Training Log Archive: iansmith

Training competition standing (and breakdown of activities):

Ian

	June	July
Orienteering	9:45:08	11:02:47
Running	4:43:33	5:53:56
Biking	1:10:00	4:59:00
Weights	20:00
Canoe	1:55:07
Total	17:53:48	21:55:43

Lori (aka "The Juggernaut")

	June	July
Orienteering	12:01:01	11:23:36
Running	4:52:28	3:00:44
Canoe	2:24:00
Strength	1:10:00	40:00
Hiking		14:00:00
Total	20:27:29	29:04:20

I am disappointed to see in retrospect that I have run so little in the past two months. For August, it is my goal to run on average thirty minutes each day (1 rest day per week) - 13.5 hours total, and orienteer and bike 3 hours per week. This gives a total of 25.5 hours of training, which is reasonable given the low impact of biking and orienteering.

However, Lori leads the competition with 49:31 of training vs my 39:49, so it looks improbable that I will be able to overtake her healthily (anyone up for a Rogaine?).

1399

C • WTF? 2

To and from Medford High School for ARDF training. My trip was 15 minutes going to the high school and 18 coming back - I was tired, and there was a headwind.

Setting control 4 for ARDF (40 mins) and retrieving control 2 (15 mins), almost exclusively on trails.

ARDF training at Pine Hill, starting at Medford High School. I will add a more thorough analysis later, but I had a fairly good run.

My control order was 23415; the optimal was 21345, but I did not lose much time.

Cumulative splits:
To 2: 630 (didn't take split; found on cycle)
To 3: 2925 (found off cycle)
To 4: 4102 (I set it, so shrug)
To 1: 5607 (found at the end of the cycle)
To 5: 6934 (found on cycle)
Finish: 7548

Evening run at around 11 PM. There seemed to have been some festivities beyond the usual Harvard Square night life; a large number of people were wearing formal wear - mostly women.

This was my first run with my new New Balance running shoes; I had planned to have a more active Saturday, but scheduling was an obstacle. Also, I wanted to break the new shoes in without destroying my feet. I must get more orienteering time in this week; I hope to spend at least one weekday each week in a local orienteering park.

Errands around Cambridge. I'm hesitant to count this as training, but I was generally pushing hard, broke out a significant sweat, and elevated my heart rate.

This note intentionally left blank.

I believe that my recent hours of Catching Features have already had a measurable impact on my map reading skill. The central challenge in orienteering is to look at a map of terrain ahead of you (usually out of visual range), imagine it in your head, determine the optimal route, and then match your mental image with the reality as you collect data along that route. Apart from the logistics and physical component (reading ahead, etc), Catching Features captures this exercise very well. In the course of an hour of Catching Features, I might run 30-40 control legs, requiring me to assess attack points, routes, and terrain quickly. The review afterward is invaluable. It also helps that the map is the size of a monitor with easily adjusted orientation and zoom controls; I am practicing how I will make decisions given maximal information. Hopefully the homework that Brendan has been handing out will help with maximizing the amount of information I glean from a map.

Anyway, clearly most people in the community are more familiar with the mechanics and benefits of Catching Features than I.

C • Nice 1

A comparatively early night run for me (11 PM). My intent was to get about fifty minutes of quality running in - which at my present state of fitness and training is easy running. I ran further than I planned, but I felt good throughout the run. I warmed up for ten minutes at 4/4 breathing, then ran with 3/3 and finished up with 4x30s strides. I'm a little disappointed that my pace was not faster, but I have had an aggressive training week. I mean to have an easy Thursday and Friday, with perhaps some longer duration biking and Caution-tape streamer retrieval on Saturday (if there isn't ARDF).

My quads were slightly sore at the end of my run, and my right calf is a little tight. However, my muscles, breathing, and energy were all adequate to the task. I will preemptively take some anti-inflammatory ere I sleep and perhaps apply ice tomorrow.

A question for my audience: how frequently do you wash your athletic clothes (e.g. for running)? How many runs (or perhaps a time interval) do you get out of a set of clothes before you wash them?

C • Frequency 5

A late night easy run around Porter and Harvard Squares. I ran with the Harriman map and courses that Brendan drew up for us last week and read the map during my run. I estimate that I spent about half the time I was running staring at the map. I had a headlamp, but it was still difficult to read the complex contours; I found that using the small cliffs to indicate general trends was sufficient, since cliffs tend to be convex on the lower side. My goal for these exercises is to maximize the rate at which I absorb information while moving. I found that while reading the map, I did tend to minimize jostling and bouncing around while moving. My target pace for this run was about 5:30/km.

My muscles feel excellent. There is some trivial tightness in my right calf, but given the sad condition of my footwear, I'm not particularly surprised. I must make a trip to the New Balance factory store asap. My breathing vacillated; while I was concentrating on my map, I defaulted to 2/2. I tried to hold to 3/3 for most of the run, but I started singing the theme to Crimson Tide in my head (it is in 4/4), which necessitated an even cadence. I switched to 4/4 breathing both to simulate oxygen deprivation and to regulate my intensity.

Fifty nine days until the ROC A-meet. Forty two days until the CSU Training group goes bowling (Bring it on, Alex Jospe).

1352

C • missed a streamer at Menotomy Rocks 2

Warm up for my tempo run and cool down afterward.

Tempo run. After my warmup, I set out with 2/2 breathing and held that constant throughout. I tried to start conservatively and hold a monotonically increasing speed; I think I succeeded, and pushed slightly harder at the end as I found I had more stamina than I expected. I was hoping to break 4.5 km over twenty minutes, but given that this is my first speed work in almost two months, I'm not disappointed.

I ran late at night; conditions were moderate but muggy at 22 C with a dew point of 13 C.

A morning trip (8:30 - 11 AM) to and from Lowell St. with Brendan to the Fells (intersection of Governors St. and South Border Road) to run the Skyline trail. The morning was beautiful; conditions were sunny and a pleasant 21 C.

Brendan and I ran the Fells Skyline trail; the distance is from fellsbiker.com (7.88 mi) and is consistent with my expectation. We may have ran a bit farther running to and deviating from the trail. The climb is a conservative guess.

The trail itself is beautiful, with pleasant though tricky rocky ground on most of its length. The ridgelines offer a few good views of the park, and the trail entirely encircles the reservoirs west of I-93. We ran into a few hikers and dogs (some of which were unpleasant), but I didn't see any other runners. Perhaps counterclockwise is the preferred direction of travel?

Brendan set a good pace, and I was content to follow him, since I'm usually very bad at pacing myself. My joints felt excellent throughout the run despite the numerous hills, and my muscles responded well. Breathing was labored at times, varying from 3/3 at the start to 1.5/1.5 and up to 1/1 at the toughest sections; I held a steady 2/2 for most of the run. The biggest impediment was perspiration and dehydration. The dewpoint was about 13 C (50+% humidity), and I guzzled the liter of water I left at the start once we returned.

1338

Biking to and from the Sheepfold. I spent quite a while waiting for traffic on the way up, but I followed Brendan home, and his route looks to be superior. One big difficulty with urban cycling is that it's unwise to travel at full speed because you can't devote as much attention to the road, car doors are more dangerous, and you fatigue easily stopping and starting. This will increase the transit time to more distant locations, like Blue Hills or Breakheart, but hopefully not so much that they are insurmountable.

I set streamers and generally examined most of the route for a line-O I set for the CSU training group. Turnout was excellent - Dave and Barb, Keith and Vanessa, Vadim, Andy, Ross, Clem, Brendan, Lori, and Dean all came out. The woods were more pleasant than I expected, though I did force people through a rough area near some marshes. Nevertheless, I traveled through all the most difficult sections of the line-O in tights and with a backpack without too much difficulty.

The exercise was very successful; the course was about 4 km long. Two changes for future events would be to start earlier (maybe 6-6:30 start instead of 7 PM) and to design the line-O such that it could represent a route choice among controls. The path I drew, while focused on passing many features, was chaotic and random.

1324

CSU orienteering training at Harvard. To celebrate the release of the sixth Harry Potter film on Wednesday, Lori set up a "Hogwarts Sprint-O" with an orienteering variant inspired by the Marauder's Map. Fifteen controls were placed as part of a score-O with the stipulation that there existed 8 memory controls not on our maps whose location could be learned from map fragments hidden at some control sites. To further complicate things, Lori would be migrating through the course moving the fragments among the controls.

The exercise was fun, though necessarily the conditions were too random to be anything more than an occasional novelty. It was nonetheless one of the more interesting training exercises I have done. I visited all the marked controls and seven of the eight secret controls (215 + 7*35 - 5 penalty for 1 minute overtime = 455 pts); I had all the data for the hidden controls, but I remembered the location of the last one incorrectly.

In general, while my body feels weak and weary (once upon a midnight dreary?), I cannot report any major physical problems like injury or pain anywhere. While I certainly could use a massage, I will train on Tuesday (and possibly tonight, though unlikely). Note that I rolled my ankles thrice at Pawtuckaway with sufficient violence to elicit yelling, and once that compelled me to stop and sit for about a minute.

In another curious coincidence, the five orienteering sessions over the past 7 days that I have timed to the precision of 1 second added to 0 modulo 1 minute. Awesome.

1296

The fourth and final exercise of the weekend was a long course, set at 12.3 km. The course design was interesting in that legs alternated length between short (100-200 meters) and long (~ 1 km), so the controls were arranged in pairs. Brendan apparently intended this so that an orienteer would slow down on the short leg to recover and plan the next route, then move quickly on the long leg. I liked both the psychological reward of finding controls quickly and the break in physical and mental tempo.

I was extremely tired during the run, and there was no water out on the course. I aborted after 15 of 19 controls, cutting off a loop of 3-4 km. Had there been water, I would have considered running the last four controls, but I probably would have arrived at the same conclusion - the weekend was demanding even without the Night-O.

Picking up controls - including three of the four that I skipped on the long. Since I had hydrated and eaten, I was moving somewhat better than previously, but still sluggishly.

Ultralong - Splits

Setting controls for the weekend.

The first exercise of the CSU Pawtuckaway training weekend was a technical, middle-distance-esque training with 27 controls. The typical distance between controls was about 200 meters, and our objective was to go as directly as possible paying close attention to features around us and staying firmly in contact with the map. Pawtuckaway is probably the most technical terrain I have spent significant time on, so this task wasn't trivial. I slowed down in regions that have given me difficulty before, but the exercise was very helpful.

I passed Vadim Afonkin at control 5, and built up a lead of about 100 meters by control 11, but I bobbled control 12 and had to relocate. I passed again, but he saw 14 first, tried to break away from me, and twisted his ankle. He recently hurt his ankle in Europe at a radio-O competition, so he retired from the training. Even when I was ahead of him, his presence pushed me to go a bit faster, though I was concentrating very hard on my map and features.

The second exercise of the weekend was a route execution exercise; there were nine controls spread over 5.4k. We examined the map thoroughly and planned our routes (ostensibly in pairs, but there was more migration of ideas), then set out to execution the routes as precisely as possible. I again slowed down in the northwestern region of the map to choose my path carefully, but I had no difficulties.

Three hours of orienteering in one day (esp @ Pawtuckaway) is tiring, mentally and physically.

The CSU Training group held its annual training weekend in Pawtuckaway on 11-12 July. Ross and Brendan planned the schedule and designed the courses; upon arrival, we divided the 66 controls up among the group and set streamers at each site. The schedule was:

Sat
Event 1: Technical Training (Control Picking), 27 controls 5.9k
Event 2: Route choice exercise, 9 controls, 5.4k
Event 3: Night-O, 7.5k

Sun
Event 4: Long course, 19 controls 12.3k

We were a bit behind schedule after event 2 - we left the grocery store at 8 Pm, when we were planning to start, and didn't finish dinner until 10 PM - so due to fatigue and weather concerns, we scrubbed the Night-O.

The weekend was socially pleasant and had lots of good training. In attendance for various stages were Ross, Brendan, Lori, Alex, Mark and Pia, Dave Yee and Barb Bryant, Bob Lux, Ernst Linder, and Vadim Afonkin. Ross, Brendan and I constituted one campsite, and Mark, Pia, Lori, and Alex were at a campsite across the road. Head Chef Ross lead the cooking team preparing an excellent dinner for everyone, and Brendan and I built up a small fire. I didn't start looking for firewood until about 8:30 PM, but I found just enough with a quick search to maintain the blaze for about two hours. A useful measure of how social the event was is the number of inside jokes that emerged; we produced several of various subjects.

Conditions were warm - the high temperature each day was in excess of 80 F. The insects were generally absent on Saturday - miraculous conditions for Pawtuckaway, but more active on Sunday. I had my first encounter with deer flies, who are now the objects of my wrath. They seem to follow well over kilometer-scale distances even at my maximum running speed.

It is clear that it was wise for me to cut distance off the long course; while I didn't have much difficulty on the first two training sessions, I probably should have set one hour as a firm upper bound for how long I was out for the shorter sessions. It isn't clear to me how to improve that, apart from being faster - the limiting factor seemed to be energy and hydration rather than muscle fatigue or breathing. While my body was sore at the conclusion of the weekend's activities, after drinking almost 2L of fluid after the long, I was able to run out at an acceptable pace to retrieve controls. We had not placed any water, so perhaps simply laying out a few gallons of water would make the training sessions more effective.

C • Various types? 3

Route Planning - Splits

Control Picking - Splits

Distances of interesting orienteering maps from my apartment:
Breakheart Reservation: 11 miles
Blue Hills Reservation: 13 miles
Prospect Hill Park: 9 miles
Pine Hill: 4 miles
Sheepfold: 5 miles
Boojum Rock: 5 miles

Approximate commuting speed on my bike: 15 mph.

I must procure clean NEOC maps.

Ross (+coach) set a 30 control Score-O at Hammond Pond as part of the CSU training group. Distance is a guess based on Alex Jospe's GPS watch. I ran generally well; I had a two minute error to the first control born of my sluggishness to concentrate and think in an orienteering mindset. I had a few other errors - some deliberate, e.g. verifying I had not missed a control, and some simply hesitation and inadequate planning.

However, I was fairly pleased with my run. I felt strong throughout the run, and I regulated my breathing at a consistent 2/2. I ran in my grey basketball shorts, a t-shirt (all my O-shirts are filthy), and sneakers. A visit to the New Balance factory store is in my near future.

Other benchmarks: Brendan ran the course in 36 minutes, Ian Finlayson in 40 minutes (though I'm sure he wasn't pushing particularly hard).

Afterward, the group including Mark and Pia, Alex and Ed, Ian, Andy Donaldson, Dave Yee and Barb Bryant, Ross' friend Dan, Jeff Saeger, Brendan, Lori, Ross and I retired to Ross' apartment for some excellent food courtesy of Ross and good company.

I decided to take a rest day, given that I will be moderately active on Wednesday at the CSU Score-O. Unfortunately, the rain has curtailed some of the cycling I expected to do, so I may be more aggressive in the remainder of the week.

I have heard from reliable sources that Lori climbed a mountain recently, which will significantly boost her training time despite her vacation with her parents. While hiking and mountain climbing is fairly low intensity work, it increases the heart rate sufficiently to be considered training. Perhaps a lot of low intensity biking might combat her new opportunity? The cardiovascular benefits of long biking journeys must also be recognized.

1266

A late night run. Conditions were humid and temperate, with 20C and 76% humidity. I felt good throughout the run - breathing was a comfortable 3/3, muscles felt loose and relaxed, and while tired at the end of the day, I had enough stamina to run along without difficulty. I was concentrating on minimizing the impact on my knees, feet, and ankles; I ran on grass when I could and thought about my form and foot placement. I ran shirtless for a time, which was extremely comfortable, but suffered some unpleasant chafing when I put my shirt on as I entered areas with more people.

A run at dusk with a JFK - River St. river loop. Uneventful, apart from some unpleasant chafing on my chest.

I had not previously been able to gain a measure of my bike's performance; there was so much stopping and waiting for cars on my past run that only a rough guess could be made. I decided to bike the Minuteman trail (which also, unfortunately, has occasional cross streets) to make a more accurate measurement.

I spent most of my time in the 2-6 and 3-5 gears, but on the way back, I pushed it into the 3-6 gear and really started flying. I felt great throughout the session, though I started too fast and had to cut back. Once I get my derailer adjusted and can bike in the 3-7 gear, I expect to be able to move reasonably quickly on extended stretches.

The minuteman website lists the distance as 11 miles, but wikipedia and an actual measurement at gmaps give almost exactly 10 miles. It's a bit disappointing, but my times were (from Alewife to Bedford):

3759 to Bedford
3604 to Alewife

This gives an average speed of 16 mph, which is not particularly impressive. I'm confident that at times I exceeded 20 mph (particularly when passing other bikes), but I have grander aspirations.