Training Log Archive: iansmith

Lunch river run with Luc. We stopped a couple times to grab water.

Tempo cruise intervals. I ran to the Kennedy St bridge, then ran 4 intervals of the Kennedy-Arsenal river loop. The loop, excluding the Kennedy bridge itself, is about 2.6 km - a perfect cruise interval length. I jogged the bridge with a two minute rest between bouts.

My Garmin was uncharged, so I just ran with my stopwatch. My splits were all 10:20 - 10:30, at around 4:00/km. My warmup transit was 21 mins and 4.4 km, and my return was 20 mins and 3.6 km. I felt good during the bouts, and I was quite happy to hold consistent paces.

Night-O at Nobscot. This weekend is the Scout-O, so the slate of courses had a focus on accessibility. The long course was only 4 km, but Night-O is always fun. Even better, there was a platoon of boy scouts going out on the courses. I was wearing my old Trimtex US jersey, and I talked for several minutes with a group of scouts and parents about the national teams, Tiomila, and the various O-accessories I was wearing.

I had negligible warmup because I was meeting some friends after the race for games. I was a little tired running up the hills cold, but I pushed through. The bigger problem was that I wasn't focused; my navigation was very sloppy for the first few controls. The features - walls, big contour features - were big enough that I was able to recover with negligible loss.

Warmup and cool down. Mostly cool down.

Event: NEOC: Estabrook Woods
 

A wonderful day with a wonderful group of people who have been brought together from distant walks of life all over the world to this one place. Sublime. I chatted with the Swedes a bunch - Rassmus, Kate (NZ), David, Lovisa, Lisa, Sebastian, Elisa, and Johan. Delightful and friendly people. I also talked to Annika and Thierry, nbd.

C • nbd 8

Run to work, then a Museum of Science - Mass Ave bridge loop.

C • NAOC 5

Holy cow, I am slow. More later.

I was hugely disappointed by my sprint result, which despite some mistakes, was more a consequence of being really slow rather than technical accuracy. I was eager for another crack at it, and I was very happy to be selected for the sprint relay teams. My team was Kseniya, me, Wyatt, and Angelica. Kseniya came in quickly, a minute back of Alex. I started just behind Damian, Boris, and Schirm. The course wasn't overly technical. Everyone immediately split up for their forks, and I settled into running my own course; I was alone for 1-3. I saw Boris punch my 4 just ahead of me, and tried to reel him in on 5-6. We had separate 7s, and he disappeared, only to reappear just behind me as we ran into the field to 8. We again had different 8s, and soon he, a Canuck (Trevor Bray?) and I were bashing down the beach to 9. I bobbled 13 by about 5 seconds and Boris pulled ahead, but I ran him down in the chute and we finished together.

Overall, I'm satisfied with my effort; I was clean and solid on all controls. I lost 5s on 13, and perhaps 15s from hesitation on 5-6. While there are people who are faster than I, I believe I justify my selection by being very solid and reliable. US team 7 finished 4 minutes behind the lead Canadian Team; ignoring forkings, Kseniya and Angelica finished about 40s ahead of Tori and Kerstin. This of course implies that Wyatt and I lost almost five minutes to Damian and Will over 6 km. This is totally unacceptable. I must get faster.

C • . 3

Sprint - Course 5a - Splits

Warmup jog to the start. I was one of the last starters. I didn't push too hard - just enough to wake up, as I wanted to be as fresh as possible.

Today's run was steady - unspectacular, but with far fewer disasters than the rest of the field on a tough day. My fitness isn't where I want it to be, but my results have been a safe bet - consistent but unremarkable. I finished third US after many better orienteers were trashed by today's minefield, and I'm delighted to have counted for NAOC scoring. Still, finishing eighteen minutes behind Randerson (to say nothing of the Euros) is pathetic.

The 1:15 scale never caused me serious problems; it was very clear and intuitive to me. I bobbled 1 by 30s when I missed right trying to get around the marsh. I executed 2 well - a little slow on my final approach, but always solid. I made a 90s error drifting off my compass at 5, and completely blew six minutes at 6, in an essentially identical leg as control 8 from yesterday. I made an idiotic 40s mistake on the spectator control when the paths leading away from 8 didn't make sense, and I came through in 46 minutes, which I knew to be 3 minutes behind Ross and 15 behind the Euros.

The second half of the course was dramatically different - more distinct; smaller, clearer features; and many more trails. I started to get tired about halfway through the second half, and it took concentration to push. At this point, I didn't my result was going to be any good. I was clean on 11-13, and executed 14 particularly well. I was a little uncertain after punching through the marsh on 15, and I lost maybe 30s confusing a stream bed for a trail while running to 16. Apparently I was fairly clean and consistent on 11-22; I hesitated a little on the trail to 23, but was just slow and tired. I was quite surprised to run into Patrick Goeres, who started 6 minutes before me, leaving 23.

There are a few lessons to be gleaned from this race. Especially in tricky areas, clean execution can be more decisive than absolute speed. Controls 2 and 6 were the decisive controls on this course. On 2, while I wasn't overly quick, I was solid, and finished 25% back of the fastest North American. If I had avoided a mistake on 6 and run sub 1:40, it would have been an excellent run for me. Second, my fitness was lacking. The first half of the race was more technique than speed, but the second half was very much speed. I lost six minutes to Ross after control 10 despite only about a minute of error. Third, and perhaps most importantly, even if you feel like your race isn't going well, it's important to be able to mentally recover and race hard. I thought I was having a bad race through 10 - and if 2 and 6 hadn't been so murderous, I would have been much lower, but excluding Robbie, I was only a few minutes behind the top North Americans.

Long - Course 10 - Splits

Warmup jog to the start. I arrived at the start with about twelve minutes before my callup.

Jog around on the model map next to the start triangle. I took five controls to get my mind working and get a feel for the terrain. It was subtle.

NAOC Middle Distance race. My goals were straightforward: take the first control cleanly (unlike US Champs middle and long last week), get into a rhythm, and navigate precisely. I nailed the first two controls which felt excellent. The wheels slipped off a bit on controls 4 and 5, where I lost 20s and two minutes respectively, the latter by completely misinterpreting the vegetation on the map. I recovered for 6 and 7, but massively blew up on the hardest leg on the course, control 8, for a loss of about four minutes. I tried to mentally reset at 8, and I was clean but slow for the rest of the course.

On a very difficult day for everyone in tricky, vague terrain, clean navigation trumped speed. Brian May and Jeff Teutsch were not particularly fast, but they executed very well. I really need to work on my mindset for middle distances to be able to cope with legs like 8. I knew as I started that leg that it would be very difficult, but I still flailed and wandered. There were easily two dozen North Americans who had the capability to win that race, and technique dramatically trumped physicality on this particular course.

Middle - Course 10 - Splits

Event: NAOC2014 (North American Champs/Ottawa O-Fest)
 

Warmup before the middle. My Orocs hurt my feet; the pressure on the studs can be unpleasant. I wonder if getting a slightly thicker insert or a snugger fit would help. I took too much time getting things together - I left my car 20 minutes before my WRE start with 1.8 km to run. I misplaced my control description holder, but fortunately Boris lent me his. Mental mistake: not organized prerace, which is usually an area I excel at. Yesterday, I got to the start with more than 25 minutes to spare, comfortably warmed up, and organized my thoughts.

US Middle Distance Championships, Letchworth West. Overall, this was a sloppy, sluggish run with potential but ultimately disappointment.

Because there are so many parallel small reentrants in Letchworth, it's very easy to miss too high or too low without realizing it from the contour data. I wanted to start solidly and run precisely. My legs felt heavy and sluggish from the weekend. I was rushed on my pre-start routine; I wasn't sufficiently mentally composed.

I started out by missing control 1 too high, and I lost 45s+. I hit the stream ok, but didn't appreciate that I was perhaps three lines too high for some time. From the splits, this was a common mistake. A clean first control is a good goal to have, especially in a technical race.

I recomposed myself and did ok on 2 and 3. Control 2 was lower than I expected - shaking my confidence a little, but I picked off the indistinct trail and the contour shelf, which led me right to the flag. I was a little hesitant running straight to 3, but I found the spur and gentle NE reentrant I expected for another spike. On Control 4, I lost 75s by doing exactly what I feared by drifting too high - I overshot, bounced off the stream, and took a little time to recompose myself. I was irritated with myself, so I took 5 cautiously but cleanly, where I ran into Schirm. I didn't know if the Schirm started before or after me and did my best to be indifferent to him.

Schirm and I drifted apart running to 6 - I think I was lower than him, but we came back together just after the swamp and ran around the hill into 6 cleanly. To 7, I decided to run down to the marsh and blast; the running was quite nice, but I felt ponderously slow. Schirm pulled away from me, and I only gradually reeled in Izzy. She remarked later that I was "not fast." In looking at the splits, the route was clearly good, as I was only 20s down on a 4 minute leg. Controls 8-11 were straightforward, though again, I felt slow and tired on them. I was in control - perhaps too hesitant to 9, slow on the uphill to 10, and hard pressed to get around all the junk between me and the flag on 11.

To 12, I started by exiting the control 30' to the right, hit the open marsh, and changed to the road. I climbed up the spur, then lost some time checking out the green. The control was mapped as being in the thickest green, but it turned out to be in whiteish woods above the green. I probably lost 20s at the circle.

Control 14 was my great dumb mistake: I chose to run right along the trail around the hill. When I reached the end of the trail, I started contouring over, but then saw a flag high above me to the left. I should have realized that this was not my control - especially because Schirm was rocketing down the hill in front of me, but I lacked confidence and ran up to it. It was actually on the trail three or four lines above mine, while my control was exactly on my initial attack; I blew a full minute due to foolishness. Control 15 was fine; on 16, my bail to the trail was sluggish, wading through too much green. I left the trail too early, only to run to the bend again. I was incredibly slow climbing up the hill; this probably cost 40s of noobness, though I was clean into the circle. 17 was fine; I was chasing down a Canadian chap, but in my haste to try to pass him, I chose a poor route to 18 for a loss of perhaps 15s.

Estimated time lost: 4:55.

What can be said? I lack the shape or technical proficiency I wanted, but I've still been flirting with contention in these races. I can't do anything about the weeks I've lost to training, but I can execute well given and despite my sluggish movement through the woods. I'm not at the stage that Emily notes: that my bad runs are good enough to beat others' good runs, but I can still do some damage. Soon, it will be time to start training for the Spring and to apply the lessons from this fall.

Middle Blue - Splits

Very easy jogging around the start to loosen up.

US Championships Long Course, Letchworth State Park. I didn't feel particularly energetic, but I was well rested and fed. The middle of my left foot near my arch had been intermittently hurting coming into the race. I spent about ten minutes checking out the model area in the parking lot and getting into the 1:15 scale, and I had glanced at the old version of the map.

I wanted to take the first control cleanly even at the expense of taking it slower, as I botched the first control at the 2012 NAOC long. Unfortunately, while I was basically on my line, I lost around 90 seconds when things didn't make sense and I backtracked. I took a weaker route choice to 2 compared to most Americans, and quite a bit worse than Theo for a loss of 1-2 minutes. I was very solid on 3 and 4, but lost 20s on 5. To 6, my left arch started acutely hurting while I was running on the trail, so I backed off a bit.

I chose the obvious best route to 8, and took the 30s slower, higher trail route to 9. I ran back through the start triangle to 10, which I think was a solid route. I missed 11 by 30s to the left and hit the stream. To 12, I got a little creative and was slower, though correct for a loss of ~30s from hesitation. I was aggressive to 13 and 14; I caught and passed Ian Jones and a Canadian. My foot started hurting again as I was climbing after the road to 15, and Jones and the Canadian caught up to me. We ran together to 16, and I pulled away to 17. I ran too high too 18 for 15s, and an intrepid cadet pulled ahead to 19. Schirminator caught me at 19 to my great chagrin, and I chose a stupid path to descend to the trail.

Overall, it was a decent effort, but my fitness was too poor to be competitive. I'm happy to have beaten some people and placed as well as I did, but to quote Tove, the results don't determine the race quality. Many of the other Americans had messy races. I finished 4th American, 8 minutes behind ebone, and an eternity behind visiting Big Frenchman Theo.

C • ...results don't determine the race quality... 2

Easy cool down jogging around the parking area with Boris. We played splits, ruminated on Boris's breaking of Kenny, and talked trash. Good times.

C • Sleeping bag 3

Long Blue - Splits

Event: 2014 US Nationals
 

Easy run to wake up the legs around Rochester with Giacomo and French visitors Teo and Robin. Good times.

Jog to the start followed by some drills. I felt a bit sluggish.

US Sprint Champs, Genesee Valley Park, Rochester. My training has been laughable over the past few weeks as a combination of injury, illness, work, and poor life organization. I'm very disappointed with what I have done, but these are still the biggest two weekends of 2014.

Today's course was not particularly technical - it was a runners' course, with not much climb, in a wide open park not unlike Boston Park-O parks. I felt ok at the start after a good warmup, and I pushed hard with confidence the whole race. I caught Sergei Fedorov at control I had a few small mistakes:
- at 3, I unnecessarily took the left stairs for 5s,
- Some small hesitation at 6
- 15: an uncrossable fence transitioned to a crossable fence, but the crossable fence wasn't on the map. I looked at my map, saw double hash marks, and ran perhaps an unnecessary 100m around the edge when I could have hopped it. I'd guess I lost 20s.
- 20: route choice; I didn't think to punch through the green, 10s.

Overall, a good effort, but lackluster physical conditioning meant that I was too slow to contend. I'm happy to have been only a minute behind Eric and Ethan, but we were all shellacked by the Canadians today.

C • Nice run! 2

Cool down.

Sprint Blue - Splits