Training Log Archive: Nadim

Event: US Two-day Classic O Championships
 

Moreau Lake State Park. From Spier Falls Rd. to the start of the US Classic Championships. I had just missed the earlier bus and with a bit of a wait for the next, then an additional 10 minutes in the parking lot waiting for others, I got off the bus with not much time and 160m of climbing ahead. I started off jogging and walking wherever it was steep with Cristina Louis. I was sweating by the time I got to the start area and was the second person on the bus to reach there, behind Ross Smith who had also been late.

2010 US Classic Championships at Moreau Lake State Park, NY. EMPO received lots of praise for this meet and I concurr that it went well. Had my navigation matched, the weekend would have been about perfect. I was a bit rushed getting to the start. The interval for bus ride to the start was long. I just missed the one before and once I got on the bus, it waited 10 minutes. I had missed my start by about a minute but had kindly been allowed to start a few minutes later. I took off down the trail trying to get a feel for the map but I didn't really navigate until I crossed the second stream. Going high, I let myself get pushed lower by rocks instead of following a bearing over them. I mistook a large marsh for a small one near the control, then took a while relocating. I was worried about it going to be a long day for me when I looked at the next long leg but my leg to #2 was good. I kept a general bearing north of the direct route. I was alone until others started converging from all directions. I ignored Samantha Seager who probably was going to another control. When one reentrant that had potential turned out to be the wrong one, I kept going and felt some confidence. It helped that another guy was headed the say direction ahead of me.

I had a slight bobble on #4 but the next several legs were good. I started #9 well but coming off a large marsh, I had gotten further east than expected. I missed attacking to the north and then turned east again. I partly relocated on a trail but wasn't sure where on the trail I was. I attacked anyway and missed. I finally went back to the marsh, attacked and spiked it. Just before I got there, I saw Daniel Shaublin punching. He'd gotten there from west of me. I chased and passed him on the way to #10. I paused at a clearing with a trail, wondering where the yellow was on the map. The control was just past this point. Tearing-off south of the straight line to #11, I got careless. I crossed the creek but got confused after rounding the ridge on the other side. I saw a control in a reentrant to my left and was sure it wasn't mine. Several other people were punching it. I went on and Daniel caught-up, also confused but only for a second. He convinced me that we needed to descend; we did so but it was down a dangerous rock slope. At the bottom, Daniel took off in the reentrant. After passing some cliffs on the left, it seemed I was too low, despite Daniel being lower. I circled back, read the map better and got into the reentrant near the control. After punching #11, I saw Daniel on the way to #12 and though he didn't need it, I thumbed backward.

I was doing well going to #12 but approaching Kris Beecroft on a steep ridge, I slipped on a wet stick and slide down 10ft. She heard me but had to keep watch herself with hurting knees. I approache #12 at the right height in the small reentrant north of the control but eneded up passing it slightly. I was better getting to #13, basically running on the trail, then cutting west to follow a line of cliffs in. I split the fields to spike #14. Headed to #15, I initially used the traiul but found myself bouncing off the out of bounds road before dropping in one reentrant to the north. I descended the rocky slope to the trail and used it to get to the GO control. Patti Mace was ahead. I fumbled the punchiing at the finish and might have been able to save a second at the very end.

Day 1 Red X - Splits

Event: US Team Sprint Series Final
 

Warmup around the parking lot for the Sprint Series Championships at Spa State Park. NY.

Sprint 1 of the Sprint Series Championships at Spa State Park. NY. I didn't have much invested in this race nor did I put much focus on this race. I just went into it as a chance to run faster on a course. Out of the start, I was okay but missed a turn soon after. I had trouble matching up the trail and experienced it several times in the course. It didn't help that some controls had not been placed to matchup well with the way they were mapped. Vegetation mapping was also perplexing me though I tried not to use it much in deciding where to run. I thought that for a championship, the map could have been better but I wasn't worried about placing myself. I had only signed up for one of the two sprints. There were a few steep hills on the course and I had to walk up parts of both. I felt like I was unable to run fast on flatter grounds. My navigation errors were at #1, #4, and slightly on #5.

Travel day.

From Northfield Rd., Bethesda, MD to Arlington Rd. with Max on his trail-a-bike, then to C St. SE, Washington, D.C. It was 54 F and there was a headwind from the east. I was feeling tired and was riding slower. At Dalecarlia where I crested a small rise and slowed more, a posse passed me. I jumped-on behind and flew along for a while before taking a turn pulling on the flats. Traffic broke us up a bit. I crossed the Mall again to get to work.

From C St. SE, Washington, D.C. (via the Mall) to Arlington Rd., Bethesda, MD, to pickup Max's trail-a-bike, then to Northfield Rd. I made a mental effort to try and not push too much. Even so, I felt tired along the way. Like yesterday, I got back just at dusk.

From Northfield Rd., Bethesda, MD to Arlington Rd. with Max on his trail-a-bike, then to C St. SE, Washington, D.C. It was in the low 60s F. Max got us off to a quick start by pedaling vigorously much of the way. I cruised steadily increasing pace down to Georgetown. Though I was doing 20mph on the flats, I got passed just before the Glover Archbold intersection. I could see that the Ohio Dr. underpasses near the Lincoln Memorial are nearing completion. They looked smooth from above, unlike the patchy asphalt and broken concrete that was there before. The construction still causes me to detour up the Mall but with that being shorter, I don't mind.

From C St. SE, Washington, D.C. (via the Mall) to Arlington Rd., Bethesda, MD, to pickup Max's trail-a-bike, then to Northfield Rd. I felt weaker than I did last Friday. When one guy passed me after leaving Georgetown, I stayed with him for a while but rode my own often slowish pace afterward. It still was really nice out. I left just before 6pm when I would have gotten locked into the courtyard where I leave my bicycle, and made it home at dusk.

From Northfield Rd. to Arlington Rd., then back. Peggy and I rode to observe Max at his school on Parent Day. After cycling, Peggy got some quilting furniture. When moving it out the back of our van, it seemed to re-injur my back in the same area that it got hurt in during the Bushwacker race, only not as bad.

Lake Needwood, MD. With the day off, much of it got taken up by other items but I did finally get out to resume some field checking of the Lake Needwood area. It was in the mid 80's F; more like a summer day than the fall. I was sluggish initially. I also had a hard time getting back into the map. After running at Hemlock Overlook yesterday, I felt I had been overmapping much of Lake Needwood. However to keep consistency, I still went about things in a similar way. I just had a hard time deciding sometimes about whether a feature should be on the map or not. I covered areas near the golf course and along Crabbs Branch Stream. I was trying to rush things, wanting to get this map finished too and that never helps with the accuracy. I was trying to get the placement of some border-line boulders right and had trouble with the task. I had to do a lot of erasing. Some of the terrain didn't help either. There were thorny bushes along the water areas of fist-sized stony ground to get across, and even some unexpected marsh. I'll have better days field checking again I hope.

Event: QOC Hemlock Overlook
 

QOC: Hemlock Overlook Park, VA. The advanced courses only went up to Red but as course setter Andy Britton explained, there was a lot of climb (+300m) to make up for it. I suppose the bicycling I'd done this summer, sporadic as it was, had helped me climb the hills because I really hadn't been doing enough training lately for it to help much. I started pretty well, spiking the first 5 controls. The leaves were all still on an green so this was good. As often happens in starts like this, I fumbled on #6 about 21 minutes in. Slowing down would have probably helped but I'd just passed Jon Pifer at #5 and I wanted to stay ahead.

I messed-up on #7 too but seemed to pass Jan Merka on that leg. My route to #8 was fine but I got distracted by an unmapped root stock near a reentrant that seemed like the same situation. It got worse on my route to #10 when still trying to run away from others, I stayed high for faster terraing and mistakenly went to #7 before going to #10. I settled down for the next 3 controls hitting them well.

I caught Jon Pifer again at #13, and got ahead taking a more direct line to the left. He was close behind me on the trail along the river and I think I got to the reentrant for #14 first. However, I was just too slow on the last climb choosing to stay on the left side of it rather than in the middle. Jon took a direct line toward #15. I started going around on the right. I saw him once more before I ended up more to the right than I'd planned. Eventually, I ran to the lake and was too flustered to read the map correctly--I missed seeing that a trail would have taken me to #15 from there. I was slowing down a lot on the climb to #16. About to pass the control location, I stopped and looked left to see it.

I'm sure everyone who went to #17 has a story to tell. It was a steep sometimes dangerous descent. It didn't help that the mapping was poor and the stream missing. I picked my way down at walking speed, went to the low side of the low rock, then back up. The climb out was really slow. I paced my walk up so as not to tire too much. I took the trail and field to #18. My line to the finish was good except that at the end, I stopped reading the map and went to the start/registration area like most others did.

I enjoyed running but found the hills late in the course to be less than desireable. I was glad that I was able to run all but the steepest parts and once again did not injure myself.

Hemlock Overlook Park, VA. The support crew looked thin so I picked-up controls #109, #108, #107, #104, and #103 which were the ones farthest south and east. Fortunately I was able to pickup these before the courses were officially closed. I only missed slightly going to #104 by being one over amongst 3 closely spaced but deep reentrants. I felt funny going to #107 for the 3rd time of the day. I took splits both getting to controls and leaving them so that I'd have an idea of how long the untying and wrapping took. It was about 3:30 out of the total.

It turned out that with control pickup and the detour around the Clifton Days festival, we were about two minutes too late getting to a running store when Peggy wanted to redeem her gift certificate (won the the EX2 Bushwacker race a few weeks back).

Red - Splits