Training Log Archive: Vaala

Nice relaxing walk on the beach and letting Michael win at mini golf. Not feeling too bad. Just a bit tired and quite hungry. It seems the harder I race, the harder it is to eat.

C • The Dual 4

8 hours? Clearly we burned through the course!

The first stage was getting our rafts to the other side of the channel to pick up a couple of checkpoints and then getting back again. Note how I didn't say 'paddle the raft' because that didn't really work so well so I swam most of the way and Michael swam, well, all of the way (with the raft). The current was bloody strong on the way back and I was completely knackered by the end. Plus the checkpoints were marked round the wrong way which was annoying.

Next stage was mtb to the rifle shoot and then to the transition. Pretty basic but I stuffed up my first 2 shots with the rifle which was frustrating. I think I was too excited!

Next stage was the trek and abseil. We had a little bit of fluffing round at CP0 after going into the wrong mine but then managed to get ahead of the people around us. The trek didn't seem to hard but was quite steep (especially when we missed the pink tape and climbed some cliff instead of going round!). But about CP4 Michael had a panic about the abseil and got all confused and we realised we'd missed it out. Oh well, it probably only cost us an extra 25/30 minutes as we went back for it from the transition. The abseil (25 metres apparently) was pretty cool though but not nearly long enough. I wanted to go again!

Stage 4 was just biking back to base. I don't know why they put the fastest estimate time of 1 hour 'cause it probably only took half that.

Final stage was a 2 hour mtb rogaine in the bike park. Because we were awesome (haha) we got them all despite it all being highly confusing and track names not fitting and just general map confusion (we are highly spoilt in orienteering). The ride back to base was epic. I was completely dead and Michael was pushing me pretty much the whole way to see if we could get back in time but we were 2 minutes late (worth it though for the points).

Probably the first race like this that I've gone hard and fast the whole way and I was about ready to collapse by the end. I was actually lucky I didn't blow out in the final mtb stage (it's good when your team mate can carry most of your gear when you're struggling).

And now we have a kayak for next year so we'll get to do the 12-hr! Yay!

Oh, and did I mention that we annihilated our grade AND were the only 8-hr team to get all of the mtb rogaine checkpoints?

C • Did you guys win a double k... 4

To and from the gym.

Nice little run from the gym along to the church and down the hill then up Bassett (which is longer than I thought...it goes up for a good km) then down Remuera Rd and along Broadway. No stopping even when I felt a bit dead at the top of the hill. Much better than the treadmill and it was even nice and hot this morning!

Blah...

Good course for this map but I was still feeling a bit sick and feeling super unfit so the leg to #1 was a mission for a start (Allan says it was over 1km). Then I mucked around at #2 for way too long on the wrong side of the bush. The rest wasn't too bad apart from not seeing there wasn't a gap between the out of bounds areas going to #11, getting lost (whilst standing right next to the control) at #14, trying to dodge the football players and the crickers, having that damn annoying Friday song in my head and just general slowness and random route choices.

Jogging round course 4 bringing in controls although I had to wait for a couple of groups who were still finishing on course 3.

I really suck at being sick. Spent the day at home but ended up doing a massive clean and exhausting myself by lunchtime. Walked to the store to get tofu a bit later which was quite far enough. I do think I might be a bit better though...a bit.

Had to leave work early and missed climbing. Bummer. This is so looking like turning into a repeat of last years ARC! But I did go for a walk later in the evening to try and cool the antsy feeling...