Training Log Archive: jfredrickson

Event: Rocky Mountain 1000 Day
 

A bit of a warmup before the sprint. Legs feeling great, but still not used to the altitude.

The Opening Sprint of the Rocky Mountain 1000 Day. I felt decent physically although I wasn't quite used to the altitude yet. I was pretty sloppy in my technique and lost about 55 seconds because of that, but overall it felt like a decent warmup for the upcoming events. I was hoping to pick up another sprint win, but Mark Everett was just too fast today winning it in 16:55. Eric Bone also clipped me at 17:28.

Just an easy cool down run with Anna after we got back to the campground.

Opening Sprint - Splits

Easy run with Anna Shafer-Skelton from Yellow Pine campground. Basically the same loop I did with Jeff, but without the extra bit I added on yesterday. Felt great at the low intensity.

Easy run with Jeff Saeger from Yellow Pine campground. First run at altitude and didn't feel too bad as long as I didn't try to push very hard. As soon as I tried to pick up the intensity I felt it though. I think the strategy is going to be to take it easy on the hills and try to use them to read ahead as much as possible and be ready to run fast everywhere else.

Warm-up run with Anna to Forest Park from her house to run some old sprint courses.

Ran the night sprint from the recent "Forest Park Day and Night Sprints". It was pretty open and fast but there was some intricate route choice in the forest section. I was pretty much perfect except for a couple hesitations where the map was missing detail.

I didn't quite push up to race pace though.

The day course from the recent "Forest Park Day and Night Sprints". I felt pretty good on this one but had a little bit more trouble with the map. Ran into a couple spots where the vegetation was wrong and I had to adjust my route half-way through. Other than that I was pretty solid until I cramped up all of a sudden on the way to the last control and I had to stop. I haven't had a cramp on my torso in a long time and so it was a little strange. I have also never had one quite so intense that I had to stop. I first started noticing it about half-way through and slowed down a bit, but it got so bad all of a sudden towards the end that I felt like my side was going to explode.

I was 12:35 at the 8th control with 0.6km to go, so I was at about 5:40/km pace up to that point.

Cool-down run with Anna from Forest Park back to her house. Started cramping up again in my side even at the easy pace, but not quite as bad as during the sprint.

Event: OCIN Sprints
 

Warm-up jog on the Ft. St. Clair map getting ready for the sprints. Legs felt really good despite being in the car for the past 20 hours.

Started off with a funny mistake going into the first one. Just as I was getting ready to attack the control from the field some guy came running from the other direction and jumped into the woods to a control which I knew could not be mine yet. I reacted so fast though and jumped in after him that I couldn't stop myself. It was really weird since I knew it wasn't mine but I jumped in anyway. I didn't lose more than 5-7 seconds though.

Other than that the first three were clean and I was feeling good physically. Then I missed the 4th one by about 15 meters in some thick green so I lost another 10 seconds there. I also hit the 5th one too low and hadn't read the description which stated it was on the top of an earth bank so I wasted some time trying to figure out why I couldn't see it at the bottom of the earth bank where I automatically expected it to be.

I could easily have avoided this mistake as the course hadn't been that fast-paced up to that point and I had more than enough time between controls to figure this stuff out so I really should have spiked this one.

The next four were solid but it was a lot of open running and I felt kind of funny. I don't know if it was my lack of sleep last night or the medication I am taking for my poison ivy, but I just felt like I couldn't push it all the way into top gear. My body just felt too weak to handle that intensity, so I probably lost some time out in the open fields where it was just straight running.

Then I went and completely blew the last control by about a minute. The area going into the control was very vague and didn't look anything like I expected it to. I pushed on even though I was very unsure and when I hit my catching feature I convinced myself that I was down closer to the control that I really was so I started attacking left when I was already too far left. I quickly realized this though and finally attacked in the right direction.

I didn't mind the small errors so much since I had just been in the car for nearly 20 hours and hadn't really slept for more than 3 hours, but it was pretty disappointing to blow the last control so badly. I am not sure that the map is perfect in that area but it is still no excuse for my bad execution, and especially my awful response to the fact that I was blowing the control. One of my goals right now is to take advantage of the mistakes I make so that I can practice doing what I need to do to minimize the time lost from them, and this was a perfect example of what not to do. I'll have to keep this in mind and avoid it in the future.

Warm-up jog before the second sprint.

This one went a lot better although I was still a little sloppy around a couple controls costing me too many precious seconds for it to be a great race. And again I felt too weak to push it into high gear on the open legs although my legs felt pretty good.

I jogged the white course for my cool-down. It felt good to be taking everything slowly, even though it was only a white, but it was hard to stay focused moving that slowly because you end up having a lot of down time between controls when there otherwise wouldn't be. A good cool-down jog though.

Sprint 1 - Splits

Sprint 2 - Splits

I seem to have caught some nasty poisen ivy in all kinds of nasty places. I have a distinct feeling that all the green leafy stuff that seemed so useful last night when I had to go to the bathroom during my run in the woods in the dark may have been my downfall. The worst is in the eye because it seems to spread to the rest of the face so easily. I remember last time I got it in my eye my face swelled up for several days and both eyes were swollen nearly shut. Let's hope that doesn't happen this time.

Tomorrow I hit the road. First stop is in Eaton, OH for the OCIN Sprints at Fort St. Clair on Saturday. I think I will take some time to visit Joel since he is just next door.

Then off to St. Louis to pick up Anna, and finally on to Laramie for a 1000 days of blissful Orienteering. I plan to arrive in Laramie on Monday or Tuesday.

I am a little worried that all this idle time in the car is going to be hell with all the poisen ivy. Hopefully I won't look too scary when I pick up Anna or her parents might not let her go with me...

C • Sorry to hear about that. I go... 3