Training Log Archive: iansmith

Day 2 blue course, listed 6.6 km. Ethan and I decided to mass start to make things more interesting; we also decided that the leader would stop every third control to wait for the trailer. We ran together for the first two controls with slight route variations, but I pulled away en route to the 3rd while Ethan made a big mistake. I chilled at the 3rd control for a bit while he relocated. Despite minor route variation, we came to the 6th control about 10s apart. I exited 6 poorly and executed 7 slowly, so Ethan waited about 90s at 9 for me. I chose a route to 10 poorly, and got to 12 about 30s behind Ethan. He waited a little, and I managed to catch him on the run in. Mass starting definitely motivated us to push harder than we would have running solo.

The shorter, classic length courses are definitely great for camping weekend. The blue courses were under 8 km, and I still orienteered about 23 km in a 24 hour period.

After arriving home, LocalSportsTeam prevailed in its Sportsball match.

Pawtuckaway Camping Weekend, Day 1 Blue course. Distance: 7.1 km, 14 controls. I felt sluggish, and my legs felt heavy. I haven't been sleeping well this week, and I could tell I was fatigued. It was a reasonable effort with some good execution and route choice, but overall lackluster.

Canoeing with Keith. We only realized halfway through the course that the controls had different values. Oops. Finished second behind Aims, 2 minutes over time. A fun outing.

WHNO! This course had an excellent format - the first control had 3 butterfly loops coming off it, and you could do these loops in any order. I almost missed the start because I was taking a nap after the potluck, but I showed up at the pavilion with about 15 minutes to spare. My headlamp battery wires disconnected at corn maze, so I ran with Flashlight, the mighty hand cannon. I felt confident that I could outnavigate my competition at night, so I planned to deliberately run the loops in a weird order to break away. I ran 3-1-2, and I was running well enough on the first two loops to have a lead in the splits. Ethan and I both made a mistakes of about 1-2 minutes. Unfortunately, approaching my penultimate control (leg: 57:31 - 1:06:01), I ignored the obvious trail route in favor of trying to go straight, and I blew four minutes. I eventually came in second, about 3:20 behind Ethan. Disappointing.

I saw a few people now and again, but ran the course entirely alone. It was sublime.

This amounted to about 2.5 hours of climbing at Brooklyn Boulders with Joe and Ben. I climbed a dozen or so pitches, including a 5.10a (though I did fall once). The 5.10 tore up my forearms gripping. I did a handful of 5.9s and 5.8s after that, including my favorite blue overhang. I had Joe make a video so I could studying my weaknesses, but the commentary is entertaining. It has a nice slice of Ben's instruction and heckling.

At the end of the night, Ben and I had an amusing showdown. I started by attempting a 5.9 with a slight overhang and running out of forearm strength 2/3 of the way up. Ben then attempted the same pitch and failed slightly higher. I then downgraded to a nearby 5.8 and faltered; Ben attempted it and faltered slightly higher. We thought it would be funny to keep pushing, so we started dueling on 5.7s to see who would break first. I finished all the 5.7s, though I did fall twice on the last one. The trash talk was perfectly juvenile.

I'm posting this here because I don't want to contribute to a thread which hopefully has died a peaceful death. First and foremost, I'd like to thank everyone who had meaningful comments about the elections process and everyone working hard to ensure a fair and meaningful election - especially Peter Goodwin, Donna Fluegel, Janet and Glen Tryson, and JJ. It is unfortunate that the deadline for proxy declariation is two weeks in advance per the bylaws, but as has been noted, this was codified years ago, and the absence of contested elections has not motivated a change.

I agree with the substance of what Maryann has to say - it would be great if a way could be found to extend the proxy deadline (ditto mikeminium and others), and having board members up for reelection involved in the election process does give the appearance of impropriety. There is a reason people recuse themselves. That said, I am optimistic that Janet, Glen, and JJ will ensure a fair election.

However, I take great umbridge at two things from that thread: first, Peter Goodwin's responses to Maryann via e-mail were unacceptable. I am not privy to their private correspondence - but whatever the tone or tenor of the conversation, it is the responsibility of authority in particular to maintain a professional attitude. I recognize that text, like e-mail, forums, and so on, because it lacks context can be interpreted in a way that is more antagonistic than intended. Nevertheless, I am disappointed that Maryann's comments were so received.

I condemn sammy's remarks in the strongest possible terms; they were beyond the pale, venturing from criticism to ad hominem, and have absolutely no place in rational policy discourse by adults. The cloak of anonymity enables polemic and excoriating criticism of others under the guise of discourse without fear of ostracism. It is the pinnacle of cowardice.

I have no qualms replying to even obtuse remarks if they are about substance and policy. In that post, sammy attempted to falsely and deceptively cast the coalition policy perspective. They used the strawman of malicious and furtive vitriol to discount our substantive views. It would be an interesting exercise to make a complete list of logical fallacies - strawman, No true Scotsman, circular reasoning (complaining), and oversimplification at least. I defer to a rhetorical master like j-man to deconstruct such remarks.

But the way to deal with a troll is to ignore them. Until sammy learns basic tenets of respectful discourse, this seems the best approach.

Too much has already been written about petty and irrelevant matters. There are perfectly reasonable policy grounds on which to disagree with the coalition. As (obviously) one of its advocates, I cannot guarantee that our approach will work. Maybe after five or more years of wholehearted effort, we will still find that the policies we advocate do not grow the sport any more than the existing ones. My argument is that a revised approach is more likely to succeed, and we know empirically from the past several years that the existing approach did not. We all have the same goal, and we all need to figure out how we can move forward most productively.

If all else fails, maybe I'll move to Canada.

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Warmup.

CSU Track workout, + Ethan. Attendance was light this week, with Kevin, Amore, Terry, Ethan, and me in the lead group. The workout was 4x1200; with a 400, 300, 200 set to finish. I felt a bit meh, but managed to push through. My target paces were 4:15-4:20 for the 1200s, but I couldn't quite manage. Kevin, Amore, and Terry were running 5-15s faster than I over the 1200s, but I let them go and ran my own pace.

1200s: 4:17, 4:24, 4:18, 4:22
4,3,2: 75, 52, 34

I felt a little tired at the end but generally ok.

Cooldown. The outer edge of my right foot was becoming a hot spot by the end.

Festival March, Joseph Suk
Appalachian spring, Copland

Vetting controls for my meet at Noon Hill. Actual time about 1:45. Noon Hill is a great piece of terrain. It's varied and complex in places, but the woods are generally open and often quite fast. There is some undergrowth and some areas of thick, but there is very little pokey-stabby vegetation. My only real qualms are that the parking is limiting and the long marshes constrain course design. Still, it's a great 2 sq km map.

I needed to clear my head, so I went for a cruise along the river. I was curious how long a loop with my favorite river cruise interval circuit would be, and I raised the pace a little bit on the interval loop. A gentle mist fell on me throughout the run and brought serene catharsis. Just past the BU bridge, the skyline of Boston was shrouded in cloud, and it was as though I ran to infinity.

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