Training Log Archive: Craney

Second half of the World Rogaining Champs. Despite being tired, the first 3 hours of night were quite fast as our route took us along some flattish valley floors, so we made quite good shuffly-running progress. However, from around 3am to 7am we were zig-zagging through steep rocky country with quite a bit of low spinifex. The difference in pace due to being forcibly pegged back to a walk on some of these legs was quite surprising - in hindsight we may have picked a better route to avoid some of this. Popped another couple of caffeine tablets to keep awake and eventually made it to dawn. At this point finishing our planned route looked a touch optimistic, but we cracked on and finally hit the next drinks point at 7am.

Food, sunshine and a good chat with some friendly volunteers at that drinks point perked us up no end and, almost out of nowhere, we were back to actually running. Also, because the terrain was flattish again, we were covering distance much much more quickly and it dawned (pun intended) on us that we were actually going to have time to add some extra controls in - one was obvious but there were now limited options to find other extensions. Oh well, cracked on anyway. Got into a bit of a head-to-head with some South African adventure racers who had a tow-rope but were moving quite well. At our last control we still had an hour left but were quite achy and the only way to add in more points would be to climb up a ~50m vertical cliff - not wise. So off to the finish happy that we'd done more than our plan, kept moving well the whole way, and no real stuff-ups to speak of.

While eating at the hash house we found out that Robbie and Kathryn had beaten us, but it wasn't until the presentation itself that we found out we'd come 2nd, which was a very nice surprise to say the least. Then passed out into a jet-laggy style sleep for a bit. Also slept very well that night.

So a great all round experience. It was amazing country (just like the Australia you imagine if all you know is Crocodile Dundee), a very cool map and a superbly organised competition so I'd like to think we'd have enjoyed it however we'd got on. But a well-executed plan and strong progress meant a nice result as an additional reward. Very pleased that after a sleep, food and hydration I only had a little residual stiffness (and several splinters) to show for it.

No GPS, but evidence suggests we covered around 82km with 5000m climb.

C • Awesome 8

First half of the World Rogaining Champs at Ross River Resort 'near' (by NT standards) Alice Springs. First part of any rogaine race is to spend 3 hours faffing. It was particularly amusing at this rogaine at 9am when the officials said go and everyone (including us of course) rushed forward to get their maps then went and sat down with a pen. Obviously in the end not that amusing as it does always turn out to be quite (understatement) a physical sport. Anyway, the best part of the planning stage (in hindsight) was that Grace brought some levelheadedness to the process and prevented my usual over-optimistic self from going wild when confronted with a cool map with lots of exciting looking contours, terrain and tantilisingly high-valued controls in far flung places. We ended up picking what looked like an achievable and efficient ~72km route.

Having said that, the first 7 hours was still up a massive mountain almost entirely exposed to hot sunshine and no drinks points. We did this well, not getting too sucked into the head-to-head running racing other teams were doing through the first 3 or 4 controls. After about an hour we climbed the big mountain range and were all on our own waking-up some of the controls. I liked this bit - we had great views, had some peace and were going strongly. It got dark as we cut through some spinifex near the All Night Cafe. I was encouraged by the fact that the spinifex (the densest area on the map) really wasn't that bad despite having almost complete dominance over any pre-race conversations. Had a 17 minute break at the All Night Cafe while quaffing tea and scoffing burgers and cakes. Then on into the night...

First 5 hours of night were much blacker than I expected - mainly because there was no moon. A couple of small wobbles (not spotting a path junction in one case) but reasonably accurate. Sleepy tiredness and some aching kicking in, but both of us still moving ok. Although darkness and conservatism meant that was predominantly quick walking. Mentally a bit confused by being in longest ever training session territory but not even half way. Moon eventually came up around 10pm, but spent a few hours lamely sitting near the horizon behind cloud. Around midnight we got to our 2nd drinks point which was almost exactly halfway on the route we'd planned => no time for extensions but also on track to do ok. Grace wonderfully whipped out some caffeine tablets and nurofen at that point, which I eagerly took and suddenly (almost uncannily) felt miles better.

Travelling to Alice Spring day - a day of characterised by a number of changes including winter to summer, 1-year-old dependent to freedom.

Lots of packing

HFW fairly gentle.