Training Log Archive: barb

Conveniently, the car is in the shop.

To lab, to use a DNA test to figure out which ants were infected, and another exercise where we assayed E. coli strains for functioning beta galactosidase in the presence of various energy sources.

Isabel was called up to varsity on Sunday. Varsity has a number of injured and sick players. The game was played in the teeth of the advancing hurricane; it was cold and wet to be standing on the sideline. They had to send someone home to get a jersey for her; but eventually she got to play at the end of the second half. She did well, and they won 2-1. She really likes the level of play on varsity.

C • Soccer... 16

Orange course with my friend Jezanna. Included a loop back around to find a dropped compass - we found it.

Just had a good phone conversation with the parent of a junior with a lot of potential in the Seattle area. The father is on the COC board; Rick Breseman is the potential coach. Exciting.
Also got email yesterday or the day before from a junior in Georgia who is interested in trying out for the JWOC team and wants to know what to do.

C • David's Photos Are Awesome 3

Conversation with my son David yesterday:

The grand vision is to voxelize Boojum Rock LIDAR data, import into some Minecraft-building software (?), set up an orienteering game (he says there are already games like Hunger Games, where your avatar gets materialized in a ring in the middle of the terrain and then you run around getting stuff and fighting each other), get a lot of Minecrafters to play it, then put on an event for real in the forest where the winners in the virtual world get a slot in the real world event, and market regular orienteering to them all. There are over 45,000,000 registered Minecraft users, of which nearly 8,000,000 have bought the game. In the last 24 hours, 14,000 people bought the game. It's an open-source world building and exploration game. David knows a lot about it. Could also do a Catching Features version.

The game itself, the real one, in the woods, would ideally have live GPS tracking and the ability to be online in the woods at the same time that the game is being played, and see avatars for the real runners in the virtual world. It would be great to have live headcams on all the real players and be broadcasting that as well. Sometimes I imagine teams earning points, and more points means more money for the charity/non-profit of their choice.

Here's a mockup of the poster:

C • David's Game 3

Ooo. Phone call: storm advisory from the city of Cambridge for next week's storm. Strong winds, heavy rain, flooding, downed trees and powerlines. Move valuables out of basements. Remove leaves and debris from storm drains near our property. Secure furniture, bring items inside to minimize damage caused by flying debris. Have non-perishable food, bottled water, flashlights and first aid kits.

My notes from the OUSA board meeting. May be fairly illegible in places.

C • notes 2

Guy, Erin and I have weekly meetings. Erin thinks big. Which is what his contract says he will do. The contract has an addendum with the goals he's laid out, working backward from 10-year goals. The 10-year goals include the idea that half a dozen clubs will have a program bringing in and spending at least $50k (each) on junior development. And we'll be rocking it at JWOC. (B finals and above for all! Top 5 team!) There are also 3-year and 1-year goals.

Every week there is some new idea from Erin, and the rest of us react with some surprise and skepticism, but after a few minutes, or after sleeping on it, I become converted into a raving fan and a believer.

Two Erin ideas this week.

First idea: 2-3 weekends with junior training camps next spring. Each weekend would have a camp in three places: east coast, west coast, middle of the country. For example, the first weekend it might be Seattle, Boston, St Louis. Second weekend might be LA, Harriman, Minnesota. Maybe Colorado, Texas, Florida. Erin himself would be at one of the three places, and the planning and coaching would be coordinated. Maybe senior team members would be involved. Earlier, maybe February in Tucson, there would have been a coaching clinic. These camps don't have to be as "major" as the Blue Mountain camps have been in the past (though they could be), with solid fun and training and play from Friday evening through Sunday afternoon, with housing and board -- but they could be. Instead they could be less formal, just day camps in the area. But they should be open to all comers, all juniors. Ideally they'd take place the weekend before an A meet.

Second idea: Weeklong convention next summer for US and Canada together - lots of opportunities for people to learn (coaching, mapping, orienteering, ...); work with vendors (GoPro, gear, ...). Similar to conventions we've had in the past perhaps, but bigger, and with a real strong focus on coordinated action for the coming year to recruit and train juniors. OK, the rest of this paragraph is me riffing on this idea. I'd like to see specific out-of-the-box ideas for how you recruit. Examples: (1) Develop a plan to approach 50-100 cross-country coaches across the US, and have a strategy and materials for doing that. (2) Create some Hunger-Games-like event, highly watchable, maybe only say "orienteering" in the fine print, with amazing PR, and a goal of setting up events in half a dozen places, televized, reality-show like. (3) Have ARK there and make it really easy for people to sign up there and get trained to franchise it. Could be end of July around the BAOC meet or PNWOF or somewhere else.

Plus a bonus idea from me.

My idea for the week was to set up an exchange program for high school students. This was spurred by an email that we got from a 16-year-old Finnish high school student (and orienteer) who would like to live with a US family next year. It would be great to have a bunch of strong high school orienteers on exchange programs here in the US, living with orienteering families and training with the local juniors. And it would create stronger ties so that our juniors could go and train in Europe. I exchanged email with Youth for Understanding, and we could work through them. They provide a ton of support for both students and host families. (For a price.) If we recruited host families and students through orienteering clubs and connections, YFU is fine with us doing the matching ourselves and they provide the support and infrastructure. Oh, and if anyone in the Boston area wants to host this kid, let me know. Or anywhere in the US - I'm just feeling possessive because I'd love to see a strong Boston-based group of kids training together.

And my idea from last week:

Equip kids with GoPro (share it around the country) and GPS; they go out on a local course. We put together the video with the GPS dot on the map as people have been doing (eg see OUSA front page for an example). Then we get the junior and Erin (or a senior team person) to provide voiceover discussion as we review the course. One of these films is posted each week. 52 juniors get some fame and glory, and everyone gets entertainment and hopefully some training and orienteering tips.

C • YFU 20

Just walked into the kitchen to make some toast. There was huge carton of Goldfish crackers next to the toaster. Isabel eats too many crackers, especially Goldfish and Cheezits. I keep telling her not to eat those things but Dave keeps buying them. After NAOC she actually said that she wanted Dave to get her some trail mix because Erin suggested eating something more healthful. She doesn't listen to all my nagging for years, but a single dropped comment from her coach...

Anyway, back to this Goldfish carton - I realized it had writing all over it in marker, and here is what it says: "Start HERE: Dear Izzy, so basically, you are the best player on our entire team. You are the heart and the soul! And it doesn't hurt that everyone loves you. I mean I guess you are kinda cool. JK YOUR FLIPPING AWESOME! And a little birdy told me that you loves goldfish. So I hope that you love LOVE LOVE this! You ARE the coolest pseron! Get Psyched!"

Trail running with David at Boojum Rock. Yes, this is a big deal, to get David out there! We talked the whole time about how to create an orienteering-like game in Minecraft. I think David might actually do it.

work school

The WIOL league in the Seattle area will produce some strong juniors the next few years. Hopefully Erin will get the training plans and weekday trainings and local coaches into place when he goes out there this November, if it hasn't already happened by then. So far he has draft training plans from roughly 20 kids around the country. Which is working pretty fast, given that he's been working for about 3 weeks now. In those three weeks he also ran two training camps, held meetings at two A meets, drafted the junior development team & standing team applications, and the athlete code of conduct, sketched out the perqs of development team, attended an OUSA Board meeting, coached at NAOC including picking relay teams, helped edit the rules, touched base with the OUSA coaching certification people, ran in the meets himself, and set up the technology subcommittee (so far Anna Schafer-Skelton and Dave Yee). I like how he stations himself at the spectator leg so he can coach from there. Izzy said his voice was the only one she heard on that section.

Got that Kenyan chain letter about orienteering.

C • chain letter 3

My favorite photo from the weekend is Neil's

C • O-pourri 18

Sprint at NAOC. Made an error going to 5.

Isabel beat me in all three races this weekend.

GreenY - Sprint - Splits

Long. Nice - wore the camera and made no big mistakes, which I believe was correlated. Much cleaner than the middle yesterday. Just moving slow.

GreenY Long - Splits

Thursday evening we had a good JTESC meeting; it was nice to have an actual meeting and even nicer to have it be in-person. I like that we have a group with diverse opinions, but with mutual respect. We made progress on the Rules - we'll be making specific proposal to the Board, with some changes now and JWOC selection changes to come in the next few months. (For 2013 we need to stick with the old rules, since we are already into the period of racing.) We also talked about adding people to the committee. And various other things.

Erin held a course review; all juniors were invited and the senior team came along to help out. After awards, Erin led a meeting of juniors; the topic was training. Saturday there will be another round of course review, and a meeting to start building training plans for juniors of all ages, for the coming year. Erin is a good teacher and coach; I have been so impressed with his methods.

Lots more to say but I'm out of time.

Middle - GreenY - Splits

Event: 2012 North American Orienteering Championships
 

Here is David's Understanding Islam homework from a few weeks ago:





And his explanation:

In this calligraphy piece, I took the word “Allah” and formed the letters to resemble Arabian architecture. The piece more specifically is meant to portray a mosque; the ل and the ه represent the central building and the initial ا and ل represent a minaret tower. The letters are filled with a design of a design of plants and flowers, growing out of the base of the letters, and then climbing and splitting until they reach the top. The plants represent life and beauty on earth, as well as the human presence—both good and bad, represented by a mixture of the smooth curves on stems and leaves and the sharp points of thorns and corners. The upward growth of the plants portrays the constant struggle of humans to be closer to God; as plants reach to the sun, humans reach to God. The plant-like design is supposed to emulate some Kufic styles that were very monumental, used frequently in stone carving.

...

On the willpower front, last night was OK (B-). I didn't get everything done on my list (that's the -), but I worked fairly steadily (B) with reasonable efficiency. I managed two very good phone calls, one on rogaining committee business and one on junior team business. I posted information about junior activities at NAOC. I printed a map for this morning's 5th grade orienteering meeting. I started working on today's CSU training map (hill-O in Cambridge). I didn't get my homework done, and I didn't make as much progress on junior team stuff as I'd hoped. I spent some time on Reddit before going to sleep, which is not so great. I made banana bread, and ate some (yum). Had a cup of coffee so I could get up early this morning and finish the CSU map.

Tonight's Hill-O map with streets from Ed:

C • Artist 2

Went to get milk at the corner store 2 blocks away. They were closed. So was the next one. Therefore, managed to get what is for me a significant amount of running.

I am at a low point. I feel out of control.

Problems include lack of willpower and forgetting things and social fear/discombobulation. If you're reading this please don't write me something reassuring or excusing about how I actually get a lot done or forget because I have so much going on, because as much as I'd like to excuse it all myself, it's not working, and these are real problems, they feel hard, and I want to change.

Here is a drawing for you. David made it for Art class. Rhinoceros with hidden birds.

C • wow 9

And, a good start. I woke up and decided I would do three things this morning: run to get milk, scan David's rhinoceros, and clean out the camper van. Done! My grade is a B because I did everything (good) but I did it slower than expected (ended up installing scanning software, and spent a few minutes on DailyKos).

Today's 5th grade orienteering has been postponed.

Event: North American Open Training Camp
 

Today I taught 40 5th graders the first lesson in this year's orienteering curriculum at Morse school. (It was last year's 5th grade class that competed in the sprints at the CSU A meet.) This year the teacher managed to get the other 5th grade teacher to contribute her class as well.

On the other hand, no junior high orienteering this year. Things are too unsettled because the K-8 school got split up, and the older kids merged with another school or two to make a middle school.

Just as well - can't imagine how I would have pulled it off.

C • 2011 Morse O-ers 6

The "mom" thread in PG's log got me to call my brother to find out when my parents are supposed to be home from their trip to famous mosques in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. They seem to be determined to keep traveling until they drop. Dad's 83. Mom's 79. A typically weird time for them to be touring mosques.

Doug wasn't there, so I don't know for sure when they're due home.

C • weird time? 7

work, soccer game, home.

Event: Boggs Mountain A-Meet
 

Night-O at Powissett Peak. Took a ridiculously long time but still won the "short" division (3+ km) because most others didn't do the whole course. Made the mistake of trying to get through a short stretch of dark green. Spent some time adjusting the failing elastic headbands on the lights.

Grateful to Jeff Schapiro for setting it up, and Jim P and the other NEOC workers who were there - THANKS!

Short - Splits

I am really excited: an anonymous donation has provided funding for Erin to work full time on junior development and coaching for a year. Starting immediately. THANK YOU!

I've been talking with Erin regularly, and I am so impressed at the ideas he has, the way he incorporates feedback, the way he pays attention to so many different aspects of developing juniors. I think it's going to be great having him on board. I hope you all will talk with him and welcome him to this position and give him whatever advice and encouragement you can!

There are so many things I've heard Erin say that really ring true for me. What it means to be an athlete (see ONA, for example; I've just realized the digital edition has been out for 12 days now). How working with each kid is different. The importance of having fun. etc etc etc

C • WOW! 6

work, class, home.

To see Bill Clinton.