Training Log Archive: iansmith

Event: NEOC: Boojum Rock
 

It turns out that moving furniture is much easier with friends. Thanks a bunch to Stephen, Alex, Ed, and Magnus for carrying all my junk into my apartment. The highlight was bringing the legendary Couch of Many Tribulations in through the fire escape. The most work I did was calling the pizza place to arrange for subsequent noms. I estimate the endeavor took about three man hours, not including travel time.

At my suggestion, Giacomo took on the task of designing courses for the Boojum Rock National O-Day meet. In my negotiations with DCR for land use permission, the issue of vernal pools came up; I offered some suggestions to Giacomo on his courses and changed a few legs to avoid vernal pools.

We left Cambridge at 8 AM, drove to Boojum, and set 34 controls. I think I divided up the controls suboptimally. We stopped on the far side of the map from the start and each took about five controls. After hanging those and the water, I dropped Giacomo off on the south side with ten controls, hung two myself, and drove to the start to rendezvous with Joanne (who was directing) and the crew of meet workers. I then ran off with the last ten white/yellow controls and with a little help from Mika and Giacomo upon his return, got everything set. Unfortunately, the last white control went up at about 10:10, and I didn't return to the start until a few minutes afterward.

The meet itself went well; while the courses were challenging and the woods thick in places, people seemed to enjoy themselves. It's still frustrating to fail; our plan was good, but an extra half-hour would have made tremendous difference. It also would have been helpful to have a mechanism to carry more than 10 controls; I could imagine dropping Giacomo off with fifteen on the far side of the map, then driving to the start and taking care of the rest.

Thanks to everyone who helped out; apart from course setting, Giacomo and I didn't have much to do. Special thanks to Mika, for setting a string-O and helping with control pickup, Jim and Raina Crawford for running the results, and Joanne, Pete, and Andy for de facto directing the meet.

Courses closed at 2 PM - a while ago, I decided that leaving courses open until 3 was silly, as the last hour was typically spent waiting for a handful of people. Even 2 PM may be unnecessarily long, but control picker-uppers can leave for their most remote controls at 1:45-ish and start at 2.

A group disassembled the meet site, Andy and a few others waiting for the last stragglers, I left Andy in charge of dividing up the control pickup, and I set out for the furthest sector. I picked up eleven controls, left the water stop garbage by the road, and looped back. Giacomo, Mika, and Andy picked up the last controls, and Giacomo and I left the meet site at around 3:15.

Optimizing event scheduling and logistics

My efforts to make our events more efficient has run into the desire for a higher grade event site. I think at this meet, we had five tables, a tent, a handful of chairs, start/registration boxes, a generator, the computer, a printer, a monitor and stand, a big extension cord, and some signs. Oh, and the flags and e-punch units. Also, the course setters had an eight hour day. The day of the event used up about maybe 40 man-hours, with an additional 20 in planning, vetting, map printing, etc. This is ridiculous; the benefit from the meet was probably 120 orienteering hours.

What's the solution? There are a set of people who are willing to take on projects like directing a meet once or even twice a year - they are the lifeblood of our sport. My scheduling has been very ambitious, and I think I have exceeded the optimal capacity of the club. Instead of 35-40 events per year, 25-30 is attainable - emphasizing quality and sustainability instead of quantity. Perhaps a third to half can be large scale local meets with all the bells and whistles on the best, most accessible maps. The rest can be smaller - no compromises on courses, but minimal equipment, less volunteer intensive. For each map, a set of vetted control sites can be maintained to simplify course setting - though at least one trip to the woods is probably necessary, or at least a cursory familiarity with all the information the map doesn't provide. Maybe each meet needs a setup group and a take-down group so people don't have to hang out at a meet site for six hours.

The data also suggests that having two geographically proximal events in one weekend is unnecessary, and reduces the number of attendees at each event. The set of people who want to go orienteering twice in one weekend is fairly small, particularly among the casual crowd that is the bulk of NEOC. Additional thoughts welcome.

C • two events per weekend 8

Event: NEOC: Turtle Pond
 

I showed up at the Turtle Pond meet at 9:30, partly because I had received an e-mail from Peter Amram the day before outlining the event schedule and noticed that I was on it. I had intended to not have any responsibilities so I would be available to step in if need arose. It turned out that Peter had planned on me helping out with control setting, so I grabbed the ten controls that were waiting and scampered out to hang them. Bo Nielsen was also hanging; the control locations were very accessible from the trails in the park, so it didn't take long.

After hanging controls, I chatted with the orienteers arriving for the meet. A cadre of usual suspects was running the meet site, with a large tent and something like five tables.

I warmed up for about five minutes - I figured that the run out and back from setting controls substituted for a more thorough warmup, and set out on sprint 1. I had minimized the data I collected from the map while I was setting, and the course was novel. The course consisted predominantly of trail running, with a few controls off-trail. The park doesn't lend itself to more creative use - much of the vegetation off-trail is thick, but I would have approached the course setting differently.

There were still challenges and opportunities for mistakes. I lost a few seconds at 2 because I left control 1 in a suboptimal direction. At (3), I hit a broad boulder in the circle and paused before noticing the correct boulder about 40m to the south. I think they should both be on the map, but the map is outdated. I had a 30s error at 5 where I attacked too early and had to backtrack to get around a thick marsh. On ten, after charging over a hill, I descended to the wrong boulder and had to bounce out to a trail to get around some green briar. I got creative to 12 and decided to bash through about 200m of woods rather than take the trail around; I missed far to my right, passing by control 4, while punching through and lost perhaps 30s.

It was good to revisit Turtle Pond, but I think the map needs some substantial updating before using it again. It might also be better to use a larger section of the map to invite more variety in course setting.

C • Turtle pond map 4

Smarting from my loss to Giovanni in Sprint 1, I resolved to focus entirely on racing fast rather than exploring a map. Even with all the trails, the event was still a sprint, with lots of direction changes and quick decisions. I set a goal of having good flow, quick reactions, and a solid plan in and out of each control.

I ran hard to 1, and made a good route choice cutting some woods to a trail to 2. I made a bad decision to run on the left trail option rather than the faster right to 4, probably losing 20s. I slightly overshot and climbed too high to 5 for 10s loss. Control six was a disaster due to a poor attack and a fuzzy map; the feature was a cliff in a line of cliffs along a river, and the feature wasn't terribly distinctive. I overshot after attacking and ran south for perhaps 60m before doubling back; I probably lost 30s, but it would seem that no one executed that control well. I think it was in the correct spot relative to the nearby trail junction. I passed Ben and his parents on the way to 8, and then chose to leave the trail early to 9 by attacking from the cliffs. Had visibility been good, my route would have been optimal, but as it was, I couldn't see the boulder and lost 20s ambling around in the vegetation.

My performance was middling at best, but has to be interpreted in the light of an older, vague map. It is my recommendation that Turtle Pond not be used again until it has received some mapping attention. I have run on the map before, and I maintain that it is sufficiently interesting and convenient to be used for sprints and WYO instruction. It's like a slightly bigger, more complex, gnarly Menotomy Rocks, and especially in the spring, it could be useful. It falls short of Hammond Pond in terms of quality of orienteering, but diversity is attractive.

C • Exploring the map? 1

C • #6 2

After Turtle Pond, I drove to High Rock in Foxborough and wandered around on the map. There are numerous mountain bike trails that are not on the 20-year old map; as mountain biking is encouraged and the network is complex, it would make for a fantastic MTB-O. Given its age, I am very impressed with the map quality, and the terrain is very interesting despite the trails. While the vegetation can be nasty in places, it's on average a fair bit better than the Fells (e.g.) or Hale Reservation, and it's big enough to set a very good 8-10 km course.

Sprint #1 - Splits

Sprint #2 - Splits

Checking control sites for Boojum. I was very dehydrated by the end of my excursion, and my will waned.

It took about 72 hours for my legs to feel normal again after the strength training on Monday. The rest of my week was a disaster, brought about by busyness at work and perturbations to my schedule. I have much to learn.

I found this perspective interesting: an exposition on what motivates Tove to compete at the highest level, to strive to be the very best. From the translation: "I do not need a scoreboard to know if I should be happy or not."

C • Wise thoughts 7

Keep checking for Camping weekend results:
http://upnoor.org/results/2012_results.html

It turns out that this is the fourth Camping weekend I attended - I have been to every weekend since I started orienteering except 2010, when my tibia was broken. My results haven't been great, though the results from the first course of the weekend have been steadily improving. That the others have not is clear implication that I need to do more long runs, and have more base in general.

C • UNO results 3

Rest after Pawtuckaway and strength. My legs feel like jelly, though unfortunately not the kind of jelly you can put on toast. I had a recovery pizza, and I will attack the rest of the week with renewed vigor. I am still failing to attain my goal of 8 hours of sleep per night. I often set optimistic alarms, with bold visions of getting to work by 7:30, going for a run at 6:30, etc. When my body wakes to deactivate my alarms, in my barely conscious stupor, my will is insufficient to overcome my body's complete disregard for my wishes. It's as if my brain were to say "Well, we could conform to your best laid plans and delusions of grandeur, or maybe we'll just go back to bed for another hour instead. Yeah. I'm going to need you to come in on Saturday, etc."

To begin my gym session at War Memorial, I ran for 5k on a treadmill starting at 5 mph and peaking at 7 mph with a 2' grade (presumably a slope of 0.02). I listened to the September 8 podcast of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. I weighed in at a comfortable 179 lbs, though I was probably a bit dehydrated.

An assorted workout that was poorly optimized according to exercises, weights, and repetitions. I didn't have anything to record the set of exercises or much of a plan beyond a desire to strengthen my legs; next session will be better prepared.

Exercises:
Three sets of:
- 10 squats with bar, +85 lbs
- 10 deadlifts, + 70 lbs
- 10 (x2) box step-ups, +70 lbs
- 10 lateral dumbbell raises, + 10 lbs
- 10 (x2) lunges, +30 lbs
- 10 bicep curls, +10 lbs

Two sets of:
- 15 (x2) clean and presses, +35 lb kettlebell

Three sets of:
- 15 calf raises, +40 lbs
- 30s wall sits (ow ow ow)