Training Log Archive: iansmith

The New England championship Canoe-O. Lori and I went through a comparatively Herculean process to attend, and we didn't have a particular interest in our speed. She and I hadn't even rowed a canoe by ourselves before, and while we both had sufficient canoe experience, we expected our lack of preparation to put us well back of the field.

We had a good time, but because I was providing most of the power, I was J-stroking almost constantly to keep us on course. We also used conventional canoeing equipment as opposed to race equipment, a fact for which we were gingerly berated.

I was satisfied with our pace and strategy - control 3 was interestingly behind a dam. I estimate we could have finished in about 1:40, but we chose a poor strategy (as it turned out, an illegal strategy as well as a slower one) that resulted in our disqualification. For about 29 minutes, I rowed along by myself, and found it quite interesting. With an empty bow, the moment of the canoe is much smaller, so a stroke rotates the bow by 3-8 degrees. Once the canoe gets moving, the resistance to rotation is larger, and it's easier to maintain speed. I tried kneeling in the center, rowing from the stern, and rowing backwards from the bow; bow rowing was the most effective in general. It's certainly true that I was slower by myself, but I believe I got up to an instantaneous velocity of 3-4 mph - however, I was zigzagging slightly. I'm curious to see how a kayak would perform under race conditions - Keith and I were debating which would be faster.

Also, the climb component of this entry is a farce (though we were hit by a few impressive wakes).

Congratulations to Jeff Schapiro, who came without a boat, supervised parking for about two hours, then single handedly won the New England Championships singles race with a unique combination of brute strength, perseverance, and uberhardk0reness.

Pia's training course at Prospect Hill, part of the CSU summer training sequence. As an interesting twist, while the front of the map was the complete course with all the o-details we've come to expect, the back of the map was the controls superimposed only on the contours.

I arrived late, courtesy of my poor planning, and found the contour exercise challenging and interesting. Running into large features - roads, cliffs, open areas and even lakes - is surreal without that data. I find that while contours are interesting, I tend to rely on other features - rocks, cliffs, and major contours, like reentrants and spurs.

Anyway, after I hit control 7, I decided it was getting too late and too dark to continue using only the contour map (though I had cheated a few times), so I switched to using the complete map exclusively, and finished through control 15. In the vicinity of control 16, I couldn't find the streamer - possibly because it was too dark - so I aborted and ran back to the start.

Travel by bike to Prospect Hill Park. Route choice was not optimal.

Event: WCOC Crandalls Park
 

Lori's diabolical abdominal workout; it was a bit challenging, but not as strenuous as I expected. I was unfamiliar with much of the workout, so much of my focus was on correctly implementing the technique. Most unfamiliar to me were the oblique crunches, which I struggled with; with my knees to one side, I struggled to lift the opposing side shoulder blade.

Amusing commentary mid-exercise from Ross.

CSU Interval training, Tufts track, run by Lori "Teh Small One" Huberman. The course consisted of 400, 600, 800, 800, 600, 400 intervals with 200 m rests between them. Peter Chikov and I were late to the workout, so we ran them together.

I enjoyed this interval training more than I expected, and I was less incapacitated by it; however, I wish I had run faster. Peter did a great job - this was his first running training with CSU, and he wasn't quite sure what to expect. I'm not sure how much faster I could have pushed myself without some outside stimulus - like Ross, Ian Finlayson, or Clem motivating me.

Length/Time/400 m Pace
400 93.70 93.70
600 151.71 101.14
800 208.31 104.15
800 200.97 100.46
600 148.86 99.24
400 82.16 82.16

My goal was 90-second/400 m pace - corresponding to a 6 minute/mile pace. The data suggests that I'm slow and unskilled as a runner.

Run from the Alewife T stop to Menotomy Rocks Park.

NEOC Long Motala at Menotomy Rocks park. This is my second race at this park, and while the Motala format was interesting, I don't think this course was as effective using the park as the CSU park-o.

Briefly, the Long consisted of three legs (much like a relay) - (in the order I did them): orange, yellow and street of lengths 2.1, 1.9, and 2.4 k respectively. I started my orange leg simultaneously with Carl Underwood. I was ahead of him at 2, but fell behind after a poor route choice from 4-5. He runs well.

While Michael Commons was traveling from one side of the park to another, I passed him 5 times. In the grassy field at the entrance, there were like N dogs (N(t) - varied with time), and N-k (for 0 < k(t) < N(t)) tennis balls. The result was hilarious - dogs frantically scurrying about trying to keep or steal a tennis ball. They were so focused on their goals, I almost ran over two while approaching a control.

While I was in general pleased with my performance today, an acceptable benchmark - Carl Underwood - pwned me in about 39 minutes. I made a few mistakes and one particularly bad route choice, but I'm not totally discouraged.

The biggest lesson of today's orienteering was simple: always go to the bathroom before going out on your course. I won't get into details, but suffice it to say that I think I could have shaved about 4-5 minutes off my time with this simple precaution.

My focus for the next week will be abs, because I know whatever Lori cooks up for Thursday 19 June CSU training will be the diabolical abdominal workout from hell.

A CSU training park-O put on by Ross at Peter's Hill in the Arnold Arboretum. The course, while navigationally straightforward, had substantial climb. I forgot my compass, but that didn't substantially impede me. I was pleased that I stayed in contact without the use of my compass.

On e-punch courses at A meets and most NEOC meets, I use my stopwatch to track my total time - usually to motivate/yell at myself for taking so long to approach control N. As a result, I have not extensively practiced recording splits; on this particular course, I took 9 of 13 splits (so they're pretty much all useless).

I met Clem McGrath and his wife Daria; they apparently live very close to my apartment. I hope to glean some WOCesque skillz.

Travel to work. While hardly a workout, I'm logging it for data collection purposes - for later analysis. I suspect time dependence because of traffic (and perhaps heat); this run was from about 8:30 to 8:45. I spent about half the journey waiting at traffic lights.

A bike ride to Walden Pond with Lori. The temperature started at 94' F and diminished to about 86 F. We road predominantly on the scenic Minuteman Bikeway, though there was a fair amount of road riding. We also traversed an impressive number of hills of non-trivial size.

The lessons learned:
- It's been too long since I've ridden my bike
- I am not ready for such long journeys at present
- My butt is not well conditioned for long periods of using a bike seat
- My bike is more robust than I gave it credit
- I need to bring an audiobook next time I go cycling for any length.

I estimate our peak flat speed (e.g. on long stretches of the Minuteman Bikeway) was about 16-17 mph, based on mile marker measurements. We stopped a fair amount, including about an hour at Walden Pond; the total duration was 5 hours.

Interesting sights on this trip included Jean Rife (a former music instructor of mine @mit.edu), an albino squirrel, spy pond, and innumerable cyclists of varying calibre.

Curling Lori exactly once. It was a bit of a strain; I wouldn't want to integrate this into my regular exercise regimen.

C • Day 1

I ran on an elliptical at my gym while reading Wheel of Time. I'm not entirely sure why, but I have difficulty standing up straight at length while using an elliptical. I find that as my workout progresses, I increasingly use the arm holds for support.

In that sense, while ellipticals are lower impact than treadmills, I find treadmills more sustainable. Perhaps I should revise my elliptical technique.

40x squats, weight varying incrementally from 45 to 135 lbs
100x awesome situpy machines, body weight
50x curls, 30-40 lbs

The NEOC Nobscot Scout Reservation red course. Overall, I was pleased with my performance. In general, I had good route choices, kept up a good running tempo, stayed in contact with the map, and effectively used my time for planning purposes.

I rolled my ankle, and my right knee was painfully throbbing along the course; the former I will probably treat with ice, and the latter with weight training (I guess). I was just on the verge of the 10 minutes /k goal, but I was within my (2 times average(Ross, Brendan)) goal. (Ross won in 54 minutes; Brendan did not attend).

Overview comments:
- I still suck at interacting with other orienteers. About fifty meters out of the start, I ran into a couple who were probably running yellow or orange; I transitioned into my "look like you know what you're doing" mode, and got lost ON TRAILS. Sigh. I estimate a four minute mistake.

- Lakes are awesome attack points.

- I find that when actually orienteering through woods, I find a set of attack points on the way to ensure I'm still in contact. In a curious correlation, I find that adding attack points makes my split time longer because I take time to verify hitting each one. This was true, e.g. on control 6 on 26 May Long course; I had a good route and stayed in contact, but my split was long.

In depth description:
Apart from my trail blunder approaching control 1 (I overshot on trails by about 250 m), that control was easy. Control 2 was steep, but obvious relative to a significant cliff. I initially didn't go far enough south, costing perhaps 1 minute. Control 3 was a difficult, treacherous approach on a steep, leafy slope; my route could have been better, but I did hit the two trails I expected to intersect in the correct places.

I was proud of my route to Control 4; rather than take the obvious trail (and add perhaps 150-200 m), I hit a field and beelined via two rock walls to spike the control. For control 5, I had a good route and should have run faster. Controls 6, 7, and 8 all had excellent lake attackpoints, bringing me to within about 100 m in each case. From 8 to 9, I decided to go over a spur rather than contour around and picked up the reentrant leading to the knoll near 9. I figured it was fastest; the other runners I talked to all went over (and I'm sure someone as energetic as Ross and the Saegers, e.g. would). The remaining controls were all fairly straightforward. I put a lot of effort from 12 to the end.

Red - Splits