Training Log Archive: Nadim

Event: West Point A-meet
 

West Point, NY. While Peggy ran her middle distance course, I went out on the Whiite course, in the recreational category with Max. It was a bit unfortunate that the starter had us go right after another girl who was probably running F10- Max takes after me in naturally wanting to chase after whoever he sees going the same direction. I was trying to get him to read each leg before going for it but he was impatient, seeing others get ahead of him. We kept catching-up to the same girl and others before getting ahead--I'd let Max make some errors but not too much. I was successful in teaching him to orient the map better by asking him to make the map "point" north. With that done, he could point the right direction to the next control but the impatience seemed to keep him from really reading the trail taking him there. The trail was actually difficult to follow in places partly because of erosion in and along the sides of it. When we finished, Max went to play but later we found him listed in the A-meet results; rec and competitive courses were the same. I had them correct this. Otherwise he'd of been in 3rd place at the time. By trying to teach him to navigate today I probably took some enthusiasm out of him as evidenced during the course that this "isn't as much fun as I thought it would be".

West Point, NY. From the Round Pond recreation area, I jogged over to the start. I had missed my assigned start time already while taking Max around on the White course. I was worried that they might close the start before I got there. I felt awful plodding along. The hills felt the worst as I had a bloated and heavy feeling. It could of been related to some illness I seemed to be picking up. On Thursday had some nasal drip that I thought was just from increased pollen. By Friday and Saturday I was coughing and my voice was hoarse. It could also reflect being out of shape.

West Point, NY. I had a horrible start--I lost +9 minutes on #1. I moved okay and started walking on the steep part of the hill to the control. I suppose I was drawn a bit left by a Blue course runner but I felt I had a good handle on where I was. I followed an unmapped and parallel rut that from the map looked like it would lead me to the control but it took me much higher. Seeing 3 boulders in a line that looked like ones near the control, I went even higher. I flailed finding 2 other controls before dropping enough. I was off again to the left going to #2 but I corrected that without too much time lost. My route to #3 on the left side of the marsh, staying low, was not optimal but finally I hit a control. I started going straight at #4 but eventually came at it from the left side. I overshot #5 being a bit to the right but corrected well. I was well off the the left on #6 but corrected well again. I hit all the rest well except for the Go control. I was behind a Blue course runner and running faster than I could read the cabins--I was also thrown off by the dire warnings not to go through campground areas on pain of disqualification. The cabin area looked like a campground to me. Stopping, Jeff Shapiro eventually caught-up (I'd only caught and passed him at the previous control, and I had him in front of me as I sprinted to the finish past him. I found it very difficult to run through the rocky blueberries and sticks on the ground--my energy level was rather low.

West Point, NY. After a short nap and taking a much more leisurley walk to the start, I felt much better than I had in the morning. I decided to try out some new Ice Bug shoes that I got--they turned out to be fine with only a little less lateral stability. I got off to a sort of slow start, having oriented the map 180 degrees off and having difficulty finding the start triangle. However, I moved through the first 5 controls well. On the 6th, I took a poor route. Attacking from above off the buildings would have been better. I also got a little confused with the IOF trail symbol instead of the dashed black line that I'd seen earlier when getting Max through the White course. On #8, I missed the turn to the right and ran around the cliff. It was only a little bit slower. I hit #9 well but then I lost track of what I was doing. Instead of going to #10, I started to fixate on #11. I couldn't make sense of the map because I had left #9. After crossing a trail on the way to #11, I relocated but never realized I missed #10 until looking at splits with Jeff Shapiro when it was all over. I hit #11 okay but overran #12 when a woman in front of me headed that way. I figured it out. I was fairly clean going to the other controls. Since the sprint counted in the weekend 3 race total, my mispunch knocked me out from gettting an overall finish.

After getting back to the hotel, I went to the pool with Max and did some easy swimiming. When kicking against the wall to swim the very short length, my foot slipped and I slammed my arch on a concrete corner where there was hole in the side of the pool for a water filter. In the evening, I fell asleep early whille trying to do AP logging and I hacked phlem a bunch.

Middle Red - Splits