Training Log Archive: iansmith

Brendan and I ran what I shall dub a "tag team" orienteering course that he set up at Boojum Rock: he navigated to the ith control, with me tagging along behind; I navigated to the (i+1)th control. We critiqued route choices and possibilities.

This was especially helpful because I've never really had close scrutiny of my local decisions. In post race discussions, the typical route choice subject is global, large scale strategy. My local decisions - how to run around objects, wood speed, etc - are rather miserable. After some comments from Brendan, I tried to concentrate on seeing about 10-20 meters ahead of me rather than 2-5.

We actually spent about 1:10 in the forest, but I estimate only 45 minutes of that was running. We slowed down near the end because Brendan's hip was bothering him and because I'm a wuss. I ran out of steam near the end, and I posit the following reasons:

- Inadequate hydration. At the finish, I readily downed 16 oz of water and 32 oz of gatorade and was still thirsty.
- Recent increase in training volume. I ran Friday and Saturday; I usually don't run more than 2 days consecutively (if that).
- Poor heat dissipation. My t-shirt was soaked with sweat at the end; I wrung it out yielding about 4-6 oz of fluid (best guess). I wore a cotton t-shirt (not good), knickers (ok) and gaiters (eh). I need to find better ways to deal with heat, perhaps compromising some protection.

All in all, an excellent exercise and a far more productive running session than a river loop. I need to do more hillz, especially if I plan to face Jeff Schapiro's A-Meet courses at Mt. Tom. Combine one of the most challenging course setters in the area with a ridiculously steep park, and the result is not good for me.

In other news, at the Estonian WUOC Public races, the long of which is a WRE, I am the sole representative of CSU (and probably the USA). I will endeavor to bear this responsibility with honor. I will prepare for these races as well as I can in the 2 weeks ahead.

C • You're going to Estonia? 3

A late night/early morning run to finish my week of training. My pace was gentle; I wasn't trying to push particularly hard. At the end of the route, in lieu of strides, I kicked my pace up to my 1 mile pace for 90 seconds. I noticed a very large number of insects, with many of which I collided.

I read a PR sign on my route describing what some electricity and steam generation company near Kendall does. I didn't learn much; the sign primarily espoused the merits of steam transfer. This is counterintuitive to me, but I am aware that steam has been used as a means for energy transfer extensively in the Northeast (and probably in many other regions), so the solution must have some merit.

The details of the route I took are well known to me; I frequent that circuit. I found in retrospect that I did not recall some parameters of my run - for instance, whether I took the stairs or a ramp descending a foot bridge. This is discouraging; while my thoughts wander among many subjects while I run, I expect that I should have some recollection of these key points. I will concentrate more next time to try to have a better memory of my runs.

A run from my apartment to Harvard Square, where I rendezvoused with Brendan. We ran a Western Avenue - Eliot Bridge loop, then decided to get food at Border Cafe. Border had a substantial line, so we ambled over to Bertucci's, and in our grimy, sweaty, we just ran 4 miles state, we got a table and ruined the classy image of the restaurant.

In earnest, the situation wasn't excessively improper, but it did feel awkward. The food was satisfying after a run.

In an effort to improve my ability to read details while moving, I brought the book (play) Copenhagen with me, and read 17 pages while running up to Harvard. While a more technical book would be more useful, it would be heavier, more prone to damage, and harder to concentrate on. Light, casual reading is optimal for such exercises.

Hopefully more armchair orienteering activities to be posted in the near future.

A highly eventful stretching session, whose details are too intense to be adequately described on attackpoint.

A late night run, in an effort to maintain my training. It's invigorating to run late a night; the temperature was a balmy 72 F with a dew point of 65 F. I ran with my trusty flashlight, a google map printout of the area, and my Clip; tonight's soundtrack was techno (always an inspiration, though only 144 bpm).

While environmental conditions are optimal, you do run into more curious social phenomena late at night, including a couple possibly engaging in intimacy (it was dark, I didn't investigate, we'll never know, etc) and the always suspicious "couple walking their dog" phenomenon.

I concluded my run with a brisk run up a hill and 4x30 strides - two sets down, two sets up the hill. From a crude estimate of my stride length, during the fast component of the strides, my speed was in the range of 5-6 m/s.

At the end of my workout, while I was breathing heavily and felt weary from my exertion, I felt like I could have done it again.

I'm amused that people are concerned about birds getting killed by wind turbines. While it's been some time since I read any statistics, I recall that the number of avian fatalities due to automobiles was several orders of magnitude higher than those due to some number of wind turbines.

A succinct core workout, succinctly logged.

A rest day. Doing rest dayesque things, like some crunches and pushups. Apparently at least part of the MBTA's $9 billion debt is due to the Big Dig and unbudgeted modifications to the MBTA infrastructure in conjunction with street modifications.

Yay Big Dig.

Note: Orienteering irrelevant blogesque entry to follow.

I have a bit of a flashlight obsession. I have found myself in many situations where light was needed; a flashlight enables and empowers action in darkness, whether that action is searching, signaling, reading, and so on. I find you can never really have too many flashlights.

The attributes of a light can be loosely classified into power and convenience. In the category of power, you have the opposing qualities of intensity and duration. Convenience represents almost all other aspects - size, switch mechanism, grip, lanyards, a ring for keychain or lanyard attachment, holster, ease of use, accessibility of batteries, aesthetics, and so on. I like to have two lights for regular use - one of a 2x AA variety, 10-40 lumens, for regular daily use, and a smaller one for instances in which a 2xAA light is too bulky or obtuse. Under extenuating circumstances (for which you can plan), you might use a headlamp, a bigger, more powerful light (e.g. 3xD cell, > 50 lumens), or other special purpose equipment.

The company Surefire makes excellent flashlights, if cost is no object - their primary customer is the military and police, who need lightweight, reliable, excessively powerful instruments. I consider these lights the embodiment of flashlight excellence. Models like the E2L and 6P are about 5 inches long, but produce intensities of order 100 lumens for durations of about 10 hours. However, they're not very convenient for daily use - do I really need 100 lumens to read? - and it's hard to justify the expense and specialized batteries.

Anyway, my primary and secondary lights both broke over the past year, so I went to Sears to procure new ones.

I'm extremely impressed with the compact light I obtained - the Coast model 7830. It's 2.9 inches long, produces a 15 lumen output for 76 hours, has a keyring, and is black metal. My two concerns are that the switch is a push-button on the back (and so might be depressed accidentally) and that it uses AG13 batteries. Nonetheless, I am impressed and strongly recommend this to anyone looking for a powerful, compact light (it's also only $10).

For anyone curious, my other light is unremarkable: 1.3 watt 2xAA battery Dorcy LED light; it should be adequate for all my purposes, and while it's not that powerful, it has a nice mix of qualities that I expect from my workhorse flashlight.

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