Training Log Archive: Nadim

Event: QOC: Hemlock Overlook
 

QOC: Hemlock Overlook. I started off running the short course. It was fairly easy. The bigger challenge for me was keeping all of my body parts working. My right knee felt pretty good though I expect it to hurt tomorrow. Going between #5 and #6 I was looking for a fence and had trouble making sense of the map. I managed to stumble in an open field twisting my right ankle. Instinct kept me fighting to stay on my feet which I did with significant difficulty and effort while hearing crack-crack-crack of ligaments being strained. I was able to shake it off and find the control. I was even good finding #9 which was slightly misplaced and which I'd been warned about. Trying to make some speed, I chased down a mother-daughter pair from Norway which had joined the club for this year. I should have been reading ahead more. After #11, I started to go straight to #12 but setting a bad bearing and being distracted by a man in front of me who was going the wrong way, I came back to the power line trail to avoid green and then plowed in. It took me a little bit to figure out that I'd passed the spur that the control was on. As I got to it, the mother daughter team was just finishing punching. I left in a hurry again and set a bad bearing again. I corrected more quickly this time but I lost time on #13 too. The total time lost was about 1:05.

I was planning to go out again for the Red Middle Distance course and was just about ready when Mark Mace came in and calmly told me that his wife Patti was injured in the woods. Unsure if we could walk her out, carry her out, or would need professional help, several of us cavorted and got in gear. Greg Lennon found a sort of wagon then went ahead while we called 911 and followed with the wagon. Greg had carried Patti alone, piggy back at least 50m before we were able meet them and get her into the wagon. Chris Rumohr, our Safety Chief from the 2007 US Champs was there. She stablized Patti's leg with towels and helped keep us organized in the woods. Several of us took turns carrying Patti where the wagon could not roll over the dead fall. An EMT met us for the last 75m with a stretcher. Since Patti was deaf and her husband Mark needed to bring their car, I went in the ambulance with her to translate. It's times like that when one knows just how poorly one knows another language but we got by. Patti told me she had stepped into a hole hidden by leaves and wasn't able to put any weight on her injured leg. Several people had stopped while she was down and eventually her husband Mark had come along on the course. At the Fair Oaks hospital Patti was okay and in fair spirits. When I left her with Mark and Billy, it was too early to tell if it was a twist, a fracture, or broken ankle. It was probably just as well that Mark had stopped me when he did and I hadn't gone out again to run the Red Middle Distance course since my ankles are weak from lack of running activity. I now have one hurting too and that would have been risky in the woods.

Short - Splits