Training Log Archive: Nadim

Using this cold day to catch up on things not done for a while, I made a trip to the local hardware store. I needed longer screws for a ceiling lamp fixture that I was installing. The previous homeowner of our house did just enough do-it-yourself work outside of the building code that nothing is easy. My ride was through the neighborhoods on the way out and along mostly Bradley Rd. on the way back. Though somewhat cold, I felt very comfortable with the weather. I also enjoyed being able to ride up to the store front and easily hop off my bicycle while early holiday shoppers were vying for parking. Coming back, I had one arm full holding some pipe insulation that I decided to get too.

After flying back to Washington, D.C., I drove straight to Lake Frank in Montgomery County, MD. I only had time to change my shoes and went out in the clothes that I flew in to try to capture more of the area around the Nature Center. I had only a short while and had to be back to pickup Max from his day care. I'd brought the cooler weather from Kansas with me. Being up on the partly open ridge was chilling. I annoted my map with gloves on. The area is surprisingly detailed with features and variation. I don't expect advanced orienteers to make huge mistakes in the area but they'll have to slow down to read and will probably make some small mistakes. I'd covered the area earlier but hadn't finished. This time I was able to correct details of my previous work and add vegetation coding in a better way. It could take me a while to finish the immediate area and the similar terrain inside the Smith Environmental Education Center further north.

Overland Park, KS at Johnson Community College. I was fortunate to be able to hook-up with Mary Jones and Mike Eglinski and then fortunate to vet a version of Mary's courses for the first day of the Kansas State Champs weekend. It was a sprint-O on a new map that was still in-progress of being created. Only 2 of 4 quadrants were field checked so far. Though I'd like to, I won't say much about the course except that it's it's a fine area for campus-O and that I enjoyed it. It was close to dark, cold and windy when Mike and I started on separate sections. Mary stayed inside. I'd forgotten to bring my compass (it turned out that I'd left it in the car at the airport in D.C.), and had a lot of trouble orienting myself at the start. It was several minutes before I left the area correctly. Though I got better during the course, it continued to surprise me how much I was slower and incorrectly oriented without it. I suppose I read it more ofthen than I would have guessed. There were no bags or flags on the course so I had to be extra careful about getting to the control too. Mike finished much earlier than I did and shadowed me the last 7 minutes. He could attest to how slow I was in zeroing in on the feature when in the area. A bad habit of mine is to run to the center of the circle and not read the clue. I had to for this exercise. The darkness made things extra challenging for me. I had the light that I'd used in the last two 24 hour rogaines that I did and thought the light was great for that. However, I'm finding that I'm missing the brightness of my Night Rider which bit the dust last month. After the run, the 3 of us ate noodles and got a chance to catch up. Though I missed Peggy and Max, it was refreshing not to have Max grab the attention all the time.

Leawood, KS. From the parking lot at 114th St. and the Tomahawk Pkwy., I ran southwest on the paved trail to the far side of Nall. Ave. where the trail appeared to end. It had been a beautiful warm day but it was cooling off fast when I took off just past sunset. The trail passed some well manicured park areas and I didn't realize that I'd been on this trail before until I got to an area where the trail split. Where it joined together again, I noticed another running appearing to go fast through the split at about 200m back. Though I kept up a decent pace, he did catch me just before he stopped near Nall Ave over a mile later. He as young and perhaps of college or high school age. I hadn't been passed by a runner on a paved trail in a long time but my splits show that I wasn't really moving all that good. I guess that's from not running much lately. Moving gradually uphill my available half-mile splits were: 3:44, 3:46, 3:47. I had a watch problem so I missed some on the return but I was 3:40, and 3:46 on two of the return halves. I had been feeling pretty good up until the last 2 miles. I was going to make it about 7 or 8 altogether but since my quads were hurting I figured it wasn't going to be worth it when I got back to the car. There were a few intersections earlier in the run which I had to slow down to figure out where the trail really went.

I did a lot of back and forth riding around Bethesda. It was 33 F with 13mph winds this morning but with possible travel to Kansas City tomorrow, I wanted to get in at least a short workout. Max woke-up well this morning so I felt I had the time needed to get ready. The usual routine of getting ready was a bit different. I had to remove bicycle lighting so that it wouldn't get stolen when I parked and had to prepare for the colder weather. It also seems like I haven't commuted by bicycle much lately so things felt strange. I got my wallet, work ID, work phone, metro Smartrip card, keys, heavy coat, gloves, bike, trailer, Max's heavy coat, mittens, my back pack, helmets for both of us, ankle loops (to keep my work pants out of the chain area), a quilt for Max to stay warm, and started to bring his lunch... I asked and thought Max was carrying his lunch the rest of the way since I had my bike and bike lock in hand and was getting the trailer ready. Only after getting to his day care facility did I realize that we'd left his lunch. I should have checked it but it slipped my mind with other distractions when I was getting ready like the very friendly neighborhood cat who likes to try to get into our house when the door is open, and our next door neighbor and her son who asked his mom if they could get a Burley too. To top it off, the neighbor's hyper-active dog also had wanted to chase the cat and was barking loudly while stretching his long leash close to us. At the day care facility, I re-hitched the trailer and rode back home. I could feel the drag of the what was now a headwind on the trailer as I rode home. After a bathroom break, and some added distraction upon discovering my non-cycling winter gloves in my heavy coat (significant after moving last summer) I set off again eagar to make up for time lost. Only, I left the lunch again! I remembered after a short way but wasn't happy with myself. By the time I got to Max's day care again and to the metro station, I had started to sweat on this cold morning. The heavy coat I wore was fine at this temperature for the usual shorter trip but with all the back and forth riding, I warmed-up too much. At least I got in a workout.

From the Bethesda metro station to Northfield Rd. Besides the dark it was a bit windy. I was a little concerned about being top heavy carrying my laptop and a small backpack.

From Northfield Rd. to the Bethesda metro station. There was a bit of traffic but most of the areas where construction was taking place are now smoother.

From the Bethesda metro station to Northfield Rd. It was raining lightly. My new lighting works great so far. I could tell that I was getting more respect from the cars along the way and there were many of them along the back streets.

Event: DVOA Fair Hill, Mid-atlantic champs
 

Fair Hill State Park, MD. Warm-up in the cold windy fields with Dave Onkst who was patient enough to wait longer than the warmup took.

Mid-Atlantic Championships, Fair Hill State Park, MD. After an inordinate amount of flip-floppy internal debate, I had decided to run the Red course as I might have a chance of placing and scoring points for QOC. The starts were self-managed. Directed to a Red course start area, I grabbed a map from the bag and didn't look at it. While getting ready to go, I checked for north at the start and noticed my compass not settling right, perhaps affected by a big bubble. This caused errors last week so I switched to my spare then grabbed a map and started running. I ran pretty well over a kilometer to the first control and was feeling better about the bearings on my compass. When I got there, the code didn't match. After looping around a bit I realized that I had a Blue course map and had navigated correctly according to the map. I lost 2:40 minutes as recorded by my GPS). I decided to continue running Blue even though it was 2km longer. Leaving control #1, I saw Karl Alswede who had started behind me a bit and was running Red. I wanted to make up for the lost time to still have a chance to try to score for QOC but it wasn't to happen. I became a bit too hasty. I ran okay but got a little off-track going to #4 when I over-thought and deviated from my planned route. My more difficult approach got me on the wrong trail and I was slow to correct while trying to read detailed trail intersections. I was very slow going to #5 on more tricky trails and took a longer easier route to #6. I did fine on a short ridge hop leg going to #7 but on the critical long leg to #8, I didn't do well again. I started going back where I'd come from when approaching #7 but didn't like the thought of a dog-leg to a bridge that I'd run past going to #6. I ran back and took a route to the right that would take me across fields. The problem was that I had to get across the river first and didn't see that the way to the right across the highway bridge was blocked by fences. I took the next bridge up which was just in sight, 40m off the map. I had to fight through some thorny green to get back on track. I kept running and once up the big hill, I did okay. There was a small error going to #10 when I didn't establish a correct bearing leaving #9. I had a bigger error going to #12. It was a short leg which I thought I was executing well. My bearing was wrong again. To make it worse, instead of reading the map while running I ran fast past a trail that I should have turned on to go to the control. I halted at a rootstock on the other side of a stream, perhaps 150m from the control. I still haven't mastered Fair Hill but sometimes I run okay here.

The free bus ride that QOC had provided up and back to the meet was fun and comfortable. It gave me a chance to talk to a lot of people. The time past quickly and Max seemed to enjoy it too.

Mid-Atlantic Championships, Fair Hill State Park. About 15 minutes after finishing my unexpected Blue course, it was time for me to go on a QOC relay sprint. Unlike other relays, this one didn't involve handing off maps. Instead, people ran about 30 seconds apart and their times were added up. Watching others go ahead, I wasn't sure what to make of the first control. People who went ahead of me were zig-zagging though pretty much everyone started off the same. Once I got my map, I decided to go to the right, around where everyone was zig zagging. It might have been okay except that I lost track of where I was as I rounded a forest edge and I moved rather slowly. Going to #2, I recalled a previous sprint here with a similar leg and just went off on the same direction. I missed a shorter route. Ted Good, who started just behind me had already made-up the stagger. We traded leads through the rest of the course, hitting everything pretty well. I lost a little time with hesitation going to #8, and managed to stay ahead of Ted at the end by just a few seconds. It was fun and over very quick.

My special thanks go to Tim Good who, injured with a broken ankle from the Susquehanna Stumble, made the trip any way and had volunteered to watched Max. Max kept moving about a lot so it probably wasn't easy for him with an immobilizing cast. He watched Max the whole time I was out running both courses. If he hadn't stepped forward, I may have run a bit less or not at all, hoping to trade time watching other kids.

Blue - Splits

Sprint Course #4 - Splits