Training Log Archive: jfredrickson

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

Warmup and stretching for the Troll Cup A-Meet.

Troll Cup A-meet Red Course. I had a lot of trouble with this map since the terrain was the thickest I had run in since I was in Norway. Parts of the map were so thickly wooded with pine trees that it was dark enough cause problems reading the map. This wasn't the bulk of my problem however.

Because the terrain was so thick underfoot, I wasn't able to read the map very well on the run. I didn't adjust to this right away since I hadn't run on anything so thick in a long time, and I didn't slow down to read the map. I ended up blowing the second and third controls and losing approximately 9 minutes total.

I managed to get myself back together, but I still hadn't figured out that I needed to adjust to the terrain. I ended up heading out for number 9 without having my route choice fully planned, and had to waste some time figuring it out since the leg was close to 2 kilometers. I ended up taking mostly trails, but they were so small and windy that I didn't really get much of a chance to read the map. I hit number 5 ok, but I had not read ahead to number 6. This is where I started having problems with the darkness of the woods.

I lost 30 seconds on number 7, a minute on 8, a minute on 10, and 15 seconds on 13 all because I had not fully read the details around the control before wandering into the circle. Overall, my technique was awful. I never adjusted to the thick terrain, and as a result didn't read the map enough or in enough detail.

I still had quite a bit of energy coming into the last few controls and was able to really blaze them.

Day 1 Red - Splits

Stretching and warmup for Cross Country practice.

We ran mostly hill intervals and finished off practice with ten minutes of sprints on the field.

My legs felt pretty tired. The sprints felt good, but I was pretty worn out after practice. I haven't been getting enough sleep, and it doesn't look good for the next two nights since I have a final this week. A long run tomorrow and a rest day Friday should prepare me for this weekends races.

Stretching and warmup for my Cross Country race.

I had a Cross Country race today after school. Max hit a car with his bike yesterday and broke his knee cap so he wasn't able to run. We were running against Newark Tech, an inner city Newark school. Most of the kids looked like very good athletes, but in the past they hadn't been good runners.

We started out at a fairly fast pace, but they all died on the first hill. I ended up running by myself for the race with Erin and Michael, two 8th graders about 10 seconds behind me. I ran 3 seconds slower than my best time, but Erin and Michael continued to improve, setting new records for themselves. They will probably be beating me soon as well. Unfortunately Max wasn't there to push me, so I don't think I ran as hard as I would if he were there. I was a little surprised that I ran such a good time since my legs felt quite tired and I didn't feel like I had pushed as hard as I do when I am racing Max.

Stretching and Warmup for Cross Country Practice.

We did a pyramid workout in preparation for tomorrow's race. Only 2x across the athletic field, 2x half-way around the perimeter, 2x all the way around, 2x half-way around the perimeter, and finally 4x across the field. We ran them fast at a high intensity, but with a little more rest time in between intervals than usual. This was all we did today since we have a race tomorrow.

My legs felt quite good after all the running this past weekend. I did feel a little tired however on the longer intervals as I needed to push through the finish. I think that the sprints should be perfet recovery for tomorrow's race.