Training Log Archive: iansmith

Event: NEOC: Great Brook Farm
 

A quick warmup - I ran five circuits of the parking lot and did a few drills to wake up my legs.

Great Brook Farm Red course, set by Tim Parson. My orienteering career began with an orange course at Great Brook Farm on September 16, 2007. As I intended to stay to pick up controls, Keith, Anna and I arrived at GBF at about 11:50. The course information lists the registration and start windows as 10 - 12, with courses closing at 2. This was my doing, and it was designed to influence people's planning; whether someone can start is at the discretion of the meet director. I'm pretty sure a director wouldn't stop anyone from starting - it's public land, after all; each participant is informed that control pickup will begin at 2, and that's that.

I ran aggressively, and while my stamina was more than sufficient, I wasn't particularly speedy. I failed to distinguish myself on the trail legs - 13 and 19, e.g. While I didn't have any huge errors, I had numerous small hesitations (see comments) due to insufficient planning. I didn't wear Garmin, so I will post my drawn route later.

Conclusions:
- More o-training. Practice on good flow and precise in-circle activity.
- Run faster. Seriously, slower than 5 min/km on trails? Lame.
- Make good decisions while running faster. Overspeed O-intervals.

While my strat is to do more base running (and in a less pathetic way than this past week), I wonder if I should incorporate some volume of threshold and VO2 max running. Thoughts?

Control pickup. Keith grabbed the nine controls in the technical area, and I picked up those south of the road (excepting those that Alex and Tim were getting). About half of mine were on trails, and the other half were technical. I reran 9-12, and while I executed 12 cleanly, it was sluggish moving through the vague vegetation in that area. Great Brook Farm is a solid NEOC map - primarily because Tim and Bill have worked hard at keeping it up to date. It also has a good mix of terrain types - lots of easy, open trails for beginner courses, plenty of catching features for intermediate courses, and some technical sections for advanced courses. The event is always a draw, and this weekend's attendance suggests that the popularity is not related to "National Orienteering Day," which the majority of attendees probably don't know about.

Red - Splits

A belated log entry: on Sept 16, a stalwart crew of comrades helped me move my furniture and various belongings into my apartment, saving me tremendous labor. Their assistance was invaluable, and made the entire endeavor almost trivial. I owe them much gratitude.

Also, it's always a good time for Rach 2, II.

C • an email 1

I went on an easy, uneventful evening run. I ventured into atypical territory, and ran somewhat farther than the 40-45 minutes I had planned. I felt generally good - with a slight niggle in my right heel, probably related to plantar fascia action. I will be good about using Wyatt's healing boot of power during the night for the near future. I kept to 4/4 breathing for essentially all the run.

I listened to Pacific Crucible - a book I have read before, but an interesting history of a tumultuous period. I first read about the pacific theater of World War II when I was young - some reading of the carrier war at age 8. At the time, I had only the vaguest grasp of what was involved; certainly my comprehension of death and the horrors of war was undeveloped. It was some time before I understood sequences of battles, tactics, execution, and strategy. Theater-wide strategy is the most challenging problem, and it is too easy to frown upon poor tactics in hindsight. Games like Starcraft are excellent ways of posing the same problems in a more accessible way.

I would really like to run the Highlander, but the volume of training I have put in over the past few months isn't enough to justify it. There are also advantages to running the Lowlander - it is a distance that I run at long competitions but seldom practice. Still, it's disappointing to not go the distance.

Ghettotrack.

C • lowlander 2

I received a call from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health asking a set of anonymous survey questions about my health. I enjoy participating in these sorts of surveys, and I hope the data is revealing about the problems the US currently faces. I asked, and while this survey was conducted by MA, it is being run nationwide by the appropriate entities. I suspect the survey was this guy.

I wonder if doing surveys within an orienteering club or by the national federation would be a good way to profile its membership. It would be somewhat straightforward to compare the NEOC membership list to the list of results from A-meets to determine how many NEOC members are going to A-meets, e.g., but understanding what members are looking for on the schedule, where their interests lie, and what motivates them to go to events would be revealing. Barb proposed this idea to the Board in 2011, but it never materialized for somewhat ambiguous reasons.

C • I wonder if doing surveys within an orienteering club 1

I went on a long, easy run from work to home via Tufts. Ghettotrack.

Event: Canceled: NEOC: High Rock
 

Middlesex Fells Skyline run with Ali, Brendan, and Andy D. I haven't run the Skyline since March 24, and it was delightful to get out on a magnificent section of trail. The day was gorgeous - slightly cool, and sunny. I will steal Ali's gpx track when she posts it. We ran clockwise and lost the route a few times. Afterward, Ali, Brendan and I picked up sandwiches at Angelina's Pizzeria in Davis.