Training Log Archive: cedarcreek

Event: MVOC Hills and Dales Sprints
 

Sprint2 was first.

Spent about 90 minutes Saturday at Bob Frey's getting the SportIdent software install files, and then about 2 hours last night installing everything (including the cash register printer driver).

Gabe asked me to do SI at his sprints about 4 weeks ago, and then there was some difficulty getting the details figured out. Yesterday, after I was at Bob's was the first time I'd heard from Gabe about doing SI today. But I really wanted to have splits for the ranked sprints.

So I was up this morning, and just before I left, I got a call from Mike asking me about the master station, which if you remember from my Flying Pig experiences, had some fried electronics smells. I had assumed we had another---I don't know why---I just did. Long story short---We don't have an extra master station.

I arrived at the sprints 2 hours early, intending to take a look at the PC Board to figure out if the problem was easy, and I had to stop at Wal-Mart for an 88-cent set of hex keys so I could get the one 2.5mm wrench I needed. I don't like disassembling stuff like this on picnic tables in the wind, but I did, and I found---fried electronics.

This was a showstopper, so...We didn't have SI at the sprints.

C • SI stick 1

Sprint 1.

Quality topics:

1. First of all, this map was made by Gabe, and he's still in high school, ...and he also set the courses. Everything that follows needs to be understood from the perspective that I'm really, really impressed with the event.

2. Map legibility. This is almost unfair, because the mapper didn't have a printer to use to check print quality. It was basically a 1:10000 map printed at 1:6000, and I think of maps like that as having big crayon lines. We discussed ways to make the map look better and ways to possibly make this an ISSOM map. Once the line widths are figured out, they can work on the colors. It's unclear whether some of the apparent distortions are real or just from the line widths.

3. Control Placements. Some of the descriptions were a little odd, and some of the placements were deep in fight. Part of the difficulty was the crayon line map (see above). I've been thinking of writing a little article about control descriptions. And not because I'm an expert, but because it affects the quality of the courses so much, and so many people get it wrong.

Overall, I was deeply impressed. I liked Sprint 1 better than 2, but only because 2 had more boring get-out-there-to-the-good-stuff simple legs along roads. It's clear that Gabe has a good sense of what makes for interesting legs, and I especially liked the "forking" of the courses in the area immediately north of the finish, where multiple bags are visible, and where controls are shared between courses in ways that make them not seem so easy the second time through (e.g., approaching from different directions).

And just another comment---It's amazing how little map you need for sprints. If they used 6mm circles, they could have packed in more controls and more crossovers. (Although this also relates to line widths---It would have been confusing to use 6mm circles on this map today.)

My vote for best leg of the day goes to Sprint 1, 2-3. Even though 3 is in deep fight, there just wasn't any good way to get there. And this leg is only about 300m long.

Sprint #2 (blue) - Splits

Sprint #1 (brown) - Splits

Dropped off a rental car and ran home. Spent three full days in Myrtle Beach, SC, which was fun, but had to spend about 26 hours in the car, which wasn't fun. I finished one book and started two more. I sat through three hours of timeshare presentation and salesmanship (in exchange for a free room and $75 in gift cards), and I'm really glad I left without buying. You really need to think these things over for a few days. What sounded really watertight during the presentation just keeps sprouting more holes the more I think about it.

I finished "The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production", by Womack et al (1990). Someone recommended it to me in the early 90s because it was required reading in his office, and I bought it and never read it. A few months ago, I took a neat little course that mentioned it, so I dug it out. I'm really glad I read this, although I think a newer book by the same people might be better. It starts out light and quick, but about about 2/3 of the way through it bogs down and goes into a lot of detail about the specific situation when the book was written (which one presumably might skip today). It's about the Toyota system of making cars, which the authors call "Lean Production", and which they distinguish from Henry Ford's "Mass Production". The most surprising thing was the analogies my brain kept inserting regarding Democrats v. Republicans and Capitalism from an adversarial short-term perspective v. a long-term cooperative teaming arrangement perspective (between the big company and suppliers, in this case). This book made me question a lot of what I thought I knew about manufacturing, politics, capitalism, and economics. One interesting thought I had, based on recent events (which the authors do not discuss), was the idea that oversight from governments and trade unions is considered a form of waste: If a company acts responsibly and does things like protect the environment and treats its employees fairly, then how necessary is government oversight and unionization? I have a hard time believing a large corporation can be trusted to "always do right." Repeat after me: "Checks and Balances are GOOD."

Just so I don't give the wrong idea here: One of the ideas that jumps out at me from this book was that Ford wanted the worker to be a cog in the machine---To have a simple job that anyone could do, and he wanted that worker to just do that job and primarily make sure the line didn't stop---If a part went on wrong, then just keep your mouth shut and move on to the next car. Toyota's method was much more humanist. The idea that the line should never stop is a wasteful idea---You're making bad cars. Toyota wanted every employee to improve the process, so if a part went on wrong, the worker would stop the line and everyone would gather around and figure out what was wrong. Say the part being bolted on was manufactured with misdrilled holes. Toyota and the supplier would figure out the fix, implement it immediately (since there was a very small inventory of bad components), and start the line, which would then make better cars. The idea of any worker stopping the line gives quota-seeking line managers night sweats, but the fact of Toyota's system is that initially the line stops a lot. Later, when the bugs get worked out, although anyone can stop the line, it almost never stops. Henry Ford wanted cogs in the machine, and Toyota wanted everyone's best ideas. Where would you rather work?