Training Log Archive: Nadim

Prince William Forest (PWF), VA. Vetting of courses. Most of the mistakes were minor. I was fairly tired from the increased traininig.

PWF - Control pickup and some map updating.

PWF Vetting. I had a few problems early and was tired too. Initially, there was a streamer missing. I had to relocate on a control and wasn't careful reading detail leaving another. I didn't follow my routes well on two other legs and to make it worse, I missed a trail junction in another place. I came across a deer skeleton wtih full antlers. It was around 60F and I was thirsty after this.

Blockhouse Conservation Park, MD. After flying back home, I had a little time to go to the woods and work on finishing up the Blockhouse map. I keep thinking that I'll be able to cover a lot of ground and get the part north of River Rd. finished. Today I started in the east where River Rd. crosses the Muddy Branch and found lots of interesting detail in mostly nice woods--this took a lots of time. The features ranged from boulders and cliffs to an odd smattering of pits and dot knolls. The later must have been dug by man. Though old, the knolls were often 3ft. high and 30m apart. It was fun. I picked--up Max afterward and got lots of hugs and kisses.

Forest Park, Saint Louis, MO. I saved an old favorite for my last run in Saint Louis this week. I ran around Forest Park. I got started around 6pm just as the sun had hit the horizon. Unlike most times when I've run here, there was plenty of light to see with this time. Since last running here, they've completed the bicycling trail. It now goes unbroken all the way around the perimeter. I found a beginning/end mile mark which read 5.65. When I measured it with aerial photos this turned out to be very accurate. However, the intermediate mile marks were way off. Lots of people were out running and I passed a bunch but still felt pretty weak, heavy and plodding. I was glad the last mile plus was downhill.

C • Forest Park 3

St. Louis, MO. Due to an evening dinner with work friends, there wasn't much time to do a proper workout. I reasoned that I probably would do better to recover with a rest day too as this would level out my ramp-up to training. I only hope that when I get home I can keep up the better running training that I've been doing recently.

C • keeping up training 1

Tower Grove Park, St. Louis, MO. After my meetings, I went to checkout this city park which I'd seen on the map many times before. It was near Forest Park; smaller but of similar scale. I had wondered about whether it would be safe. It appeared to be so I wandered about in the dark, testing map memory and mostly trying to figure out the trails. I did a sort of figure eight route while admiring the grassy areas, scattered trees, interesting buildings and pavillions. The gentle sloping hills would have been great for a 5K race. The Missouri High School for the Blind is right next to the park. I took it easy and though a bit sore earlier in the day, I felt okay. It was about 40F at 7:30pm.

St. Louis, MO. With it being mostly a travel day preceding another week of meetings, I got a run in at Creve Coeur. I followed the longer trail around clockwise. It was windy but except for the first mile or so, I got sheltered by trees. The wooded interior reminded me of parts of Fran Uhler Park, back in Maryland. It made me want to see the O-map that Eric Buckley made. I started and finished at the Sailboat marina parking lot. I last ran here on 9/27/2005 with Eric and I was in much better shape then. Surprisingly, I was only 16 seconds faster then, albeit with a bit less effort. Today, my legs were tired from all the racing and running that I haven't been training for. My lungs felt better, already having improved from last week. I took splits at the mile markers but the markers were generally way off with some half miles being short and some being long. This was a bit longer than I should have run especially after the race yesterday. I couldn't resist it since I'll have fewer opportunities later in the week.

Umstead State Park, NC. My warm-up consisted of rushing from the parking area to the start. I knew I was to start in 9 minutes but didn't know where the start was nor how far it might be. I hadn't seem Spike all weekend but had to rush away getting to the trail chasing streamers. I made it with about 3 minutes to spare. At my 9:49am start time it was around 40F with a breeze but it felt fine in just a short sleeve O-top.

US Team Fundraiser/BOK at Umstead State Park, NC. I guess the good night sleep and rushing to the start was a good combination. I ran pretty well throughout this event. This surprised me. It was much longer than anything I've done in a while and since recovering from being sick last. I had a slight bobble at #1, a hesitation at #2, a slight error at #11 (to be explained later), and was caught not planning ahead to cross the creek before #13 like most of us. Other than these, I ran fairly clean. My route choices turned out not to always to be optimal but were good for my orienteering abilities. The run let me move-up into second place for the weekend in the M45+ class. I had the fastest M45+ time and perhaps the 5th fastest time on the course (that I know of). My error at #11 was partly due to equipment failure. Right at the start as I tried to stuff my control description into my arm holder, the holder broke. I was able to wedge the paper between the split holder anyway but the paper fell out somewhere between #10 and #11. When I reached #11 without error, I discovered the loss of control descriptions and read the code off the map. The problem was that I mentally was thinking that I was at #12 so I read the code for that and concluded that this control wasn't mine. I lost a minute for this. See the Split List.

Umstead State Park, NC. Peggy was supposed to pickup controls while I watched Max but since she had injured herself, we switched. I got 5 controls in the north part of the park, 3 of which were from the Blue course and 2 of which were probably from the Orange course. One of these was a water control. I was tired on this run. Carrying the bag for the controls, e-punches and control stands made me more wary of my navigation. Two of the Blue controls were a bit tricky. I hit their #2 control well but on a short leg to their #3 control I missed a little. I was hesitant on both of these to trust my direction. Had I just done that I would have hit them both better.

Day 2: Red M - Splits