Training Log Archive: inuksuk

Charteris Bay with La
Up through Orton Bradley Park. Up the true left of the valley and down true right (Hunters creek track)

Along Heathcote with La
temple with 1min float in between.
1m, 3m, 5m, 3m, 1m

Rapaki Track with Lara and Michael

Up the pack track, across the ridge to sugarloaf and down through forest to town.

Parimanui, vet a couple courses, control collecting and run to have a bit of a watch.

Canterbury Sprint Champs

I had a bit of a swim between 5 and 6; I do not recommend this route. A few tussocks on the shore served as great handholds though to drag me out...cold and wet.

Parimanui control hanging with La

Christchurch city

Mt Vernon Reserve to Rapaki Pack Track and down spur

Christchurch city

Christchurch city

6 x 3min intervals with Lara and Michael

Along Heathcote Christchurch with Lara and Michael

TWALK leg 4

TWALK leg 5

TWALK leg 1

TWALK leg 2

TWALK leg 3

Commute Ocean Grove to University

Logan Park with Antoine. Keeping it really light -- anticipating the pain of TWALK....

Commute University to Ocean Grove
another late night

From panel beaters through sth Dunedin to University - a roulette with log trucks...

Run up through Woodhaugh and Ross Creek; bashed through the bush on town belt north until getting out near moana pool; back through town. The rangiora/mahoe/sycamore thicket in the middle of TBN is starting to clean up a bit....

Commute university to ocean grove.
Another late one.

Easy run up Maori hill to pick up the van from a WOF test. It doesn't look good for the van -- the rust bucket is on its last legs. My legs, on the other hand, felt better and enjoyed an easy day.

Carey's Creek with Lara. Orienteering at Seacliff was canceled due to threatening weather (still not sure what was particularly bad about the forecast). Anyway, we had already made it to that side of the mountain, so we went up Careys Creek, up the honey comb track and down rangonora track. Very nice. cool and damp. One sleety squall, otherwise, perfect.

Swampy summit with Lara. Ran from the bull pen to possum track. Lots of blowdown and a few land slips, which wiped out the track, made the going pretty rough. Lots of bashing across/over/through Himalayan honeysuckle, bushlawyer, and 2m high tussocks -- very slow going! Climbed back up Swampy and across the ridgeline to Flagstaff. Birds were going off today -- silver-eyes, bellbirds, tomtits, warblers, fantails, and even heard the faint 'pi' and 'uu-ick' of a fernbird. Blood sugar crashed on Swampy Summit and I felt completely wasted on the 'downs' to Flagstaff (strangely the 'ups' were fine). The hot cocoa and sandwiches waiting in the car were a welcome sight...

Commute Ocean Grove to Uni via sth Dunners.
clear and cool. Winds still sou'west.

Around the fields at Logan Park with Antoine.

Caledonian
3x400m with 400m float
1:06 (1:56), 1:07 (1:57), 1:05
windy on the back stretch -- felt gutless, pulled the plug after three.

Both achilles are tight for the first 5min of each run. I've been stretching, though I can't tell whether it is helping...

Commute University to Ocean Grove.
The sun is still up and I am outta here...winds have dropped -- definitely a night for the fire bath!

Commute Ocean Grove to University. Crazy pre-dawn rainbow... skiff of snow on Maungatua. Still waiting for the wind shift -- maybe today.

Logan Park, Botanic gardens, and Leith Valley with Antoine. The winds shifted to sou'west, showers throughout.

Commute University to Ocean Grove.
Rain. woohoo.

Commute (Ocean Grove to Dunedin) with Pete and Anna. We took Anna's route through the golf course. Beautiful sunny morning; only a breath of northerly comming over the harbour. The sky looks as though something will be here by tomorrow..... yeehaa.

Missed my lunchtime run, as I had to do battle with the dragon lady pawns of bureaucracy in Studylink. After a while on the "group w" bench, I tried my hand at charming them, and then threw in a bit of bo stick skills, and even touted my new-found knowledge of milky coffees and cafe training, but in the end I was exhausted by their dull sense of humour and nauseating perfumes and had to fill out an orange 45 page document with hundreds of circles and boxes and lines and requiring dates and numbers and six forms of id and tax forms and bank statements from god knows when or where, and the nutritional value of your last meal before entering the country, and your sister's husband's mother's maiden name, and the mean nighttime low temperature of your current address (and if you don't have one, or don't know, or don't know what one is that you don't have, the computer craps out and cuts you off, so of course you make something up)....all for the $200? Couldn't believe they didn't see the humour in it. They even swore to me they'd never worked on Whitehall Street or interviewed any hippie kid named Arlo. They didn't know where Whitehall Street was or who Arlo was. And then I had to confess I didn't really know where Whitehall Street was either, but I knew it was in New York somewhere and I was glad mr. president never forced me to go down there cause I'd heard about all I needed from Arlo, the long haired aged hippie who made a living out of his experience there by writing an eighteen minute song, which we could have played four times in the the hour and a half it took me to fill out the orange 45 page document.

I bet they are the types that look forward to reading the "cute-cat-stuck-in-a-tree" or "Hamish-MacHumberstump-won-first-prize-in-the-Southland-Junior-Farmers-swede-growing-contest" articles on the front page of the sunday Otago Daily Times.

Commute (University to Ocean Grove).
late, tired and dark.

Signal Hill with Jim, Antoine and Murray. Great day for it -- was really warm once we got out of the wind. We hit the hill hard, but Jim was sure to show us how it is really done. Even in his "off season" he's a powerhouse on the hills.

On the way down, I raised the question of hydration again with Jim. His newest focus (target) is sports drinks: "who gets the benefit?" I was glad to have my own beliefs vindicated by a physiologist. I can't wait to see his next paper on this...sure to be a goody.

moana pool

Ross Creek with Antoine. Up through Ross Creek and McGoun's Track. Checked out new track through the sequoia glades -- its a nice section, with a bit of bush and open conifer forest. It requires a bit of bashing through forestry slash and a couple overgrown skidder tracks near the end, but makes the "lunchtime loop" even better.

uncinia (hook grass) hanging of the front of my legs, bush lawyer scars on the back... a perfect lunch hour.

Run from Viv's up Port Hills with Andy J and Lara -- mostly on tracks. Awesome views of the Canterbury Plains, great sunset, great track system.

Parimanui. Ran an old course 2 and parts of an old course 1 while Stu and Lara checked courses for the event in three weeks. I wasn't pushing it, rather focusing on staying in contact with the map and orienteering well. I was pleased actually, especially with how I worked through the insets (1:5000; thick bush with crazy limestone rubble -- a boulder jungle) without any mistakes, spiking each control. I made a few changes to the map, but felt the western-most patch of green is hopeless --really needs a full day to sort out.

I got back a few mintutes before we were meant to meet up, so I pounded out the first three legs again, and then mixed a few up on the spot. Its really fun to go hard here....I will be excited to see Chris' k splits here.

I spent lunch plucking californian thistles out of my legs. The thistles were worse than the matagouri!

Checked the eastern-most controls with lara and stu until dusk.

Awesome sunset over the Two Thumb Range and Hunter Hills

Silver Stream. I climbed up Powder Hill from the scout camp at Whare flats. The whole valley has been flooded so lots has changed in the last week. Its a real shame the lower parts are being sectioned off - they say Aotearoa isn't an American suburb; I still wonder. The track was really overgrown in places near bushline. Gaultheria berries were everywhere - yum. The bush was quiet except for the odd tomtit, grey warbler or fantail. I did kick up some pigs near bushline.

Easy run through Logan Park and botanic gardens. Met Antoine running opposite direction. Found out he's raced Wil and Mike in NB. Its a funny small world.

Commute - Ocean Grove to university

Finally a nice day. A slight onshore breeze made the ride really pleasant.

McGoun's track. I dropped off the track in the douglas fir glade and bashed through the blechnum, astelia, and coprosma through a beautiful Sequoia glade to flagstaff road. An interesting area. Came back through Ross Creek.

Commute - University to Ocean Grove with a slight diversion to the inch bar for a pint of Emerson's London Porter. yum.

Weather crapped out again...more rain. excellent.

C • So apparently May is not a goo... 2

To unipol via logan park playing fields...

felt spent from first 500m. yeeha.

Ran through logan park and botanic gardens. My legs felt like lead for the first 5min!

Still more rain. Welcome to another Dunedin winter. The novelty has worn off already and winter has hardly begun. arrgh...give me a dry cold any day!

Mostly uneventful, except I did manage a laugh when I busted out of the bush onto the playing fields at the top end of the reserve, where I noticed a person crouched in the rain in the tell-tale mushroom picking position. I'm still not sure whether she got more of a shock from the appearance of a sopping lunatic bursting out of the bushes or the fact that I commented "good day for it" as I ran past (which, I suppose it was for those inclined; they were everywhere...)