Training Log Archive: iansmith

Event: NavGames: Vampire Night-O
 

Whiteface with Ben and Peyton; above about 3000 feet, we encountered 20 cm of snow. We were carrying only one pair of kahtoola microspikes (two other pairs in the car), and Peyton's running shoes didn't have much traction. We each had a pole, which was helpful. Ben and I had enough traction to merrily plug along through the ankle deep snow. The snow slowed us down enough that we aborted our plan to hit Passaconaway. Ben had to be home by 7 pm for munchkin considerations, so we descended via a trail down the broad reentrant immediately south of Passaconaway, east of the moderate spur between Whiteface and Passaconaway. Whiteface had some good views on the ledges south of the summit, though the summit itself was immersed in trees. It was a beautiful day, with a temp of 5-10 C and clear skies. I will have to return to run this route some day, and I'd love to go down the spur southeast of Passaconaway.

Especially given how ginger our pace was, I felt surprisingly tired after this hike and went to bed promptly upon return at 8 pm after dropping Peyton off.

Instructing a cadre of scouts from Troop 1 in Harvard, MA how to execute a yellow course at NEOC's Nobscot Scout-O. The event has about 400 scouts in attendance; they are somewhat enthusiastic, but don't seem to interpret it as a sport. I wore my national team regalia, and my crew (excepting the leaders) ran each leg.

Hanging controls for the Scout-O races tomorrow. WYO.

Partial skyline before it got dark. Continued Blueprint for Armageddon.

Brooklyn Boulders with Ben; Joe is out of town, and Melanie was prepping for a retreat. I purchased climbing shoes and a harness because it was costing $10/session to rent them. My shoes feel like clogs right now - the sole is very stiff. I hope they break in with time.

I climbed about 10-15 pitches, but my forearms felt astonishingly weak. I made it through two full length 5.8s, made it through a 5.10b that had stymied me in the past (with two falls and a rest), an overhanging 5.9, and a couple other 5.9s. I finished up with a few laps of autobelaying 5.5s - 5.7s to work on my footwork and break in my new shoes.

C • Used to be 1

Corridor Street-O in an area of Cambridge I'm quite familiar with. I promptly got lost and left the corridor.

Warmup run to track workout; I arrived just as Terry, Patrick, and Kevin were starting strides. It was quite cold - about 6 C, and windy.

CSU Track workout; tonight itinerary was 800, 1000, 1200 with 2 minute recovery followed by 6x400 on a 2 minute cycle and a finishing 200 for "kicks." I wore 3/4 pants, a buff, and a long sleeve shirt, and I was still cold for much of the session. The headwind on the back straight was brutal.

800: 2:53 (ugh)
1000: 3:36
1200: 4:28
400s: 83, 81, 81, 79, 78, 76
200: 37

Easy run. Continued Countdown to Armageddon. It was chilly.

A serene evening run. I had considered just going for 90 minutes, but I felt ok. I started by obtaining a burrito, then cruised around the river in the still darkness. I listened to Hardcore History's Blueprint for Armageddon - the First World War. I'm much better informed about World War II history, partly because what originally piqued my interest in World War II was the impact of aviation. I've read Barbara Tuckman's The Guns of August and always had a certain fondness of Royal Navy technology - e.g. the Invincible class battlecruisers and their chase of the Goeben, the Battle of Jutland. World War I also is much more of a mindless meat grinder than World War II, which has made its study unappealing. The geopolitics which led to the outbreaks of wars are much more fascinating to me now than when I began my studies in elementary school. I can think of few doctrines which have more negatively impacted military history than that of Alfred Thayer Mahan. Also, while I thoroughly enjoy the Hardcore History podcast, I find it sometimes glosses over important details - for instance, this most recent podcast never referred to the Schlieffen plan as such despite describing the plan in some detail.

I glanced at my watch occasionally and intended to hold to a 5:00/km pace. I felt ok physically, though my hamstrings were a bit tight. Last week's easy peasy strength circuit wrecked my legs for several days. I think the lessons are (1) I need to dive more gradually into strength, perhaps with lighter sessions twice per week and (2) I should never do strength the day before interval day.

C • Strength vs intervals 1

C • geopolitics 3

10-12 pitches with Ben and Joe at Brooklyn Boulders. I ran into Bethany and Melanie.

I felt very weak.

After my warmup cruise, I stopped by the gym and did three sets of:
10x inclined situps (some minor pain in my lower back)
10x clean and press (x2), 11 kg
10x squat, 60 kg
25x oblique crunches
60s plank
25x explosive box jumps

Easy river cruise. Right lower leg felt a bit uncomfortable - probably secondary effects from rolling my ankle on Saturday.

Event: Nobscot Reservation
 

After I picked up Izzy, I arrived at Nobscot at 10 AM and worked registration for a bit. A crew of MIT students showed up at 10:45, including a classmate of mine - Anders Kaseorg. I didn't know him well when I was in Uni, and I didn't recognize him until I saw his name in the results.

Anyway, I executed my logistical plan perfectly this morning, which pleases me. I hung out at registration until about noon, when I suited up. I decided to do this properly, and ran around for 15 minutes on trails to warm up. I still didn't feel fantastic - I could tell I missed three days midweek. I also wonder if I'm getting a little sick.

Red course by Bo at Nobscot. This course had a distinctive middle distance feel for the first half followed by some longer legs near the end. I started aggressively, but whiffed badly on 4 - drifting far to my right for a loss of about 45s. The GPS track is obvious here. I then ran within 10m of 5 without seeing it, losing another 30s. Ugh. I got things together for a bit and was moving well, but I botched 10 (a pit) by being a bit too low, and lost 20s figuring things out. At control 15 - the end of the control pick section, I had a small lead, with 3 people within 3 minutes of me. I took a good line to 16, and celebrated by running right by 17, blowing a minute. I was solid for the rest of the course, but on the long leg to 21, I was frustrated by my inability to drop the hammer on the long trail run. I've been missing my tempo workouts lately - a combination of time management and reluctance. I think my body is telling me that my training load has increased substantially over the past few weeks, and two days hasn't been enough time to recover from track workout. Maybe I'll move tempo runs to Friday; I might also join a group of CSU runners who do tempo workouts at Fresh Pond on Thursday to get over the trepidation of 4:00/km.

My run was acceptable, but sloppy. I need to execute better - especially in vagueish areas without many features, like on my approach to 17, and areas of low visibility and heavier vegetation. Compass - and confidence with compass - needs work. I think Night-O is clearly called for. I guess I'm glad that when I tried to run hard - from 17 to the finish, I picked up about two minutes on everyone, but I should have been running that well the entire course. I want to redo the eight splits I lost. Overall, it was a fun day in the woods.

C • Night O 2

I felt a bit crap after my push near the end of the race, so I went for a short saunter around the parking lot to clear my legs a bit.

Control pickup.

Red - Splits

Skyline outing, though I managed my time this afternoon so poorly that the sun was setting as I started. It was basically completely dark about 40 minutes in, and I didn't bring a flashlight. I ran cautiously and only bailed when I moderately rolled an ankle after 1:07. I felt sort of meh; this week has been very tough due to OUSA and work commitments.

The unrestricted income available to OUSA over the past four years has averaged $225k per year. With 1275 current OUSA members, this amounts to about $175 per member. The obvious question - and one I am trying to answer - is whether the membership is receiving value and services commensurate with that sum.

C • Members 3

Post interval workout, the OUSA Finance Committee had a call to discuss the state of financial matters in advance of the impending 2017 budget discussions. The members are Pat Meehan (chair), Greg Lennon, Gary Kraght, Barb Bryant, and Ian Smith; Charlie Bleau was present as an observer. I will ask all the members consent to summary reports of our discussions at the next meeting, but briefly, we talked about the current state of OUSA finances, some important accounting procedures, and goals for FinComm in the coming months and years. It was a productive call, though there aren't tangible outputs yet (soon). We shared lots of thoughtful discourse, a sense of common purpose, and a general consensus.

Interval workout! The workout tonight was among my very favorites on the track - 5x1 km followed by a fluffy 400, 200. Nx1 km is a noble and worthy test. I left work late, so I arrived just as the crew was finishing up strides. I mostly hung onto Terry, but the pace was a bit fast for me, and I blew up on the last interval, fell off the pack, and finished alone. Still, it was a great workout despite my overeagerness. Afterward, we jogged for 2 km around the Harvard sports fields. Good times.

Splits: 3:27, 3:28, 3:28, 3:28, 3:43
400, 200: 75, 33

Run to/from intervals. Watch was at low energy (it died on the way back).

Izzy, take note:

This scene gives me the chills. Thierry remarked to me that as you get older, you become less enthusiastic about the hard, quality workouts that are necessary for building speed and strength. It is easier to go for a two hour trail run with your friends than to really pound out the interval speed. I still plan to increase to above 80 km/week, but the most important kilometers I run are the 10-15 km of fast running each week. It is the path for a cement mixer like me to get fast.

I had a good conversation with Greg Lennon about OUSA club services.

Score-O at Camp Schoellkopf in Buffalo. I won.

The tempo workout I've been putting off since this Thursday. I ran 3x2 km cruise intervals, with 2 minute breaks between. The breaks might have been a bit long, but running cruise intervals can be painful.

Splits: 7:48, 8:12, 7:54

Easy run.

Really, really tired. I may be getting sick.

Picking up controls from the one-way street-O. I felt pretty lethargic compared to yesterday.

I climbed 7-8 pitches, including sending a 5.10a. Near the end of the session, after pushing through three long 5.9s, bgallup challenged me to attempt a 10b. I burned my forearms out on a particularly strenuous move and wasn't able to stick it. I think I'm ready for the lead climbing class, as 5.9s generally feel comfortable when I'm fresh-ish. It's also probably time to buy climbing shoes, as it costs $5 to rent every time.

C • shoes 1

BigWillyStyle posted an excellent document detailing the conclusions from the COC AGM and suggestions for the future. Highly recommend to club persons - and that other entities - including OUSA - replicate this study with the particulars of their organizations.

C • this is great 2

Run to track workout.

Strides. Accidentally hit reset after strides.

CSU Track workout! The gang tonight consisted of Patrick, Kevin, Terry, Elizabeth, Galen, Stephen, and me. I saw Jonathan there, but he seems to have left shortly after I arrived.

I felt a bit crap during the day, but that seemed to vanish once we warmed up and started moving. I felt really good during the intervals, and unlike recent weeks, I was able to hang onto Terry the entire session without falling back at all. I felt like I could pass him most of the workout, but I decided to be prudent and just hang until the last few bouts. A good day. The workout was a descending ladder of 800, 1200, 1000, 800, 600, 400, 300, 2x200. Total: 5.5 km in 18:39.

Splits: 2:50 (800), 4:22 (1200), 3:30 (1k), 2:46 (8), 2:01 (6), 1:13 (4), 53 (3), 34, 30 (200s)

We then cooled down. Kevin was smug about the recent demise of the Patriots to his native home's Buffalo Bills.

Drills with the gang. Met Galen (girl) and Stephen.

Easy river run. Listened to hard core history - the Prophets of Doom. Anabaptists are curious.

Event: NEOC: Noon Hill
 

Hanging controls for the Noon Hill event.

Today was the debut event at Noon Hill, a map made in 2015! Noon Hill became something of a project of mine - I first visited the terrain in April 2015. Marcello had some extra time after finishing the High Rock map, so after some consultation with the mapping committee, I directed him to map Noon Hill and Upton Town Forest. Noon Hill is complete; Upton is usable for a 5-6 km course, but a little less than half of the total available terrain. Noon Hill is about 2 sq km and has a varied mix of rocky hills and rolling flats with marshes.

The map was completed in June of last year, and would probably have been used sooner but for the national meet this spring at High Rock. I designed courses up to a 5.8 km red course. A few places I wanted to set controls were a little too thick when I vetted in September, but I imagine the patches of light green might be manageable closer to winter.

Despite a dreary day with perpetual mist and fog, we had respectable turnout with 80-90 people. Parking was just adequate, with good packing of the lot at the start and spillover onto the gravel Noon Hill road. Care must be taken to park on only one side of the road and to make sure dog walkers and other park users feel welcome.

I have long been an advocate of minimizing the organizational cost of local meets. An organization like NEOC has soft constraints on its volunteer manpower, so minimizing the logistical cost per event or per time spent orienteering enables more events. I spent about ten hours designing courses, vetting the locations, and updating my designs - course design is much easier on a new, accurate map, though I did change several locations due to vegetation or ambiguity. I personally spent about twenty hours on all other aspects of the meet including recruiting staff, gathering equipment, inquiring about permissions and so on. Sunday was a marathon; I woke up at 5 AM and finished at about 4 PM. My volunteers were fantastic - Tim Parson, Andy McIlvaine, Richard Powers, and Peter Amram executed the first hour of registration without any guidance from me; Tim Booth and Bo Nielsen ran results; Keith Durand, Bo, and John Kernochan worked registration for the second part (Magnus stopped by for a bit); Tim P, Tim B, Dave Yee, Izzy, and Ethan orchestrated the cleanup; and Dave, Izzy, and Ethan picked up controls. Tim Parson was the MVP, arriving at 9 AM with tents, setting up the site, working registration, and cleaning up at 2 PM. Having such a great, independent, and competent team of volunteers makes event direction easy and compensates for some of my own organizational shortcomings. I estimate the staffing cost at 20 hours; allotting 10-20 hours for the administration arranging permission, the total cost of the event was 70 hours of volunteer time.

For Phil Bricker: I personally hung all 33 controls (including one highly technical one without a compass), and I heard no complaints that anything was on a wrong features. One of the controls - #166 - was listed as being at foot of a 1.5m cliff, but I hung it on a tree at the top. This was deliberate; I didn't see a good spot to hang it below the cliff, and as yellow was one of the courses using the control, I wanted it to be visible. I suppose this makes your conjecture true, though only in the most generous sense.

Control pickup. Ethan, Izzy, and Dave also picked up controls. I found my compass, which I had dropped at one of the controls while hanging. I was a bit tired at the end of the day, but manageably so.