Training Log Archive: Nadim

Event: West Point National Meet
 

West Point, NY, Camp Bruckner. After getting Max to the start of the White courses, I headed off toward the Advanced courses

West Point, NY, Camp Bruckner. I ran the Green course. A light rain fell part of the time. I was finding the controls pretty well. I made a slow route choice going high to #5 but I was able to catch David Yee on that leg. Catching him was what probably got me to making a terrible mistake on a very short leg to #6. I must have read the map upside down and didn't focus enough--instead of running a short way to a boulder near a saddle, I ran almost straight down. When I saw a road coming up, I stopped and realized what I'd done. I had cursed and found energy to run back up most of the way. I spiked #6 after this initial error. For #7, I was efficient and when I got there, I saw David Yee trying to figure out a route to #8. My route came back right past #6 and #5. I hit the road before the bend and cut across. As I kept going, I stayed on the road until a road intersection. I ran on the control side of the marsh from there and that running was rather nice. As I finished, I slowly gained on, and passed others.

Saturday - Green Y - Splits

Seneca Creek State Park, MD. From Riffleford Rd., I hauled water and a bunch of controls through a loop. It was heavy at first and it got warmer as I went on--it hit the 80s F. That just made me feel slower. I found some things that could be updated on the map, including some boulders in and along a powerline ride. I streamered part of a finish for the White course too, before running out of streamers.

Seneca Creek State Park, MD. From Riffleford Rd., I set a small loop on mostly flat land.

Seneca Creek State Park, MD. From Riffleford Rd., I set my last loop after drinking a bit. That made me feel better but what made me fee the best was an approaching thunderstorm. The storm kicked-up a breeze and dropped temperatures. I rushed to lay out the last controls before it caught me but there was no way to beat it. As thunderstorms go, it was relatively mild and didn't last long. The batter on my watch didn't last the whole time either since my daughter had unplugged the charger that I had connected it to. After this, and off the clock, I put out water.

Mark Mace had agreed to finsh-off the controls and water placement for me on the morning of the event. That allowed me to drive off to NY for the West Point A-meet.

From Northfield Rd., to Norfolk Ave. for lunch.

From Norfolk Ave., to Northfield Rd.

From Northfield Rd., to the Bethesda Metro Station. I felt tired from the events yesterday but moved well and got through traffic quickly.

From the Bethesda Metro Station to Northfield Rd. I was fairly tired and a little heavier carrying clothing and my laptop

Cunningham State Park, MD. From the Manor Area parking lot, I hiked up to the start of QOC's Platformpalooza 2017 event. Jon Torrance had put together a base map and added some features to it. The start was near the top of Bob's Hill.

QOC: Platformpalooza at Cunningham State Park, MD. I made sure I'd get my training in today, running Blue. The hills were steep but in between thge nice parts there were also areas of deadfall and stony ground to make me work. I blew #1 pretty badly. On #1, I had gotten too low. Since I'd crossed some earlier unmapped but distinct ditches, when I hit one that turned out to be just south of #1, I turned back, thinking I was at a different one that was leading toward #15. I'll chalk this up to getting used to the map. The deadfall up high contributed to me not focusing well enough.

After that I hit other controls pretty well. One of the hardest was #13. I came through the green on an old roadbed for that but the roadbed got slow with deadfall. When I emerged through the green, I was too low and hunting with Charles Carrick. I climbed and found it first. I went straight for most of the controls and didn't lose as much time as AP shows for me. I was just slow climbing. There were some course corrections along the way. The few items Jon was able to add to the map like Lidar based vegetation mapping, some of the rock, and some rootstocks helped me correct when I needed it. This was pretty fun on a pretty warm day. I could see QOC having an A-meet here, but think the courses would have to be set to be shorter or with less climb, or both. When I finished I thought I had climbed 701m, but I'd forgotten that I had reset the settings on my watch, and it was displaying feet climbed, not meters. My GPS track was also set to Smart Recording and the track displays a lot of turns that I hadn't done. I was moving in straight lines most of the time, except when crossing the deeper reentrants.

I picked-up controls for the QOC Platformpalooza at Cunningham State Park, MD. Thankfully, there were only 4 controls. Two of the ones higher up were water controls which was good since I hadn't had much at the bottom after finishing my course. I drank a lot of it before dumping the rest, and it probably kept me from cramping.

Blue - Splits