Training Log Archive: iansmith

The weekend was far too short! The racing and terrain were exhilarating and intense, but seeing so many wonderful people was probably still the highlight. There wasn't enough time to really spend quality time with everyone. Still, it is a great joy to me both that orienteering has such a wonderful community and that meets like national championships and NAOC gather people from so many disparate areas to the same place. My life is better for having all you great people in it (even - and perhaps especially - Canadians).

Words of wisdom for the weekend: "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." - BigWillyStyle (originally Heraclitus). Who, incidentally, will again look fantastic in orange and blue (Will, not Heraclitus) thanks to a Classic Champs bet.

C • I couldn't have said it any better myself. 1

C • . 2

Thirty minutes on a stationary bike while reading a paper about Surrogate Variable Analysis, a candidate method for batch effect correction in my biological dataset of interest. I did the rolling hills workout; my legs felt a bit trashed after this past weekend, including some pain in my lower right leg.

Core workout; I only made it through 1.5 circuits before my core gave out.

Circuit:
15x Oblique machine guys, +35 kg; 5 pullups
10x inclined situps, 15x clean and press 12kg, 10x shoulder fly +5 kg
25x tuckups, 25x oblique crunches, 25x kayakers +medicine ball, 90s plank

Warmup on the model map. I cruised by all the controls and did a few drills.

Welp, then this happened. I am not the fastest crayon in the box, and with so much hesitation in this weekend's races, my plan was to be aggressive. I flipped over the map, was shocked by the first leg, and promptly made a bad route choice through the cemetery. I compounded my first control failure by not reading the stairwell leading into it correctly and instead running left around the building. S. Ryzkov, my +1 minute, punched the control 5 seconds after I did. Epic fail.

There was nothing for it but to keep running balls out (made easier by the US team's tinyshorts™). However, on today's campus course - very much a question of speed rather than navigational trickery - I was soon left in the dust. I was generally 20-30% back of superman on every split, and my tired legs did not have much oomph.

I am thoroughly unsatisfied with this; I'm just too slow to be competitive in a race of this format. The tinyshorts didn't help as much as could have been desired. My sprint execution is also weak, and I'm hemorrhaging seconds on each leg through poor microchoices. Need more sprint camp.

Easy cooldown with ebone, chatting about races. Stopped occasionally to check in with various peeps, including the unfortunately broken (and occasionally Canadian) BigWillyStyle.

Jogging little loops of the quarantine and some drills before the sprint relay. I was put on the fourth team, behind Anton, GSwede, MLaraia, Ross, ebone, and Brendan per the order of our sprint finish. My team was Siri, myself, Kevin, and Katrina. Sprint relays are great fun and really exciting to participate in. Despite the feeling of melancholy from the seemingly unstoppable Canadian team juggernaut, we were resolved to not go gentle into that good night. And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, from this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remembered - we few, we happy few, we band of brothers.

NAOC Sprint Relay! Siri ran a fantastic first leg; there are few race moments as exhilarating as getting tagged off to in a relay. Overall, I ran aggressively, but I was really tired. Splits; I probably didn't punch the finish for about 30s after tagging. I was mostly clean to 1, with perhaps a few seconds loss to running around the wrong side of a building. However, my brain stopped working momentarily on my route choice to 2, and I took a super safe but slow loop around a building rather than going straight. The Canadian junior (Svoboda?) behind me punched 2 just ahead of me. I did what I could to keep up with him - including a few different route choices, but he had pulled away by the spectator control. Jordan caught up to me around 8. I did my best to drop the hammer on the second half of the course, but there wasn't much left in the tank after a weekend of racing. Again, running speed was the limiting factor on this course. During the spectator loop, a 9-year old girl sprinted alongside me, which probably will make the photographs seem less exciting.

It was a fun experience, but I was outclassed today. That said, my team ran well - with a great anchor by Katrina, and finished fourth after some unfortunate MPs.

C • 9 year old girl 8

Quasi-cool down running around the field cheering for people (including Canadians).

Sprint - Blue (WRE) - Splits

I followed up the competition with an OUSA Board discussion with Tom Hollowell about the relationship between OUSA and IOF, a US Team meeting, dinner, awards, and a game of Seven Wonders. I had a great discussion with my therapist, Thierry Gueorgiou, about the importance of pain and loss in the broader context of life. Pain and loss provides the moments during which you grow, and it is in the context of those times that happiness is truly fulfilling.

Jog, drills, mental focus.

NAOC Long race. There were moments when I felt like I was orienteering well, but there were also a few disaster points. The net result is that I am dissatisfied with this race; my performance had so much more potential to be better. The map at 1:15 was very difficult to read, and there were several sections where I not only lacked flow, but was genuinely confused.

I was careful to 1, as I wanted to start cleanly and get into the map, the terrain, and the scale. I was very poor on my compass exiting from the trail junction and lost about 30s. The marshes were clearly good features to use.

I executed 2-3 carefully but cleanly. My plan to 4 was good, but my execution wobbled near the end, and I was a bit low. Will Critchley (+3 minutes) caught me here, and I punched the control about 20s after him. I was a bit messy and hesitant to 5; I abstracted away much of the detail between the trail and the marsh. I resolved to be more aggressive, and while I hesitated a little to 6, I was clean and had a good split. I elected to contour left to 7, and I was clean. I felt pretty good at this point, though the uphill to 8 was rough. I caught sight of Critchley leaving 8, which was encouraging.

To 9, I drifted high and found myself unsure of where I was, with lots of rock features around me. I thought I was clean on my plan, but while I saw W and two others searching, I decided to bail to relocate. I wasn't far off my course, and relocating off a hill on the trail. After careful attack, I lost about 3 minutes.

I decided to go straight to 10, and while I executed acceptably, I was very tentative on the last third. I think the north trail was a bit better. I really struggled reading the detail on the map, and I was very cautious to 11 and 12. I executed 13 ok, but made a foolish mistake in the last 500m that cost 3 minutes. 15 was a disaster - I felt like I was wandering around for 5 minutes, but it may have only been 3-4. I chose to run just above 7 and go left of the line, but the trail system confused me greatly. I caught sight of Ross at 15, and hung with him to 16. He messed up 17, while I was clean. I put on some gas to try to hold him off, and managed to run through the spectator chute and to 20 before he caught me. I celebrated by messing up 15s on 21 and 30s on 22.

Cool down with a reluctant Will.

Long - Blue (WRE) - Splits

Event: North American Orienteering Championships 2016
 

NAOC Middle Distance.

15 minutes warmup run to the start, 5 minutes poodling around the model map, 5 minutes cooldown with Will, Ethan, Ali, Brendan intermittently.

Middle - Blue - Splits

Tired, presumably from work, travel, and the conference.

This Saturday, 17 September, somewhat to my surprise, I was elected to the Board of Directors. I (and others) ran on a campaign of increased transparency, so I plan to take some of my log's bandwidth to informally discuss what OUSA is doing regularly at a high level. This is meant to supplement more formal - and increased - communication with the community. Please feel free to engage me at any time with comments or questions about OUSA business.

OUSA Board Meeting #1 Notes
Note that because the Board meetings are public, I have no reservations giving my comments before the official minutes come out. These are personal notes and comments, not official documentation. They are not necessarily comprehensive.

Actions:

1. Election of: Kris Beecroft to the Presidency, Greg Lennon VP clubs, Alex Jospe VP comp (Tom Strat also ran), Pat Meehan VP Finance, Barb Bryant recording secretary.
2. Resolved to comprehensively review OUSA's budget, committee structure, and program spending in a series of conference calls over the next few weeks. It is recognized that this is a complex and somewhat inscrutable matter, and in particular that our accounting - which emphasizes adherence to the legal requirements - makes understanding what we are spending on opaque.
3. Proposed a Board retreat in Oct/Nov to formulate a strategic plan and define a budget for 2017. After discussion, it is suggested we do this at Navigator Cup at our next Board meeting in January.

Discussion:
I think the entire Board came away from the AGM with a sense that the membership want a change in strategy. The election results were rather unambiguously in favor of the candidates campaigning on change. This motivated the idea of reevaluating and informing ourselves and the membership about our committees, budget, and strategic vision.

During the Finance Report, Pat Meehan stressed what Lou raised in January and what I and others have observed - that our accounting system makes matters appear rosier than they are. In particular, it considers contributions to the endowment accounting. While this is legally correct, it conceals the dramatic decline in our liquidity over the past several years. We have been deficit spending, and Pat reported that we could be in serious trouble this year or next. There are other challenges relating to the timing of income, and he also suggested we move back to fund budgets to help keep track program-by-program of spending. Liquidity is actually worse than I thought; the nominal 125k in the liquid accounts includes some restricted funds.

My reaction: We must decrease spending, and dramatically. One effort to address the budget shortfalls has been to increase meet fees even as OUSA still relies heavily (> 50%) on donations. Many programs have suffered from budget cuts over the past few years anyway - marketing and club services received a $10k cut this year when club dues were below expectations, but it is hard to give a convincing explanation to a typical OUSA member about what they are getting for $300k/year in annual spending among 1200 members.

Discussed but not yet acted on:

• Committee structure - some committees don't actually have a function, and some requirements for OUSA are unaddressed. We will revise this before the next Board meeting.
• Budget - this is the big monster, and the vehicle for the main impact OUSA has on the community. A comprehensive evaluation is getting started and will be done by the next Board meeting.
• Expanded communication - OUSA needs to do better communicating with its members. A communications committee or a VP of Comm seems like a start, but we need to use more than the channels of ONA, clubnet, and attackpoint. Transparency and accountability.
• Reforming of events process - defining the calendar, helping clubs put on national events, etc. This mostly falls under Alex's purview; because one person has oversight, I think it is more likely to move forward with alacrity.
• External marketing - no major progress or discussion yet; probably will follow from the budget talks.
• Revisions to the bylaws for proxy votes - not discussed

It is imperative we sustain our momentum moving from the election and get things done as a governing body in the next few months. In my mind, the biggest broad question is what function should OUSA have? A big question for clubs: what can OUSA do for you?

C • What initiative! 10

Left achilles aches a bit, but I think it will be ok for North Americans. I will RICE it and read it bedtime stories of bylaws and finance reports.