Training Log Archive: jfredrickson

Event: US "Classic" Championships
 

Warmup for A-Meet.

Today was the US Champs. I ran M-20 in order to defend my title. I was a little worried going into the race since I was still recovering from my bout with poisen ivy and hadn't been doing much running. After running last weekend, I knew I would not be in perfect running shape, so my strategy for the weekend was to be as clean as possible. Unfortunately since I wasn't able to do much physical training I also was not able to do any technical training. This meant that I could be pretty out of shape Orienteering wise, but after having a good technical race last weekend, I felt fairly confident that I could run clean race as long as I didn't push too hard.

As it turned out running slower was in fact the best strategy and even though I had close to 5 minutes of error, I still won the day. I only made one mistake due to loss of concentration, so I was pretty happy in that regards. My only mistake as such was at the end of the race when I had an easy attackpoint off of a stream. Unfortunately I lost contact with my map for less than a minute and when I refocused, I was not exactly sure where I was along the stream bed. I knew I wanted to follow a stream junction off to the East, and I saw a steep gourge going off in the right direction. I didn't feel as if I had gone far enough, but I wasn't exactly sure since I hadn't been paying close enough attention. I figured I could either be at the right attackpoint, or a reentrant just before it. I decided that it would be best for me to take the risk and check this reentrant first, since if I was at the right one and kept going I would be worse off than going up too early. As it turned out, I was too early and had to cut across the top of the embankment to the control. Overall I lost about 2 minutes on the control.

Other than that I was very well focused. I still made some other stupid errors, but they were simply due to me getting a little confused. One time I went out of a control at a bad angle, but since I was just trying to hit a road, it didn't matter too much. I was still disturbed by this since I thought I had fixed my compassing problems since buying a new compass. I guess I am still prone to making directional errors.

Red X - Splits

Stretching and warmup for an Orienteering race.

I ran my first Orienteering course today, in two weeks. There was quite a bit of competition, so a group of us decided to get together and start at 3 minute intervals as in an A-meet. Afterwards, we planned to run an Orange course with a chase start based on our finish times from the Red course.

I felt pretty good at the start, and after Fridays race, I was confident that my running would be good enough. I was mostly worried about my technique since I haven't Orienteered in two weeks. I went out at a good pace, feeling quite good, and I was concentrating well. I continued at a pretty good pace, and my navigation was nearly perfect. I continued to navigate perfectly, only making one small error at number 14, but as the course drew on, I began to get more and more tired. Apparently, I wasn't fully recoverd from my bout with poisen, so after my race, I did not do the Orange course. Anyway, considering my performance technique wise, I am confident that I can get back into shape for the US Champs. Sergei Zhyk had a great run and beat us all by 5 or more minutes. I don't think I could have beat his time even if I had felt perfect physically, but I think I could have been close. See my splits from the course.

Red - Splits