Training Log Archive: BorisGrIn the 7 days ending Mar 7, 2016:
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Sunday Mar 6, 2016 #
Event: QOC Wheaton
Orienteering 44:15 [1] *** 3.5 km (12:39 / km)
11c
Barnacle and I walked the Brown course at QOC's event at Wheaton. I went without a compass to make this more challenging. Things were going well, and we even had a nice head-to-head matchup going with DVOA's Rob Wilkison, when I saw that Barney was limping and not putting any weight on one of his paws. I freaked out a bit, half-dragged, half-carried him out to a trail and then inspected him to find a huge thorn lodge right in the middle of a toe pad. I pulled it out, the beast licked the wound for a few seconds, and we were on our way again. In the process, though, I managed to completely lose direction, which led to a massive mistake on #7. Gotta keep concentration even when the unexpected happens!
We ended up 2nd on Brown, but top beagle.
Unfortunately, my back is no closer to feeling good again, so not much running for me in the foreseeable future.
We ended up 2nd on Brown, but top beagle.
Unfortunately, my back is no closer to feeling good again, so not much running for me in the foreseeable future.
Tuesday Mar 1, 2016 #
Note
I spent this past weekend organizing a junior training camp at Prince William Forest in Virginia. I am writing this down here as a way to remember things that went well and things that can be improved on for last year. If anyone has any comments/suggestions, please post them here or feel free to email them to me.
What started out as an add-on to QOC's regular training for its adult members turned, quite unexpectedly, into a massive production running parallel to the adult training. I had expected to get maybe 15 kids from my Mid-Atlantic Junior Regional Team plus another handful who were not team members. Instead, we ended up with around 70 juniors doing some or all of the camp.
This included several large groups a couple of JROTC teams, a boy scout troop, and the FUMA cadets. All these groups had vastly different levels of ability and some of them signed up quite late in the game, after the exercises had been designed and streamers hung.
As a result, I decided that I needed to split the kids up into groups by ability and recruit coaches to help with each group, as well as non-coaching adults to help with logistics, such as making sure all the kids started each exercise and came back from the woods in one piece.
My team of coaches was amazing. Thank you to everyone! Hannah, Kevin, Kseniya, Nadya, Chris, Alli, Jon C, Tori, Wyatt, Angelica all helped with coaching. Jan and Mitch helped with control hanging and with looking for lost juniors. Videlin was seemingly everywhere, hanging and picking up controls, retrieving lost orienteers, and so on. Carl Muench was great at keeping the FUMA and Patuxent kids organized and providing endless support throughout the weekend. Tom N, Will H, and Kseniya all helped with control pick-up. Valerie and Amy were amazing at getting e-punch going early on Sunday to make sure the kids could get started early. Dasa stepped in to do registration early on Sunday, though I had failed to communicate the need to her. Jon Torrance was everywhere throughout the process, making sure the weekend ran well for both the kids and the regular QOC members. Diana Todd took on my group of absolute beginners and did a great job with them.
And obviously, the food team, led by Florence Tan in absentia, was outstanding. So an enormous thanks for making this the most gourmet orienteering camp ever to Shirley, Mary, Tom, Bob, Florence's parents, and Carl Muench's wife (whose name I forgot), who worked tirelessly throughout the weekend.
Alli, in addition to coaching the beginner group of juniors, kept me sane throughout the weekend and took on every task that came up.
I'm sure I am forgetting someone, and I am sorry for that. But the point is, I was very lucky to have an amazing team of volunteers this weekend. Thank you to all of you!!
Now, the details. Things that went well:
1) Organizing juniors into groups by ability was a good thing, given a camp this large.
2) Having a team of competent coaches made things run much more smoothly.
3) Food. Simply outstanding. The decision to move the junior lunch on Sunday outside was brilliant.
4) Weather. Couldn't have been better.
5) Team spirit. I think the juniors really enjoyed themselves and got a lot out of the camp, at all levels. In particular, though, this felt like the first time that my Regional Team kids really interacted and hung out together. That made me happy. They are good kids. It's fun to be around them, and to watch them get excited about the sport I love.
6) Control placement. I think only 1 out of the 60+ streamers we put out was reported as mishung, and naturally, that was one that I put out. It was off by about 25 meters.
7) Accommodations. The cabins were great.
8) Guest course setters. We had exercises designed by Thierry Gueorgiou and Mats Troeng. How cool is that??
Things that could have been better, in no particular order:
1) Assigning adults to different groups of juniors. With the notable exceptions of Carl M and Dasa, the rest of the non-coaching adults assigned to help keep track of juniors either just walked away from the task or decided to go out on the course (and get lost) instead of waiting for the juniors at the finish.
2) Explaining the level of the camp to the groups ahead of time. I specifically advertised the camp as being for juniors who have completed an Orange course by themselves. When we got there on Saturday, it turned out we had some juniors who had never orienteered before, and a number who had done 1-2 White courses. I was admittedly unprepared for this, and should have had a real beginner version of each exercise available. Moreover, the group leaders often did not know their kids' experience levels, and some kids were misplaced from the start. I think the best way to deal with this may be to start off the camp with some sort of "sorting" course for everyone, that would give me a true idea of everyone's ability.
3) Compatibility with the regular QOC training. I think the fact that the regular QOC adult training was happening in parallel to the junior training caused some confusion, at least on the part of the adults. I think this can be fixed through much clearer descriptions on the QOC website ahead of time.
4) Payment. We never made it clear that the QOC night race and local event had separate fees associated with them. This confused some of the groups. I think in the future, these should be included in a single camp package fee.
5) Difficulty of Sunday morning courses. Taken by themselves, they were fine courses. But since I planned to have a second training, I should have made it clear to the juinors to run a course they can complete in a maximum of 90 minutes. Or possibly designed a simpler "Intermediate" and "Advanced" courses for them that would take less time to complete than the QOC Orange and Brown.
6) My physical state. If my back wasn't in excruciating pain all weekend, I'd have been able to hang and collect a lot more controls and would ease the burden on the other volunteers.
7) Terrain. Happyland camp is in a pretty green and physical part of Prince William Forest. Running here once or even twice during a weekend is fine, but doing it five times really drains you. I'd love to have this camp with access to some friendlier terrain, like the part where I set my relay courses. Maybe, if we have to be at Happyland, next year we can bus people to a different part of the park for a one-way training that finishes at Happyland.
8) Level of exercises. As I mentioned earlier, I think I should have a very easy version of each of the exercises available. That would help things a great deal in the event of a large group of inexperienced juniors showing up.
I am sure there are more things. Please add some if you can think of any!!
All in all, I think the weekend went well, and I hope we can have more of these in the future. Thanks to QOC for making it happen!
What started out as an add-on to QOC's regular training for its adult members turned, quite unexpectedly, into a massive production running parallel to the adult training. I had expected to get maybe 15 kids from my Mid-Atlantic Junior Regional Team plus another handful who were not team members. Instead, we ended up with around 70 juniors doing some or all of the camp.
This included several large groups a couple of JROTC teams, a boy scout troop, and the FUMA cadets. All these groups had vastly different levels of ability and some of them signed up quite late in the game, after the exercises had been designed and streamers hung.
As a result, I decided that I needed to split the kids up into groups by ability and recruit coaches to help with each group, as well as non-coaching adults to help with logistics, such as making sure all the kids started each exercise and came back from the woods in one piece.
My team of coaches was amazing. Thank you to everyone! Hannah, Kevin, Kseniya, Nadya, Chris, Alli, Jon C, Tori, Wyatt, Angelica all helped with coaching. Jan and Mitch helped with control hanging and with looking for lost juniors. Videlin was seemingly everywhere, hanging and picking up controls, retrieving lost orienteers, and so on. Carl Muench was great at keeping the FUMA and Patuxent kids organized and providing endless support throughout the weekend. Tom N, Will H, and Kseniya all helped with control pick-up. Valerie and Amy were amazing at getting e-punch going early on Sunday to make sure the kids could get started early. Dasa stepped in to do registration early on Sunday, though I had failed to communicate the need to her. Jon Torrance was everywhere throughout the process, making sure the weekend ran well for both the kids and the regular QOC members. Diana Todd took on my group of absolute beginners and did a great job with them.
And obviously, the food team, led by Florence Tan in absentia, was outstanding. So an enormous thanks for making this the most gourmet orienteering camp ever to Shirley, Mary, Tom, Bob, Florence's parents, and Carl Muench's wife (whose name I forgot), who worked tirelessly throughout the weekend.
Alli, in addition to coaching the beginner group of juniors, kept me sane throughout the weekend and took on every task that came up.
I'm sure I am forgetting someone, and I am sorry for that. But the point is, I was very lucky to have an amazing team of volunteers this weekend. Thank you to all of you!!
Now, the details. Things that went well:
1) Organizing juniors into groups by ability was a good thing, given a camp this large.
2) Having a team of competent coaches made things run much more smoothly.
3) Food. Simply outstanding. The decision to move the junior lunch on Sunday outside was brilliant.
4) Weather. Couldn't have been better.
5) Team spirit. I think the juniors really enjoyed themselves and got a lot out of the camp, at all levels. In particular, though, this felt like the first time that my Regional Team kids really interacted and hung out together. That made me happy. They are good kids. It's fun to be around them, and to watch them get excited about the sport I love.
6) Control placement. I think only 1 out of the 60+ streamers we put out was reported as mishung, and naturally, that was one that I put out. It was off by about 25 meters.
7) Accommodations. The cabins were great.
8) Guest course setters. We had exercises designed by Thierry Gueorgiou and Mats Troeng. How cool is that??
Things that could have been better, in no particular order:
1) Assigning adults to different groups of juniors. With the notable exceptions of Carl M and Dasa, the rest of the non-coaching adults assigned to help keep track of juniors either just walked away from the task or decided to go out on the course (and get lost) instead of waiting for the juniors at the finish.
2) Explaining the level of the camp to the groups ahead of time. I specifically advertised the camp as being for juniors who have completed an Orange course by themselves. When we got there on Saturday, it turned out we had some juniors who had never orienteered before, and a number who had done 1-2 White courses. I was admittedly unprepared for this, and should have had a real beginner version of each exercise available. Moreover, the group leaders often did not know their kids' experience levels, and some kids were misplaced from the start. I think the best way to deal with this may be to start off the camp with some sort of "sorting" course for everyone, that would give me a true idea of everyone's ability.
3) Compatibility with the regular QOC training. I think the fact that the regular QOC adult training was happening in parallel to the junior training caused some confusion, at least on the part of the adults. I think this can be fixed through much clearer descriptions on the QOC website ahead of time.
4) Payment. We never made it clear that the QOC night race and local event had separate fees associated with them. This confused some of the groups. I think in the future, these should be included in a single camp package fee.
5) Difficulty of Sunday morning courses. Taken by themselves, they were fine courses. But since I planned to have a second training, I should have made it clear to the juinors to run a course they can complete in a maximum of 90 minutes. Or possibly designed a simpler "Intermediate" and "Advanced" courses for them that would take less time to complete than the QOC Orange and Brown.
6) My physical state. If my back wasn't in excruciating pain all weekend, I'd have been able to hang and collect a lot more controls and would ease the burden on the other volunteers.
7) Terrain. Happyland camp is in a pretty green and physical part of Prince William Forest. Running here once or even twice during a weekend is fine, but doing it five times really drains you. I'd love to have this camp with access to some friendlier terrain, like the part where I set my relay courses. Maybe, if we have to be at Happyland, next year we can bus people to a different part of the park for a one-way training that finishes at Happyland.
8) Level of exercises. As I mentioned earlier, I think I should have a very easy version of each of the exercises available. That would help things a great deal in the event of a large group of inexperienced juniors showing up.
I am sure there are more things. Please add some if you can think of any!!
All in all, I think the weekend went well, and I hope we can have more of these in the future. Thanks to QOC for making it happen!