Training Log Archive: Nadim

From Cedar Ln., Max and I took paved the Rock Creek Trail north to the base of the hill on the hairpin curve (about a mile out) and then we returned. Samantha had come along too and was walking. It was a nice little run. Max and I felt out of shape.

From Northfield Rd Bethesda, MD., to Old Georgetown Rd. via Greenwich Park, to Johnson Ave. to Heamsteadt Ave. to McKinley Ave. to Garfield St. to Roosevelt. Ave. to Jefferson St. to Northfield Rd. This was the first time running in about a week. I felt tired.

Hoyles Mill Conservation Park, MD. From Hoyles Mill Rd. I checked areas between the road and the creek. Half of this area was rather nice and half was the opposite. The nice areas had a mix of man made and natural features on flat ground among long distinct and almost parallel ditches. There were confusing enough and the LiDAR just off enough that I'd confused the first ditch for the one next to it. I didn't really figure this out completely until getting a look at my GPS track at home, and comparing it with my notes. Other parts of the terrain had dense vegetation, thorny low vegetation or marsh. I found another well made tepee frame in a hidden clearing in view of the creek. I'd stopped my watch early and forgot to start it again.

This is really a continuation of my earlier entry today. The GPS track starts from where I'd realized my watch had been stopped. I made my way over to the western parts of the park but first got through some of the dense forest that I'd mapped the edge of earlier. I wanted to check if there was anything I was missing like and island of open forest with features. I'd found some of this in other places but there wasn't much. I emerged at a stream and I spent time aligning and checking the alignment of nearby point features, mostly boulders, that I'd mapped earlier. Getting further, I got to a part of the map that I'd stopped at earlier. I had been taking a vegetation track so I continued the edge. This was going well for a while but at some point, the defined edge gradually became undefined. I actually ended up doing a loop, but the loop was to the middle of the boundary, not a complete loop to where I'd started mapping the edge. Some of this seemed to me to be that this was the wrong time of year to be doing field checking. I'll probably have to wait until the leaves are off to get this fixed better. This area is one of several very tricky parts of the park that will be sure to confound people for years to come. I finished up jogging and hiking across the map but not reading the map along the way. I could recognize some features and places, but in one area, I went right through what i'd thought was one of the more distinct deadfall areas, without being sure I'd passed through. The next fall and winter will allow me to many of these kinds of things, if needed.

Hoyles Mill Conservation Park, MD. From the lake at the Soccerplex, I went out the power lines and mapped both sides of the western parts, up to the creek. I found that an area I had thought was all green, actually had some nice corridors of open forest in it. Further out, I also found more rock features among small patches of light green forest. The green parts made the area interesting, and will force those navigating to think through their routes. At the far western end, I updated the mapping of some large boulders that I'd mapped earlier, and then found some even larger ones. Three of them were what I consider gigantic. The largest was almost the size of a small house. while another looking precariously perched on a hillside over the creek, was only the size of a good sized garage. There was a pleasant boulder field further up stream. Few people probably get to these trail-less parts of the park though being near the creek and power lines, they weren't hard to find.