Training Log Archive: Nadim

I did some spinning while watching television. I didn't feel very strong.

45 situps. I stayed up too late playing with Max's Legos. Max wanted a tractor trailer truck and I accomodated his request. I never had legos when growing up so it was kind of fun to use it as a new art form...

I was spinning pretty well while watching television.

From the Friendship Heights Metro Station, Western Ave. to Friendship Blvd. to Willard Ave. to N. Park Ave., through Somerset Park, to Warwick Pl. to Dorset Ave. to the Little Falls Trail, to Hillandale Rd. through the Bethesda Pool parking lot, to the Capital Crescent Trail to Bethesda Ave. to Woodmont Ave. to the Bethesda Metro Station. This was a slowish generally uphill run after work in the dark. I wasn't feeling used to running at night or running much at all. It took a long time to start feeling warm. It was supposed to be right around freezing but winds were reported to be 15mph. Though I was often sheltered, I was generally running into it.

I was going to run around The Mall at work but thought better of it. It was partly because I was feeling cold in my office and I knew it was coldish outside. I'd also walked around at lunch and saw lots of tourists moving around between the trucks doing clean-up of the Inaugural celebrations. I've seen the aftermath of many, many celebrations such as the big Forth of July's, the Million Man March, Pro Choice and Right-for-Life rallies (but not the farmer tractor protest). This one had the most impact on The Mall. I saw grass in all the usual places last week but mostly it was gone, not just flattened but with bare dirt visible over vast stretches. It was hard packed and flattened too so if you rolled a ball, it would go a long way. It was all the more remarkable since it was not muddy, the ground was a bit frozen and there was no summer heat to kill things. The dirt was visible as far as I could see from the Washington Monument to the Capital building. Some participants that I overheard talked about it being so packed with people that if you sneezed and moved your arms it would send waves through the crowd. They said there was a lot of pushing but that people didn't seem to mind.

Lake Bernard Frank, MD. I continued field checking areas north of the lake and on the east side of North Branch Creek. I checked my drafting of some areas that I covered last Saturday and got to some new terrain too. I found more scattered clearings and more white woods than I expected. There were a few old barbed wire fences too. The light snow from the day before hadn't melted at all. I haven't been able to find my Goretex hiking shoes and I should have worn thicker socks with my trail shoes. My toes got cold enough to lose feeling and I didn't know they were a little wet where the snow melted on top of my shoes. As the day ended I got back across the creek on some frozen water and a snowy tree trunk. Earlier in the day I'd pulled a muscle or something on the left side of my back. Lying down and napping for a while helped that enough for me to feel good enough to go after the seeing the Inaugural Invocation on television.

Greenway Trail, Riffleford Rd. to Rte. 118 and back. It was snowing lightly through out the run with about 1/4" on the ground. This section is fairly flat though it very often rises and falls a few feet. Part of it had been relocated to higher ground, behind and higher than a cliff, since I last ran it. The trail is on a small flood control dyke a lot of the time. The narrow dyke is so old that there are some very large trees right in the middle of it in a few places. The snow made these areas slippery enough to warrant caution where the trail dipped to go around. It was a fun run and reminicent of a run I did overlapping part of the same area that I did last year. That run was snowy too. I didn't feel very strong today. I was 21:49 at the turnaround so at least I got a negative return split. The only wildlife I saw were some ducks and a Great Blue Heron. I saw a father and son hiking and someone on the other side of the creek on the pipline ride. Other than that it was much solitude. I made the first footprints on the new snow.

After my run, Peggy dropped Max off at the Germantown Indoor Swim Center so she could have a turn. Max and I played bunch on the slides and in the water with the snow visibly falling fast outside the windows. Relatively few people were there. Though in the pool for an hour, I actually treaded water and swam for much less time. I could feel my arms working.

Meadowside Nature Center Area, Lake Bernard Frank, MD. As Peggy finished her run, Max and I went for a short hike. Though it was Sunday, the nature center was closed. Max and I looked at the caged (and injured?) raptors first. The bald eagle there was chirping like he was hungry as we approached. A falcon was eating a partly frozen mouse. Later on the trail we saw a free falcon flying through the tree tops. Max started out fast, hardly seeing the raptors. Spotting a man and his young, probably year-and-a-half old son on the trail, he wanted to pass as if we were in an orienteering race. We did. Spotting ice on the water below us, Max selected a trail that descended and we stopped for a while at the water edge. Max wouldn't stop for long because he was worried the other father son pair would pass us. We finished just about the time that Peggy finishe her run. When asked later during lunch, Max didn't recall seeing the bald eagle. Still later when watching the inaugural concert on television with Peggy in a part where they showed an eagle (and his caretaker) on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, he blurted out having seen an eagle on the hike.

Lake Bernard Frank, MD. From the Smith Environmental Education Center I first did re-checking of some areas covered on my last excursion. Most of what I had drafted earlier was good but I added some to it too. I saw a red fox (2nd day in a row). Crossing over North Branch creek at Muncaster Mill Rd. going south, I covered areas on the east side of the creek to the eastern border of the park. This area is rather thin but it had plenty of features (a smallish quarry, various boulders and cliffs, a derelict pickup truck probably from the 1940 era, and ditches, some fields. Some buildings in the fields seen in recent aerials and in county base maps were just about completely gone. The vegetation of areas covered today was generally more open and easier to map than my last outing. I got a late start so I didn't cover as much as I'd have liked to have done. It was getting dark near the end. I had to cross the ice laden creek in a shallow area. Though both feet had been in the water only one got wet. The air was in the 30's F with no winds.