O Log - Umstead '07

[ 5-Mar-07]

Here is the Umstead '07, M35-45 Day 1 map, and here are my routes.

Meet organization was a bit rough around the edges, but where it counts, the orienteering, was fun, especially on day 2. I only made one mistake worth remembering over the two days, on #18 day 1. My only whine about the orienteering was that day 1's course seemed designed to fit on the 8.5x11 print, and I found myself out and back on the same features, which seemed a bit less interesting than it could have been. Perhaps there were other constraints I was unaware of. As a course setter, I'm well aware of this, and hesitate to whine, unless it really is the 8.5x11 syndrome, which I do feel is something worth whining about. The forest seemed more pleasant and less climby on day 2.

I haven't logged in a while, basically due to my injury. I also haven't finished a race since mid December. It has been very discouraging. So the goal was simply to finish day 1, and see about day 2. I was happy to be able to go both days, and while there was no speed, to be able to run 72 minutes then 80 minutes, by the far the most volume I've done over a 2 day stretch in 3 months, was encouraging. My foot did hurt on day 1, but it seemed like a kind of benign hurt, and I was right -- I seemed to have gotten thru the weekend without a setback. I figure my times to have been down 10% from where they should be -- 61 day 1 and 72 day 1 would have been doable before the injury. I will say that it is easier to be technically clean when moving slower due to lack of fitness, a result I did not expect, actually.

Assuming I can get my volume back to normal levels, will my fitness return? Will I ever be able to run M21 again? These are the questions that dog me. The next thing on the radar is the DVOA Jukola team trials in one month, as it stands now I'm not in shape to make the team, especially at the technically easy, runner-friendly Fair Hill, but a month may be enough to get 5% back, perhaps, providing the fascia holds up. We'll see. I'm moving my goal of being back from the end of Q1 to the end of Q2.

My last USOF board meeting this weekend as well. Yippee! Gary Kraght, who I really respect and think is a really smart guy, called me an "iconoclast" and says the board needs iconoclasts. I have an above average vocabulary, but have no idea what an iconoclast is. I do know "iconoclasm and heresy" is a really bad thing in the game "Civilization", so I wasn't sure if it was a compliment or not. After looking it up, I'm still not sure if it is (thinking of myself as having more of a live-and-let-live attitude), but I do find myself often muttering "the emperor has no clothes" to myself in many contexts, so perhaps the label is appropriate.

Now I need to ditch the sanctioning job as well. This will also need to be a more measured approach rather than just resigning and leaving USOF in the lurch, because, as much as I detest the job, I still find the need to give something back. Its the sort of thing where you never ever get thanked for what you do, and when you think you are simply moving along in a normal, rational, neutral manner, you get bitten in the ass from out of the blue. What sort of rational person would volunteer for such an arrangement? I'll set a goal of the end of Q4 to drop this. Now, they have no VP of Comp, no Comp at Large, and I can't bear to drop this on them at this time as well, as much as I need to.