Training Log Archive: Nadim

Warm-up jog to the North American Long Distance Orienteering Championships on the Double Duck Flats - East map near Cranbrook, BC, Canada.

North American Long Distance Orienteering Championships on the Double Duck Flats - East map near Cranbrook, BC, Canada. Today was a much better day for me. Even though I had qiute a few errors they were mostly small. I felt that I was reading the map much better through the legs. I still was off in the control circles a lot. There was a good bit of open field running too. The map today was 1:10,000 instead of the 1:15,000 on the Long course in the US Championships and that made a lot of difference (the map seemed to be printed better too). I finished in 13th place which was in the upper end of the M45 age group. My time was no where near comparison with Sergei Velichco's spectacular ~45 minutes but I had a good run in on the last 2 controls.

Long - Course 7 - Splits

Event: North American Orienteering Championships
 

Warm-up run to the start of the North American Orienteering Championships on the Double Duck Flats - West map near Cranbrook, BC, Canada. I got there just in time.

North American Middle Distance Orienteering Championships on the Double Duck Flats - West map near Cranbrook, BC, Canada. Today was somewhat disappointing for me. I made several small errors and one larger one. I kept my speed slow enough that I was reading the map and matching the features most of the time but on some of the longer legs with fewer features, I lost track and lost time. At times, I had trouble with estimating my distance and knowing the relative elevations of different features. Tim Parsons started behinid me and almost caught me at #4. I got out quick enough which usually leads to trouble for me. However, my reputation for errors seemed to have it such that he didn't follow me while I spiked the control--I guess I slowed down enough along the way. The terrain in the first half was often such with hills and rocks that I had to go slower anyway. My larger error came on the way to #6 while still trying to stay ahead of Tim. I used a trail but left it too early when I let myself get sucked off to a spur. When I got on track again, I got on the wrong side of a small ridge--the contour for the ridge itself was obscured by the control circle. There were other errors but the one that felt the worst was blowing the run to the GO control. I was a bit high and ran to another control. From there I focused on other tree groups and a spur in an open field. The control was to be on the spur and I ran along it but I got confused when I didn't see the control bags. There were 3 of them and right next to them were international flags on the run-in streamer. In my glance I confused the controls for international flags. I also was lining up with some other streamers that I though were leading to the finish but had been for roping off the elite start warm-up area. I hope to be better tommorow.

Walks between parking areas and the assembly area of the North American Orienteering Championships on the Double Duck Flats - West map near Cranbrook, BC, Canada. One leg of this was after my race when I went to collect Max from the child care area and Max rode my shoulders most of the way to the assembly area.

Middle - Course 7 - Splits

Cranbrook, BC, Canada. Though I've been in pools the last 4 days without logging it, I did enough treading water today to count it. I was in the pool longer, mostly spotting Max. He and I also threw a football to each other and that kept me moving. Max can throw pretty well but catching an object like that is still hard for him. Today was mostly a driving and taking it easy day. I think we got our gas siphoned out at our hotel.

Glacier National Park, MT. Starting off on the Trail of the Cedars, Peggy, Max and I hiked to Avalanche Lake on the Avalanche Lake Trail. We also went part way around the lake before turning back to return basically the way we'd come out. We went at Max's pace. He moved well the first 1.6 miles past rushing streams and interesting woods but as his blood sugar ran lower, Max got more and more disinterested. Complaints started arising such as "hiking is boring." Eating a Gu helped him plow on up. Once he got to the lake, he was full o energy as were we; though for different reasons. Max had a ball climbing on rocks and an extensive log jamb at the lake exit stream. Peggy and I were awed by the bowl we found ourselves in. With visible snow capped rocky peaks above, 4 major waterfalls plunged and sprayed their way down toward Avalanche Lake. It was unexpectedly windy with some white-caps on the water and the temperature was cool. It was often hard to believe that all the water we saw falling was coming from the snow fields we saw. The exit stream was over 10m across and a couple of feet deep. Toward the bottom, this stream squeezes into a gorge only 10ft. wide where the churning water carves shapes into the rocks. For accessible as this hike was, it sure was worth the effort. On the way down we saw the Riley family headed up.

Glacier National Park, MT. Trail of the Cedars. After a nice lunch on the shore of Lake McDonald where I taught Max to skip stones, we drove further into the park and did a very short and easy loop. It was half on a boardwalk through marshy cedar forest with lots of deadfall. Because of the high water table, the cedars have shallow root systems and fall over a lot. In between being impatient waiting for Peggy and I (taking pictures and reading exhibits), Max worked on his Junior Ranger badge.

Glacier National Park, MT. After our first hike, we had a spectacular drive up the Going to the Sun Highway to Logan Pass which is on the Continental Divide. While moving or stopping on the drive we/I saw a black bear crossing a rushing glacial melt stream, dear, dozens of waterfalls, snow capped sedimentary peaks rising as much as 9,000 ft. in vertical differential, precipitous drops on the edge of the roadway, mountain goats, an old Bighorn sheep and sunny skies. At the Visitor Center at Logan Pass, Max and I had a snowball fight. From there, Peggy, Max and I started up the Hidden Lake Trail but the weather was changing rapidly, The trail was snow covered right from the start and it started off with having to cross through an icy slush puddle. Footing was slippery going up and we only had plain running shoes and sneakers (this was better than some foolish people heading up in flip flops). The air was cool and the sky got darker. We only got out a bit past a quarter mile before hearing the thunder. We had climbed quickly to around 6,800ft. before turning back. The return was fast and fun. Max and I threw more snow at each other and by the time we got past the slush puddle, we looked back at the clearing skies.

Camp Sekani, Spokane, WA. I ran/jogged up the steep hill to the start of the US Orienteering Sprint Championships.

US Sprint Championships at Camp Sekani, Spokane, WA. My feet were blistered and otherwise torn-up from the run yesterday. I did what I could to get them ready and wore trail shoes for this race--not my preferred choice for steep slopes with pine needles. I had an early start so the only person that I knew was on my course that I saw was David Yee. With the steep slopes I knew that errors would be costly so I ran cautiously. I felt I didn't lose much time for almost the whole course. I sometimes went to the wrong rock but always managed to stop near the control and find it quickly. A few times, I was standing right next to it and didn't see it as it was behind a rock or just hung very low. On a leg to a prominent cliff with a thicket (#10?) I got too low. At the end, I hadn't visualized a feature correctly. Instead of a man made wall (more like a dam that's high on one side and ground level on the other), I expected a cliff. I saw a cliff almost on the line so I ran toward it without seeing the control and had to come back.

Red Sprint - Splits

Fishtrap Lake, WA. Warm-up run from the parking area to the start of the US Long Distance Championships. I'd already missed my start time since I was having split starts with Peggy and there was not enough time in-between. The scenery on the way to the start was rather nice. Had I the time, I would have wanted to come back to photograph the wild flowers. There were very nice yellows, whites and purples in good combinations with the rocks.

US Long Distance Orienteering Championships, Fishtrap Lake, WA. I had a tough day. I had a difficult time reading the map and the bifocals I brought along didn't help; they were fogged-up too much. I got way off course on the way to #2 and was slow to recover from the error. I started getting more into the map for a while but nearing #5, a fall into the marsh off a low dam seemed to mark another change in effectiveness. I landed safely but after that my wet feet were more prone to hurting. The basalt or whatever the predominant igneous rock type was kept me off balance. I don't usually get blisters but ended-up with nasty toe blisters and torn calluses. This slowed me but my poor accuracy in the rock detail had as much effect. At 1:15,000 (the map didn't have a scale printed on it, the course notes didn't say, but I found out later) I really needed a magnifier. I took a fall again in the course. Wierdly it was while running up some bare rock. This stumble ended with a sore right hand that's still sore as I write this many hours later. I did well sometimes but when I missed, I lost a lot of time. It was hard for me to tell what was up and down. I'm going to have to find better ways to read detail on maps now that my eyesight has degraded. I enjoyed the race but could have used more protective shoes too. Before going out, someone had warned me that typical O' shoes weren't a good choice for this map and that person was right.

Red Long - Splits