Training Log Archive: iansmith

A mediocre session, though I was in a hurry. I modified my release to add more power to my follow through, and I think that fatigued my right arm considerably. I need to do some weight training before I start playing around with my follow through. While my strike percentage was up somewhat this session, my spare percentage (which is a better measure of skill) was atrocious.

Game 1: 7- 9/ 7/ 7/ 81 81 X 7/ 71 63 = 131
Game 2: X 25 81 X 81 16 44 X 1/ 18 = 116
Game 3: X 8- X 72 -8 71 81 71 71 XXX = 125
Game 4: 36 7- X 63 X 9/ -8 X X 63 = 136
Game 5: 3/ 7- 7/ 9- 9/ 36 72 -3 5/ 9- = 114

Strike percentage: 13/52 = 25%
Spare conversion: 10/39 = 25.6%
First ball pins: 6.83

Event: NEOC: Hammond Pond
 

On the Hammond Pond local meet:

What went well:
- Magnus Bjorkman set great courses, making good use of what challenging terrain exists at Hammond Pond. I heard only praise for the course design.
- Magnus streamered all the non-trivial controls, simplifying setting flags
- All the controls were in the right places
- The weather was excellent, and turnout was good despite limited advertising
- Jim Paschetto was tremendously helpful, running registration and troubleshooting problems
- I ran the meet on OR on my lappy
- There was water on the course, and people seemed to appreciate that.
- The thermal splits printer worked fine.
- A few people told me they heard about the meet from my AP event entry.
- Everyone seemed to have a good time

It should be noted that Jim and I planned to have the NEOC printer there, from which we could print additional maps as needed, and other miscellaneous printouts, like intermittent results.

What didn't go well:
- I didn't print enough yellow maps (15)
- I forgot to print control descriptions (though I hoped to print them on site)
- While the laptop communicated with the printer fine, the printer couldn't load paper, and we were unable to troubleshoot the problem
- The AC car adapter shorted out, so we were unable to get power to either the printer or the laptops
- My laptop (Windows 7) decided to lose contact with the SI USB Master station intermittently, necessitating reconnecting the station, restarting OR and/or my computer.
- OR decided to overwrite some of the results incorrectly, i.e. not associating a stick with the latest entry for that SI stick number.
- After driving to Marlboro at 7 AM to pick up the thermal splits printer, I was late starting to set controls, and set the last one at 10:10.
- People had to wait for yellow course maps to be reclaimed from finished competitors, as we ran out of maps. Some people ended up copying the yellow course onto other maps so they could run.

In short, while the meet in general went well, there were numerous glitches that emerged, mostly from untested electronic systems. In particular, had the printer worked properly, had OR correctly detected the master station all the time, and had I set all the controls before 10 AM, the meet would have been a success. As it is, I must attempt to solve several problems and rectify the situation for future meets. I'm hoping the master station issue is a driver problem, though I downloaded a new driver a few days ago.

Obviously one solution to the results problem is to assign each person their own SI stick, but that isn't always possible. A general solution to OR + SI + reusing sticks must be found, and I'm not convinced OR solves that problem correctly.

C • Thanks for making this happ... 5

C • Ór SI card reuse 2

Control pickup is much easier than control setting, particularly when Jim and Joanne volunteer to help out.

Easy run around Fresh Pond. I felt sluggish; the limiting factor was discomfort in my anterior calves, not fitness, oxygen or energy. I listened to a surprisingly erotic The Wise Man's Fear.

I spent considerable time designing and thinking about the courses at the meet on 3 April. I was particularly proud that while the brown and green controls were subsets of the red controls, the fraction of common legs was very small. While I visited all the controls, I didn't run the courses (though I hope to later).

Analysis of the red course, and results:

• Ctrl 2: While this barely counts as route choice, I was pleased that the straight-over-the-hill and contour-around options were about evenly split by competitors. I would guess that straight was a bit faster because of the trail.
  
• Ctrl 4: Again, not a serious route choice, but all three options I considered - north of the line on the trail, straight through the woods, and along the road - were used. The trail and road give you time to read ahead, but I suspect the faster woods speed people would do better off straight.
  
• Ctrl 5: This was the most interesting route choice, though I liked the Green course's leg 5-6 better. Among the people who posted gps tracks, the first half of the leg was the most varied, ending with straight on the line or around on the trail to the right for the last half. I probably would have run straight, but I like that both options were comparable.
  
• Ctrl 9: No choices here, but I was impressed with how straight some of the tracks are (e.g. Sam, PG, Ali). There was good compass work. Apologies to sending people through the marshy rocks a second time.
  
• Ctrl 10: In hindsight, moving the control to the west 50m would have made it much more interesting. The location was partly determined by Green leg 5-6, though.
  
• Ctrl 12: I didn't expect so many people to attack from the trail on the north. I'm also unhappy with the map in the southwest area; apologies to all who suffered there. The area around eleven is a bit strange, too.
  
• Ctrl 15: I was hoping for a bit more variety, because while the big reentrant to the left is an appealing linear feature, it is rocky. I had hoped more people would go straight, up-and-over, and a few brave souls tried it. It looks like contouring around to the left - neither low nor high - was best. No one went up the reentrant just north of 14 right of the line to the hill top; maybe the spur just to the right was better for running.
  
• Ctrl 16: While the rocks are a bit dubiously mapped, no one seemed to have trouble finding this control (that I heard).
  
• Ctrl 17: Of the six gps tracks I have seen, only Ross (a mountain goat) went straight over the hill. Everyone else went right to the trail. It was supposed to be a choice, but I was hoping more people would consider straight. The choice strongly depends on your aptitude for climb, especially late in a course, but the trail might be faster in most cases.
  

Feedback is always welcome!

C • Thanks! 2

My legs felt worn out, though uninjured, from the weekend's activities. On Saturday, I went to the BSO and saw Evgeny Kissin perform Chopin Piano Concerto #1 and the Grieg Piano Concerto, and I did not get much sleep over the weekend.