Training Log Archive: iansmith

COC Long - C-11 - Splits

A mighty expedition on Mt. Lorne with Will.

Warm up before the race and cool down jog with Eric and Will.

NAOC Sprint - C-6a - Splits

NAOC Relay day! The format of the event was well designed: four different classes of 3-person national relays - M/F; 21+ and Junior - were starting at 10 AM. Three person club relays of three (?) different categories were starting at 10:10. The longest club relay was 7.8 km in total, while the longest national relay was the M21 19.5 km relay.

I hadn't planned for a relay; as I didn't apply for the national team for 2018, I'm not currently on the team. My fitness and training have been too lackluster to justify an application. In 2016, when we needed eight elite men, I was given a spot on one of the sprint relay teams, but the US has enough depth here that my slow services were not required. My performance on the long further excluded me from consideration. The US men's teams consisted of Anton, Michael Laraia, and GSwede on the first team and ebone, Will Enger, and Peteris on the second team.

Fortunately, Forest was very helpful in finding me a team, and I ran with Joshua Wiley and Bruce Christopherson on team "Leftovers are best." The leg lengths were 2.2, 2.2, and 3.4 km; I was running second leg. I knew going out that staying on the biathlon ski trails would be much faster than bashing through the woods, and this was repeated by first leg runners as they handed off. My course was basically a sprint, and I felt solid throughout. I was perhaps overly cautious on my attack into the first control after a long trail run for a small time loss. I also missed the third control by about 15s by attacking too soon from the trail. I felt a bit ponderous scampering around on the trails. Near the end, I saw Tori Borish, Eric Bone, and Robert Graham on their respective relay legs, and I tagged off to Bruce in an adequate 15:49. I spent the rest of the day yelling and taking pictures; in tribute to my training by Ross, I was asked to move twice for being too loud.

The US had an excellent day and should have netted 40 points from two firsts, a third, and a fourth place in the senior relay. Unfortunately, Colin Abbott took a stick to the leg and had to withdraw from the race; this gives the US ten more points. It remains to be seen if a 24 point lead survives the sprint day - especially without Ali. It hasn't always been the case that the depth and quality of the US men was able to score a resounding win against Canada, but it was today.

Relay - Expert 1 & 2 - Splits

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