Training Log Archive: Nadim

Laurel Ridge XC Ski Area, PA. Warming-up on the Red, Green and Blue trails near the warming hut.

Laurel Ridge XC Ski Area, PA. Red Loop from the map sign near the warming hut.

Laurel Ridge XC Ski Area, PA. With Max. After a short loop, I also went back and forth watching Max and Alex do some sledding.

Laurel Ridge XC Ski Area, PA. I explored some of the side trails that I hadn't taken before. After lunch, I wore my heavy jacket and started to get warm toward the end.

From Northfield Rd., to the Bethesda Metro Station. With the van in the shop for maintenance, I had to ride in today. It was in the mid 20s F but I had a tailwind and I felt fine. With ice from melted snow in some places, I had to slow down sometimes.

From the Bethesda Metro Station to Northfield Rd. in the dark. I felt good. Even the cool air and headwind was invigorating.

Spinning while watching the end of Lost in Translation with Bill Murray. It was tricky reaching for multiple remotes after the movie finished to switch over to television. I kept a quicker pace than I had recently. It's so much more life-like riding on rollers than on a fixed trainer.

From Northfield Rd. to Custer Rd. to Park Ln. to Battery Ln. to Exeter Rd. to Moorland Ln. to Glenbrook Rd. to Wilson Blvd. to Aberdeen Rd. to Aberdeen Pl. to Garfield Rd. to Northfield Rd. The snow had just about stopped when I got going. The moon was poking through the clouds. I felt heavy from dinner. Combined with the 1 inch or so of soft snow that kept me sliding ever so slightly when I pushed back, I ran this pretty slow. It was nice to get out.

From Northfield Rd., to the Bethesda Metro Station with dropping Max off along the way. Max pedaled hard on the trail-a-bike and we got up hills fast. I had to slow him down as we approached intersections. It was around 26 F.

From the Bethesda Metro Station to Northfield Rd. with Max's trail-a-bike in tow, and in the dark. I took a detour to a few stores to drop off some flyers for the Patuxent 10K that QOC is sponsoring in February. It's a bit awkward maneuvering with the trail-a-bike in the downtown areas.

Event: QOC Wheaton Regional Park
 

QOC: Wheaton Regional Park, MD. Russ Damtoft set a course that kept us off the trails in the park. It was in the low 30's F so I got off to a quick start. Every time I run here, I have a longing for the map being brought up to the same standard as our LIDAR based maps. Most of my errors were related to map issues. Like many, I was too low going to #1, and #4. I got past #9 a bit thought I could have read it better. The new deadfall on the big hillside that the old campground used to be situated on didn't trip me up too much but it did make me more tired. My biggest error was going to #13. I came up a gully and was going attack off the top of it but once there, I was right next to a trail that was at least mapped 50m further west. Missing, I wandered for 3 minutes. I had some good runs as I encountered other orienteers. First, there was Tom Nolan at around #6. I ran a leg with Jon Torrance to #10, and managed to get there just ahead. That tired me out--my training log will show that I've not been training enough. After flailing at #13, I ran off and on with Dan Quinn and managed to finish just ahead of him. Overall it was a fair outing for me. Dealing with a poor map is a skill just like any other in orienteering and the best deal with it well. I was encouraged by being able to run through the course with my lack of training.

Wheaton Regional Park. I needed to pickup controls for Peggy's Greenbelt course setting so I waited and helped with control pickup at this park. After having already run, and cooled down, I wasn't looking forward to heading out again. At least I got to wait inside unlike the meet director and other volunteers in the cold wind.

After heading out, I realized that I'd left my compass in my van. I felt confident enough and thought it'd be good training so I didn't turn around. It helped having been in the park many times but trails had changes and deadfall on most technical part of the park added difficulty. I only missed on one control, a pit in which the control could not be seen until being right on top of it so I felt I did well. Going slower sure helps the accuracy. Two controls were water stops which adds time and gave me much needed exercise for my arms. The worst was having to stand around in the cold to untie the knotted controls with gloves on. My orienteering gloves are skin tight, waterproof, and not easy to pull off. When course setters use slip knots it works much better.

Red - Splits