Training Log Archive: Nadim

Swanson Rd. Natural Area. MD. I was pretty busy at work and at home the last few days. At home I was doing work couse setting for several different events. I also had to do some map conversion from Adobe Illustrator to OCAD. That was very time consuming and kept me up too late. Oddly, my weight dropped to 172 on 8/7.

For the QOC Summer Short Series event today I set out controls that I had previously streamered. I jogged with a gallon of water to the far end of the park and I'd also carried some Gatorade that I'd forgotten was in my backpack. It was starting to get hot. I hit all the controls well except for one. It was in a difficult area and I had come at it from a different way than the previous time. I corrected right to it and that was not trivial. After dropping off the water, I ran better. I started to run out of time again so I skipped putting a control bag on one streamer that was in an out of the way area. It turned out that everyone who came for the training skipped that control too.

Great Falls National Park, MD. I found out this week that I'd have to turn in courses 4 months in advance for the QOC meet to be held here in December. The advance review is part of an agreement with the park service that let us back into the park. I set an advanced course in a hurry on paper and complied with various restrictions to keep people out of sensitive areas. It looks funny but I think it'll be a pretty good course. It's fun to be in Great Falls again. I used to come here after work and meet Peggy there for training runs before we had Max. It was one of the many reasons that I felt good about moving to Montgomery County 5 years back. It's harder to arrange for training in Great Falls now and there's always the worry about the park not liking people being off trail.

I got into the woods at 6:40pm. I had forgotten to bring running socks so I used my work socks with my Solomons and did okay. Right from the start it was seeming dark inside the forest. I made a feature adjustment on my first control, then I had trouble reading/understanding the contours at my second control, just off a trail. My next two were somewhat subtle and difficult to set but I did better navigating to them. I did a lot of double and triple checking on these and others. The next few controls involved crossing through some light green areas. The summer woods in the park are nothing like the fast open winter woods. I had trouble telling exactly where I was sometimes for the lack of visibility. The vegetation mapping was just off in many places. I also forgot that August here means spider webs--I was reminded many times. I made another 2 control feature adjustments after not liking the proximity to a trail on one, and not finding evidence of a rootstock for another. I hit the last two controls well and had to get out least I be forced to navigate in the darkness without a headlamp. I'll have to come back for another go and given what I've seen today I don't dare set the courses on this version of the map without checking the features first.

C • work socks! 3

From Northfield Rd. to Maple Ave. with Max in his trailer, then to C St., SW, Washington, D.C. via the Capital Crescent Trail and Ohio Dr. I got out a little bit earlier today despite more conversations with a building contractor at our house. Though I could have been slower getting Max to his day care, I felt I was going faster almost everywhere else than I did yesterday. When getting through the tunnel, I'd passed one guy commuting with a mud flap. I was moving along pretty good but he caught me at the River Rd. overpass. I'd been gaining on another guy while doing 22.5mph but after the guy with the mud flap went past him, I hardly saw either of them again. I got passed again on the flats while still doing an honest pace of +20mph. When a few minutes later, a third came through, I recognized him to be the guy with glasses that I've ridden with before. He slowed for a minute to ask if I was dropping off Max in the mornings then when he picked the pace back up, we were doing 23-24mph on the flats with me hanging on--we almost caught the second guy who passed me. We rode side by side through Georgetown. I worked at keeping the pace going by myself after that but not as hard and with a slight headwind along the river, I was not going nearly as fast. Perhaps there were more slow-downs at traffic intersections but it confuses me with all the effort, how I could only be 25 seconds faster than the previous morning riding alone which felt casual in comparison.

From 12 St & Independence Ave. SW, Washington, D.C. to Maple Ave., then to Northfield Rd., Bethesda, MD. Leaving work late meant riding through the building again to get out. Somehow in reseting my cycle computer, I changed the calibration so the speed kept reading faster than I was really going. It was somehow calming and kept me at a more comfortable pace. I wasn't really sure of it until I'd gotten to Maple Ave. in 39:42; my pace had indicated that I was going much better than that. There were some headwinds getting to Georgetown and then some traffic there but the rest of the way was pretty good. I had picked-up one drafter after Georgetown but lost him part way up the hill.

From Northfield Rd. to Maple Ave. with Max in his trailer, then to C St., SW, Washington, D.C. via the Capital Crescent Trail and Ohio Dr. I'm glad to have gone out and rode this morning. I was concerned that it might be too wet. If felt cool and nice for a while. It was a pretty quiet ride with a lot of pedestrians initially but then few other cyclists and no real winds.

From C St . SW, Washington, D.C. to Beach Dr., up through Rock Creek Park (including through the tunnel) to the Georgetown Branch Trail, to Maple Ave. in Bethesda, MD, then to Northfield Rd. I had an itch to go up Rock Creek on the road. It's somewhat addictive to be able to ride faster there with the aid of the draft of cars to help pull me up the gradual climb. However I often am in front of them as the more timid drivers choose not to pass me or worse, at the Connecticut Ave. intersection where I waited through a slow half mile line of slow cars. I could have passed many of them but every now and then there's one that's too close to the curb for me to pass on the right safely. It also pisses off some drivers to have me pass them when they will have to pass me again. The ride was good. I kept up a nice pace the whole way though it's a little slower on the Georgetown Branch Trail as that is unpaved.

Washington, D.C. Peggy, Max, and I hiked around the National Mall. Weather had disrupted our other plans. We started off feeding ducks at the kidney shaped pond in West Potomac Park just off Constitution Ave. We went past a memorial for women in wars, then the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial. A hike up the steps to the Lincoln Memorial gave us the famous view--I hadn't been up there for a while. Next we stopped off at the Einstein Memorial--Max and Peggy seemed pleased at the echo effect there which can only be heard when standing in the exact center, amongst the stars.

I had been carrying Max off and on by this point but was tempted to take a taxi on the long walk past the White House and Washington Monuments to get to the American History Museum. It was getting hot and sticky so the A/C at the museum felt great to me. It energized Max too--he ran from the Lego special exhibit to the permanent transportation exhibits--I hadn't really looked around since the rennovation was completed last year and overall I found it an improvement. I missed the loss of the materials exhibit that a friend of mine had worked on some--I always liked seeing the special cycle with a completely enclosed wind faring which allowed it to reach 60mph. Missing also were the pendulum, and the stars and stripes that flew over Federal Hill in Baltimore and inspired the writing of the Star Spangled Banner. We saw a little of the special Appalachian Trail exhibit but skipped the amazingly long lines at the First Ladies exhibit. I carried Max on my shoulders the whole way back and he kept leaning on my neck making it more difficult.