Training Log Archive: iansmith

Event: NEOC: Houghton's Pond
 

Red course at Blue Hills West by Richard Powers. I didn't pace myself well; I started a little too hard and felt tired halfway through the course. The course wasn't the trickiest, and there are enough trails in Blue Hills West that many legs had some trail component.

I didn't have a solid attack on 1-2 and lost at least twenty seconds milling around across the road. I had a 20s bobble when I overran 6, and a slow cut through some green at 7. I drifted right when plowing up a hill to 9 for a loss of 30s. I completely botched my attack to 10 and missed right, hitting a catching feature and losing about a minute on the reattack. Leg 10-11 was a choice between cutting over a hill through green or running far around on a trail; I elected to go straight. I first drifted right, then overcompensated on my descent and missed wide left. The GPS track is serpentine there (37-41 mins). I was really solid on a straight line to 12 and did ok on a straight line to 15.

The running theme is consistent with my comfort level: I tend to run confidently on flat, rolling or gently sloped terrain; legs that have more dramatic up- or downhill sections are more difficult for me. This isn't that surprising; perspective of features is worse - e.g. when going uphill, you often can't see the more distinctly mapped features, and the physicality of uphills and higher speeds of downhills makes it harder to think clearly. My Oringen experience also confirms that - leg 3 on day 1 was a long uphill leg on which I lost confidence though it wasn't actually that hard.

Picking up controls.

Red - Splits

I hiked Moosilauke with Kate; we started from the lodge and went up Snapper and descended via Gorge Brook. It would have been fun to descend via the Ridge Trail, but our route was sufficient for the day. The summit was magnificent, with clear blue skies and a view to Washington and beyond. The day was perfect for hiking, and the roughly fifty people on the summit seemed to agree.

C • Washington 1

I'm satisfied with the courses I designed for the 2013 Camping Weekend (results have been posted). The biggest concern I had - which turned out to be justified - was that the Day 1 Orange course was too difficult - it had a 41% failure rate. Orange courses are particularly difficult to design in Pawtuckaway, which has a dearth of suitable linear features and obvious catching features. Maps available upon request.

The other major consideration is the total physical challenge of the Camping Weekend. To the standard trifecta of the two classic courses and the Night-O (+ the canoe-O), Ed and I added a sprint relay. Completing the sprint relay, two blue courses, and the Night-O required about 30 km of tough orienteering in little more than 24 hours. I don't know that many people in the US who are in good enough shape to race the entire weekend, though some can survive it. Perhaps running sub 10:00/km on both classic courses and the Night-O is a good goal for elites. Excepting Day 1 White and Yellow, exactly two runs were under the arbitrary mark of 10/km.

There was some talk of CSU taking on the task of setting the Camping Weekend in alternating years with UNO - which I think is an excellent idea. I managed to design the courses this year with about 40-45 total controls each day. The control hanging team consisted of Lex and Pete, Alar, and me; several other people contributed to pickup. I imagine the entire course load could be orchestrated by five or six people - especially if there were enough flags to hang both days in a single push.

One way of improving the weekend would be to pre-print maps. There are always mistakes copying the courses, and I find drawing courses antiquated and tedious. You could preprint fewer maps than you expected to use and charge extra for them. The sprint relay was very successful, with twelve teams and 28 people competing. Despite some initial trepidation, I was able to set courses that were reasonable lengths (about 2 km) and were navigationally interesting. The event comfortably finished in under 2 hours.

Finally, an idea: making the Camping Weekend an A-meet occasionally - perhaps once every few years. I think it could be done without disrupting the fun atmosphere. Instead of assigning start times, allow people to start as they arrived at 2- or 3- minute start intervals. You could break up club mates to further discourage collusion. A middle distance, the Night-O, and Sunday's classic course would make an excellent set of races, and few places could be as spectacular for a mass start A-meet Night-O than Pawtuckaway. This idea is especially attractive to me because Pawtuckaway doesn't get much attention outside of New England, and an A-meet would attract out-of-towners to this glorious playground. You could have a WYOG set of recreational courses, or only marginally raise the cost of entry to avoid discouraging casual local orienteers.

Another idea: Billygoat in Pawtuckaway. As long as it was before mosquito and FDF season, the course practically sets itself. Hell, I would be willing to design a Billygoat at Pawtuckaway, though I would probably race it unofficially, too.

Easy evening run. My right adductor is not fully recovered, but the movement was not painful.

The appearance of a bruise on my inner right thigh, the persistent ache, and the difficulty I have flexing my hamstring to lift my right foot suggests that my pain during the Highlander was a pull and not a cramp. It doesn't appear t be severe, but I will rest as needed.

Rest day after the Highlander. Everything feels ok except my adductors; I wonder if the cramps over the Highlander were actually mild pulls. I think I hadn't strengthened my muscles enough to vault over blueberries over a 4 hour race.

I also was spectacularly successful hitting Andrew Childs with updog; after a moment of digesting my statement, he emphatically replied with "What... is... updog?" Perfection. My success rate has climbed to perhaps 3%.