Training Log Archive: Nadim

Near Drumnadrichit and Loch Ness, Scotland: Peggy, Max, and I toured Urquart Castle today. This was a ruin on a site that once was a strategic crossroad. We paid to get in. I wasn't disappointed.

Near Uig, Isle of Skye, Scotland: Peggy, Max, and I hiked today. I think that this was one of the most scenic hikes that I'd ever done. We hiked The Quiraing, a popular trek near the northernmost end of the isle. The views started before we even got started hiking, during the treeless drive up to a saddle. The saddle was about 800 feet up but it seemed higher. For the first mile we didn't climb much. The trail weaved amongst rocky outcrops covered in lichens. We stopped a lot snapping pictures everywhere we looked. Max was amongst the worst of us for doing this (with his iTouch). I counted seven colors repeated over and over in the landscape. Green grasses appeared dominant until one gazed further. White lichens and waterfalls covered the grey and black rocks as the grey clouds covered the blue sky. A few purple heathers and yellow flowers would spice things up. It was windy but either at our backs going out or on the leeward side. The rocks were whimsical; often large spires or flakes that didn't look like they could have weathered that way naturally. Like the orienteering terrain we'd been running this week, shapes of ridges and depressions were repeated on a larger scale. Our return trip was shorter but took us quickly higher over the upper ends of the ridge (close to 2,000 feet in elevation). We eventually left the cliffs altogether walking on grass where the trail was flatter. The views were farther seeing but not as grabbing as the hike up was. I postulated that we just can't take in much more beyond a 2-3,000 foot elevation difference.

Near Uig, Isle of Skye, Scotland: For an encore, Peggy, Max, and I squeezed in another hike. This one was not far from the last but it was much lower. We wandered through Fairy Glen. There lots of unusual rock formations abound. There were a lot of strange conical stone and grass covered hills amongst other ridges streams with waterfalls, and a pond. Max charged up most of the hills while carrying his new wooden sword (from Urquart Castle). There were sheep and strange black slugs. On the ground people used rocks to form shapes or spell words. It was fun. Afterward, we had a nice dinner in Portree (3 kinds of smoked fish and a sweet potato soup for me). The drive across Skye both coming and going was really picturesque.

C • Falls of Glomach 6

Scottish 6 Days, Coulmony, Scotland, United Kingdom. Day 6: I walked and jogged my way from the event center to the Blue, Red, Green starts on the Coulmony and Belivat maps south of Nairn. I was trying to jog the whole way but so many people were heading there on the narrow trail that it was hard to get through. It was nice and comfortable weather in the 60's F.

Scottish 6 Days, Coulmony, Scotland, United Kingdom. Day 6: My hope for a better day today didn't really work out. With my early start (first on my course) I played it safe going to #1 a longer route on a trail and I spiked it. I did a similar thing for #2 and spiked it too. I navigated perfectly to #3 but because of there being too many control row on the clue sheet (30 plus road crossings) to fit in my long holder, I had folded my clue sheet and miss-read it. I moved past the top end of the spur and started hunting lower down before coming back. I easily lost 2 minutes.

The worst of the day was #4. It was a short leg but with the mapping (which I didn't like) it was deceptively difficult. Initially, I hugged the ridge that I'd gotten to #3 on. I didn't pace count but expected it on the other side of a knoll in a reentrant. The vegetation mapping led me to believe it to be near a clearing but I I'd didn't find it there. Eventually, I figured it was a ridge over, and lower. The ridges were rather small. I didn't find it on this ridge so I went back almost to #3. My bearing took me to where I'd been before. I next tried to go to a trail bend. I was still having trouble figuring out the bends even though I had no trouble using the same trail to attack #1 from. Eventually I figured it all out but I'd taken almost 17 minutes on a 2-3 minute leg. Even when leaving #4, the trail bend I had wanted to use to attack from was much farther away than I'd expected.

Missing #4 affected me getting to #5. I missed a trail intersection right away and rashly decided to go on anyway. I walked much of the way trying to make sense of the contours. When I'd reached the ridge it was near, I was fortunate to turn right and get to the control quickly.

After these misses, I started hitting controls again. I ran with better confidence but I was too tired to run well. My fatigue was the sum of a long week. At the road crossing, I only paused for a short while though I had up to five minutes. I also missed the next real control for another minute loss--I didn't really like the placement in the middle of a long spur that I had to climb to. I pretty much hit all of the rest. I somehow managed to run hard from the Go control. This was another humbling day for me but I had enjoyed the Scottish 6 Days. The events were really well run. The terrain was overall really technically challenging--we have nothing like it in Maryland or Virginia that I've seen except perhaps Bear Island in Great Falls, MD where we are no longer allowed to race or train for environmental reasons.

Scottish 6 Days, Forres, Scotland, United Kingdom. Day 5 on the Roseisle map on a military base. I jogged from the assembly area on the sand trails to the start. The forest looked pretty good in most places. Along the way I caught up to Peggy so we jogged the last 3/4 mile together. We passed Bill Langton and his son Ben along the way. They had just called Bill's name before he arrived but he got to start on-time. I was already thirsty before starting and the organizers had announced at the beginning of the entire event that there would be no water on the courses or at the finish. I was also concerned about the pain I was feeling from the heel blister I had gotten earlier. I'd replaced the Compede protection and had it centered better than it had been yesterday but it hurt on the harder ground such as trails.

Scottish 6 Days, Forres, Scotland, United Kingdom. Day 5 was a tough day for me. The terrain was great. there was a lot of detail and the footing of mostly pine needles on packed sand was soft on the foot. I started well using the detailed 2.5m contours with form lines. I didn't feel bad about executing any of the legs through control #11. My beach route to #4 was slow but that was due to some hesitation leaving the beach (I left it at exactly the right spot with little to clue me but my bearing was off).

On control #12 I left #11 too quickly without seeing the trail route to the left. I guess I had confused the straight second trail for a form line. Going fairly straight, I pulled up too quickly at the first set of hills after a major trail crossing. I convinced myself that I had gone past an intermittent trail without having seen it so I searched for a long while. Even after moving on, I hunted too high before finding it. I lost about 10 minutes on this leg. I got back on track for a while, not perfectly clean but almost until control #21. I took the shortest route going straight instead of following the trail over the ditches. I was already not thinking well as I attacked after the first ditch. Fatigue was wearing on me. On #22 which should have been an easy control in a clearing, I think there was a slight map problem with a triangle of wood not ending on the map where it did in reality, I went to the wrong knolls and wandered back and forth much more than I would have.

I lost 8 minutes and 5 minutes at #25 and #26. I thought I was aiming off to the right on #25 but I missed to the left. I was again far left going to #26, so much so that I hit the trail and had to come in and backwards a little. I was really just drained at this point. Having water on the course would have really helped. The vegetation was high in the area of #26 and I had taken to walking.

I forced myself to trudge on after these areas an I was able to run better into the finish as I spiked the last few controls. I made some big errors and took too long figuring them out today. I hope to be better tomorrow outside of the sand. My early start won't help a lot as others may have elephant trails to follow. Today there were few elephant trails since the footing was pretty good. It'll be the biggest physical day measured by traditional distance and time standards tomorrow too.

Near Nairn, Scotland, United Kingdom. Day 4 of the Scottish 6 Days on the Loch of Boath map. I warmed-up jogging from the assembly area to the Red course start area.

Near Nairn, Scotland, United Kingdom. Day 4 of the Scottish 6 Days, was on the Loch of Boath map. This map looks like terrain on the east coast of the USA, but the ground is very different. There were many tufts of grasses as well contour detail that wasn't. It was raining steadily throughout my run. I blew the first control so badly that I didn't realize it until I was past #2. Unlike earlier all week at 1:7,500, the map today was 1:10,000. I had trouble with distance through out the course. I was anticipating seeing a fence shown on the map, less than half way to #1 but I never saw it. It was really mapped as a broken fence but must have been completely on the ground and hidden by the grasses. There appeared to be a lot of extra contour detail than the map indicated. I must have been left of where I expected but couldn't have been that far off. I came up to a control and ran on when I realized it wasn't mine. At the edge of a hill, I realized #2 was behind me and that the control I'd jus seen was #2. I ran back to it and used it as an attack point to find #1--that was a 5 minute error out of the start. I lacked confidence in being able to read the map after that. I hit the next few controls well and there were elephant trails much of the way for these. I out-smarted myself by changing route plans between #6 and #7. I ended up going through some green with lots of narrow deep ditches, then mistook my location when coming out resulting in attacking too early. After correcting that, I headed to #8 well enough. At the end I mis-interpreted a marsh for what looked like dense low vegetation mapping. There was significant low vegetation in the area and also some distinct dense trees that I passed through neither of which seemed to be mapped. I lost another 2-4 minutes figuring this out. After that, there were some easier controls. I hit them well and regained confidence. I went at controls harder the last half and hit all of them pretty well. A lot of the total climb was in the last third of the course and I ran this pretty well considering my lack of training. I raced a few legs with various people on the last third and came out ahead of them. It was all too little to make up for my early errors. My salvations were having run well through most of the course, and having used Compede for protection where I'd gotten a heel blister over the last few days.

After the race, we went with other QOC friends to Cawdor Castle, touring the inside and the formal gardens. The grounds apart from the formal garden were used in a previous Scottish Six Day event.

Foyers, Scotland, United Kingdom. For our day off from the Scottish 6 Days. Peggy, Max, and I went for a short hike. First we had to drive to the start area. The drive itself once past Inverness was quite spectacular. We'd taken a wrong turn that put us in wonderful treeless parts of the Cairngorm highlands, just on the south side of Loch Ness. The hike descended quickly to a beautiful waterfall which fanned as it hit a rock on the way down into a hidden deep gorge. We got several views on the way down. We eventually got to the shores of Loch Ness where Max and I skipped stones. A tour boat passed by. As Peggy and I were ready to go several minutes later, the waves from it kicked up on the shores and Peggy and I explained to Max that the Loch Ness Monster was getting mad so he'd better stop throwing stones. There was just enough denial in his voice and in his question about it later that I knew we'd achieved the desired affect. The hike back up was easier than I had thought it'd be. Eating lunch at a small cafe above the falls, I thumbed through a book detailing the creation of the great hoax of the Loch Ness monster. I thought about the other great hoaxes of the world.

Scottish 6 Days, Forres, Scotland, United Kingdom. Jogging trails on the Culbin map from the assembly area to the start.

Scottish 6 Days, Forres, Scotland, United Kingdom. Day 3: I was better prepared for another day in the sand dunes both from the experience of the last 2 days and just from having everything ready early as I made my way to the start. Still however, my stomach didn't feel settled. The Culbin map is a favorite of many who've been there before. It is unusual with large flat and fairly open forests and many scattered small sandy knolls. The ground is covered in heather and thick moss. One could not tell how far down a footstep would go. I thought that I'd step up on mound at one point and as my foot sank deeper than I was stepping up from, I fell right over. The long jog to the start and the first leg made it clear to me that using trails and roads would be helpful. On the long second leg, I did just that running extra distance and having a quicker than average split. I caught Bill Langton at control #3. I pulled up short by one reentrant for #4 and made a 2-3 minute error. I just didn't see the earlier micro but distinct reentrant on the map when running but it was there. I hit the next 2 controls well and passed Bill a second time on the way to #7. However, I was off to the right little bit. bill was not so he punched ahead of me again. I headed to the ocean to get to #8, moving past Bill again. I was confused by seeing low grassy marshland and breaker dunes in the distance beyond where the edge of the map indicated water. It was low tide and the what was mapped was an inlet. I plunged into the forest in the right place for #8 but passed the control by only a few feet on my right behind a bush, while I looked to the left. That left another 2-3 minutes on the clock that I could have done without. I hit the next few controls pretty well, passing Bill for the last time at #11. From #11 to #15, I exchanged leads with another guy on my course. Making a slight error while attacking #15, the guy and two other teammates that I had seen at the end of the course yesterday moved ahead. I chased and caught one of the 3 by #17. There, the guy I'd been with since #11 made an error with a bad bearing. I got ahead of him for the last time there, then made up ground on the other faster teammate. Somewhere after hitting #18 using the roads and rides, was where I fell in a moss covered pit and started dropping off. The last controls were easier with rides leading into them and hordes of people going the same direction. I sprinted in pretty well but the footing was not good, and I was tired. My left heel had been hurting since #12 so when I stopped at the end, I started to feel the full extent of it. I rarely have gotten heel blisters before so this half dollar sized one turns out to be about the worst I've ever gotten before. I am glad that Wednesday is to be a day off. I thought that overall I had a decent race. The terrain was tricky enough in small areas that for someone of my experience, some mistakes could still be expected. Everyone said it was taxing which was another good reasons to be thankful for a break on Wednesday.

Scottish 6 Days, Forres, Scotland, United Kingdom. Jogging trails on the Culbin map from after the finish to the assembly area.

Scottish 6 Days, Nairn, Scotland, United Kingdom. Jogging from the assembly site to the start on the Carse of the Ardersier map. I rushed out too soon and forgot to wear both a control description holder and my eyeglasses.

Scottish 6 Days, Nairn, Scotland, United Kingdom. Day 2: Running on the Carse of the Ardersier map, I had a better day. It was much easier to read, even without my glasses. The sand dune terrain was more runnable than yesterday. Though the course said the climb was only 20m, there was much more up and down en-route. I was on target a lot and when I missed, I was able to correct pretty easily most of the time. I was slightly off to the left on #2 and paused at a parallel feature. Going straight to #5, I cut right at the trail up top instead of left to a trail junction attackpoint. I raced a few people along the way getting to #13 but there were a few people with me exchanging leads between #13 and #24. I made a mistake leaving #23 and compounded it getting to #24. However at 25, two club mates came along and they pulled me to #25. That control would have been tricky but there was an elephant trail the whole way--having a late start pays in an event as big as this. the same two stayed ahead of me for 2 more controls but going for the Go control, i was able to pass one. I sprinted the run-in well. The overall course distance got me tired. The bad thing was that I developed a rare heel blister on my left foot. I think that comes from my o-shoes. The first time that I wore this pair of Ice Bugs, was in the Billygoat and I got a hot spot then.

Event: Scottish 6 Days
 

Lossiemouth, Scotland, United Kingdom. Max and I warmed up I together going to the starts of the Scottish Six Days Max had been very concerned after having a tough time amongst the sand dunes in Findhorn yesterday. He wasn't feeling ready to go out and run without any shadowing for the first time in competition, and in a forensic country. It took a lot of convincing to get him to go out at all. Even when emerging from the portable toilets that we both went to, he was in tears having waited for me and being unsure where I was. Our starts were in separate places and we both had similar start times. We'd planned to have Max walk the last part separately but I knew I'd have to take him all the way. This calmed him down a bit. He was able to face his fears and get going. I was proud that he did. I jogged back to my start afterward and was easily able to get a new start time. Overall it was a bad result for me but I had fun running again.

Scottish 6 Days, Lossiemouth, Scotland, United Kingdom. For Day 1, I started well enough. I probably only lost 30 seconds through the first 12 controls. That part of the course was easier and I was fresher. After that, wet eyeglasses from heavy rain kept me from reading the fine detail even at 1:7,500 scale. I also got flummoxed by too many unmapped trails. I attacked poorly. Eventually back at #12, I hit #13 by walking on a bearing. Taking what I thought was a safe route to #14, by trail, I attacked from a distinct U-shaped trail bend only to miss again. I think the trail was mapped incorrectly because where I found the control did not line up with the trail bend. I fell going to #15 and wasn't moving so good afterward--mostly that was just lack of physical training, not the fall. An older foreigner was moving better but I picked up the pace. My attack on #17 was premature. I left a trail at an unmapped bend and wandered around in some green for a while. I started to run hard after the Go control after a younger woman put her epunch in right in front of me. Though I was gaining, I thought that I should back off to save energy for later.

Dunnottar, Scotland, United Kingdom. Peggy Max and I explored the Dunnottar Castle ruins. It was bright and sunny. The scenery was awesome. It's not every day that one sees a castle on a huge rock overlooking the ocean. We explored the many buildings, including a dungeon used where religious/political differences prompted rebellion. The fate of those persecuted was pretty horrible. It made the castle all the more curious. We also dropped down to a beach below the castle exploring tidal pools. We saw a hydra open-up.

C • castle on the moors 4

Findhorn, Scotland, United Kingdom. I went out on a model map hitting most of the controls that I tried for pretty well in the first 26 minutes. The controls were 6 inch flags that were equally as tall above the sand. My feet hurt and my lack of recent physical training showed. Switching with Peggy, I then went with Max as we navigated to a few places. One control that we went to would have been right for yellow or orange though I'm sure it was mishung. After the training, we went to our hotel near Nairn.