Training Log Archive: iansmith

Softball throwing and fielding practice with Larson and Rajiv.

Commute. Tired and residually sick.

Event: NEOC: Wells Foot and MTB-O and AGM
 

Hanging controls for the foot courses at Wells. Brian Jurkowsky, the ranger at Wells, and his staff were incredibly helpful and accommodating for our event. Wells is available year round for activity, and Brian recommended Brimfield State Forest, which he also supervises, for orienteering.

One note about the MTB-O: We used the heart healthy trail for part of the course, which is apparently handicap accessible and off limits for mountain bikers. Otherwise, the staff thought our event was great. Kudos to Sam Levitin for modifying the map to MTB-O specification and making the first NEOC MTB-O in 16 years happen. I think an annual event at Wells would be a great addition, and with Sam's map work and a rotating course setter, the logistics would not be onerous. Double dipping foot and Mtb-O is probably unnecessary, and it seemed more people were excited about the MTB component this weekend.

Control pickup. Thanks a bunch to PBricker and elavallee, who each grabbed a third of the controls and made my life much easier.

I finally felt well enough to putter around, so I went out to Wells to check some control locations. I designed WYOG courses, and the Green was loosely based on the red course from the 2006 A-meet. Wells would probably be a nice area to orienteering in the early spring or late fall; the vegetation was unpleasantly thick in many areas, and the map is only passable. Wells is a large state park - you could easily hold a Billygoat scale course, but the map is probably inadequate. The vegetation was either incorrect or seasonally accurate for the area we used, and my understanding is that the point features are not correct for much of the rest of the map.

Vetting. Somehow managed to pick the wrong feature for Green #13, though it seemed to have the correct proximity to the big cliff and trail, and was the right boulder cluster + cliff feature. Per PBricker's analysis, I was about 30-40m off on feature on the same slope. The correct feature was definitely in visual range, so I don't think this was terribly egregious. Still, not a good way to course set. Oops.

A neat TED talk by epidemiologist Ben Goldacre: Battling Bad Science.

I had a 102 F fever on Monday night, so I rested today. Possible strep throat, though I seem to have bursitis on my left foot. It could be lyme, though I think I would have seen a tick there.

C • get tested 8