Training Log: GraceE

ACT SL #2 at Ballinafad Creek. This was the event postponed by two weeks due to the rain. Other than a little soreness in my quads, I didn't feel too bad so thought I would give it a go. It was fun and felt quite similar to Snows Hills and the rogaine due to long legs through remote bush with mostly contour-only features and compass being so important. The missing 4th control on the marsh didn't affect my enjoyment of the run, but as I stopped to chat to others there for a minute or so, I gave Matt the win by 3secs ;)
Forgot my GPS watch so this is course distance.

8hr Rogaine with Shannon (held in conjunction with the ACT 24hr Rogaining Champs).
It was at Black Ridge, 10km south of Bredbo and in on the left, with a midday start. We planned an ambitious course but thought there was room to scale back in the final section if needed. The weather was perfect - sunny but cool, and we got off to a good start picking up some controls on the nearby hillside before starting on the long loop around and then up onto the range through the bush. We wisely didn’t do a “maybe” extension and got to the water drop just after 4hrs and what we thought was approx. halfway distance-wise. No alarm bells were ringing at this stage as we had a few track legs ahead and thought this would speed things up. But before we knew it we were putting on our headtorches at around 5.45pm at a point a looooong way from the HH. It became much much trickier in the dark to see anything and pick out the lie of the land. We skipped a control on our way to a 100-pointer, then decided to abort all further plans to collect controls and get out to the one track heading through the map. We reached the track after some long hesitations as it was so hard to see - luckily the compass got us there on this occasion. Then we had that painful long run that no-one wants back to the HH with time ticking, finishing 21mins late and losing 210 points. On a very positive note, we made it in before the 30min disqualification cut-off :D
We somehow still managed 1390 points and 1st female team. We placed 2nd team overall but 310 points down on the winning mixed team who planned a much more sensible route.
In hindsight I put too much weighting on the big pointers, and we chose a route too quickly, not spending time considering different options and adding up the point values and comparing the distances in advance. I didn’t consider how much slower/more difficult it would be in the dark for the final two hours. I didn’t remember enough that the same map was being used by teams who had 24 hours to get the controls, and to not be swayed. Lessons learnt. The terrain was really lovely though and I felt lucky to get to run in it for over eight hours, it was a good workout. I hope Shannon will do another rogaine with me again one day when the memory of racing back to the HH fades a bit :)

C • Amazing! 6

I love rest days :)