Training Log Archive: Nadim

Event: QOC Balls Bluff
 

From the Lathrop E. Smith Environmental Education Center parking lot near Lake Bernard Frank, trails along th creek to the Intercounty Connector (ICC) Hwy, then to the west side of the creek north of the ICC. From there, I wandered the trails amids the scattered trees, pipeline and forest. The big field with the scattered trees is essentially rough open ground that's undergoing succession. Most of the woods that I was in were pleasant enough and were going through successionary transition too. The scrubby bushy trees were giving way to hardwoods. Deer must have been keeping the understory clear; I saw several of them. I recorded the trails in and out of the trees on my new GPS watch. Many of the grassy trails were intermittant. They hadn' been mowed in a long while and were not that fast to run through. A pipeline ride was more clear than the rest. I hadn't expected to go this far but I kept coming across trails that seemed worth checking out. In my wanderings, I found another tunner under the ICC. Perhaps it'll help me in my quest for a northwest passage between Lake Frank and Lake Needwood. It wasn't clear if the tunnel put me into private land south of the ICC or not. There were a lot of horse jumps there. I did find a rather pleasant set of woods with some nice scattered boulders. I aim to get this area mapped one day. Access to it coud be difficult but it would be reachable by Blue course runners from Lake Frank, or for doing some longer events. After getting back home and having drank some, I weighed 169.5 lbs.

From Northfield Rd. to 12th and C Street, SW, Washington, D.C. It was cool--50 F when starting out. Although not evident for a while, it turned out to be fortunate for there to have been a tailwind. It was most evident approaching and after passing Georgetown. I had caught one guy who like a different person earlier picked-up the pace when he realized I was behind him. I lost him as we slowed then accelerated to get around other riders. Another guy passed me and I let him go. My legs felt okay but certainly were a bit tired from the run the night before.

From 12th & C St. SW, Washington, D.C. to Northfield Rd., Bethesda, MD. I had been concerned about having to ride into a headwind all the way home since I had a nice tailwind for much of the morning ride. I started slowly enough that it wasn't a big factor. It did keep me slower going to Georgetown but wan not felt a lot elsewhere. It ws 73 F. A guy from England, now working with the USAF caught-up and we rode most of the way to Bethesda together, chatting side by side. It got increasingly difficult with lots of other cyclists and pedestrians out. We were both happy not to have to push and race home. I was feeling a bit tired as the other guy broke away without trying when we crossed the River Rd. bridge. I caught-up again but he turned off to go up Kennedy Rd.

From Northfield Rd. to the Bethesda Metro Station.

From the Reston Town Center in Virginia, to the W&OD Trail, to the Water Caffi Fields in Vienna, to Center St. to Dogwood St. to Cottage St. to Kingsley Rd. to Nutley St. to Virginia Center Blvd. to the Vienna Metro Station. After an evening with my sisters and mother I relaxed with a nice quiet run commute. I started it about 35 minutes after eating dinner on a coolish 64 F night. My sisters thought me to be rather reckless and crazy to do this, espcially because they consider it dangerous to be on a trail at night. I believe the quiet trails to be rather on the safe side for a guy at least--it's too much work for criminals to get to and hang out in dark cold remote places. This part of the W&OD Trail is pretty quiet but with it being a former railroad grade it is fairly straight and easy. I ran on the cinder track at first but it was too dark to see some ruts so I reverted to the smooth parallel pavement. In Vienna, I did turn too early so I had to improvise my way to the Vienna Station. I would have ended up with a longer run to the Dunn Loring Station if I hadn't crossed paths with another runner who got me pointed in the right direction again.

From the Bethesda Metro Station to Northfield Rd. Riding back to Bethesda on the Metro train from Vienna was interesting. It's definately a different crowd. There were some loners but most were either paired up, in a crowd, or coming back from a crowd. It was definately date night and there were some tired and some almost sad looking faces. On my bicycle ride home I even happened to interupt one kissing couple as I passed their suburban corner parting. My sister made me text a check-in after my commute from Reston.

45 situps. With it raining fairly well outside and feeling tired lately, I thought it best to rest.

From the Grosvenor-Strathmore Metro Station to Tuckerman Ln., to Rockville Pike to Beach Dr. to the Rock Creek Trail, to the Kensington Pkwy. to Connecticutt Ave. to the Georgetown Branch Trail to Woodmont Ave. to the Bethesda Metro Station at Edgmoore Ln. I was mentally tired after work. Starting out on the run, it was downhill for most of the first mile. I cruised to 6:56 for the first mile--I had discovered that my replacement GPS watch was preset to auto-split every mile (now I know what that periodic buzzing was during the race on Sunday). I must have very gradually slowed. I didn't notice going from feeling cold at work all day and on the metro train, to sweating a bunch on the +70 F but humid day. The pavement was damp and felt slippery in a few places. I never felt that tired while running but it was probably a good thing that I didn't do a longer run as I had contemplated earlier in the day.

From the Bethesda Metro station to 12th and C Street, SW, Washington, D.C. Seeing a decent weather forecast and needing a cross training day I collected my bicycle at the station (left there on Friday) and rode in. I caught one guy not long after he'd gotten on the trail, and when he passed me back, I just kept my steady but still not easy pace. One other guy passed me just before getting to Georgetown. There were headwinds just about the whole way and it was in the upper 50's F. Rounding a person on the trail, I got a bug in my eye and couldn't get it out the last few miles.

From 12th & C St. SW, Washington, D.C. to the Bethesda Metro Station, MD. I started out with some headwinds until I rounded the Jefferson Memorial, then I had pretty nice tailwinds up to the Dalecarlia Reservoir. I had been spinning nicely and passing people until one guy went past. Without really trying, I caught him again going up the hill. As I had closed, I had to sniffle my nose and that was enough for him to pickup the pace. I was going to pass and pull but I didn't feel obligated with the pace quickening; I was just hanging on anyway. My time is estimated. I have to find and change the batteries on my bike computer. It was about 68 F.

Camp Shea, US Military Academy, West Point, NY. I jogged and then hiked to the start with Corrine Porter. It was pretty steep climbing to the start again but not as high as it was on Saturday.

Camp Shea, US Military Academy, West Point, NY. I ran the Red course for the Long event. It was great starting out spiking #1 and #2. The blueberry kept me from running too fast and I was able to read my way across the ridges, knowing when I wasn't hitting my intended path (due to vegetation or cliffs), and adjusting well. I took a high route to #3 and came didn't adjust enough. I spiked #4 and #5 running well to both. At #5, Vadim Masalkov and I converged. He took a higher route to my right while I stayed lower keeping out of the blueberries most of the time. I guess we got into racing each other rather than reading the map. passing through a narrow, we mistook our position to being much lower than we really were. Subsequently, we didn't recognize the massive mapped cliff for being what it was shown to be on the map. We didn't even know if we were going for the same control but managed to mess each other up enough for a +10 minute error. I went right to the control after correctly interpreting the cliff. After this, I got sloppy in that I didn't read the terrain as carefully, I overshot #7 and knew it from the marsh to minimize the error. I ran straight to #8 but coming off the road at the end, I went to the mapped boulder which was right on the circle line and didn't see that there were 2 boulders close. I did another loop in the wrong direction and hopped boulder to boulder till I found it--I just wasn't sure what had been mapped and what hadn't. Going to #9, I was off to the left but got confused by the mapping of the knolls--I thought I was reading one to be the correct hilltop attack point but I was wrong. When making my final attack off the road bend, and on top of the cliff, Sergiy Gnatiouk(?) kept asking me if I had found it. I honestly could tell him that I hadn't but I was less than 15 seconds away from it at the time (that cliff was longer than mapped). I was little hesitant going to #10 but hit that well. Having to backtrack out to get clockwise around the green for #11, I must have given away the control location for #10 to Sergiy again.

I was moving down it well but focusing on the chunky gravel so as not to twist an ankle. At the bridge, I stopped expecting to see the control before realized that it was only the water stop shown on the map. Sergiy Gnatiouk and Vadim passed me there as I was still confused. I followed Vadim up when I thought using the road might be better. Still confused and feeling tired I misinterpreted the contours, control, and building--I punched the wrong control without checking the code and went on. The map didn't make much sense for 30 seconds but when I saw the assembly area, I started feeling okay again. The last loop was technically easy but I was tired getting up the hill around the first half of it. I finished pretty well only to find out about the mispunch. In reality, had I done it correctly, my finish time would have been just about the same.

I felt okay about the day. It was a big plus for me to run well on the early technical controls and keeping contact with the map like that is what I need to remember to do.

I ate a few desserts after the race. I was rather nice to leave an A-meet and get home with enough time to do some much needed yard work. I found a tick bite on my right leg (large tick, not a small one). It hurt after pulling the tick out.