Training Log Archive: Nadim

Lake Frank Park, MD. Having the day off and it magically being nice and warm was a great way to end the weekend. I covered areas with much detail. There were lots of rough open clearings--odd shaped and often linear and parallel. I went over an area with much more open woods too though I managed to find a few thorns there too. There were lots of rock features to map though a disappointing number of the larger ones seemed to coexist with green or thorny vegetation. I saved a steep hilly slope to finish the day with. Dehydrated, it tired me out a lot. Even the open slopes of this area had to be carefully trod upon since the leaf cover would sometimes slide out from under me. It was a pretty nice day. As much of a challenge as it was to field check, it'll be an equal mental challenge to translate it all to the map. My GPS tracks alone (mostly vegetation boundaries and cliffs) totaled close to 3 miles. My knee was hurting much of the day; either from the run yesterday or the change in weather.

Event: QOC: Meadowood
 

QOC: Meadowood SRMA, Fairfax County, VA. I wasn't really sure if I was going to this event until I woke up a bit late in the morning. It was nice to have slept in after a busy week. In the night, I'd woke up with a cramp in my right hamstring. My thanks go to Kris Beecroft who, working the meet, agreed to watch Max for me when I started my run since Peggy was still out. I felt tired starting out on the course and trudged on that way for a while. I started well but in the early loops where there were lots of immature trees and small branches, I made two bad errors. Part of it wasn't being used to the 15ft. contours which also were not quite as sharp as I would have expected. I screwed-up too of course. I got control codes and control numbers mixed up when leaving #3 to go for control 4 which was code 103. I ran out like I was leaving control #4, perhaps because the 4-5 leg was a parallel route or because control #5 was code #104. Figuring this out after a little while I recovered from the error somewhat poorly. I made a mess of going to #5 later as well. What I was seeing in the woods and what I seeing on the map wasn't matching. I had to use the catching trail and line-up with the start area which was nearby the trail. I slowed my running and things got better.

Going on the long trail run leg to #12, I could have saved a lot of time by just sticking to the trail. I cut off some corners but one time I stumbled and aggrivated my right ankle which I'd hurt the day before. Losing my place, I turned up a reentrant far too early in the vicinity of #20. I corrected running high but was tiring. I ate a Gu and things got better again. I think the vastly more open woods had a lot to do with that too. The rest of the way, my navigation was smooth but not perfect.

I thought Dave Pruden did a fine job with the course setting. I hadn't read the course notes prior to running and was surprised to see butterfly loops. They seemed to work pretty well for the mapped areas which was somewhat figure 8 shaped. I certainly had to keep reading and keeping on my toes. I look forward to coming back and perhaps doing better next time.

Blue - Splits

I placed controls out for an open house party which we had. Riding on my mountain bicycle most of the controls were on roads or around schools. A few were in woods on trails where some navigation was needed. Early on, I moved slow toward one intersection, looked left and looked right. As I started to cross, still clipped-in, a car came over a hill fast. I stopped and but unable to unclip for some reason, I fell over. The embarassment was bad enough but I also twisted my right ankle in a bad way affecting one tendon with a nasty sound. It hurt a bunch but I had controls to set out still and people coming within an hour. I got back on an was able to shake it off over the next 2 miles. Having not seen the actual course in the daylight, I noticed some mapping to fix. It also took a lot of time to loosen the strings for the controls which someone had meticulously wrapped.

I went out on bicycle after our party to pickup controls that I'd set out earlier in the day. We had fun at the party and hope everyone else did too! It was cold out while I was picking up controls and where wet the ground was freezing. I found a new trail in Ayrlawn Park and will just have to come back some day to map this and other things there properly.

I went out on my mountain bike in the drizzle late at night to do some field checking of a map that I'm making of my Bethesda nieghborhood. The new helmet mount for my light worked pretty good but needs some adjustment. The map will be good for bike-O and street-O. Perhaps some parts will be good for educating some of the local kids too. I noticed a few errors from my base work but I also was able to accomplish my primary objective of capturing a few dirt trails on GPS. Surprisingly, one area had a significant network of these along with boulders, rootstock and varied vegetation. Since it was starting to rain harder and rather late I didn't take detailed draft notes but it'll be enough to use until someday when I go there again to do a better job. It was pretty warm when I rode but the wind was starting to blow in some colder weather.