Training Log Archive: iansmith

Didn't have Garmin running during the entire warmup, but did a little sprinting and some easy running around Fresh Pond. I had biked over, so the muscles were already responsive.

2012 CSU Park-O #5 at Fresh Pond, set by Lori. Lori designed a three course motala, and the race was a mass start. Attendance, apparently buoyed by the NEOC training camp last Saturday, was high - perhaps 30 total. I was feeling good and started hard, breaking away from others on my loop Judging by the heart rate graph, I kept a high intensity the entire race, and managed to pull off a win.

C • Shoes? 5

Ran out to grab eight controls. I caught up to Michael Commons, who was chugging around the third loop, and stopped for a bit to let him do his thing without risking distracting him with conversation.

Motala - Splits

Tonight was my last NEOC Board meeting for this term in office. I will be staying on as Vice President of Events for the present - and it is that office, not serving on the board, that consumes the majority of my NEOC energies. Barb Bryant is also not running for reelection, and Bill Pullman is moving.

Summary:
- NEOC is doing ok financially. Perhaps incentivized by the "members run free" arrangement and the low number of meets you need to attend to break even on membership fees, we have over 500 members this year, up from around 400 last.

- NEOC's spring schedule is very ambitious, and includes 20 events: 1 ski-O, 2 Canoe-Os, 1 Scout-O, 2 A-meet races, 1 training day, and 13 local meets. The fall schedule is similarly ambitious with 20 events planned: 1 MTB-O, 5 sprints, 1 Scout-O, 1 Night-O, 11 local meets and the Traverse. I'm looking for meet directors, so please let me know if you are interested in directing an event.

- The Western MA A-meet is going well, though volunteers are needed from Boston for routine activities like manning starts, organizing parking, and picking up controls. Contact me if you're interested in helping out! All the credit for WeMa 5-Day goes to the Amherst crew. It looks like the meet will raise in excess of $6k for the Ski-O team.

- After extensive deliberation, it was my recommendation to the board that the club not proceed with an A-meet at Big River in Rhode Island in Spring 2013. The Board accepted my recommendation and did not overrule.

- Jim Paschetto headed up the Nominating Committee to recruit candidates for the board, and has found five: Tim Parson, Aims Coney, Mika Latva-Kokko, Jeff Saeger, and Peter Frykman (incumbent). One other candidate had expressed interest but withdrew for personal reasons. Elections are on June 10, at the AGM at the Blue Hills (following a meet). The board currently consists of:

Up for election in 2012: Peter Frykman, Barb Bryant (not running), Ian Smith (not running), vacant, vacant
2013: Pete Lane, Joanne Sankus, Jim Paschetto, Jim Crawford, Andy McIlvaine, Bill Pullman

We ended up with eleven seats after Spring 2011, when Sam and Dan left the board halfway through their terms. What the board should have done was appointed those two seats, but we apparently added two. According to state law, you have to elect half the board each year (or floor(num_board/2), ceil(num_board/2), I guess), so apparently we can't just will away the two vacancies. There is a very pedantic conversation about this that ensued about which I have very little interest, but I think the plan is to shrink back to 9 sometime next year. The net result is that the board will have ten members after this election, with one vacancy in Bill Pullman's seat. By a set of motions passed at the March meeting, the Nominating Committee will not recommend a slate of candidates (though right now there are 5 candidates for 5 seats). It is too late to announce candidacy for the board and have your bio included on the ballot and notice to the members, but nominations from the floor are accepted at the AGM if you are interested in running.

- The 40th anniversary dinner is in planning stages with Hans Bengsston and Ian Smith; probably to be held in September or October.

- The Board granted travel stipends to Sam Saeger and Meg Parson for WOC and JWOC respectively, and smaller stipends to Ali Crocker, Alex Jospe, and Ross Smith, all of whom are CSU primary and on the WOC team, in recognition for all they do for NEOC. The very subtle distinction between a NEOC primary and another club primary was discussed.

After the NEOC Board meeting and following activities, I set out on an easy run to retrieve my bike. GimpyFoot felt pretty good, and I ran faster than I have since my plantar fascia injury. I decided that I run because I don't believe in the no-win scenario, though some variants are fascinating. I suppose my statement is equivalent to the claim that the no-win scenario is not encountered except under the most contrived circumstances, and it is always possible to redefine the utility function in such a way as to avoid that trap. Perhaps an easier alternative is to reprogram the Klingon battlecruisers to fear me personally.

After probability theory, I must study von Clausewitz. It turns out the audibles for On War are abridged, but it's free on Kindle. Woot.

For kicks, 50 tuckups. My form deteriorated.

Easy run around the neighborhood, though intended to be a twenty minute effort. To be still recovering from the weekend is an indication of poor decisions, especially when that recovery starts impacting my personal life.

Anyway, GimpyFoot felt good in the places of concern, though my calf and some part that may have been my Achilles felt tight. There was no pain, however, and ten minutes of diligent stretching afterward alleviated some tension.

A light drizzle was falling as I ran, and the scene was like the cathartic transformation of the hero in a storm from a Disney film. Unlike a Disney film, life seems to consist of a long sequence of incremental changes rather than an abrupt epiphany, but I am forced to wonder what great adventure is transpiring in this moment of my life. On the other hand, perhaps life is but a dream.

Ten minute core: tuckups, oblique crunches, plank, kayakers, leg lifts, supermans, single leg bridge, cherry pickers, 2x side plank.

Event: NEOC: Rocky Woods
 

Jeff Schapiro's Blue course at Rocky Woods: 7.7 km, 20 controls. My orienteering was disastrous; this was not a good day for me. My poor conditioning and bad orienteering was exacerbated by 85° F temperatures.

Ironically, a day after coaching an attackpoint training course, I made several mistakes due to poor attackpoint. I ran straight to 1, but didn't quite process the contours correctly and overshot slightly, hitting the depression left of the control. Control 2 was deviously hard to see among some thick vegetation; I executed my route fine, hit the collecting wall, and circled several times before finding the flag. I don't think the map is great in that area. I became disoriented at 7 by stopping too short and failing to choose a good attackpoint in a tricky area, for about two minutes of lost time. My stamina started to wane after 9, and keeping up my intensity demanded lots of focus and willpower. My colossal mistake was at 19, where I ingeniously decided to follow a vague marsh boundary rather than climb four or five lines to find a good attackpoint. I stopped too short, had no idea where I was, and elected to run on the high trail to relocate rather than guess.

I pushed hard in the first part of the course, but my lack of training and bad decisions caught up with me.

Tired. GimpyFoot was holding up ok in the sense that the point of ligament injury didn't hurt more than the rest of the foot. Both feet a bit uncomfortable after spending all day in studded shoes.

C • Well this looks like an appropriate weekend for someone injured 6

Blue - Splits

Event: NEOC: Blue Hills Training Camp
 

Today, I set a training day for intermediate level orienteers at Houghton's Pond in Blue Hills West. My plans to be judicious and intelligent about my activity failed a bit, and I ran about 12 km setting flags in the woods. There had been some intermittent discussion about focused trainings over the past few years, but I finally made arrangements on the schedule this year.

I haven't really designed intermediate level exercises before, so after some consultation, I designed four courses for today:
- White course, for complete beginners
- Attackpoint exercise with AP/control pairs
- Compass exercise punching through the woods from one trail to another aiming to hit the target trail at a particular point; also on trail + contour only
- Orange course, with the training objective of planning routes in advance and execution

The day would have been infeasible without the assistance of several NEOC veterans to offer instruction and coordinate the event: Barb, Dave, Izzy, Andy McIlvaine, Tim Parson, Michelle Faucher, Joanne Sankus, Jim Paschetto, Richard Powers, and Earl LaVallee. They were clutch in every way. I didn't do a good job recruiting assistance in advance, and I planned and set the exercises by myself (like an idiot).

I don't know the exact count of people who showed up, but it was a much greater volume than anticipated (and more than RSVPed). Many of the people who showed up had no experience or only one or two white courses. I found that my exercises, while introductory, were really suited for yellow and orange level orienteers, not complete beginners. Most people had fun and had only positive feedback, but there were a few people who found the exercises too difficult and were disappointed by the camp. Today's event was a prototype, and based on its general success and the group interest, a major training day once or twice per year will be on future calendars.

It turns out I also set an especially challenging orange course; only three people had interest after the training exercises - Andy, Richard, and Earl. I was tired and dehydrated by the end of the event, but I'm satisfied with how it went.

As the day wound down, I shadowed Richard Powers on the orange+ course. He was clearly tired from the other two exercises, but showed great fortitude and plowed on. As has been done of me in the past, I asked Richard what his training objective was for this exercise. Concentrating on one particular objective was a new idea for him, and we eventually settled on reading ahead and making intelligent route plans.

I need to give more feedback, but I noticed that he held a baseplate compass in his right hand with his map in his left. This arrangement increased the barrier to consistently checking direction, and it showed in both his route execution and his departure from controls. He did a good job planning ahead, though he struggles with reading ahead.

C • baseplate 7