Training Log Archive: barb

Control pickup.
The sun was hot.
I was slow on the uphill.

This morning I manned the hash house 2:30-8ish. It was cold at night, and I was alone from around 4:45. I warmed up the pasta sauce and soup periodically, and waited for customers.

Event: 2012 North American Rogaining Championships
 

hike out along the ridge
decided not to continue that direction when we heard gunfire.

Enjoyed talking with people this weekend.
Rick Breseman about various topics, many related to juniors.
Mal Harding, Bob Reddick, Eric Smith (at the airport), Sharon Crawford, John of course.
It was nice working with Eric, Vladimir, Deb and Herb. Just-in-time event production.

control setting

Met this morning with Julia Bishop; my goal is to work this year with 4 5th-grade classes at 2 schools.
The junior high orienteering is not happening this fall because of major upheaval in the school system here. Sad. (But also, thank goodness, schedule-wise.)
Had a nice dinner last Friday with two teachers I've worked with over the years. One of them brought a huge thank-you card from last year's kids. Good thing I wasn't on my bike because I don't think I could have carried it that way. The other teacher just published a book about teaching and mentions me by name so now I'm famous.
Tonight I'll race to the school from class to catch the last 5 minutes of open house and talk to the parents; see if I can get any of them to a NEOC meet.
Then I go home for a phone meeting with Guy & Erin. And later a meeting with OUSA leadership which I hope will be the first of a productive and ongoing series of check-ins about junior team & development.
Then tomorrow morning I have a 7am flight to Seattle to help out with the North American Rogaining Championships.
And today work will be fun because I have a tasty dataset to analyze; I'm presenting my results at 4pm.

C • Busy schedule 5

Sick all last week.
erk.

C • Nice Potato! 2

yet another start... also: no caffeine after noon today!

C • Caffeine 16

work, then Izzy's game.

Friday at my workplace, they're starting a fitness thingy, where you get points for every day that you work out enough. So I'm going to try and win that thing. Yeah. Lately I've been all messed up in terms of sleep, eating, and exercise. A little too busy. This week started with meetings that went to midnight Sunday (juniors) and started at 6am Monday (rogaining). Then I had to go to work. Where I was sleepy. I know I can do things in a more efficient, sane way; I just have to knuckle down and figure it out. The kids are in the same position - Isabel is up late and up early dealing with homework and David just doesn't get it all done. I'm hoping we can all recalibrate this weekend.

C • Good luck 2

From Friday's game



Isabel is playing midfield for the JV team at CRLS. She's enjoying this position for (among other things) the opportunity to be aware of her team's positioning make a lot of decisions about where to send the ball. Another thinking sport.

Same kid, 2004:

I actually don't remember how long it took me but I did the ultra green at Pawtuckaway. Isabel did it too and beat me by roughly 7 minutes. Today she did the middle blue course, and did fine - it was good to see her doing her warmup before and after too.

Some highlights from the weekend:
Meeting a family of 3 girls from RMOC, super nice, and their parents Ramesh & Terry. The girls did yellow and orange separately on Day 1 and orange, together, on Day 2.
Meeting Mathew Rogers from COC, 16, strong orienteer. His dad is an adventure race organizer. Kudos to Bresemans for bringing him along.
Getting to learn a little more about the operations of OUSA.
Interviewing some of the juniors including Bradley Rounds and Anna Campbell for a hoped-for "Faces in the Crowd" type feature in ONA and/or website.
Getting some affection from Peter Campbell and talking with Anna about her snake and stars (she knows a lot about them, e.g., how our sun will get weaker and become a red giant). She is 6. She was excited about winning a "real" award at her first A meet. When she looked at the award, which has a map on it, she immediately recognized it as a map she'd been on before. Apparently she has an amazing ability with maps. Another bit of hope for the future.
Talking with Mikell Platt about various things including 24-hour adventure running and how to make WRC2014 a success. Also about how to use the Laramie maps; maybe a training camp sometime in the next year or two. Shifman interested in putting on a rogaine in the area; it's just about the tastiest area for a rogaine, ever.
Performances by the juniors. There was some question about whether it was appropriate to encourage 15-yr-old Will to "run up" at red, and in the end I'm glad he did it. It was fun having lunch with him & his dad and hearing about his 7 weeks this summer in Sweden living with orienteering families and training, and about him coming in 1st place vs 80 other kids in an indoor orienteering event. It was in a school with four floors, and the map showed each floor separately; the lines between controls on different floors was drawn right across the page between the floor maps. Sounds like a great thinking challenge an da lot of fun.
Seeing other friends - Eric, Terry, Kissy, Allen, Mark, Eileen, Rick, Ardis, etc...
Missed the Cusworths and the Moores and Orlyn, but we'll see them somewhere else some other time.

Walked about half of the Laramie goat with Isabel. See photos at my twitter account @barb_bryant. Gorgeous morning and terrain. Did 1-2-3-15-14-16-17-18-19-F.

Isabel won women's green overall, just beating the lovely Victoria Cambpell. Thus a 15 yr old won F green overall and a 15 yr old came in second overall on red afte winning red overall on day 1. At an A meet. Go juniors!

C • Green winner 1

Day 2 (Sunday) - Green - Splits

Event: 2012 Western States Orienteering Championships
 

Green course at the Wyoming A meet. I could barely move: out of shape, altitude, not enough sleep. We had trouble getting to Laramie; ended up arriving at our hotel in Denver at 2am and getting up at 5:30 to drive to Laramie.

Isabel did a great job on the green, beating me by 20 minutes. Victoria Campbell beat her by a few minutes but otherwise Isabel was ahead of the women. No other young women on green. Isabel was also surprisingly open and friendly with other people, for someone who usually just wants to keep to herself. She chatted with other juniors and had interchanges with various adults.

I'm super excited about Will Hubsch winning red overall. The kid is FIFTEEN YEARS OLD! Mathew Rogers, 16, came in a few minute behind him.

I attended the OUSA AGM. It was interesting. There were some things I would like to learn more about. There are some good initiatives underway.

Rant alert...

I am not very good at speaking coherently in front of people especially when I am feeling strongly about something, and still forming my thoughts, so I did not respond to one thing that really bothered me, though I woke up during the night and couldn't get back to sleep fretting about it.

The leadership aspires to the goal of Team USA being more competitive in international championships. Unfortunately, the way that comes out sometimes sounds like criticism of our athletes for not performing better, which I find particularly problematic when OUSA is not providing the financial support to build the broad program that would be needed to allow one to expect the performances our leadership seems to be disappointed about not achieving. I was outraged at how JWOC was referred to: "disappointing". That is incredibly disrespectful of the team members; it ignores the successes that were acheived this year, and it blames the kids when OUSA is not providing support for development. Other teams seemed to get a pass; in Trail-O we heard about the great performance on Day 1. What about Andrew & Ethan's amazing performance in the relay? What about the fact that Isabel was running even with the (non-Emily-Kemp) Canadian girls despite being younger, less experienced, and not having the advantage of the Canadian development program? What about the great coaching by Erin, who was only brought in as coach really late in the game, but opened up the kids' eyes to what was possible with solid training? And more - the team working together so well - Zac at his first JWOC with solid performances - everyone putting in their all. I just don't think it's right to go up in front of the AGM and speak negatively about these kids.

At JWOC, I spoke with other teams' coaches about their development programs. One country made the decision to build its junior program, and spent TEN YEARS spending money and effort on a broad program, and is only just seeing the results in performances. We haven't even embarked on that program, but are already blaming the kids for not winning.

OUSA not spending a lot of money on the teams is OK with me; continuing to just help to pay for JWOC and WOC entries but not coaching/development - that is fine - but don't have unrealistic expectations. And be grateful for the kids who do step up and work together and compete.

I am not particularly attached to one way of doing things. I personally love the idea of focusing on recreational orienteering and having a good time in the woods. On the other hand, I'm willing to support the goals of others who want to see a strong competitive program.

C • OUSA rant 7

Day 1 (Saturday) - Green - Splits