Training Log Archive: Nadim

Rocky Mountain Orienteering Festival. Medicine Bow, WY; near Laramie; Day 3, East Pelican Bay map. I went to the start with Max.

Rocky Mountain Orienteering Festival. Medicine Bow, WY; near Laramie; Day 3, East Pelican Bay map. This was my warm-up trip to the start.

Rocky Mountain Orienteering Festival. Medicine Bow, WY; near Laramie; Day 3, East Pelican Bay map, 7,850ft altitude. This Green course was fun and tiring. I had early trouble with #2--even afterward I was feeling like the control might have been in the wrong place. Unfortunately my GPS track never got started--I hit the start/stop button twice at the start without realizing it. I had trouble with #3 too--I somehow missed my attackpoint, a reentrant leading up to the ridge with all the rock detail. I wandered around on the other side of the ridge, turning the wrong direction initially, then coming all the way back and more. I realized where I was when I got back on top at the 3 trees in the field. I hit everything else on the course pretty well but got a little confused on the way to #11.

This was a walk to the start again, but with Samantha. We got there as they were packing up.

Rocky Mountain Orienteering Festival. Medicine Bow, WY; near Laramie; Day 3, East Pelican Bay map, 7,850ft altitude. I went out with Samantha on the White course. Since we'd gotten there late the first control had already been picked-up. As we started, Samantha got to punch it immediately, from the hand of one of the organizers who was doing the starts. We went through the whole course. Samantha didn't complain much and actually had wanted to do this. We saw a lot of other orienteers including Peggy who was not having a good day. My heel was hurting through most of this.

Ted Good finishing his Red course:


Samantha on the White course:


Peggy on the Green course:


Peggy on the Green course:


Samantha on the White course:

Western States Day 1 Green - Splits

Rocky Mountain Orienteering Festival. Medicine Bow, WY; near Laramie; Day 3, Middle, on the Granite Planite map — This was part of my warmup for the National Ranking Event. I started to walk to the start with Max and Peggy; but I’d left my camera. I jogged back to get it and then jogged to catch-up. Max was a first starter and ran Yellow. The terrain looked great! I would have taken pictures of him finishing but he came back so fast that I only had time to watch it. Max won his course.

Rocky Mountain Orienteering Festival. Medicine Bow, WY; near Laramie; Day 3, Middle, on the Granite Planite map — This was the second part of my warmup for the National Ranking Event. I’d started walking and realized that I’d forgotten my control description holder. I jogged back to get it and to get to the start.

Rocky Mountain Orienteering Festival. Medicine Bow, WY; near Laramie; Day 3, Middle, on the Granite Planite map — This was fun. I started pretty well spiking everything through 8. I may have started reading the wrong line going to #9 since I turned and went down a reentrant instead of moving straight to it as I had been. I figured it out going too far, after next turning the wrong way, and then slogging uphill to the right place--probably around a 2 minute error. I was doing well again after that but started to get tired or excited. I was right on at #17 and knew the control on the boulder in front of #17 wasn't mine. I went behind the boulder expecting to see the cliff but I didn't venture into the trees where the cliff was. Instead I cut right to 2 more boulders before coming back. I definitely was tired near the end as I was trying to catch-up to Greg Lennon about 10 seconds ahead--I read my own way but was hesitant. The depression was much deeper than expected. I sprinted in passing Greg and unfortunately, in the process, Greg re-aggravated a hamstring injury.

Medicine Bow Wilderness, WY. Starting at the parking lot on the West Lake Marie Trailhead, Peggy, Max, Samantha and I went past Lake Marie, Mirror Lake, and up to Lookout Lake. This was a very nice hike against the backdrop of Medicine Bow Peak in the Snowy Range. I'd been tempted to hike the circuit, an +11 mile hike with much more climb. That would have been too much for everyone after all the orienteering we'd been doing. We enjoyed the boulders and the lakes, snapping a lot of pictures along the way.

Middle Green - Splits

Rocky Mountain Orienteering Festival. Medicine Bow, WY; near Laramie; on the Rattlesnake Hill map. Day 2 — One-Cowboy Relay. Peggy, Max, and I each ran our own races today. There were 5 loops, Motala style. This format was done with a mass start which further encourages racing. My first 3 loops were all 1.3k. The 4th was just 300m and the last was 2.5k. The altitude was between 8,000ft ant 8,250ft. so all the climbing seemed hard. The courses were much more technical today. The last loop required the most skill. I saw Max a few times on my first loop. As I was going out on my 3rd he has going out on his 2nd. When I’d finished and had gotten some water, Max had just finished his 4th loop. He was resolved to finish and did so, mostly alone; few people were behind him. I never saw Peggy who’d started with the short fist loop. On my last loop there was a lot of exchanging of leads. Glen Tryson had started that loop ahead of me about 150m. Some RMOC people were near as was Charlie Shabazian. I finished in the midst of these people. I was most happy about never blowing a control today. Just 2 or 3 times I could have been a little more efficient with my routes. It was a fun and sunny day with temperatures in the 70 F range. After the race I could feel pain in my left heel area, like I had a couple of nights ago, but less severe.

Loop A Video

Event: 2018 Rocky Mountain Orienteering Festival
 

Rocky Mountain Orienteering Festival Medicine Bow, WY; near Laramie. Day 1 on the Lights of Cheyenne map. Max and I did the Red course together. The gentle climb at the start of this mass start race was hard. Max and I were out of breath. The altitude was between 8,000ft ant 8,250ft. We later walked almost all of the uphills throughout the course. There was a line of people leading us into controls up to #5. People such as Gary Smith, Kathleen Lennon, Sharon Crawford, Kean Williams, Chris Beecroft and more were near us a lot. Max had gotten a side cramp earlier which prompted more walking. It went away later. He did pretty well getting through the distance—though he’s gone farther, I don’t think he’s done this distance as quickly before. I went his pace and waited sometimes but my own condition is not that strong. I did the navigating but pointed out features along the way to help him learn. The few places I may have lost us time were probably at #4 and perhaps at #5. Everything else was spiked. I needed a bathroom early on, and Max needed water earlier than control #10. It was fun being in this open terrain again and to be able to run and finish. My back held up well. Both of my feet were tingling and sort of numb, more than has been the case.

Rocky Mountain National Park, CO. From the Old Trail Ridge Road, Peggy, Max, and I hiked up to Marmot Point. The dirt road up had lots of great views. In several places the road had been blasted out of sheer cliffs. There were many sharp drop offs right next to a gravel edge. The hike started steeply but didn’t seem too hard. Samantha made a fuss right at the start so we let her wait in the car. It was windy and cold enough to need a jacket. I wore pants too. We heard a siren and saw a helicopter while climbing. There were some marmots to be seen too. At the very top the wind was stronger but the 360 views were wonderful. We could see the Apline Visitor Center slightly below our elevation (somewhere around 12,000ft.). I was convinced that the view we got was much nicer than the one we’d have gotten from the high point next to the Visitor Center up the paved stairs.

After getting back to the car we saw a second helicopter go over to the Visitor Center and land. We had to wait in line 20 minutes just shy of it because they were using the parking lot for a landing pad. At the Visitor Center finally, we relaxed and got to some things. We never found out the reason for the emergency aircraft.

Rocky Mountain National Park. From the Trail Ridge Road, Max and I hiked to Mushroom Rocks and a little further. Peggy stayed with Samantha who was feeling sick. This was nice, but still very windy. We both felt the altitude climbing but not so much on the way down. Max, Peggy, and I had hiked this 4 years ago, just before we’d gotten Samantha from China.

On the drive down we saw 2 elk. 4 years before we’d seen a herd. We learned to find out that it was becoming more common to see the elk in Estes Park than the National Park. We ate lunch in Estes and Samantha felt much better. Of course w did more shopping. Samantha bought a stuffed dog.

Rocky Mountain National Park. From the Wild Basin Ranger Station to Calypso Falls and back. Earlier this morning we’d caught a flight to Denver I hadn’t slept much the night before at home but made up for it on the airplane. The hike was chosen since it was fairly easy and on our way in. Max and Peggy were strong but Samantha was seemingly tired right from the start. We figured it to be because she too didn’t sleep well enough. The dots shown in the GPS track represent most but not all the times we stopped to let her rest. She got belligerent sometimes and stomped off energetically up some hills. I was leaning towards thinking that she was just being obstinate instead of it being altitude related. An earlier comment about a headache was just a normal seeming comment from her, said without much emphasis. She ended up refusing to go further as Peggy and Max were already heading back—she was just 30m from being able to see the falls when she turned around with them. I stayed at the falls a long time before turning around. The way down seemed to be more vertical than it seemed on the way up. Still it was only about 600ft. I started feeling more pain from my back at the surgery incision area so I tried to walk softly. I was hiking in soft running shoes. The motion made it seem like I was getting a blister between my toes. I caught up to the rest of the family and made it to the car okay. The trail was nice though not spectacular. There were lots of smaller waterfalls and interesting rocks. It was popular.

In Estes Park for the night, Max and I played table tennis on on outdoor table. It was hard since even slightl winds affected the ball. The bending over to pickup dropped/missed balls was a little wearing on my back but it was nice being able to play this sport that I learned from my uncles, with Max.

At night after this, I woke up a lot. A couple of times it hurt a lot to put weight on my left heel. That largely subsided by morning.

Montgomery County, MD. From Cedar Ln. on the Rock Creek Trail, I went northward to the next point that the trail crosses Beach Dr., and then back. I'd taken Samantha with me; she rode her bicycle while I ran. Even with me taking it easy, she rides slower than I run. I helped her get up the one small little rise in the trail on the way out, but she did it on her own on the way back. Samantha remarked that this was fun not long after we got started. I enjoyed it too. It was in the upper 80s F. I felt a little better than when I tried running 2 days ago, but I also felt things to let me know I'm still recovering. It was also nice to be able to have the time to run--with work and other things going on when I'm not on vacation, it gets hard to do even simple things like this.