Training Log Archive: barb

"...as a rule, the water level is not over your ankle."

"The forest types vary... There are wet forests, marshes, swamps, bog forests and bogs."

"Wide ditch is a very bad obstacle. Impassable marsh is a very-very-very bad obstacle."

"It is possible to plan a feasible course without crossing any major ditch (which means that you may complete the course and get wet only below the knee), but if you are unable to plan so or are simply unlucky at finding crossing points, be prepared to get thoroughly wet."

-- Estonian rogaine course setter notes.

C • Hmm, there's this -- 5

To school to meet with Linda (grade 1/2 teacher). I brought a blown-up version of the map and a 10-minute video of a kindergartener learning to orienteer, and a bunch of compasses. We talked about how to structure their day in the woods.

This evening I looked over the homework (route planning sheets) from the 7th graders. Each person had one leg to plan; they were supposed to tell me which "landmark controls" they'd pick up on their leg, and give me at least 5 details about each little piece. I also asked for the total straight line distance of their leg, and half a dozen measured their anatomical leg. I have a few things to learn when it comes to teaching.

In answer to the question "Which landmark controls will you visit along your route?" one student wrote, "None if I can help it."

18 kids totally got the homework. 12 didn't get it or didn't fill it out. 9 didn't even turn it in. Every team has at least one person who got it.

Nice photo of Isabel from COC Middle:



And another from Hopewell Rocks:

Blue course at Pawtuckaway. It was a blast to do this in the daylight, when it wasn't raining. Last night's night-O was great training for today. I beat Dave, even though he had a sub-15-min/k time the day before and I thought he might have been me today.

Got stung by two bees on the north part of Big Island. Dave Gibbs got stung 3 times in the same area; he passed through there about an hour after me.

Right knee is hurting; has been on and off the past week.

Lower back was OK, but not great.

Those are my two biggest physical complaints right now. I think #3 would be the effect (allergy/sneezing/low level of asthma) of the dust from the sanding the painters did before painting half our rooms while we were away canoeing a few weeks ago.

Last night for the big downpour, we all crammed into the camper van: 2 adults + 3 kids. Dave Gibbs & Zakwani drove back home instead of staying in their tent. Dave G had a good weekend: completed his first green course yesterday, and shaved 30 minutes off yesterday's time on today's roughly equivalent course. The kids had a blast at the Vampire-O. They ran into good vampires 3 times, got all but 2 controls, and by the time they got vamped, they'd acquired protection.

Event: UNO Annual Camping Weekend
 

wicked hard night-O at Pawtuckaway. Very dark. Pouring rain. The first 2-2.5 hours were great. I was really careful with my navigation. I broke up each leg into pieces, each time stopping to take careful bearings and find a target I'd recognize when I got there. I had a lot of trouble with my glasses; even though I was wearing a hat with a bill, my glasses were streaming with water and got fogged up whenever I stopped. It took me a bunch of extra time to deal with my glasses.

My navigation was great and I always knew where I was up until I left control 9. At that point I lost it. I was then traveling with Jeff (whose name I didn't know until later), and felt that he was a little to the left of the bearing, but somehow I got psyched out and didn't stay focused. We didn't find 10 and went on to a trail, and didn't hit it where we thought we were going to. Anyway, I'm planning to hold onto that mindset of navigating carefully for next weekend's rogaine. "It's not rocket science" I found myself thinking. I'll also need to do this in the context of Peter being able to do it faster, and that adds some pressure.

Something that really helped: I'd spent a couple days prepping and teaching the junior high kids about planning their routes and I think that contributed positively to the mindset.

Scariest moment: big noise off to my right in the dark at one control. Thought it might be a deer crashing around, or a big branch falling off a tree. I talked to it: hello? who's there? I'm right here! Stay away! You're scaring me! I'm just going to go this way now...

to school to give the orienteering lectures! 67 slides in 40 minutes... There is an amazing difference in behavior between the 8th graders and the 7th graders. The 7th graders listen, ask great questions. In fact, their queries showed how engaged they were: my answer to a dozen questions was, "I'm just getting to that." Somehow the 8th graders seem to have an overriding attitude that I find much more intimidating; the 7th graders are "with" me. (I'm on lunch break now, having had one class of each; 2 to go.) The attitude isn't about age; it's the particular kids. I think just a few kids really set the negative tone. Not that it's that bad; I'm just sensitive.

Each kid has homework over the weekend to plan one leg of their team's route. Each leg can be broken up into a bunch of smaller pieces. Each piece can be described based on which way they'll go from the control, what they'll see along the way, how far it is, and what control feature they're looking for at the end. They write all this stuff down, and also highlight the route on the map. I gave them an example of what the answers could look like on an example leg.

Next week they'll do team-building and get together as a team to come up with a final version of their route.

To school for a meeting with the jr high teachers, back home, then work.
I am PSYCHED! I had just 15 minutes with the teachers this morning, so I prepared a powerpoint presentation and set a ground rule to mimimize discussion until the end. It went quite efficiently. I went through the schedule for the next 2 weeks, the class and home work the kids will be doing, reviewed the activities we'll be doing on the field trip (map walk & "team challenge"), and highlighted things that I wanted feedback on. The humanities teachers are going to take the draft of my "Working as a team" classroom assignment and finish it themselves. This makes me particularly happy because they can use their standard formats, fit it into the team-building methods they were going to start using this year, and also I had gotten to a certain place with it but got a little bogged down. I was so happy I was grinning on the bike ride back home. I love working with people like this, creating something complicated together!

Also, we decided it will work to include a class of 1st and 2nd graders on this trip. Interaction will be fairly minimal: when a jr high team meets a 1/2 team in the woods, the teams can give each other tickets. (The tickets are also found at controls and will be used, arcade-style, to trade in for prizes at the end.) The 1/2 class is studying ponds and seasons in science this year, so we will add a layer of activities for them relating to those subjects. OH BOY!

H Sq to home and back while Izzy did soccer practice. Very hot. Tried to go fast to make up for not having enough time in the day to exercise, work, parent, sleep, learn Estonian (not happening) and plan a ridiculously complex orienteering outing for 84 kids (with individualized homework for each and every one of them...). Yes, I am crazy, CRAZY!!! Aaarrrr!

Bridge circuit. Fast, for me. Car honked at me when I inconveniently ran in front of her where she had a yield sign going onto Memorial Drive. I turned back and just SCREAMED. Not really very friendly of me.

C • Hey, the lady might have be... 1

In 2007 I heard from a long-lost friend. Bill saw my name in connection with the computational biology society I am involved with. He is working in a related field and had some question. I was really happy to hear from him and asked how he was doing. He sent me a lovely long letter about what he was up to, including (I think) that he had separated from his wife, and had two lovely kids. (He wrote to me at my Millennium email address, and so I lost his message when I left that job.)

I met both him and his wife doing theater together at MIT as an undergrad in the early 1980s. I admired them so much. She was a rare female physics major - I pretty much worshiped her for that. Physics at MIT is pretty hard-core. He was smart and funny and cute, and a great actor. They were a quirky and sweet couple; when they got married they both changed their last names to "Bug". They were a couple years ahead of me and I never felt quite hip enough to travel in their circles socially outside of the Shakespeare Ensemble.

I kept meaning to write back to Bill, and I wanted to carve out time to send him as detailed and open a message as he had sent me - and I never got around to it. But I carried around this sense of anticipation because I felt that when I did write to him, it might be possible to strike up a new friendship based on our shared experiences.

A couple days ago I was learning about Twitter, and saw a former colleague's reference to Bill on a Twitter post. I wrote back all excited: do you know Bill?? He wrote back to say that Bill passed away this year and sent a link to his memorial website. It doesn't say exactly how he died, but that it was from depression and bipolar disease (for which a memorial fund has been set up).

As you can imagine, I feel deep regret about not writing him back. And I am reminded that it is good to put people first, to respond when friends reach out to you, and to be open to life and our fellow humans. (Maybe even when they are driving a car and honk at you in annoyance.)

C • very moving 2