Training Log Archive: BorisGr

Andy's stories of racing the City Chase have me tempted to give it a shot, either in Sydney or New York. CityChase New York would be perfect, but it will almost certainly conflict with an A-Meet this year.
Sydney is on March 27th. I am obviously a pretty useless teammate in terms of knowing my way around Sydney, but I am reasonably fit and pretty good at reading maps and solving puzzles. Is there a Sydneysider (or anyone else, for that matter) out there who'd be interested in racing the Sydney CityChase with me on March 27th? Let me know!

C • don't need to know 4

Morning run from Andy's house in Mosman. Started with Andy and Glenn and picked up Prong, who had kayaked from Sydney, along the way. Beautiful run with awesome views back towards Sydney. Ran to Manly, took a dip in the sea and had some Slurpees before heading back. Suffered going up the hill towards Andy's place at the end, but a great run nonetheless.

Soccer with the biologists at Sydney Uni.

Warm-up and cool-down with Andy and Amy

Sydney Summer Series #21
Berrys Creek

Felt really good today, probably because it was about 10 degrees cooler than usual. Ran well and had no problems orienteering, but probably could have chosen a better route, especially towards the end. Can anyone out there come up with a better route?

My order: 20-9-29-28-18-27-17-16-8-30-10-19-26-5-24-15-7-6-25-14-13-23-22-3-2-4-12-21-1, 4 minutes over for 540 points, 30 behind Andy.

Map: http://www.dxdeluxe.se/linnekartparmen/show_map.ph...

Write-up: http://www.sydneysummerseries.com.au/pg2.htm#news

Results will be here: http://www.sydneysummerseries.com.au/200910/SSS091...

C • hmm 3

Event: Sydney Parks Sprint Series #8
 

Sydney Sprint Series #7
Macquarie University Sports Complex
I was excited at first, thinking we would get to run on the Macquarie Uni map used for WMOC last year, but it was not to be. Instead, we ran on a blown-up version of a 1:10000 map of the fields and houses on the outskirts of the university, which was sort of disappointing. The map had real issues, too, and a lot of us lost large chunks of time because of it. I ended up 3rd, but over two minutes behind Ezy, who ran fast and managed to avoid trouble one way or another.
Am tired. Will take it easy this week.
Splits: http://www.nsw.orienteering.asn.au/sprintseries/sp...
QR: http://www.dxdeluxe.se/linnekartparmen/show_map.ph...

C • The wrong map 6

Warm-up and cool-down with Andy.

Macquarie Uni - Splits

Event: Super Long World Champs - Version 2
 

The Super Long World Champs.
An awesome day of sun, fun, and suffering on the North Shore of Sydney. There were 11 of us starting, and the map consisted of a double-sided A3 sheet with 150 controls, course designed by andyhill. The rules are simple_ the first person to get to every 10th control get a point. We then wait for everyone to catch up and restart for the next set of 10. The person with the most points in the end wins.
My main goal was to survive all the way to the finish - we started at Ezy's house in Pymble and finished at Glenn's place in Waverton, where cold beers, fruit salad, sausages, and heavenly muffins were awaiting us.
Right from the start, Mounty set the tone by attacking relentlessly on virtually every round, with the rest of trying to convince someone to chase him. I had very little energy, probably partly due to the heat and mostly due to being out of shape, and so I only tried a couple of attacks. One ended when I went over on an ankle and limped to the finish, and another when Mounty and I both missed a small path leading to the second-to-last control, letting others get ahead. We stopped at McDonald's after 50 controls, and at a convenience store for some Coke after 100. The last fifty controls were a struggle, but we kept moving along, and Andy staged an impressive comeback to win the last two points and tie Mounty for the overall win.
A great day. Thanks for everyone for the company!
Map and pictures later.
P.S. Mounty's GPS said we did 40km. Don't know why mine is off by this much.

C • Quick 12

Soccer with the Biology department at University of Sydney. Main goal was to not injure my boss. Success.

C • Maps 2

Ugh, my email account got hacked. Sorry if I spammed anyone.

C • Unfortunately... 12

Running from Surry Hills to Glebe and back.

Sydney Summer Series - Rozelle Bay / Glebe
My worst summer series effort so far. Feeling tired, physically and mentally and confused by the vagueness of the map. Managed to gash both my shins on a fence, too.

Evening run from home to Centennial Park, then a course that was on the map of the park that Andy gave me, then back home. This was a nice way to see the park and some of its more off-the-beaten-path corners.

Warm-up and cool-down with Andy, running above huge cliffs and by the beach.

Sydney Sprint Series #7 - Watsons Bay

This sprint was in a cool location, with us getting to run on the beach overlooking Sydney Harbour and CBD and climbing up to the top of the cliffs with awesome views out onto the ocean. Very cool. The map itself wasn't extremely interesting and had some oddities, like the use of yellow to indicate out of bounds. This tripped me up on the way to #1, as I expected the "field" to the NW of the control to be passable. My big mistake, though, came on 3, where I could not find the strip of yellow going through to the trail, cut through the woods and mistook the trail junction for the other junction further east. There were some extra trails there that added to the confusion, but I should have slowed down and thought about it rather than rushing off. Clean after that, but tired on the hills climbing back to 11 and 12. Then lost 14 seconds to Andy on the leg from 12 to the finish, just pussy-footing it on the stairs running down the hill.
Ended up 4th again, 2 minutes behind Andy.
Map: http://www.dxdeluxe.se/linnekartparmen/show_map.ph...
Results should be here: http://www.nsw.orienteering.asn.au/sprintseries/sp...

C • I've done mine. 1

Sprint - Splits

What a day! Got up in the morning and caught the train to Katoomba, in the middle of the Blue Mountains. Stashed my bag in a hostel and set off on foot to explore the national park. The scenery here is spectacular! I've never seen such cliffs that just plunge down into the clouds and seem to go on forever. The run itself was very wet, as it was raining or drizzling the entire time, but that probably added to the feeling of being in a rainforest. As soon as I got away from the most famous sights, the trail was virtually deserted, and the tourist throngs were left far behind. I ran along the cliff walk, down Furber steps (of which I counted 1054 on the way back up), and along Federal Pass track up to the Runied Castle stone formation. I wanted to stop and take a break at Ruined Castle, but was harassed by two birds, who started following me around and making evil noises at me. At this time I also noticed a few leeches attached to me (gross little things - really, there is no reason for these) and decided to get going. The few hikers I met on the way back all commented on the leeches in one way or another. When I was finally back at the hostel (I was out for 4 hours total, but a lot of that was stopping to take pictures or walking the un-runnable parts), I took off my shoes to discover a leech firmly attached to my foot and two more crawling around my socks. Gross. Also, impossible to flush down the toilet, so I hope they don't get to whoever uses that bathroom next...
Anyway, besides the leeches this was just an awesome place to go and explore. For the first hour or so, virtually around every corner I was stopping to marvel at the towering mountains rising up out of the clouds, the sheer cliffs dropping off into nothingness, and the waterfalls that got noticeably fuller by the time I was running back.

C • Blue mtns 1

C • Four hours? 3

Long run from Shep's mom's place with Shep, Andy, and Prong through Royal National Park. Thought I was going to die for the first hour, then felt better. Stopping for a swim halfway through was great, felt much better after that. Awesome run, saw a wallaby, a water dragon, and a whole lot of cockatoos.

Lunsen on WorldOfO's 101 Maps to Run on Before You Die: http://orienteeringmaps.net/blog/2010/02/12/lunsen...
Absolutely worthy of inclusion on this list, one of my favorite places to orienteer.

C • Lunsen 1

An early evening run from Surry Hills. Ran down and around Centennial Park, exploring as much as I could and stopping to take pictures of the black swans and the pelicans. Gorgeous park, nice to have it just a few minutes away.

Warm-up and cool-down with Andy and Amy. Hamstring felt ok on the warm-up, as long as I didn't try to run hard.

Sydney Summer Series #19 - Vineyard Creek
After the warm-up, I decided I would try running but never pushing the pace. This actually worked out better than last week since I started at a reasonable pace that I could keep up for the entire 50 minutes without feeling totally dead like I did after 15 minutes last Wednesday. Hamstring hurt occasionally, but never so much that I contemplated stopping. Ended up getting 29/30 controls and coming in 5 minutes overtime for 540/600 points. Andy got 560. Made mistakes on 13 (going up the creek into the control instead of taking the trail around. This meant running through green and a lot of lizards and spiderwebs.) and 23, about 30 seconds each. Much smoother navigating in general, though.
Map with course: http://www.dxdeluxe.se/linnekartparmen/show_map.ph...
Map with my routes: http://www.dxdeluxe.se/linnekartparmen/show_map.ph...
Funny write-up of the event: http://www.sydneysummerseries.com.au/pg2.htm#news
Results: http://www.sydneysummerseries.com.au/200910/SSS091...

Limping around today. Will take the day off and hope to be able to jog around the Summer Series event tomorrow.

C • SSS Travel 2

Warm-up and cool-down with Andy and Peter.

Sydney Sprint Series #6
Gladesville Hospital - a nice area with a lot of tricky places and uncrossable walls, but a less-than-perfect map not to sprint standards. I started this race very badly, making poor choices to 1 and 2 and then a horrible choice to 3, getting stuck and having to run around a long stretch of green and a cliff. This cost me 1:30! Gradually got better after that, and the end of the race was pretty good technically, but the hamstring that I pulled last Wednesday was clearly re-injured by running hard and caused me lots of pain the whole way. It is really frustrating to keep getting injured like this on top of my existing and never-going-away injury. Ugh.
Even a perfect run wouldn't have put me close to Andy's awesome 14:33.
Map: http://www.dxdeluxe.se/linnekartparmen/show_map.ph...
Results: http://www.nsw.orienteering.asn.au/sprintseries/sp...

A run on parts of the Great North Walk starting from Pymble with Andy, Ezy, and Glenn. A great run on nice forest trails, with a few exciting river crossings thrown in. The water level was extremely high because of the heavy rains, and we were up to nearly waist-deep a couple of times. Another highlight was a water dragon that was sitting on top of a pipe that was shooting out a tremendous amount of water into the river. Ezy spooked the beast, making it dive head-first down the resulting waterfall.
Very cool run with good company, and a great way to see more of Sydney!

An awesome run with robw along the coast from Bronte beach down to Coogee and back in a total downpour. Parts of the way we were running in ankle-deep water, and the waves crashing against the cliffs below us were spectacular. Just incredible that this amazing scenery is so close to the center of a huge city!
Nice dinner with Rob, Allison, Max, and Mira afterwards, great to catch up.

Morning jog around Blackwattle Bay, past the fish market and over the bridge. Lots more cockatoos, this time I had a camera so got some pictures. They are really cute.

C • Hey mate, are you going to ... 6

Warm-up/cool-down with Andy, Glenn, and Amy

Sydney Summer Series - Brickmakers Creek / Boronia Park

My first orienteering in Australia!
I met up with andyhill and Amy and took the train out to West Ryde, where Andy's dad Graeme picked us up. We drove over to a park and changed. The Summer Series are all score-O events held in various parks all over Sydney and its suburbs, and that draw around 200 (!!!) people every Wednesday evening. This race went through a mix of city streets and narrow, rocky trails going through the dense woods down by the river. There were also a few short, but steep hills that made choosing the order of visiting controls pretty tricky. I set off pretty fast and did the street section first, which might have been a mistake. I got quite tired after 20 minutes or so, wilting in the heat and humidity, and started getting sloppy, losing time all over the place. I ended up getting 29/30 controls but going 6 minutes overtime, which put me quite a bit down the results list and 40 points behind Andy.
It was a fun experience, and I am looking forward to the next event!
Course, without routes: http://www.dxdeluxe.se/linnekartparmen/show_map.ph...
My routes: http://www.dxdeluxe.se/linnekartparmen/show_map.ph...
(Order: 1-11-25-12-13-22-20-9-21-17-18-16-24-15-2-14-19-5-29-10-8-30-6-27-7-4-26-28-3-F)
In retrospect, it probably would have been smarter to go the other way. Also, in the end; i should have gone 27-28-7-4-26-3 to avoid the stupid leg from 26 to 28.

My first run in Sydney, a morning jog around Blackwattle Park with Nick Ho. Saw cockatoos - lots of them! Right achilles was sore, same one as in Tucson. Hmm.

C • cockatoos 6

In the hostel room after running.

In Sydney.

C • hoot 2