Training Log Archive: iansmith

Event: NEOC: Traverse and Mini-Traverse
 

Welp, I suffered a thorough defeat by feet defeet. It was nonetheless a rather spectacular day in Mt. Holyoke Range, and the course by Phil Bricker was entertaining and made great use of the terrain. I found the Earl's Trails part more interesting than the Norwottuck part, but both were suitably challenging.

My day started with an egregious oversleeping of my alarm; I was awakened by a phone call from Jeff Schapiro, whom I had arranged to give a ride so he could sleep on the drive. We quickly figured out that there wasn't going to be time for me to come get him, so he decided to drive on his own. I was furious with myself both for missing my plan and for letting Jeff down, but during the drive I tried to relax, clear my mind, and get a grip. No amount of rage on the drive over could rectify my error, and trying to arrive a few minutes earlier was not worth the risk of unsafe driving. I arrived at the event site at 10:53, went through my mental checklist and jogged to the massed competitors at about 10:57 feeling fairly calm.

My main mistake the past several mass start races has been going out too hard and either blowing up with navigational errors or physically falling apart. I resolved to start conservatively and to settle into the race. The first leg was very similar to the Billygoat leg 1 from 2013, which I have analyzed - I elected to stay high left of the line and shorten the navigation by running to a trail junction. Feet (who was delayed 20-30s by a dog) and I came into the control at the same time from different directions, with Ethan ten seconds behind. En route to 2, we crossed a line of about ten cadets running in the wrong directions, which was entertaining. I figured they would piece it together given that Ethan, Will, and I were obviously running to 2, but I don't think they did. Our three routes diverged to 2 once we passed over the saddle, but we arrived at about the same time and ran together to 3. Feet put a small gap on me on the climb to 3, and executed 4 well enough that he was out of sight as Ethan and I were running to 5. In hindsight, I should have increased my pace to stick with feet at least through the first map, but the plan was to stay relaxed. I dropped Ethan on the downhill/sidehill to 6 and ran alone for the rest of the course.

Control 7 has a malfunctioning e-punch, so there isn't a split, but it was a good leg. I took a Gu at 7, 39:30 into my race. I felt rather weak on the climb to control 10 (split 9) but was generally feeling spry at the halfway point. After the road crossing, I was a massive 2:45 behind Will, and I am not fast enough nor Will sufficiently mistake-prone for me to make up that gap. The race was over when feet gapped me at 5.

The second side of the course was on the dodgier Norwottuck side - a much older map with substantial distortion in its basemap. I made a 60s mistake to 14 when I zoned out reading ahead to 15. I elected to take the road to 15, which I think was the best route, though I lost 20s to Will. Controls 15-22 was an unmitigated beatdown on CSU 3.0 by CSU 2.0, where I lost every split to Will, dropping four minutes. I made a dumb choice at 21 when I changed my plan from running low to the right to going up and over when I realized how high I was on the saddle, losing about a minute. I passed the occasional mini-traverser, including Stephen Richardson twice, but as I was up 10 minutes on the 3rd place runner, I was basically alone. I made a small push at the end apparently, but ended 6:30 behind Will.

I didn't take a second Gu, and I felt close to bonking at the very end of the race. But my legs and body didn't actually feel that tired by the end. My legs felt sluggish - as though they weren't turning over very quickly. Clearly my fitness was not adequate to compete with feet today, and it's hard to believe I could have kept up with him for the entire course. I was decisively second, which is a double-edged sword. I think more long runs at moderate intensity are in order.

Cool down jog with feet. We discussed life. Dancho finished just as we were ending our jog.

Traverse - Splits

Easy run with a stop at EMS to buy Gu.

Good heavens:
https://www.sleepassociation.org/patients-general-...
Also, I think I have this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypochondriasis

OUSA Board Updates

I've been deep in the quagmire of OUSA internal business for a few weeks now. It is stark and surprising to realize that I was elected two months ago, and I'm disappointed with how little complete progress I have made. We have been spending a lot of time and energy quantifying where we are. Barb has led a survey of the various committees to figure out which are functional, improve communication between the leadership and the committees, and simplify the task of getting things done. I think organizations like OUSA (and NEOC, in my experience) get into the trap of thinking that appointing a committee to address an issue is equivalent to solving that issue.

My biggest focus has been on the Finance Committee with Pat Meehan (chair), Greg Lennon, Gary Kraght, and Barb. About half of our efforts have been spent on sifting through the accounting system and finding ways to improve it, and the other half has been spent on budgeting for 2017 and getting a sense of where we are financially. I think that picture is emerging - and hopefully we have better tools in the future for gauging our status, but as expected, OUSA has rapidly been running out of unrestricted funds. We've been deficit spending for at least the last five years, and our current budget profile is unsustainable. The Finance Committee has solvency as one of its primary goals - getting back to a balanced budget and keeping a reserve of cash, and we're looking to find ways to cut expenses. I have been working on several budgets, and hopefully we will have a draft budget to present publicly very soon. I think it's very important for those entities - in particular the teams, but more generally anyone seeking funds from the OUSA board - to contact the leadership and express why OUSA support is important to them. In my judgment, this is especially important for the teams, as my sense is that some leadership have the impression that unrestricted spending on teams isn't important.

20 minute tempo run. A bit slow; I ran 5.6 km at 4:15/km pace. My target tempo pace is usually 4:00-4:05, but it was still a good effort. I think I'm a bit tired.

Fun fact: the typical salinity of the ocean is about 3.5%, i.e. the ratio of the mass of the salt to the mass of the total is 0.035. In 1 kg of saltwater (1 liter), there would then be about 35 grams of salt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salinity