Training Log Archive: iansmith

Event: NEOC: Nobscot Night-O
 

I ran a 3k time trial with Ali to gauge fitness. We started simultaneously, and I hung with her for the first km, but gradually fell back over the next two. I felt sluggish, but it's hard to pinpoint exactly what seemed to be the limiting factor. Usually, I can break down constraints in terms of breathing, muscle weakness or lactate, and energy; today, I seemed lacking in all three. My plan has been to build up my base lately, but while I have cut back on speedwork, I haven't succeeded in maintain a regular running schedule. Running such a sluggish 3k should be good motivation for the months ahead.

Warmup before the 3k time trial - some easy laps at around 5:00/km, about eight minutes of Ali's drills (high knees, butt kicks, side skipping, karaokes, running backwards, and leaps). I felt sluggish, probably from a lack of sleep and lack of training. We then ran 800m with alternating 100m strides, 100m easy.

Cool down jog around the fields. There was a carnival happening at Danehy, with booths, a jumping castle, and various activities.

Easy warmup jog with Magnus around the parking lot at Nobscot.

Nobscot Night-O, set by Alex and Ed. I started reasonably well, but started making mistakes which quickly took their toll. My old weak 3xAAA headlamp broke recently when one of the batteries leaked, so I purchased a new 3xAAA 90-lumen headlamp. Even if I acquire a powerful lamp for Night-O, this light will be useful for camping and sating my flashlight enthusiasm. The light was adequate, but something more powerful would have helped.

Routes and execution to 1 and 2 were good.
To 3: I took the obvious trail route, but hesitated in the circle after a weak attackpoint off the trail bend. I should have paid more attention to the contours and used the three small hills to vector in.
To 4: I considered going through the start, but took the worse route choice of running along a major trail to south of the control, then bashing through a marsh. I hit the control ok, but was slow moving through the vegetation.
To 5: Straight, ok.
6: I think straight on the line would have worked acceptably, but Markku and I had chatted about the greater advantage of trails at night. I ran left to the trail-wall junction, then up the reentrant, just south of the marsh edge, to the trail and in.
7: I ran along the trail and had a terrible attackpoint (poor guess based on the bend and the hill to the left). I went into the wrong reentrant and hesitated for about 30s before correcting.
8: Down to the trail junction, up over the nose, and in. Clean.
9: Left route; clean, albeit hesitant on the attack.
10: Charged up the hill straight on the line, missing the trail to the left I was planning to hit. I hit the trail about 100m south of the control, and had to stop to figure out which trail junction I was on. 2:00 error
11: fumbled around on trail junctions before picking the way I wanted to go, then bobbled inside the circle looking at smaller cliffs before hitting the lower, bigger 3m cliff. 1:00 error
12: Hesitant, reeling from my mistakes.
13: I somehow missed the trail left of the line entirely and skirted farther to the left. Despite guessing that I had gone left and correcting right, I didn't see the control on my descent, so after hitting the trail, I ran right to the cliff and went up. 1:15 error.
14: Good on the trivial trail running, but didn't see the contour line under the circle and underestimated how high the flag was. I must have run on the north edge of the circle before seeing the steep descent past the control; I doubled back and hit it. 1:00 error.
15: Down the trail, still smarting from my mistakes. I came across what could have been a rock wall (my attackpoint), but was nothing but a pile of rocks. 1:00 error.
16: Fine; trail left of the line and up over the spur.

Overall, not my finest day, but it was a fun course. This year has two Night-Os based on the fact that lots of people seemed to enjoy the event last year. It might be better to have one night-O in each season rather than two in the fall two weeks apart; even with 65-ish people attending, Night-O is not everyone's cup of tea. Thanks to Ed and Alex for a fun time.

C • two in one season 1

Long - Splits

Easy run to work. I carried a small backpack, which left red marks where the narrow straps crossed my shoulders. I kept to 3/3 breathing.

Ghettotrack.

I ran home in the rain. I would have gone on a longer run, but it was pouring, and I was carrying a bag-o'-stuff. I was thoroughly drenched about a minute into the run, but due to packing geometry, most of the stuff in my bag stayed dry.

Evening cruise around Somervilleburg. In a display of minimalism, I ran both without gps and without a watch (as I couldn't find my watch); the time is an estimate based on checking my phone before and after my run. On my way up Walnut St, I observed two enormous bushy cats marching down the street; as I closed, I realized the were raccoons. We all three briefly paused and regarded each other, as if the raccoons were saying "sup." They then waddled off to whatever shenanigans or evening festivities in which raccoons partake.

Route. Need to get 305 fixed.

C • 11PM 14

Event: NEOC: Boojum Rock
 

It turns out that moving furniture is much easier with friends. Thanks a bunch to Stephen, Alex, Ed, and Magnus for carrying all my junk into my apartment. The highlight was bringing the legendary Couch of Many Tribulations in through the fire escape. The most work I did was calling the pizza place to arrange for subsequent noms. I estimate the endeavor took about three man hours, not including travel time.

At my suggestion, Giacomo took on the task of designing courses for the Boojum Rock National O-Day meet. In my negotiations with DCR for land use permission, the issue of vernal pools came up; I offered some suggestions to Giacomo on his courses and changed a few legs to avoid vernal pools.

We left Cambridge at 8 AM, drove to Boojum, and set 34 controls. I think I divided up the controls suboptimally. We stopped on the far side of the map from the start and each took about five controls. After hanging those and the water, I dropped Giacomo off on the south side with ten controls, hung two myself, and drove to the start to rendezvous with Joanne (who was directing) and the crew of meet workers. I then ran off with the last ten white/yellow controls and with a little help from Mika and Giacomo upon his return, got everything set. Unfortunately, the last white control went up at about 10:10, and I didn't return to the start until a few minutes afterward.

The meet itself went well; while the courses were challenging and the woods thick in places, people seemed to enjoy themselves. It's still frustrating to fail; our plan was good, but an extra half-hour would have made tremendous difference. It also would have been helpful to have a mechanism to carry more than 10 controls; I could imagine dropping Giacomo off with fifteen on the far side of the map, then driving to the start and taking care of the rest.

Thanks to everyone who helped out; apart from course setting, Giacomo and I didn't have much to do. Special thanks to Mika, for setting a string-O and helping with control pickup, Jim and Raina Crawford for running the results, and Joanne, Pete, and Andy for de facto directing the meet.

Courses closed at 2 PM - a while ago, I decided that leaving courses open until 3 was silly, as the last hour was typically spent waiting for a handful of people. Even 2 PM may be unnecessarily long, but control picker-uppers can leave for their most remote controls at 1:45-ish and start at 2.

A group disassembled the meet site, Andy and a few others waiting for the last stragglers, I left Andy in charge of dividing up the control pickup, and I set out for the furthest sector. I picked up eleven controls, left the water stop garbage by the road, and looped back. Giacomo, Mika, and Andy picked up the last controls, and Giacomo and I left the meet site at around 3:15.

Optimizing event scheduling and logistics

My efforts to make our events more efficient has run into the desire for a higher grade event site. I think at this meet, we had five tables, a tent, a handful of chairs, start/registration boxes, a generator, the computer, a printer, a monitor and stand, a big extension cord, and some signs. Oh, and the flags and e-punch units. Also, the course setters had an eight hour day. The day of the event used up about maybe 40 man-hours, with an additional 20 in planning, vetting, map printing, etc. This is ridiculous; the benefit from the meet was probably 120 orienteering hours.

What's the solution? There are a set of people who are willing to take on projects like directing a meet once or even twice a year - they are the lifeblood of our sport. My scheduling has been very ambitious, and I think I have exceeded the optimal capacity of the club. Instead of 35-40 events per year, 25-30 is attainable - emphasizing quality and sustainability instead of quantity. Perhaps a third to half can be large scale local meets with all the bells and whistles on the best, most accessible maps. The rest can be smaller - no compromises on courses, but minimal equipment, less volunteer intensive. For each map, a set of vetted control sites can be maintained to simplify course setting - though at least one trip to the woods is probably necessary, or at least a cursory familiarity with all the information the map doesn't provide. Maybe each meet needs a setup group and a take-down group so people don't have to hang out at a meet site for six hours.

The data also suggests that having two geographically proximal events in one weekend is unnecessary, and reduces the number of attendees at each event. The set of people who want to go orienteering twice in one weekend is fairly small, particularly among the casual crowd that is the bulk of NEOC. Additional thoughts welcome.

C • two events per weekend 8