Training Log Archive: iansmith

NAOC Middle Distance! I was disgusted and discouraged by my performance on the long yesterday. I chose some cautious route choices and was careful to the point of hesitation. At the spectator control, I was about 10 minutes behind Will Enger, but a disastrous loop through the technical terrain from controls 17-21 left me 28 minutes behind him. I blew fourteen minutes on control 17 alone; I was resolved not to do that today.

The negative terrain at 1:15k had proved my undoing on the Long, so the plan for today was to be careful, precise, and in control. Running at 1:10 in addition to the de facto "model event" at the end of the long course would certainly help. Quarantine was beautiful, with verdant grass surrounding a small pond and a glorious mountainscape in the background. I was only in quarantine for about an hour before my start, so I drank my tea, jogged to warm up my legs, and read an old Yukon map from 2004 that Boris had brought.

I was hesitant on the first two controls, taking my time and ensuring I was reading the features correctly. I opened up on a careful ridge run to 3; I considered running right to a wide open spur, but the ridge seemed more secure. Controls 4 and 5 were also straightforward. The climb out of 5 was steep with some slow moss and deadfall, but I ran back along the ridge to 6. Greg Ahlswede, who started 4 minutes behind me, caught up to me on 6; I didn't try to stay with him, reasoning that I would just wreck my race. He was out of sight when I punched 6. I exited 6 very poorly, with a vague goal of running to the big hills to the west. I lost contact here, and spent about 2:30 trying to figure out what happened before I lined things up and made it to 7. This left me shaken, and I was very careful on 8 and 9. Eric Kemp passed me to 9; we took the same line off the hill, and he was just in sight when I punched 9. I again disregarded his presence and executed my own plan to 10, using a sequence of subtle hills and reentrants as checkpoints into the control. From 8 on, I finally felt like I was immersed in the map, and I executed 10-13 well; I had a 10s bobble on 11 picking out the right reentrant and again at 13 picking out the right clearing. I attacked one depression early at 14, and it took me 20-30s to piece things together. My route into 15 was again safe, with a trail run along a ridge; Eric Kemp surprisingly caught up to me just as I was attacking into 15. He went the wrong way, and I punched the control perhaps 15-20s ahead of him. I celebrated by deciding to go high along a hill into 16, which was low - letting Eric pull ahead of me. The rest of the course was easy open controls.

My race was thoroughly unspectacular - over 12 minutes behind Anton and ten minutes behind GSwede. I'm annoyed that I lost contact and blew 2 minutes, but many others had far worse days. My speed wasn't great, and there were places (e.g. 2-3, 5-6, 7-9) when I could have opened up my pace. At the very least, I wish I had run 5 seconds faster to be under 50. Still, I executed my plan and ran far better than I did during the long yesterday.

NAOC Middle & WRE - C-11 - Splits

NAOC Long & WRE - C-11 - Splits

Event: NAOC 2018
 

I'm going to NAOC this weekend; I was curious if I had been or orienteered further north than Whitehorse. Fun fact: as there are about 111 km between degrees of latitude (stable up to the deviation from a perfect sphere of the Earth), each hundredth of a degree is 1 km. It looks like Whitehorse is about 560 km south of my furthest journey north, for the 2013 Oringen in Boden, Sweden.

Whitehorse Latitude:	60.7º N
Kannanaskis, Calgary, 2016 Canadians Previous North American-O best	51.1º N
Reykjavik, pre-Jukola 2016:	64.1º N
Stykkishólmur, pre-Jukola 2016:	65.1º N
Helsinki, Jukola 2016:	60.2º N
Uppsala, pre-Tiomila 2014:	59.9º N
Boden, Oringen 2013:	65.8º N
Anchorage, AK 1999 boy scout trip North American personal best	61.2º N

Run to the TTC station and then from Shepard West to Earl Bales.

Fun fact: if my numbers are correct, Tove has entered 24 WOC races and medaled in 18 of them. Pro.

C • Tove 5

zomg:

Rallying with Laleh. Our backhands still need work. When she and I scrimmage, we generally play somewhat cooperatively - with the intent to keep the ball in the area and keep the rally going - rather than adversarially. I think my control and technique has improved substantially nevertheless.

Running with smol backpack with laptop and squash racket. Slow, hot, humid, tired.