Training Log Archive: Nadim

Event: QOC Patuxent
 

Patuxent River Park, MD. I had very little warm-up time since the start window was about to close and I'd gotten to the meet site late planning to pickup controls after the event.

QOC: Patuxent River Park, MD. This is a fun place to orienteer and it was a really nice comfortable day. Temperatures were at about 70F. It was sunny and not humid. I took off fairly quickly for this score-o, not properly assessing the point values, and not knowing what the penalty was for coming in late. I hadn't been in an orienteering race for a long time so I was a little rusty with some things. I felt that my accuracy was fairly good given the 1:15,000 scale used, and that I ran okay. Right off, I went all the way across the big field in a little over 4 minutes and bobbled the 5 point control tucked into the green gully--I'd expected it to be on the field edge. I got the next one just fine, then hit one #11, that a lot of people had trouble with--I never found it though Ted said he did. Jody had also indicated finding something mis-matching the bag set by Dave Linthicum, and the epunch box set by Mike Leiderer--he put them together but I'm not sure where. What would have been at most a 4 minute leg turned into 10 minutes with no control score. I got distracted enough by this that I completely missed going for the easy #10 and #13 nearby. Later, I cleared all but 3 of the controls on the southern half of the map, bobbling only 2. In the case of the first, I'd hit the correct reentrant but couldn't see the bag--that one, #38, seemed faded. I missed on #33 because the control circle completely obscured a gully. I was counting them, pulled-up early at the hidden gully, then went back for a loop before going on. I headed north across the road to #15 and then got as far as #32 before turning back. I should have skipped #50 but wanted to do it anyway, knowing that it'd put me over time. I hit it somewhat hesitantly, and pulling up short first. There seemed to be more stream junctions than mapped and the scale again made it difficult. I ran harder for the last few and did well considering that my back was hurting; it had hurt early on, with some jarring in the field but got better in the middle of the course. It hurt the whole northern part of my route and got worse running harder. The pain seemed to come back in the northern part when I had to do a lot of ducking to get under branches, and when running across a march with some not completely flattened grass. The pain is on my right side at the hip. Still, it was good to be back in a race. I was +5 minutes over time and got a 30 point penalty. I really missed going for a lot of easy controls that would have upped my point total. My route is as follows: 9, 22, 11 (never found it), 34, 38, 33, 31, 37, 35, 28, 29, 15, 36, 32, 50, 30, 18.

QOC: Patuxent River Park, MD. I drove out to pickup controls from the northern and central areas. I could have had a higher score-o point total had I just stayed closer and picked-up a few of the easy ones here. I was hurting pretty much after racing and at the start of this. The running upright and slowly helped loosen me some. I did have to take some Motrin in the evening. I couldn't even sneeze after this since the constriction would trigger pain stopping it.

Event: HVO/WCOC A-event "Love The Lakes"
 

From Northfield Rd. to Madison St., with Max on his bicycle, then back towing Max's bicycle, then to 13th and C St. SW, Washington, D.C. I felt tired in my quads despite having a tailwind. It was about 50 F and nice to have an end to the rainy weather.

From 13th and C St. SW, Washington, D.C., to Northfield Rd., Bethesda, MD. The wind had dialed back by the time I headed home so the headwind wasn't that bad; I did carry my laptop, thus making a heavy backpack. I passed David Onkst about a mile out of Georgetown. He was headed back toward Rockville. I didn't slow since the sun was going down. It was pretty outside.