Training Log Archive: iansmith

Easy run around the Charles. I started slowly but picked up to tempo pace and 3/2 breathing when another runner coasted by me, probably doing 7-minute miles. I hung with him for about a mile, then pushed past him. He must have turned off my path after I passed him, because I never saw him. I then cruised in at an easy pace for the rest of the run.

October has been my first 100 mile running month since December 2011. My plan for November is an additional 20 km - 112 miles.
Ghettotrack

Two cools vids from WOCs:
2009, 2011 (Go Adamski!)

I recently watched the Star Trek episode "Tapestry." The central premise of the episode is that the course of our lives is shaped by the decisions we make, and that modifying individual decisions can lead to vastly different outcomes. As Picard, the main character of the episode, summarizes:

"There are many parts of my youth that I'm not proud of... there were loose threads... untidy parts of me that I would like to remove. But when I pulled on one of those threads... it had unraveled the tapestry of my life."

Picard is given a chance to change what he considers a mistake in his past, but the consequence of "fixing" the error in the present is that his career has been devoid of the ambition, confidence, and determination that characterizes him. In that alternate reality, in which he is a lowly lieutenant instead of the Captain of the Enterprise, he has this conversation which resonated with me:

Lt.(jg) Picard: How would you evaluate me as an officer?
Deanna: Well. Um, your performance records have always been good. You're thorough, dedicated...
Riker: ...steady, reliable (searching for something to say) ...punctual.
Picard: I see. What would you say if I told you I thought I was capable of being more than that.
Riker: Frankly, Lieutenant, I don't think that's realistic.
Picard: Why? Please. This is important to me. I know I can do more.
Troi: Hasn't this been the problem all along? Throughout your career, you've had lofty goals. But, you've never been willing to do what's necessary to attain them.
Picard: Would that be your evaluation as well?
Riker: I'd have to agree with Troi. You talk about wanting more. But, when it comes to doing something about it, you hang back. If you want to get ahead, you have to take chances. Stand out from the crowd. Get noticed.

C • late bloomer 2

After a scrumptious dinner at Border Cafe with ndobbs + posse, I decided to go for an easy run around Cambridge and Somerville. I started out sluggishly, due in part to my enchilada-filled stomach. Nevertheless, I felt comfortable. While a torrential downpour had fallen while we were at Border, there was no rain or wind when I was running. I finished Unbroken (which I would recommend) and started John Dies at the End.

I fell asleep immediately after showering and woke up about 8.5 hours later still feeling groggy. I need to avoid running after 10 pm; it seems to be having deleterious effects on my sleep cycle and life performance.

Ghettotrack

Easy run around town while the wrath of the outskirts of Hurricane Sandy battered New England. After 25 minutes, I ran 3x(4 min on, 1 min rest) threshold intervals. Conditions were unusual , but not particularly hazardous for a runner - windy, with speeds of 50-60 kph, a temperature of about 15 C. I saw a handful of downed branches, including one which severed some power lines.

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=5723231>Ghettotrack.

Event: NEOC: Townsend
 

Funny remark from Jeff Saeger about Pawtuckaway (paraphrased): "Course setting at Pawtuckaway is easy! If you throw a bunch of darts at the map, you look at the result and say 'what a great course!' "

Focus like Jordan (from Eddie Bergeron)
Profiles in courage and/or moisture.

Picked up controls from Townsend.

Event: WCOC Fall orienteering weekend - morning sprints
 

Event: WCOC Fall orienteering weekend - afternoon middle
 

Pete Bundschuh designed and streamered great courses at for the local meet at Townsend. I set out to hang the controls with clutch help from James Tasker; he took the section nearer to the start while I meandered around the rest of the park.

I had never been to Townsend before, so I was eager to explore the woods. NEOC is considering holding an A-meet at Townsend in 2014, and that conclusion was predicated on the notion that the map was currently acceptable albeit in need of minor updates. I was impressed with the map, though I think the rock is undermapped and the vegetation is ourdated, especially in the southern half. However, some terrain in the northern sector is among the best I have run on in all of New England - it was sublime. Coupling the existing map with unmapped areas to the west, the meet could be very successful. James put it well when he remarked that he didn't know why NEOC hadn't used Townsend since 2005.

I had a bit of O practice as I marched around with k <= 15 stands, but darkness approached while I still had five controls to hang. I increased my speed - since Pete had streamered the locations, I stopped checking them and just navigated to the streamer. One control, on a boulder in a field of mountain laurel, was a bit tricky in the semi-darkness.

As I blasted down the edge a reentrant toward my penultimate control, I spied four or five fuzzy black shapes about 50m away: black bears! I had never encountered a bear while orienteering, to say nothing of a posse of them. Fortunately, I make a lot of noise crashing through the woods, and the bears were alerted that something fearsome and unstoppable was moving toward them. I saw no cubs; all the bears looked full size - about 3-4 feet at the shoulder. As I warily skirted the wood around them, they trooped off into the woods. I loudly monologued about how I was a human and they were bears and that they wanted no piece of me and my superior technology. About 150m further down, I saw a single bear, who also scrupulously avoided me. Had they confronted me, apart from the motivation to make a quick escape, I was carrying two stands with which to fend off a few hundred points of bear. Even more remarkably, I lost contact with my exact position on the reentrant due to my ursine companions, but stumbled across the streamer moments after leaving the bears' vicinity. Woo.

Perhaps the bears were having an A-meet meeting of their own to consider the possibilities for the future.

C • Sounds good, but... 3

The non-orienteering component of the session.

Met with the NEOC A-meet planning group at my apartment to discuss future NEOC A-meet possibilities. The plan right now is to hold a 2x classic A-meet at Townsend in Spring 2014 after updating the map, with a possible September 2013 joint A-meet with CSU, with NEOC supplying 2x middle distance. Group members included Dean, Magnus, Jeff S., other Jeff S., Ed, and Tim.

Full report coming soon.

Unplanned rest day.

Easy evening run. I was thoughtful, and I continued Unbroken.

Update: some recent discussion on the forums prompted me to revisit some of the classic AP discussions (and inevitable logical fallacies). On the L&F discussion, I glance at my bathroom scale periodically, and I have been hovering around 180 lbs for the past few months. My base hasn't yet reached high volume, and I'm hoping that my body will become better optimized for running with training. I'll probably make a more concerted effort to avoid inopportune snacks in favor of a regular and sufficient meal schedule, but whether my weight will change remains to be seen.

C • Recent discussions 7

CSU street-O training set by Lori. I showed up with the intent to do some tempo running, and I was spurred on when I found myself cruising around the course with Ari. He and I pushed hard, trading off the lead periodically, and ended with a kick finish. I edged him out by a few seconds, but I think I started a little before he did. The effort was probably harder than tempo, but it was great to have a quality workout.

To my humiliation, I made one big error and two small errors. The big error was at 1 - upon reaching Line st, I turned left instead of right and had to run around the block before getting to Buckingham St - easily costing 40s. At control 5 in Harvard yard, I thought the control was on the John Harvard statue instead of the adjacent building. Finally, at the stadium, I overshot the control by about 5s before doubling back. Certainly the map was imperfect - an old street map with building footprints - but all three errors should not have happened.

Ari was ahead of me at km 1 after cutting through the Walgreen's parking lot; I passed him at km 2.4. He took the lead after I hesitated in Harvard yard and held it until I pushed at km 8. I expanded my lead on the long stretch to 9 and kept it.

I was nearly hit by a car coming out of a parking garage on Mass Ave. I was running up the sidewalk and an alert pedestrian ahead of me suddenly yelled "Lookout! Lookout! Lookout!" As I screeched to a halt, a car bumper abruptly protruded into the sidewalk moving too fast to have stopped. Ari suggested that I should have jumped on the hood to indicate my displeasure. I'm grateful the pedestrian was attentive and took initiative.

Ghettotrack

C • not hit 3

Cool down run around the block.

Ghettotrack

Studies on the relationship between caffeine and calcium intake:
Effects of caffeine on bone and the calcium economy

C • Yes... 3

Warmup in the sprint quarantine, with an additional ten minutes of walking around on the model map checking out features. After waking up at 5:55 and breakfast at 6, I went through my equipment, geared up, hydrated, and trooped over to the quarantine at 7:25. I started marching around trying to familiarize my brain with the impending task at about 7:40, then started warmup in earnest at 7:55 after bathrooming, about 25 minutes in advance of callup for my 8:24 start.

NAOC 2012 sprint. The course was interesting, with a mix of forest and urban terrain mapped to ISSOM. I started hemorrhaging time from the start, typically 30% back of the leaders. Full course review to come; my orienteering wasn't bad, but I wasn't clean either. I made a bad mistake on 13-14; I fumbled the trail junction adjacent to 13, and then missed 14 left, hitting a control lower on the spur before ambling back up. I estimate I lost thirty seconds. I took a bad angle through the green on the approach to 6 and navigated haphazardly from 10 to 11. The feature was obvious, but my route could have been quicker.

Overall, this was another disappointing race. Finishing 21% back of Ross is ludicrously far from being competitive.

Blue - Sprint - Splits

After breakfast, packing, and dressing, I deposited my belongings at the PEEC and set off on a quick jaunt around the 1:15 model map. It was helpful to adjust to the scale, and I visited a handful of controls. I wonder if in hindsight, given my current fitness, it would have been wiser to eschew map calibration in favor of conserving my stamina. Clearly, the correct decision was to visit the model map either on Thursday or Friday.

C • Model 4

NAOC Long distance race. Despite a fantastic course and magnificent albeit steep terrain, my performance was very disappointing. The splits tell a coherent story: I was about 30% back throughout the course and on most legs. My orienteering, while not terrible, was unremarkable - I lost perhaps two minutes on the two long legs relative to what I was capable, but even they weren't far outliers from my trend. Physically, I was unable to race and to run fast relative to the field, and the climb was devastating. Controls like 19, which were navigationally easy but included long climbs, depleted any lingering energy reserves.

I began the course with two costly mistakes at 1 and 3. On the first, I tried to navigate using the marshes, but drifted on my compass through the vegetation and skirted the rock wall to the right. I ended up overshooting and doubling back. I refocused and had a good run to 2, but missed control three to the right. On the way to three, I slid down a spur and gashed my right hand on a sharp cliff, but the cut didn't seem serious. As I ran up the reentrant into 3, Brendan came in from my left and punched just ahead of me. I noticed him drifting right on 4, but I stuck to my plan to attack from the saddle and reached the control first. I had a decent string of controls apart from a 30s error drifting left at control 9 before the long leg at 10.

After some consideration of the leftward trail route, I decided to go nearly straight to 10. The route wasn't bad, but I think the trail would have saved me about a minute. I was pleased with my execution at 11, though it was sluggish. I just managed to spot it below me as I marched down the spur; visibility wasn't great. On the long leg to 13: again, after considering the left trail route, I elected to go straight. My execution was acceptable - I stayed in contact and labored my way over the hills and spurs; I saw Ali traveling perpendicular to my route. Unfortunately, I decided to attack 13 from the right along the edge of the marsh, which was very slow. As I was drinking, Brendan came into the control from the left. I was spurred on, and was very focused for the next four controls. I hesitated briefly deciding which was to go around the cliff to 16 and had to fight through a wall of green to get to 17, which was visible from 30-40m on a hill. Control 18 to the end were a death march; I made many little mistakes, like going over small hills when it was unnecessary. My big error was going left at 21 rather than taking the trail to the right. Brendan passed me on this leg, and at the control, I saw Greg, who started three minutes before me.

I spent the rest of the course chasing Greg down. We were both tired, so it was a pitiful sight.

Warmup before the race.

Blue Long - Splits

Warmup before the Middle Distance race. I didn't leave quite enough time to prepare to my satisfaction; I arrived at the about ten minutes before the first call up. While running along the trail to warm up and reading the map, I tried to get into a race mindset.

NAOCs Middle Distance race at Adam's Creek in Dingham's Ferry, PA.

In summary, my race was unremarkable. I knew the terrain was technical - in particular, the vegetation was intricate. I haven't run much recently on maps with complex vegetation, or with maps with vegetation sufficiently well mapped to really pay attention to it, so that was a novelty. I would say that I struggled to race, but it's hard to define that: while I was concentrating and running, I lacked the urgency, imperative, and impervious focus that characterizes "race mode." Perhaps I'm indulging meaningless psychological speculation, but it seemed a problem to me.

Apart from not being fully engaged, I made a few costly bobbles - notably on 3, 4, 7, 11, and 12.

Finish chute is too loooong.

Middle - Blue - Splits

Event: 2012 North American Orienteering Championships
 

Easy run in to work to check the status of the legs. They felt ok.

Ghettotrack. Ran home while listening to Unbroken, a best selling account of a track star's survival in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in World War II. It is promising so far, about 12% through the book. The time is an estimate as I forgot my watch, but my pace was very relaxed and comfortable.

Profiles in Courage
Also note the sweet 70-200mm L; it looks like an F4.

Plan for this week:
While I'm not at a peak in my training, I want to have the best races I can produce at NAOC. My goal is to finish in the top 30 in all three races, with a reach goal of top 20. I can benchmark my performance against the usual suspects - Ken, the Zhyk, Giacomo, Eddie. I plan to have an easy M-W, with 5 mile runs each day; I will rest on Thursday. I shouldn't have any trouble getting enough running in at the end of October to exceed 100 miles for the month. The most important race to me is the long; I need to manage my endurance and my technical focus. While I can't directly control the results relative to the field, I want three solid races - with no mistakes bigger than two minutes.

Evening toodle around Cambridge, centered around a trip down my trusty, wind-sheltered Franklin St. Ghettotrack. I ran in silence and contemplated my life. Every step is a victory.

Event: NEOC: Boxford
 

Green course at Boxford State Forest. I arrived at the meet site quite late, and while I intended to help out with control pickup, I was still frantic in my effort to arrive, prep, and start my course. The start box had already been picked up, so I started from the registration tent rather than the 300m distant start.

I had decided to schedule Boxford after Tim Parson visited the site and concluded the terrain was sufficiently interesting. It was understood that the map was ancient and in need of revision, but the contours were adequate - as adequate as they had been when the map was first created, which is to say not very. Expanding the set of maps NEOC uses for local meets has been a goal of mine, and Mika Latva-Kokko agreed to run the meet. His meet at Harold Parker last November was very successful. With Turtle Pond, this is the second old map to be resurrected this fall. Jim Crawford and Peter Gagarin introduced entirely new maps in the spring at Mt. Misery and Earl's Trails, so it's been a reasonably novel year.

Out of the start, I struggled to make sense of the trails. I actually stopped before the start to check out a piece of asphalt before moseying on down the trail. I took what looked to me to be the best route - a trail run left of the line, a push across a set of marshes, and an attack from a second trail. My attack was very poor, and I lost contact quickly. I was pushing too fast and made very little sense of the contours. I bailed fairly quickly, but found relocating challenging; I estimate I lost about eight minutes meandering in the woods. My attack to control 2 was similarly bad for a loss of about two minutes - I attacked from the end of the marsh, but struggled to interpret the contours. Controls 3-8 were improved apart from a small bobble at 7, but I found the area around 9 tricky and lost around 30 seconds poking around before spotting the control. I attacked prematurely to 10 and found myself well south of the control before turning north and hitting the stone wall. I made a 90 second error on the finish leg running down the wrong trail because I lost focus.

Overall, today was not a good day. Certainly some of that is the sketchiness of the map, but the contours aren't so convoluted to justify these big mistakes. Lessons:

1. Prepare for your race. A good warm up and a calm, focused mindset are critical.
2. Have a solid first control. Especially in unfamiliar terrain, it is far better to slow down and be very accurate than to run faster than I can process. Better to lose a minute or two to speed than ten to errors. You can only orienteer on the edge of control if you have first established where that boundary lies.
3. Always have a plan. Both controls 1 and 2 were in part due to poor execution near the circle. Once I had connected with the second trail, the attack to control 1 should have been trivial.

Control pickup. I didn't actually know what courses were being picked up. I had seen a cadre of kids marching out boldly picking up nearby controls, so I reran to Green #1 (in about 8:45, rather than the 18 minutes on my course run), then wandered around on the far end of the map checking control sites. I ran into Dean at the 7th control I checked - green #5 - and received instructions to pick up Green 6-10. Running with less urgency gave me more of an opportunity to explore the map, though I made a remarkably foolish error approaching control 8, which I had executed acceptably during the race. The map certainly was lacking in places, but my deviation from straight while using my compass is unacceptable and only loosely related.

C • Boxford 1

Green - Splits

Ghettotrack.

Easy run around the Charles. I finished Barrett Tillman's audiobook- Enterprise about CV-6, the World War II aircraft carrier - and started Bob Woodward's The Price of Politics - about efforts in the US Federal Government to address the budget deficit.

Ghettotrack.

Easy cruise around Cambridge and Watertown. Conditions were cool: 12 C, with a 15 kph breeze from the northeast. The ride on the south side of the basin was a bit tough with the wind. I stayed primarily in gears 3-5 and 2-6 on the way back, with the occasion jaunt into 3-6. Since the tune-up my bike had last week, it feels delightful with trued wheels, tightened breaks, a new chain, a new rear gear set, and some replaced cables. I wanted to maintain a high cadence with low force both because a high cadence is helpful for running and to avoid knee stress. I had Tchaik's Swan Lake stuck in my head for most of the ride, and I spent some audiobook-free time thinking about my performance as NEOC VP Events and what I'm going to implement next year. It seems that in addition to being extremely proactive about seeking help, I need to not schedule an event until I have a meet director.

I did five intervals on a quiet, km-long stretch of Greenough Blvd at km 7, starting with 2:00 and finishing with about a 1:39.

Ghettotrack.
Vaguely culturally significant video of the moment.

After orienteering training yesterday, Ali and I started the drive from Poughkeepsie to Toledo in a U-Haul with the bulk of her belongings. After arriving at her (excellent) apartment in Toledo, unloading the truck, and returning it to the U-Haul facility, we set out for a comfortable run in the Wildwood Preserve Metropark. It has a complex network of trails, with many loops. There were numerous runners, walkers, and dogs and the occasional cyclist meandering along trails. I ran in my X-talons because they were the only running shoes I brought with me.

I felt some discomfort in my left shin at around 45 minutes, but it dissipated shortly. I will monitor it for signs of further trouble.

Event: Hudson Highlander XVII
 

Streamering courses at Blue Mountain.

C • Blue Hills...interesting statistic... 2

Event: NEOC: Powissett Night-O
 

Setting controls at Westmoreland Sanctuary with Alex in anticipation of the NAOC training camp. I was very tired from not enough sleep, and lacked enthusiasm. Nevertheless, it was good to set out in the woods.

Following hanging streamers, I ran a subset of the controls from Boris' Westmoreland course. I stopped to check a few streamers and found everything comfortable. The woods were pleasant albeit rocky; the park reminded me of Harriman.

C • Your efforts deserve great plaudits. 3

Two notes:

1. Number of North American competitors in M21:
   
   • Middle: 79
   • Long: 68
   • Sprint: 81
   
   This is going to be epic! With such a deep, rich, multinational field, it will be incredibly exciting to examine the data for each leg, for each split. To win a split would be impressive.
   
   
2. My Oroc-280s are holding up surprisingly well compared to my historical performance for my X-talons. Perhaps I'm overly hard on shoes - tying them extra tight, running through swamps, etc - but the X-talons don't typically last longer than about 200 miles. The failure has usually been holes getting ripped through the sides of the shoes such that they no longer protect my feet from pointy objects like rocks and sticks. My Orocs, while certainly not new, are still very sturdy. Perhaps the construction is more resilient.

C • My x-talons are holding up ... 4

Easy run through Davis, Porter, Harvard, and Union Squares. It's likely that I ran through several other squares without realizing it. During the run, I alternated between running on my toes and mid-foot striking, changing approximately every five minutes. Right foot still felt a bit strange, but not debilitatingly so. I will ice and stretch it. I continued Irrationality, which is somewhat tedious, pretentious, and ironically anecdotal. The chapter on overconfidence was particularly amusing. I suppose any book that is brief enough to attract interest that comments on the fallacies of making hasty generalizations, being overconfident in analysis, or not taking accurate account of the available data will be incidentally critical of itself.

Ghettotrack.

Easy cruise around Somerville and Cambridge, including an extended section along the river. I listened to Stuart Sutherland's book Irrationality. My right arch near the ball was tight and started to feel uncomfortable near the end, presumably from my fun experimentation with the the Inov-8 RoadX from Monday. I should probably stick to shorter outings in that shoe while I get used to it. Conditions were cool and humid: 15 C, 100% humidity. I ran shirtless for a time on the river where there were very few people.

Ghettotrack.

I set out on a post-Presidential debate jaunt home via a meandering route. Prospect Hill Parkway is very steep; to run from Union Square to the top of Prospect Hill would make a great interval. I followed with some (apparently) scrumptious Annie's mac and cheese with leftovers from my salad yesterday. (That's right, I made a salad.)

The Presidential debate format is interesting - it's exceedingly difficult to substantively discuss points in two minute sound bites. The game then has nothing (or very little) to do with actual policy; the objective is to succinctly pitch your product, summarize your point, make an impression, and undermine your adversary. I would very much like to see the effect of a "your mom" and a "that's what she said" joke in such a format.

Ghettotrack.

But I am le tired.

Easy evening run to and from Fresh Pond by an apparently inefficient route. Oops. I listened to Part 3 of Pacific Crucible, including the section remarking on the role of the decrypting group "Hypo" in the early Pacific war, their quarrels with OP20G, the naval decrypting group in Washington DC which was run by the noobtastic Redman brothers.

The evening was calm and peaceful, with a temperature of 15 C. I found my new Inov-8 X-255s comfortable. I walked around in them last Friday to help break them in, and had no hotspots. They are easy to overtighten. Despite the relatively high weight (255g), they feel much more minimalistic than my conventional running shoes - Asics and Mizunos. I can only imagine what Ali's simultaneous purchase of the Bare X-Lite 135s feel like.

Ghettotrack.

C • weight 4