Training Log Archive: iansmith

I haven't yet uploaded my tracks, but I will do so when I get home.

Sunday - Blue Long, 12.0 km, 300m. Yesterday's run had potential, but it also had several dumb errors. A clean run would have won, partly because no one had a clean run. My goal today was to execute cleanly - to slow down when needed, to have a good plan, and to pay close attention to distinctive features along that route, which tended to preclude boulders on the north map from yesterday. I figured route choice would matter, and trails had been substantially faster than terrain on the rocky ground yesterday.

I started reasonably well, with a clean first control. I made a good route choice on 2 with a trail route, but attacked poorly off a vague hill, costing two minutes. On 3 and 4, I didn't notice the contours change direction, so I was expecting a slope rather than a ridge. I overran 4, but the map indicates the controls are at least 75m apart, but the fastest split was like 15s.

The most frustrating part of the course came after control 7, when a belligerent person perhaps 20m away from me in the woods yelled at me to stop. I had just crossed a stone wall, so I thought perhaps I had entered his property. It turned out that he lived adjacent to the cross country ski area we were using (and had permission to use), and runners punching a nearby control had agitated his dogs. He didn't know the race was going on, and he presumed to rush to the aid of the landowner (whom he knew personally), whose rights were clearly being violated. He was livid, threatened to release his four dogs, and suggested that people would be at risk of being shot - intimating he might be the one to do it - because theft and trespassing happens around here.

I started by apologizing in an effort to mollify him, of assuring him that we had permission, telling him who the club was and where the meet headquarters was. I forgot the name of the landowner - as I wasn't thinking about that sort of thing - but mentioned that our headquarters was on Plank Road and indicated it on the map. He responded by noting this was "over a mile away," as if it were absurd that a guy in running gear with a freakin' bib on and a map could have come that far. This took about four minutes; I was annoyed to clearly be hemorrhaging time in the middle of a race, but figured a pissed off landowner was a problem that deserved my attention and could have consequences outside of my race. Also, I didn't know where his property was, and it was certainly possible we had trespassed. Once he seemed satisfied, was no longer homicidal, and was going to our event headquarters, I went on my merry way - annoyed, and very much out of racing focus - in an effort to salvage my race.

In hindsight, I'm much more irritated. I was wearing a bib. We weren't trespassing; his rights were not being violated. The landowner whose property we were using was hanging out at the meet site, hosting us, and granting permission for us to use his land. He wasted my time in a national competition, easily cost me at least five minutes, and virtually threatened me over something that was none of his business. I don't think he would have actually released his dogs or gotten his gun (though that's not obvious); I think he was just making claims to get the attention he thought his concerns deserved. He was apparently particularly furious because he had seen and yelled at more than four other runners who had ignored him; rather than concluding this was somehow official or could be sanctioned, he angrily concluded we were all lawless trespassers encroaching on his freedom loving nature.

Given the circumstances, I think I handled this correctly; it's always possible he goes and does something stupid, someone gets hurt, or we lose permission to use the land. But good-bye my race. Apparently he went to the meet site, talked to the organizers and the landowner, and was mollified; he mentioned my name, which I apparently gave. The meet director thanked me for talking to him, though naturally, he can't deduct an uncertain amount of time from my race nor restore the flow and focus I lost.

The most noteworthy part of the rest of the race was a fair bit of good execution, bad execution on 11, the long leg, and some poor route choice on the north side of the map, especially 22 and 25.

C • Thank you 5

Warmup.

Sunday - Long Blue - Splits