Training Log Archive: Nadim

From Rosedale Ave., Pearl Ave. to the Capital Crescent Trail, to Massachusetts Ave. to Norwood Park via Willard Park and Dorset Ave. Hot and humid at 5:30pm after the thunderstorms. Available splits on the trail: 3:26, 6:47.

QOC Summer Short Series at Norwood Park, Bethesda, MD. Peggy setup a memory training event. I must admit having my pre-event doubts about the worth of the exercise but after doing it, I found it useful. Eddie Bergeron, the only other person to come despite the thunderstorms earlier in the day, and I took turns. We each had a map with controls marked on it about 35m away up a short grassy hill. Running quickly to it we memorized a control location and then ran back down the hill to an identical map that had no controls. We then drew the control on the map. Round trip including marking the map took me 34-49 seconds. We did about 25 of these. As I got increasingly tired, my ability to remember the location got more difficult. I had to take longer to memorize the location noting clue description types of features. When control locations were in highly technical areas, I also tried memorizing routes from more obvious larger features. Total time includes rest while Eddie was running.

45 situp after dinner w/Peggy.

Wyandotte Lake Park, KS. After a few days of being off-the-wagon (is not working out the addiction or is it the other way around?) I needed a cleansing run. With just enough time to do so before my flight back, I looped the lake counter-clockwise stopping once for a bathroom and water. The 95F weather, the 100-200ft. continuous rollings hills (one of Spike's secret training grounds) and keeping a good pace drenched me. Available mile/half-mile/other splits: 3:48, 3:18, 3:26, 4:01, 11:07, 3:29, 3:55. The high variance reflects the climbs and downhill segments.

Overland Park, KS. The Operations manager chocoholics I work with who came to this meeting bring one 5 lb. bag another 2 lb. bag and a Tupperware cake holder full of cookies to our all day meetings. I wimped out after the meeting watching TV and eating dinner instead of running in the heat. 45 situps in the hotel was all I did.

45 situps. I'd intended a light day but not this light--got busy at work.

From Davidsonville Elementary School in Anne Arundel, MD, to Deale, to North Beach to lower Pindle Rd., and back to Davidsonville. I had fixed my front derailer prior to the ride only to find that I'd 'fixed' the wrong piece--it had failed two miles out thus locking me into my front middle chainring the rest of the ride. The cable sheathing was what was failing, not the cable slipping at the derailer. Oh well. The lack of higher gears forced me to keep a good cadence and take rests going downhill--when commuting it seems the graded or flat trails never let me get a break so today was nice. My cycle computer worked only half the time too--the radio signal appears to be getting blocked by the brakes. After starting, my stiffness went away after a while but my legs were still sore and often weak when climbing. The lack of miles riding really is showing--Normally if I were training for a ride across a state like I did in the years just prior to restarting orienteering, I'd have done this ride 2-3 times in the spring and had a lot more harder ones under my belt. Chuck and Gail's guide book rates this a II out of V and July had previously meant only V's on long weekend jaunts. This is a good start. I enjoyed the smooth roads, shady lanes, view of the Bay, the downhill curves and even feeling spritely on a few climbs. I drank a little too much Gatorade at one stop and got a stomach cramp. I added onto the standard ride by taking a wrong turn at Mallard and Lower Pindle Rd.

Broad Creek Park - Annapolis H.S., MD. I mostly checked control locations for the July 23 Sprint B. Along the way I did field checking noting many things to update on the as yet unused map. I'm not sure if the mappers were just not of the same caliber as our previous vendors or if they just didn't map at 1:5,000 scale. Among the many things, corrected, I made notes to add a major trail, two bridges and a real boulder just off a trail that was missing. I updated vegetation in some areas where it will matter more but there's not time to make it consistent throughout the map. There were a couple of deer flies near the water but it wasn't as bad as the week before. I think the worst of them has past.