Training Log Archive: Nadim

Event: QOC: Lake Fairfax, VA
 

QOC: Lake Fairfax. For a warm-up, I walked and jogged a streamer-o course with Alexa Merka. Max was going to go with us but he changed his mind as he is prone to doing. It was Alexa's 5th birthday. Since it was our club's winter meeting, lots of people were around after the activites and we sang "Happy Birthday" to her.

QOC: Lake Fairfax, VA. The format for today was an unusual and fun one. We had a Qualifier sprint to start with. It was a quick course with a lot of open field running. There were a few legs through some woods. I never felt like I was running comfortably. I climbed okay enough but never ran with any speed; it was probably a function of my weight. I made some small baubles but did okay. I've never liked the contours on this map. They seem too generalized to me. They confused me on the one leg where they counted going to #4. Between #5 and #6 there was a huge +30 foot house or larger sized mound beside the road and it was unmapped--perhaps it was added after the initial mapping but it looked like it had ben there a long time. It was nice to be outside. The temperatures were in the mid-50s F. There were some slick icy spots and a little soft old snow in the woods. I think my qualifier time was 4th behind Dave Pruden, a young Norweigan, and Ted Good in that order.

C • Correction 1

QOC: Lake Fairfax Regional Park, VA. For the finals, racers were handicapped by both time like a reverse chase, and by course distances. The idea was that no matter who was running the first person to the finish line would be the winner for the day. I had qualified for the Final C course. The first starter took off 21:11 before me. Starting behind me were Ted Good (9 seconds), a young Norweigan (about +1 minute), and Dave Pruden (about 2 minutes).

Ted nearly caught me at the first control but had overshot on my right when I saw it on my left just into the woods from a field corner. We took separate routes to #2 with Ted climbing and me going around low to save strenghth for later. I got into some traffic from other runners and thought the control on a broad spur was too high. Like many mass start meets where we're both competing, Ted and I were together for a long way after that. Ted's tendancy to start faster and his generally better navigation kept him in front most of the way. When I got ahead going to #9, I made an error and chased him again going to #10. Eventually we got bunched-up with others and chaos ensued. It wasn't a completely mob-orienteering type of scene but there were trains and everyone was reacting to either leader errors or small mapping discrepancies. As we finished the last control in the woods we had a kilometer of open areas to go. I was in a pack with Ted Good leading, Dave Onkst, Dave Pruden and myself chasing. On a climb we were all fairly close to even and Ted faded. Going at threshold pace, I was in the lead but wasn't reading the map very well. Dave Pruden passed and stayed ahead to the end. I would gain on him only to wait at the punches on the last few controls. I'm not sure what my overall place for the day was. One thing to note was my heart rate measurements. Though I've only been measuring for about a year, I hit both the highest maximum and highest average rates that ever recorded. Since my times were not the fastest I've done in the last year, I conclude that I pushed hard while being out of shape. I find that significant because of the mental aspects of training and competing.

It was a fun day. We had nice food and club announcements afterward. Though just a local event, the volunteers for the event did a lot of extra preparations making it memorable.

C • Flag folding 2

Qualifier - Splits

Final C - Splits

Lake Bernard Frank, MD. Starting from Sweetbirch Dr. on the east side of the park, I covered areas south to just beyond Sunfish Pond and the Sunfish Trail. A sign at Sweetbirch Dr. warned people of deer culling going from after 5:30pm till sunrise all the way through March. The population control is new to many areas of Montgomery County where it was not allowed earlier. While I think the park can sustain a population and reach equilibrium, there are large herds which have probably been losing habitat elswhere, like from the Inter-County Connector properties that are being constructed upon now. I guess that these have been seeking refuge in the park pushing the population to a bad state.

It was breezy and in the 20s F starting off but I wore enough to keep me plenty warm. The difficulty today was the coating of ice. The snow last week followed by freezing rain, then freezing and re-freezing has left a glazed sheet of ice coving the ground. In many place it was thin enough, especially on the sunny slopes, to crunch through it but in on trails or other areas, it wouldn't budge with weight. I only fell once and not too badly but it was enough to make my knee hurt a bit.

I covered some fair areas of nice woods along with other stuff. It was difficult to decide how to show an area which had patchy green areas with patchy clearings and other white and light green parts all intermixed. I found a lot more man made objects too. I still have areas of green to cover in getting the Lake Frank areas finished but the parts I started checking on the south side of stream near Sunfish Pond are more uniform and should be easier. I covered one hill there with fairly nice white woods and some scattered boulders.

From Northfield Rd., to the Huntington Pkwy, to Irvington Ave., to Folkstone Rd. to Ewing Dr. to Bradmoor Dr. to Ridge Pl. onto the school trail to Bulls Run Dr. and Adelaide Dr., to Wilmett Rd. to Beech Ave. to Old Georgetown Rd. to Glenbrook Rd. to Moorland Ln. to Northfield Rd. I went out at around 10pm. I slowed often to make sure that I didn't slip on the partly icy spots. It was about 31F with a slight breeze so things were slick at times; especially where it had been shady.

The ground conditions are improving but still not so good outside. I was a bit more tired doing this riding than the day before but it went fairly well. The worst is that my rear end is still adapting and that's not been much of an issue. I find it harder to sit on a stationary bike for an hour than to ride one outside for that long.

With more freezing rain going on outdoors, it was an easy decision to ride indoors. I felt a bit stronger. The time was going quickly with the movie I watched so I rode for an hour. I hadn't done that in what is probably several years. I usually get too bored or fatigued in other ways. Later, I had some milk and ate too many of the yummy brownies with nuts that Peggy and Max had made.

With the icy streets and sidewalks, I just rode inside. We had about an inch or two of snow followed by freezing rain.

I rode inside partly to make sure my plan to increase running miles is gradual. I watched a movie.