Training Log Archive: iansmith

Event: NEOC: Baldwin Hill
 

Easy warm up around the school.

NEOC meet at Baldwin Hill, Blue middle distance course by JJ Cote. Modestas Bucy, a Lithuanian orienteer visiting the US for a conference, contacted me about a ride, and I arranged to meet up with him. I overslept and was late picking him up, but he was gracious and very pleasant. His best finish at WOC was 37th in the long in 2006, and in the past two years, his has finished in the top 32 teams at Jukola.

Anyway, I was mercilessly stomped. I was 0/8 and five minutes down in the first eight controls. At 8, he thought he was at 9, and lost over a minute navigating to 10 before realizing his error; he also legitimately made a mistake at 14.

My run was lackluster, and I was a bit tired from packing my training week into the two previous days. I attacked 3 very poorly from a trail and wandered around a bit. I was very hesitant attacking down from the hill top into 5 and 6 (should practice), and mentally checked out for a moment on the way to 12. Controls 16 and 17 were rough; 16 had some subtle contour detail, and 17 was in a detailed area with thick vegetation. I also botched 19 by running straight through the green garbage rather than taking the higher, cleaner route.

I need to practice attacking downhill, subtle contour features on a hillside, and going through tricky areas with low visibility.

C • And maybe also get a louder... 5

Control pickup; I grabbed the remote cluster, and all of my controls had been on my course. I was out about 55 minutes, but some of that time was untying and adjusting the controls. Thanks to PG, PBricker, and Dan O'Leary for also picking up controls. About halfway through the pickup, as I was noisily crashing down a hill, I encountered a trio of turkeys who made a very rapid exit. Their skill at negotiating the terrain was impressive, though their net effect on me was far less than the cadre of bears from Oct 28.

Blue - Splits

Easy run around the Esplanade. Ghettotrack. I finished John Dies at the End - an entertaining, albeit confusing read. I saw Izzy and David Bryant about halfway through the run. I felt tired by the end - as though my energy reserves were depleted, but I suppose that's the point.

I finally put a stop to four terrible training days and went out for a run on my morning commute. Monday was an acceptable rest day - I was apparently really tired and went to bed at 8, though a 30 minute run would have been nice. Tuesday was the election, and Wednesday was cold - both of which are disappointing excuses.

C • Lame... 2

Ghettotrack. Slow run home.

Before Nate Silver created his masterpiece political blog, fivethirtyeight, he made The Burrito Bracket: a head-to-head competition to determine which of the 19 cheap Mexican food restaurants within walking distance of Nate is the best. This is brilliant, though I find his method for scoring the burritos somewhat arbitrary. Put another way, I wouldn't have that much confidence in my ability to grade a burrito in any of the given metrics on a scale from 1-5 without variation large enough to change the overall rankings. And I'm about as close as it gets to a professional.

I suddenly feel a profound sense of kinship with Nate Silver. An exercise like the Burrito Bracket can also have tangible results in establishing blogging discipline, though that would be much less useful for me than for Nate. I think the inescapable reality about using the Burrito Bracket in my neighborhood is that the bulk of my burrito fare - Chipotle and Anna's - would probably not hold up very well. I'm not sure if I'm ready to face that.

Burrito bracket rules.

Felt very tired, possibly from a combination of weekend activity and travel. I contemplated an easy run in the evening, but decided to go to bed early instead.