Training Log Archive: iansmith

While waiting around in my office, I did some strength training. I was not clad appropriately or well equipped, so I kept it brief.

32 pushups
1 minute wall sit
20 v-sits
20 jumpies
45 seconds front plank
5 burpies (total pansy)
25 calf raises (both legs simultaneously)

Review of 2009 Boulderdash:

I have only run one other 2-day classic meet - the NEOC 2008 October Mt. Tom A-meet. I have been improving, as the results will show. Unfortunately, it's difficult to strictly compare the Mt. Tom meet because the conditions were different. In particular, Mt. Tom has much more climb and had fewer linear features (and legs along linear features). Both Eddie and Ross are top runners who are fairly consistent in their results who were at both meets. I think Ross has measurably improved in the past year, but the assumption that their results are constant is approximately good.

The ratio of my time to the average of Ross's and Eddie's times for the four races:

Heart and Troll Day One	1.619
Heart and Troll Day Two	1.527
Boulderdash Day One	1.284
Boulderdash Day Two	1.327

Day 2 of the UNO Boulderdash A-meet, a classic race. The course was much more technical, with a shorter average distance between controls. There were fewer linear features, though linear options existed on many controls. I fared less well comparatively because of an eight minute error on control 12.

Brendan in particular had a strong race - I was just over 33% back of his time, and in terrain this technical (in which he has consistently performed well), I can't realistically compete with him at my present ability. Emily showed her strength and superior skill on technical terrain by obliterating me by 14 minutes. I surmised that I would be less likely to be competitive with her on technical terrain. She started two minutes after me and caught me between controls 7 and 8. Adrenaline kicked in, I ran on a trail a bit, and I put on a surge of speed to beat her by about 20 seconds to control 8, but she punched ahead of me at 9, 10, and 11. I messed up 12 as I took a different route to 12 and didn't see her for the rest of the course.

Surprisingly, the activities from the previous day didn't seem to have a significant effect on me. I felt strong throughout the race and ran aggressively on the legs with trivial navigation at the end, like 18 to the end.

Much like yesterday, I struggled on some technical legs. In particular, in the absence of particularly obvious route choices and major features, I struggle. Legs of this type included 7 and 12. Controls 15 and 16 were somewhat of that form. Unfortunately, control 12 was a cataclysmic error (fortunately my only error of that form this weekend). The terrain was difficult and hard to interpret; the control was nestled in a small reentrant on a slope. I had a decent (though not perfect) attack, but I missed within 50 meters of the control. The "I've made a mistake" alarm that Ross has spoken of went off in my head, but I knew I was near the control and thought to reattack. That was a mistake, since I didn't know where I was. I tried to relocate off a huge boulder - an obvious attack point, but I was on the wrong spur. I eventually decided to bail and relocate off a trail, and I stumbled on the control. Had I immediately relocated or taken a safer attack, I would have reduced my error significantly.

I took a poor route choice to both 15 and 16. The first controls were good, though I was hesitant and inefficient on my way to controls 6 and 7.

In discussing our routes to control 8, Emily said to me that she didn't think she could keep up with me on the trail (she took a more direct path through the woods). I think that she overestimates my speed, but it was an encouraging thing to hear. I will work on my absolute running speed and wood speed in an effort to improve this apparent advantage. Her process and speed are higher through the woods, as I discovered en route to control 9.

My impression was that control 18 was further north than indicated on the map, though it's possible I was off on my bearing. The route was sufficiently safe that speed was a higher priority than accuracy.

Warmup for the race.

Blue day 2 - Splits

Day 1 of the UNO Boulderdash A-meet, a classic race. The course had many linear features, and technical races are not my strengths. Overall, I moved well and aggressively; through control 11, I was only 4:30 behind Brendan. I fatigued on the long uphill leg to control 12, and lost about ten minutes relative to what I'm ideally capable of in the last 3.5 km. I spent 42 minutes on these last legs.

In a tragically amusing result, I finished 16 seconds behind Emily (who was sick). While I had hoped to beat her, such a close result is significantly better than my usual performance. Ross crushed the field with a 72 minute result - six minutes faster than Sergei. I beat some of my usual targets, like Jeremy Colgan and Nick Lewis-Walls.

Good results: I had good flow and process during the race. I made generally good decisions, and my errors, while nontrivial, were not severe and were exacerbated by fatigue rather than technical incompetence.

Areas to improve: I still lack the vitality to push hard throughout a race. I moved strongly on the trail legs - controls 9 and 10 - but either consequently or independently lacked energy to push as hard afterward. My technical skills are not strong enough to compete at the highest level, and I still am not sufficiently good at synthesizing pertinent information from a map. I do not do well navigating in the absence of obvious features, and my two worst legs - controls 13 and 14 - were among the most technical.

I was tentative and hesitant at times on the first eight controls, but my only errors of note were on the second control (moving through rough open, I drifted left) because I was not yet into the map and on the eighth control, when I made a poor route choice decision and went right to the field. My route to control 3 was not very good.

I attacked control 12 via the rock wall on the edge of the map, which was safe and fast. I should have pushed more aggressively, and a straighter route rather than one that went directly to the wall would have been faster. On control 13, I navigated on the side of the hill poorly, overshot, and relocated off the top of the hill. On control 14, I checked off cliffs and contour features to the trail, but somehow drifted about 80 meters right. I pinpointed myself off a big boulder in a reentrant, but clearly my compass work and reading of less obvious features needs work.

Additional remarks in the split comments. Controls I failed to spike were 2, 7, 8, 13 and 14.

Warm up and run to the start. I arrived at the start well in advance of my start, so I had lots of time to prepare.

Picking up eight controls near the start. I was out about fifty minutes, but I was only moving for the time logged.

Blue day 1 - Splits

Event: UNO Boulder Dash
 

UNO Sprint - 1 second behind Emily Kemp.

My default easy run - a loop through Porter, Harvard and Inman Squares. Uneventful. This week has been very trying, which has had an adverse effect on my training.