Training Log Archive: Spike

Just the work commute. That was enough, I decided.

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MTB on the river trails. Very nice weather, but some difficulty seeing when the low sun was in my eyes.

My riding technique felt rusty.

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Work commute. Nice fall weather!

Some guy opened a car door right in front of me. Fortunately I was mostly ready for anything and didn't crash into it.

C • Parked cars 6

Jogging to/from the start/finish.

A crazy, short control picking sprint course with lots of controls and direction changes. It was fun. Of course, a few controls features have changes (like trees that have been cut down). My mind seemed to be working pretty well today.

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Work commute. Another chilly (and wonderful) morning.

Jogging on west campus and feeling pretty good.

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I got the LAS files from kansasgis.org (aka State GIS Data Access and Support Center). Great, quick service from them. Kind of the opposite of the issues with the State of Kentucky.

Work commute. I had to wear a jacket in the morning - temp was just below 50F. It felt great once my hands warmed up a bit.

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I think I'm going to be able to get the 2015 LAS files for a couple of areas in Topeka that we may use for next year's Sunflower State Games. Paul Jordan's daughter, Kristen, is my contact. I haven't seen Paul in years, but I'll always be thankful that he talked me into going to my first A-meet back in 1981 near Carbondale, IL.

I ran on the trails at Clinton from the beach. I wasn't sure whether the trails would be ok. I read somewhere that parts of Shawnee County had 5+ inches of rain last night. Lawrence had something like 1.5. I figured I'd start on the white trail and see how things were. Everything was fine - the white trail was in great shape.

4x HE/ML.

At the end of the trail run, I went up and down the concrete steps from the beach to the top a few times. I wanted to get the total climb for the session up to 200 meters.

3

Trail run at Perry with a map in my hand (KP + OSM trails from Strava data).

I did 3x RT/HU/ML/MG.

I also saw a box turtle! The turtle was on the trail very near the spot where Jenny B and I spotted a box turtle a few years ago. It was memorable, not because box turtles are rare but because Jenny was so happy and surprised to see it. I suppose it could have been the same box turtle as we saw. I checked Wikipedia and found:

Once maturity is reached, the chance of death seems not to increase with age. The survivorship curve of box turtles is therefore probably similar to that of other long-living turtles. The average life span of adult box turtles is 50 years, while a significant portion lives over 100 years.

I'd have guessed box turtles lived 5 or 6 years.

A photo posted by @okansas on Sep 24, 2016 at 11:14am PDT

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I grabbed a couple of courses from old events at Bonner Park and ran a bit of them. The mapping is a bit odd and the course setting wasn't so interesting. But, having a map in hand was good. The heat wasn't very nice.

I was at Bonner because I went to Cabela's after work and picked up the laser rangefinder that Pink Socks uses. I found it online with a decent discount and when I saw that it was in stock in the KCK store, I decided to go ahead and get it. I'm not sure how much I'll use it, but it sure is slick.

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MTB on the river trails.

I saw Kevin at the trail head and chatted a bit. He was finishing his ride and I was just starting mine. He had some nice words about me keeping my job.

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Map walk with Mary at Moreau.

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A video posted by @okansas on Sep 22, 2016 at 10:55am PDT

Parts of the Turkey Mountain training course. It started out fine, but I made a bobble on the corridor and then boomed 5. I realized my mind wasn't working very well and decided to carefully walk part of the control picking to get my mind working. That worked. The rough vegetation in the start of the contour only section was draining. So was the heat and humidity.

This didn't exactly feel fun, but it felt useful.

3

I wanted to take advantage of the terrain and end the day with a better feeling. So, I did 30 minutes of the other course at Turkey Mountain.

I was worn out by the end.

3

Sprint relay. Fun despite rain making it hard for me to see the map and trouble with stacked formlines.

I went back out after the race and looked at the map where I had trouble. I don't like to be too critical of mappers. It is hard to get it right. But, this was a bogus use of stacked formlines. Maybe if it hadn't been raining I'd have been able to read the map well enough to see that it was stacked formlines. With the rain, I'd noticed the lower formline and just assumed the knoll was a full contour knoll. A full contour knoll with a boulder on the side of it would be unmissable. But, it wasn't a full countour knoll. It was stacked formlines. And not just stacked formlines, but the knoll was really unnecessary. The map would be been easier to both read and interpret without the formline knoll.

5

A photo posted by @okansas on Sep 19, 2016 at 1:49pm PDT

C • Knoll 6

Lots of difficulty reading the map because my glasses got so fogged from dripping sweat. I managed it pretty well, until I didn't see the trail on the way to the last control. I didn't see it on the map, but as I was running near it, I saw it in the terrain and got myself over to the trail.

Mostly good navigation with one rough leg. I just never had a good feeling on 9-10. But it was just one rough leg and otherwise things went ok if slowly.

I beat Linthicum, but not by much.

Also, just a note that I'm starting to run with a compass again. I stopped using a compass a few years ago when there was the first A-meet at Moreau. I haven't used a compass since then. I ran two races in the spring where I had the compass, but didn't use it. I'd gotten so used to not having it that I didn't even know I had it on my thumb. But, at Ward Pound Ridge I both ran with a compass and looked at it. I think I'll keep using a compass and see how that works.

5

Sunday - Green X - Splits

Green at Ward Pound Ridge. A so-so run. Navigating went better than expected, running was worse.

Linthicum beat me. That wasn't what I'd expected.

After the run I bought one of those clear plastic visors from the Berman's. I'm hoping it'll help with running in teh rain.

5

Saturday - Green X - Splits

I'd been wondering what would come of the M55 who was cheating at Oringen: http://www.svenskorientering.se/Nyheter/Forbundsny...

C • cheating 1

Feeling kind of sleepy and it was muggy outside...so I went to the Concept2 in the basement.

I began by visualizing myself as the best rower/paddler I know - iamstillhungry. That was fine, but I started getting stressed out about boathouse politics. So, I found the remote, turned on the TV, and watched a Big Bang re-run. That worked better.

1

C • Improvements 1

Work commute. From when Ieft the house (7:05 a.m.) until about noon, there was a heavy storm just north of town. Lots of lightning and rumbles of thunder. It looked like it'd hit Lawrence any minute...but it never did.

Over my lunch hour I did a little field checking. Not to make a map, but to practice and test OOM on the Kindle. It is much more usable that the older version.

Jogging on West Campus. I've been playing around with a little idea I picked up from the Johan Olsson podcast. It seems potentially useful.

Mini orienteering on the Pioneer Cemetery map. I worked on some things that might be useful for Ward Pound Ridge. Fun.

2

C • WPR practice 2

Work commute.

Anniversary dinner at Port Fonda. I'd eaten lunch there before. Mary had never been. It was good, not great, but good.

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Long run on the trails and with the map in my hand at Clinton. The trails were in good shape and at some point during the Hawk 100 they shifted from roads to the trails. I only saw one 100 mile competitor still out there (I started a bit late). He looked good, but by good I mean good for someone at about the 96 mile mark in a 100 miler. His pacer looked strong.

I listened to some podcasts at the beginning (Jenny Rissveds and Johan Olsson). Then I made more productive use of the last 45 or so of the run.

I even finished up with a bit of honest effort (2 x 4 minutes with 1 minute rest and then 2 minutes). It felt pretty good. I think the pleasant weather (low 70s) matters.

3

MTB on pavement. We had enough rain last night that the trails would be too muddy to bike (but maybe tomorrow?)

I went out to Clinton and looked at some parts of the map, stopping to make notes (which is why being out 2:30 counts as 2:00). It was a good thing to do. I've spent a lot of time on the trails, but not really much time looking around the camp grounds or boat ramps. I found a few things to add to the map.

The Hawk 100 started at 6 a.m. and due to the muddy trails they used the wet-weather alternate route. That means most of the time they were on the park roads. Roads wouldn't be so much fun to run on, but the weather was very good for this time of year. Temp was upper 60s when I got out the door and maybe 70 when I got home.

I saw Matt at the Lands End aid station and chatte a bit.

When I started riding I noticed my right shoe/pedal wasn't normal. I didn't really make much of it. It felt like the foot was slipping on the pedal. It gradually got a bit worse throughout the ride. Here's the problem:

A photo posted by @okansas on Sep 10, 2016 at 11:17am PDT

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Work commute. Legs felt good on the hill coming home. That must mean I was going slowly.

I mowed when I got home.

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I did a maze course on a 1:2000 version of Pioneer Cemetery, inspired by: https://jonas106.wordpress.com/2016/09/08/labyrint... and using the OCAD template he made. I also learned that the OCAD file works fine as a template in OOM. So that's nice.

I didn't really plan the maze and I quickly discovered that there's really no way to get from 1-2 and 2-3. But, I made up a few rules on the fly and did the course.



I think that making the maze a little bit smaller (or using a map that's a big bigger) would be more practical.

2

Jogging around to get to/from the start/finish.

Work commute.

The temp was 78 F when the alarm went off this morning. That sucks. I got out for a couple of walks during the day - to a meeting and then a lunch hour walk. The weather was just gross. I don't think the temp got above about 92, but the humidity was unpleasant and the wind wasn't nice.

Row, row. In the basement where the weather is nice.

1

Work commute.

After work I did a little bit of field checking for a very tiny orienteering map. This map is just one square block (100 meters x 200 meters). Tiny maps are experiments. Most of the experiments have been about lidar and basemaps or drafting. This time it is about field checking.

I did the field checking using a tablet. I'd tested that a few years ago, but hadn't gotten around to testing using the more recent versions of OOM. I think all of the testing I'd done was on the first Andriod version of OOM.

The new version has some very nice improvements. In particular, it handles templates better and has an "undo" function for the scribble template. Both of those changes make it much more usable for field work.

I loaded OOM on a Kindle Fire tablet (Mary got it in a drawing at work a couple of years ago). I use a little stylus that was a give away at a conference. For a base map I had 3 templates: an air photo, a karttapullautin map, and a slope image with all classes but only last returns (and with a false color image).

Except for one minor glitch where I misaligned the scribble template, it worked perfectly.

The false color lidar image was especially nice as it handles glare well.

I think the tablet is very close to becoming my main tool for field work.

1

On the river trails. I got going around 11 a.m. and it was starting to feel hot. After a few relatively nice days, today felt more like summer.

The parking lot was packed with cars and riders. I think they had just finished biking. The trail was quiet. I saw just a couple of riders and a couple of runners.

My legs felt pretty good. I still get sloppy when I'm a bit tired physically or mentally.

1

Easy run on the trails at Clinton. I carried the map and made a few notes as I went, but I also listened to podcasts - the Olav Lundanes interview and an older interview with Jenny Rissveds.

As I was jogging around I started thinking that Clinton SP might make a good Possum Trot venue - maybe 2017. I'll have to see what Eric S and Mike S think. I'm a little hesitant to commit to getting the map finished for a specific event, especially because once the leaves come down I much prefer running on the south side of Clinton.

2

On my MTB on the bike paths with Mary. We went out to the bike path along K10 at the Baker Wetlands. Fun.

Playing around with sky view factor and "openness" images from lidar for basemaps. Both seem useful for picking out detail in the terrain. I can spot some features that I couldn't spot in other images (like shaded relief and slope images).

My basic process is a little awkward:

1. las2dem to create a .xyz file based on ground points and elevation.

2. RVT to create geotiffs of sky view factor and openness (negative). I've played around and the best approach seems to do two versions, one with the vertical exaggeration set at 1 (i.e. no exaggeration) and one with it set at 2 or

3.I think OCAD uses geotiffs directly, but OOM doesn't, so I use the old PTOC version of Global Mapper to convert it to a .png file that has georeferencing.

I don't know if I've heard of any orienteering mappers using sky view factor. It seems useful, at least in Clinton Lake terrain.

Running on the trails at Clinton. I carried my in-progress map and looked at it a lot and made a few notes to correct things.

The sky view factor and openness maps are useful.

2

Also, I should note that today was the biggest earthquake I've ever experienced. At 705 I was still in bed, but awake. I noticed a slight sensation of movement. I'd noticed an earthquake in Lawrence once before a few years ago. This movement was even less than a few years ago. But, after maybe 10-15 seconds, the house started making noise and shaking noticeably. This was much more movement than a few years ago. The noise and shaking went on for 10 seconds or so, I'd guess.

Work commute. I mowed when I got home.

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Work commute with a slight extension to stop by the grocery store for orzo, goat cheese, garbanzo's and broccoli. Oh, I got some mint cookies, too.

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