Training Log Archive: mikeduftyIn the 7 days ending May 3, 2015:
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| « | » |
| » now | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
| Mo | Tu | We | Th | Fr | Sa | Su | |||||||
Saturday May 2, 2015 #
Event: WARA 12hr Autumn Rogaine
10 AM
Rogaine race (12 hour) 12:02:00 [3] 48.0 km (15:03 / km)
Bull Ant Bites Back Rogaine
Had my first go at a Rogaine without kids in about 15 years.
Teamed up with Ian Finnie. We both participated in the original Bull Ant 26 years ago with separate UWA outdoor club teams.
Going on the last time I tried we thought around 50km might be possible, but for some reason thought it might be good to plan a route with a rest at the HH. We therefore planned a route of about 30km bringing us within 2 controls of the HH around sunset, with a few options to decide on from there.
Jogged to the first control 41 with just a few people in front to follow, then had to find our own way to 72 and immediately mucked it up. Veered off to the left for some reason, it didn't look quite right but we were determined not to stop too early so carried on to the top of the ridge where we could see we had gone past, and back tracked quite efficiently to the control.
Followed this up by deciding that since the bearing to 80 ran straight up a ridge I would just follow the ridge instead of looking at the compass, and followed it past the top around a 45 degree bend to a second knoll and became puzzled as to why nothing looked right. Eventually backtracked to the summit and looked down the other side and realised where we were and found the control easily on the next ridge across. 73 was easy, wasted a bit of time overshooting on the track to 104 to be "sure" we were on the right ridge.Probably would have been faster not to use the track.
71 was good, then had a momentary panic on encountering bare rock half way to 66 where none was mapped, and being unable to recall what I'd been doing on autopilot for the last 10 minutes. Decided to ignore the rock which was the right call.
Next few controls went well, then from 93 to 75 decided to aim off a little so we knew to go up the watercourse when we hit it, but then found the watercourse and bare rock very indistinct and thought it was safer to keep going as there was a track to catch us if we overshot. Sure enough we hit the track, fairly quick but an extra 500m we didn't need to do.
57 turned out to have an unmarked track pretty much direct to the control on our course.
I was confused by the bizarre contour detail in the circle at 103 until I looked at Ian's map and discovered the contours must have been pencil marks I'd accidentally made while planning, because they weren't on his map.
Were nervous about 84 being a small rock feature on an otherwise featureless hillside, but it turned out to be easy.
31 also easy except for needing a detour around a thicket at the edge of the rock just before it.
102 we left our bearing to find an easier line along the rock, then got worried about not knowing what was mapped as rock, but it turned out we got it perfectly. 81 we probably made the wrong choice going north around a thicket to stay on the rock, but found it easily. For 92 the GPS shows we were well off bearing, but the control was visible 200m away so it felt like we'd navigated perfectly.
83 was the end of our initial plan and we'd long ago realised going back to the hash house to waste time didn't make any sense, so carried on in the dark to try and bag the last corner of the map. Probably didn't really have any chance of making it that far, but definitely not after the mess we made of 101. We were off bearing a bit and just did not see the bare rock that according to the gps we walked all over. Found ourselves on the next bit of bare rock to the southwest, correctly identified it and took a bearing back, but the northwest corner of real exposed bare rock wasn't the northwest corner of the mapped rock, so we didn't hit the control. I actually walked uphill on the correct bare rock feature inside the circle but stopped about 100m short, backtracked back to the big bare rock and tried another bearing assuming it was the bigger rock surface to the west. Carried on along that until we hit the track, followed it back to a distinct bend and after some discussion agreed to have one more go. Perfectly easy control this time!
76 was straightforward, but my route planning while walking to it wasn't very clever, I thought based on 4km/h and 2 hours to go we had time for a loop up through 91,60,53, but didn't really register that by the time we actually reached 76 there was only 1:40 left.
Got 91 directly and realised by then we had to go straight back. The next few km up over 85 was some of the hardest of the event which didn't help. Then we wasted a couple of minutes we didn't have at 40 discovering it was not on the track, but a nearby creekbend, which we couldn't quite find. Jogged most of the way back trying to get there in time, then Ian fell on a rut and sprained his ankle just after the horn went, but still managed to run faster than me. Got in just over 2 minutes late, so got a 10 point benefit from persisting with 40.
Pleased with 9th place overall, but not pleased with the fact my legs don't seem to function anymore, or with Ian's injury. Really nice to have the GPS track on thebeatentrack to see where we really went.
Nearly twice as many points as I got in the original Bull Ant, 2070 versus 1280, but I think points were harder to get in that one.
Now my legs are starting to work again, thinking about how to do slightly better in the next one, but will probably just take the kids again and enjoy being able to walk the day after.
Had my first go at a Rogaine without kids in about 15 years.
Teamed up with Ian Finnie. We both participated in the original Bull Ant 26 years ago with separate UWA outdoor club teams.
Going on the last time I tried we thought around 50km might be possible, but for some reason thought it might be good to plan a route with a rest at the HH. We therefore planned a route of about 30km bringing us within 2 controls of the HH around sunset, with a few options to decide on from there.
Jogged to the first control 41 with just a few people in front to follow, then had to find our own way to 72 and immediately mucked it up. Veered off to the left for some reason, it didn't look quite right but we were determined not to stop too early so carried on to the top of the ridge where we could see we had gone past, and back tracked quite efficiently to the control.
Followed this up by deciding that since the bearing to 80 ran straight up a ridge I would just follow the ridge instead of looking at the compass, and followed it past the top around a 45 degree bend to a second knoll and became puzzled as to why nothing looked right. Eventually backtracked to the summit and looked down the other side and realised where we were and found the control easily on the next ridge across. 73 was easy, wasted a bit of time overshooting on the track to 104 to be "sure" we were on the right ridge.Probably would have been faster not to use the track.
71 was good, then had a momentary panic on encountering bare rock half way to 66 where none was mapped, and being unable to recall what I'd been doing on autopilot for the last 10 minutes. Decided to ignore the rock which was the right call.
Next few controls went well, then from 93 to 75 decided to aim off a little so we knew to go up the watercourse when we hit it, but then found the watercourse and bare rock very indistinct and thought it was safer to keep going as there was a track to catch us if we overshot. Sure enough we hit the track, fairly quick but an extra 500m we didn't need to do.
57 turned out to have an unmarked track pretty much direct to the control on our course.
I was confused by the bizarre contour detail in the circle at 103 until I looked at Ian's map and discovered the contours must have been pencil marks I'd accidentally made while planning, because they weren't on his map.
Were nervous about 84 being a small rock feature on an otherwise featureless hillside, but it turned out to be easy.
31 also easy except for needing a detour around a thicket at the edge of the rock just before it.
102 we left our bearing to find an easier line along the rock, then got worried about not knowing what was mapped as rock, but it turned out we got it perfectly. 81 we probably made the wrong choice going north around a thicket to stay on the rock, but found it easily. For 92 the GPS shows we were well off bearing, but the control was visible 200m away so it felt like we'd navigated perfectly.
83 was the end of our initial plan and we'd long ago realised going back to the hash house to waste time didn't make any sense, so carried on in the dark to try and bag the last corner of the map. Probably didn't really have any chance of making it that far, but definitely not after the mess we made of 101. We were off bearing a bit and just did not see the bare rock that according to the gps we walked all over. Found ourselves on the next bit of bare rock to the southwest, correctly identified it and took a bearing back, but the northwest corner of real exposed bare rock wasn't the northwest corner of the mapped rock, so we didn't hit the control. I actually walked uphill on the correct bare rock feature inside the circle but stopped about 100m short, backtracked back to the big bare rock and tried another bearing assuming it was the bigger rock surface to the west. Carried on along that until we hit the track, followed it back to a distinct bend and after some discussion agreed to have one more go. Perfectly easy control this time!
76 was straightforward, but my route planning while walking to it wasn't very clever, I thought based on 4km/h and 2 hours to go we had time for a loop up through 91,60,53, but didn't really register that by the time we actually reached 76 there was only 1:40 left.
Got 91 directly and realised by then we had to go straight back. The next few km up over 85 was some of the hardest of the event which didn't help. Then we wasted a couple of minutes we didn't have at 40 discovering it was not on the track, but a nearby creekbend, which we couldn't quite find. Jogged most of the way back trying to get there in time, then Ian fell on a rut and sprained his ankle just after the horn went, but still managed to run faster than me. Got in just over 2 minutes late, so got a 10 point benefit from persisting with 40.
Pleased with 9th place overall, but not pleased with the fact my legs don't seem to function anymore, or with Ian's injury. Really nice to have the GPS track on thebeatentrack to see where we really went.
Nearly twice as many points as I got in the original Bull Ant, 2070 versus 1280, but I think points were harder to get in that one.
Now my legs are starting to work again, thinking about how to do slightly better in the next one, but will probably just take the kids again and enjoy being able to walk the day after.