is doing regularly at a high level. This is meant to supplement more formal - and increased - communication with the community. Please feel free to engage me at any time with comments or questions about OUSA business.

OUSA Board Meeting #1 Notes
Note that because the Board meetings are public, I have no reservations giving my comments before the official minutes come out. These are personal notes and comments, not official documentation. They are not necessarily comprehensive.

Actions:

1. Election of: Kris Beecroft to the Presidency, Greg Lennon VP clubs, Alex Jospe VP comp (Tom Strat also ran), Pat Meehan VP Finance, Barb Bryant recording secretary.
2. Resolved to comprehensively review OUSA's budget, committee structure, and program spending in a series of conference calls over the next few weeks. It is recognized that this is a complex and somewhat inscrutable matter, and in particular that our accounting - which emphasizes adherence to the legal requirements - makes understanding what we are spending on opaque.
3. Proposed a Board retreat in Oct/Nov to formulate a strategic plan and define a budget for 2017. After discussion, it is suggested we do this at Navigator Cup at our next Board meeting in January.

Discussion:
I think the entire Board came away from the AGM with a sense that the membership want a change in strategy. The election results were rather unambiguously in favor of the candidates campaigning on change. This motivated the idea of reevaluating and informing ourselves and the membership about our committees, budget, and strategic vision.

During the Finance Report, Pat Meehan stressed what Lou raised in January and what I and others have observed - that our accounting system makes matters appear rosier than they are. In particular, it considers contributions to the endowment accounting. While this is legally correct, it conceals the dramatic decline in our liquidity over the past several years. We have been deficit spending, and Pat reported that we could be in serious trouble this year or next. There are other challenges relating to the timing of income, and he also suggested we move back to fund budgets to help keep track program-by-program of spending. Liquidity is actually worse than I thought; the nominal 125k in the liquid accounts includes some restricted funds.

My reaction: We must decrease spending, and dramatically. One effort to address the budget shortfalls has been to increase meet fees even as OUSA still relies heavily (> 50%) on donations. Many programs have suffered from budget cuts over the past few years anyway - marketing and club services received a $10k cut this year when club dues were below expectations, but it is hard to give a convincing explanation to a typical OUSA member about what they are getting for $300k/year in annual spending among 1200 members.

Discussed but not yet acted on:

• Committee structure - some committees don't actually have a function, and some requirements for OUSA are unaddressed. We will revise this before the next Board meeting.
• Budget - this is the big monster, and the vehicle for the main impact OUSA has on the community. A comprehensive evaluation is getting started and will be done by the next Board meeting.
• Expanded communication - OUSA needs to do better communicating with its members. A communications committee or a VP of Comm seems like a start, but we need to use more than the channels of ONA, clubnet, and attackpoint. Transparency and accountability.
• Reforming of events process - defining the calendar, helping clubs put on national events, etc. This mostly falls under Alex's purview; because one person has oversight, I think it is more likely to move forward with alacrity.
• External marketing - no major progress or discussion yet; probably will follow from the budget talks.
• Revisions to the bylaws for proxy votes - not discussed

It is imperative we sustain our momentum moving from the election and get things done as a governing body in the next few months. In my mind, the biggest broad question is what function should OUSA have? A big question for clubs: what can OUSA do for you?

C • What initiative! 10

Left achilles aches a bit, but I think it will be ok for North Americans. I will RICE it and read it bedtime stories of bylaws and finance reports.

Event: Mike's Maze, volume 2
 

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