Training Log Archive: Nadim

Lake Bernard Frank, MD. For the first day of Spring, from Bauer Dr. I entered the park and finished field checking the last area that I hadn't been to around the lake. It was a nice day. I didn't see any hungry deer; perhaps they've been hunted out now. I did see a few birds of prey. One hawk squawked at me personally as I unbeknowingly walked underneath his perch atop a tree. Later I saw a bald eagle headed out over treetops and out across the lake.

After again finding much more detail than I'd anticipated in the last area to finish, I rechecked some of my earlier work south of the lake. I made some adjustments to earlier rootstocks and found a couple features that I'd missed before. I then went to areas that I'd field checked and drafted SW of the lake last July. The vegetation was much more passable today and I found several good sized boulders that I'd missed before. My technique at mapping vegetation and other things has improved a lot over the year so I was able to improve upon the mapping of a tricky hillside that I kind of gave up on before. I rechecked some cairns that I'd mapped earlier too. A few cairns were really too small to be worth mapping so I removed them from the map. I guess I'd been a bit too happy to find them in some great open woods before. For the other cairns that I got to, I spent some time improving the stacks of rocks. Under one rock that I lifted I found the biggest spider that I can ever recall seeing in the wild--almost the size of my palm. What he was doing out at this time of the year when there are still freezing temperatures had me almost as curious as why he was in these woods at all. All of the work today took longer than expected.

It is satisfying to now have the big and detailed Lake Frank area field checking done. I've been doing the drafting after every field checking session so the map of the area should only take a few more days to be ready :)

C • Huge spider 4

From Northfield Rd., Custer Rd. to Wilson Ln. to Glenbrook Rd. to Bradley Blvd. to Kennedy Dr. to Dorset Ave., to the Capital Crescent Trail, to the Little Falls Pkwy. to Bradley Blvd. to Huntington Pkwy., to Irvington Ave. to Roosevelt St. to Jefferson St. to Northfield Rd. With Peggy back home and watching Max at the playground, I squeezed in a pleasant run in the neighborhoods around home after work. It was in the 50's F but felt cooler. I started a bit slow and improved more as I went along. Instead of making it a clean figure 8 loop, I added on at the end to get to 35 minutes. The hills were mostly long grades. The cherry trees along Kennedy Dr. didn't yet look like the ones around the D.C. Tidal Basin that I saw on my lunch walk. A few of the ones downtown had buds with a petal or two showing.

With it being somewhat rainy during the daytime, I chose not to try to run at work. With Peggy out on a rare work trip, I had Max duty in the AM and PM. He and I got our haircuts and ate out. Later I just did some spinning.

From Northfield Rd. to Maple Ave. with Max in his trailer, then to the Bethesda Metro Station via the Georgetown Branch tunnel. I considered riding all the way in to work this morning but it was a bit foggy and in the 40's F.

From the Bethesda Metro station to Maple Ave., then to Northfield Rd. via the Georgetown Branch Trail. Once out of the downtown Bethesda area, I had a bit of a tailwind. I carried my gym bag with clothes from the day before in the trailer.

From Northfield Rd. to Greenwich Park to Old Georgetown Rd. to the Bethesda Trolley Trail at Charles St. to the Capital Beltway bridge and back. After arriving home on bike I figured that Peggy and Max had gone to the playground. I changed quickly and got on the road and saw them in the park, then went on. I figured that I could use more running and with Peggy gone the next day and a half, I'll probably not be able to run then. On this run I felt a bit sore from running the day before. My right hamstring and right bicep were both hurting a little. I was 13:04 at the turnaround (1.78 miles) so my return with a little more climbing was a little slower.

From the Silver Spring Metro Station, Colesville Rd. to 2nd Ave. to Hanover St. to Warren St. to Brookville Rd. to Stewart Ave. to the Georgetown Branch Trail to Woodmont Ave. to the Bethesda Metro Station at Edgemoore Ln. With some rest I felt much better than I had been feeling when running lately. A stranger encouraged me on as I was climbing away with a smooth gait up and away from Colesville Ave. and the encouragement never hurts either. The fact that the sun had come out in the evening after being cloudy the last 2 1/2 days helped too. I was pretty smooth throughout the run and I haven't done that for a while. I wore sweats and took off the top on the run. It was just right. I also carried some minimal necessities to get back to work with tommorow. I was able to record some half mile splits most of which were on the uphill grades: 3:39, 3:46, 3:52 (a bit over a half), 3:46, 3:43. It's nice to have the option to run in places like the Georgetown Branch Trail which is mostly bluestone cinder surfaced and tree lined but alas, the planned Purple Line, a light rail/street car, is to be built here one day when governments have money again.

Event: QOC: Wheaton
 

QOC: Wheaton Regional Park. While Peggy ran the Red course, Max and I walked and jogged the White course. There was some slight rain at times. Max's concentration is still not really on the map but he enjoyed the running and walking. He has a lot of competitiveness in him. He was able to plan legs between controls when I emphasized it. He did tell a few others that we saw that he was learning to read the map and I think he genuinely did. While going through the course, I did find some features which could have been added to the map including a nice sized boulder off a paved trail.

Warm-up between toilets, the start, epunch registration and my parked car with some repetition due to forgetting to do various things like clear my epunch.

QOC: Wheaton Regional Park, MD. The course was fun and I did get to one area which I hadn't been to before. It was also one year ago when QOC held it's last Spring meet in the park that was the last straw for my knee before needing surgery. Today was much better. For the race last tune-up before the A-meet season begins, I did okay. The park is not that difficult and I'm fairly familiar with it. I was steady though a bit slow. The challenge was in keeping my concentration reading and running. It was good practice for that as well as for practicing good process and technique. I made a clear error on #1 by going more or less straight and being too high but the rootstock may have been off a bit. I was pretty clean through #12 but the mapping is out of date in the area of #13. I got hung up in some green there and had to go past the control and around it to come back to the control. There were a few unmapped features en-route there too. Going to the Go control, I made another error by being too high but I've wondered about the contours and placement of the trails on the map in the area too as they may have contributed to my problem. Some questioned whether the rootstock that the control was on was correct or not. It seemed to line-up with the building at the finish but to be sure, I would have to validate it without being in a rush to finish.

Red - Splits