Training Log Archive: jfredrickson

I left my both of my compasses at home so I decided I might as well take advantage of the opportunity to train without a compass. I needed the experience since I have been having a lot of trouble with my compass, so it was good for me to run without it.

Unfortunately I didn't have an accurate idea of North when I started and ended up going out in the slightly wrong direction. I quickly realized my mistake but not until I had already gone 100 meters out of my way up a hill. I changed course and headed straight into the control. I lost close to 1.5 minutes as a result of this mistake. The mistake wasn't completely as a result of my misdirection since I also read the map wrong. I read that I would have to run up a big hill to number 1 without noticing that I had to drop down 2 contours and cross a stream first.

I still hadn't settled in by the time I headed out for number 2. I didn't get a good look at the route since I was worrying so much about number 1, and by the time I found myself running toward 2, I was already on a bad route. It was too late to fix it, so I just continued. The route I took was probably about a minute slower than the optimal one.

After that I settled in and blazed the course. The only other route choice error I made was on number 7. There was a large spur in the direct path and I knew I wanted to avoid it. I could have dropped 2 extra contours to a road which led around the spur, but I decided to stay on my contour and follow the spur around since the woods were so fast. I was in between a trail that led over the spur and the road below it when I hit an uncrossable fence. I was much closer to the trail so I bailed out right away and ended up running over the spur. I know I must have lost 30 seconds as a result since I had to climb 5 extra. The only reason I didn't lose more than 30 seconds is because I blazed the trail going down the spur to make up for some of the time.

Number 11 was in a thicket on a feature that basically didn't exist. I spent about 10 seconds looking around before I spotted it in the mass of thorns.

Other than that, I had a great race. The terrain was extremely fast and easy to navigate on. I felt absolutely great and once I settled down after number 2 I maintained perfect concentration for the rest of the race.

After running the Green Course I decided to run the Orange. I rested about ten minutes before going out again, but the first control went straight uphill making my legs burn. The Orange Course shared some controls with the Green Course, but attacked them from different angles. It was a good exercise since I was fairly exhausted.

The 2nd leg was similar to the 2nd leg on the Green Course, so I got to experiment with the different route choices. It was absolutely clear that the route I had considered optimal was much faster. I still managed to hit number 2 a little high losing about 15 seconds.

I blazed the next few controls but started to feel my concentration wane as I became more and more mentally tired. The fast pace began to take a toll on my ability to concentrate and on number 7 I lost it completely.

I took a trail downhill out of 6 at full speed, but didn't notice that it wasn't mapped accurately. I quickly noticed that I had dropped way too much and that I wasn't even on the trail anymore. I relocated immediately and attacked 7 from a different angle than I had planned. I didn't have any trouble finding it but I probably lost 2 minutes on my little detour.

Number 8 I hit a little high and lost about 15 seconds. After than I blazed the rest of the course. I felt suprisingly good coming into the finish even though I had just completed almost 11k. I guess it was a good day for running.

Green - Splits

Stretching and warmup for Cross Country practice.

We ran hills for 35 minutes during Cross Country practice. Didn't do too much running since I plan to run a lot tomorrow. If I feel well, I will run all the courses at the local meet.

I felt really good, and the cool rainy weather was perfect for running. It was good to get back out there after a few days of sickness.

Short cool down jog after practice.

Since my head was feeling awful again today, I decided to skip cross country practice. Instead, I went swimming for an hour. This seemed to relieve the stress on my neck, aleviating the pain in my head.

Stretching and warmup for a Cross Country race.

We had a race at home against Solomen Schecter, a private school in northern New Jersey. I had been feeling sick all day with a headache, so I went to the chiropracter right after school. I slept all day yesterday since the nerves in the base of my skull seemed to be in shock, and my tooth hurt. The chiropracter seemed to help a bit, but I still had a headache when the race started.

For some reason when I began to run, I began to lose concentration completely and just zone out as I ran. I pulled away from the other team early in the race, but couldn't seem to lose to of our 8th graders. Mike and Erin stayed right behind me the entire race, and Mike seemed as if he would try to pass me towards the end. For some reason, my lungs felt as if I was hardly running at all, and only my legs were slowing me down. I felt great coming into the finish and pulled away from Mike who apparently didn't have anything left.

I was thoroughly surprised to learn that I had shattered my personal best on the course by 21 seconds, and set a new course record by 6 seconds. Even more suprisingly, Mike, who had been running around 21 minutes on the course at the beginning of the season, also broke my personal best, coming in only 14 seconds behind me.

My quads felt really weird after the race, almost as if they were in shock. They felt like they had after I had done a lot of pounding jumping following intense running. I don't know what could have caused it, but when I really stretched them, they just hurt. I will have to take it easy tomorrow.

Cool down and stretching after the race.

Another awful day of orienteering. I finally realized that the best way to orienteer in this kind of thick terrain was to run hard and stop to read the map. This was what the Finnish boys my age did when I ran with them in Finland last year. The Finnish terrain around Tampere was so thick you had to be really good to be able to read it on the run.

This technique worked really well, but unfortunately I didn't use it until late in the race after I had made all my mistakes. I lost my map after finishing so I haven't been able to review my course, but overall it was very slow. I made way too many mistakes, but at least there were no really big ones like yesterday.

I think one of the reasons my performance was so poor this weekend was because I haven't done any training on a map in over two weeks besides the competition last weekend. Because of Cross Country practice, I haven't been able to get out to a map during the week. I will be getting my license on the 8th of October if I pass my test, so I will be able to start driving myself up to train.

Red - Splits