Training Log Archive: Nadim

Event: QOC: South Fork
 

QOC: Prince William Forest, South Fork at Turkey Ridge. I ran Blue and did okay. The open woods and the course were fun. I made few errors and mostly had good route choices. The distance was just right for me. I could run through a lot of this at a decent pace though the initial part of the course had a lot of climb. My recent training has helped and I look forward to more improvements with more training. From about control 8 through 16, I ran with Bjorn Johanson either right behind me or right in front of me. Bjorn is new to the area from Sweden and like me he's been trying to adapt to life and have time for training after having a kid. See the Split List and QOC's Route Gadget--I used my Forerunner 305.

Blue - Splits

Rock Creek Park, Candyland parking. While Peggy watched Max play at the playground :), I went for a trail run. I did a sort of loop at the flat areas starting off but then did what I call the Boundary Lines loop. Even starting out on the flat areas, I felt slow and tired. I was much more so when I got to the hills. The trails were a bit muddy but not very slippery. I ran with the GPS again but forgot to put on the hear rate monitor. It's sort of fun to watch the GPS tracks on the watch but not useful for navigating until approaching places that I've already been. I had felt ankle pain in the morning but not during the afternoon run.

Since my ankle had been hurting while walking, I decided that another late run on wet ground at night could wait. I think the ankle will be back to normal soon.

From Rosedale Ave., Battery Ln. to Keystone Rd. to Old Georgetown Rd. to Huntington Pkwy. to Irvington Ave. to Madison St. to Heampstead Ave. to Sonoma Rd. to Lindale Dr. to Johnson Ave. to Old Georgetown Rd. to the Bethesda Trolley Trail (NIH), to Jones Bridge Rd. to Maryland Ave. to Rosedale Ave. It was a rainy evening and I had brought home some Chipotle burritos. After eating one and getting Max to sleep I was tired so I took a semi-concious nap before running. It was misting, 40F, and I expected more rain so I wore my somewhat heavy rain suit. I started out feeling heavy from dinner and the clothes. It turned out that no more rain fell while I ran and I got a bit too hot.

I had also donned a heart rate monitor (part of my Garmin 305 Christmas present from Peggy) on this run for the first time ever. In the past I'd taken pulse checks off of a 10 second manual reading on occasion but never had this much detail. I don't yet plan to train by heart rate yet but I'll explore this more. There was a spike in the monitor registering a whopping 229 bpm but I think this must have been a mechanical anomaly. It ocurred in a relatively flat part of the run where I had a steady pace and didn't feel any different. I had also adjusted the GPS to take a reading every second. Though the roads I ran are easier to track than the trails, the distance accuracy seems much better this way when I compare it to other measures.

I twisted my right ankle on an uneven area of asphalt at a mile and a half through this run. I was moving to the side to get out of the way of an approaching car. This rarely happens when I run at night but it was painful and slowed me for a minute. It is sensitive now, after the run.

I thought an easier day would be good. I started spinning and until mide-way through the ride, I forgot that the last time I rode, I had geared down a bit for an easy ride. The result was that today I kept the cadence mostly between 65 and 70 which is much better than other recent trainer rides.

Wakefield Park, Fairfax County, VA. I had the afternoon off to go to my friend's funeral. After that I took advantage of the sunlight and had a nice longish run in unusually warm weather (70F). I'm not sure how far I went. I stayed mostly on the many trails but did get some time west of Accotink Creek on parts without trails. To finish, I went out and back up the Long Branch Trail to Woodland Way. This trail has been extended since last I was on it and had I known that, I may have chosen to run out and back up it farther to begin with. Instead, I did get to parts of the park which have been turned over to the moutain bikers and that I hadn't fully explored. The trails on the big hill were really windy; orienteers might not use them a lot of the time, even though they are everywhere. I ran with my GPS and could tell from my own memory that it was missing parts of the many trail bends and switch-backs. The GPS registered 8.66 miles when I was done and tracked the whole time but I'm increasing the distance to better account for what I thought I was really doing. Whenever I watched the pace readings, they would jump around wildly even though I kept it steady. I got pretty tired on the run and was actually somewhat tired starting out. I still enjoyed it a lot.

Overall, Wakefield Park is very narrow but usable for orienteering; It's mostly flat. It has the usual dot knolls, ditches and a few reentrants. There are a few boulders too but the prime features are the many trails and open areas good for short courses or training. It has the added benefit of being connectable with Lake Accotink which we already use.

I had a load of things to carry home from work including some heavy glass and crystal items. They all were in a friend's gym bag. While normally I wouldn't count such things this was actually heavy enough that I had to switch arms every 30 seconds or faster. With the warmer weather, I got home with a soaked shirt.

From Rosedale Ave., I did the Two Mile route at around 9:30pm. I would have rather bicycled today but had a memorial service to go to earlier. It was warm out; it had cooled down to 58F from a record high of 71F earlier. I started modestly but as I turned downhill, I picked up the pace. The recent increases in running lately have me feeling slow. Severasl times on the run, I felt like I couldn't move my legs much faster but I didn't get real tired either.