Training Log Archive: geoffstacey

Saturday Event at Mt Taylor, set by Lachy and Belinda. Interesting course, it seemed to have the format of a Long Distance in that there were 4 long legs with little clusters of controls in between. The first area the course went to is one that always causes me difficulty, really vague and scrubby (despite not looking like anything special on the map). Somehow it's always hard to pinpoint the control feature in there. Lost maybe 40 seconds here, the rest of the course was fine. Took a few hill options, was feeling pretty strong up them.

Run around the golf course and Southwell Oval in Lyneham. After a fairly lengthy warm up to see where the course was, we ran it in 1 minute intervals with 30 seconds recovery. Lost count of my reps, either 14 or 15, and I didn't have a watch so I counted the time in my head and I suspect I counted a little slow. Good practice for pace counting though, I guess. Was feeling pretty slow early on but I think I maintained my effort to a reasonable extent throughout.

Oranges and Lemons intervals at UC, with a sprint course between two of the intervals on a very old map of John Knight Park. Oranges and Lemons was a fun handicapped race, with everyone having to go to each orange and from it collecting one, two or three lemons (controls) which were usually about 50 m apart. I collected 3 and was surprised by how much of a disadvantage this put me at. The sprint courses varied a bit from person to person (unknown to the squad) and was pretty fun. I think some of my control features had disappeared over the years though...

ACT Badge event at Foxlow Flats, was going to run Red 2 but changed to Red 1. Spur gully with erosion gullies throughout, really flat and vague in some parts. Got some snow before I started, so it was pretty cold. A couple of km's walk to the start. Tried out some ankle braces after rolling my ankle yesterday. I'd stopped wearing them because they didn't fit well in my old shoes and gave me bruising, but thought I might try them in these. Aside from being very squeaky they weren't too bad. Took the course easy because I was a little concerned about my ankle. Finished a few minutes behind Geoff Lawford, the only other competitor on the course.

Started out a little slower than normal but went really well. It was the easier part of the map, because the hills were fairly well defined. Going to control 9 I didn't pay much attention to my route choice and ended up having to cross the double black lines of an erosion gully, but they had a few very small gaps in them which turned out to be steep tracks up so it wasn't too bad. After that I felt my foot bruising and thought the braces were causing problems again, but then the thing digging into my foot moved and I realised it was a rock. Took a while to get it out with the braces on though. Rest of this leg was okay. Control 10 was another long leg, the track I'd expected to cross wasn't there but I managed to work out my distance easily enough. Kicked up a stick with my left foot and it hit hard into the achilles of my right, which hurt a surprising amount for the rest of the course, slowing me down particularly on the climbs. Also rolled my left ankle again, but it didn't hurt - maybe the braces saved it. Crossed off the gullies approaching 10 really carefully, because otherwise it was pretty vague. However, the gully I thought should be the right one was totally different to the way I'd expected it, compared to the other gullies - it seemed far too shallow and also too broad. Followed it for a while anyway, before deciding to confirm my position by climbing the adjacent spur and checking for a knoll. The spur was pretty well defined once I climbed it, and I saw the control just ahead of where I'd been in the gully, so I'd been correct after all. Control 11 I had a couple of disagreements with the mapping of the contours (there was nothing else to go on, still really vague), in particular a spur that I think should have had a form line marking a knoll on it. Also had a similar difficulty with the gullies near the control, miscounted and they wern't the size and shape I'd expected. I think my dodgy compass might have also played a part in picking the wrong one. Furthermore, there was a pink streamer right where I though the control was, so I wondered if it had not been put out. When I found the control, it was in the next gully over which had a pit in it, which was supposed to be in the gully adjacent to the control. I think despite these issues the control was in the correct place, however. Only other error in my course was overshooting control 14 coming down the spur, where I ran straight past it. Finished pretty slow from the rolled ankle and sore achilles.

A very slow collection of controls, on a 1:10 000 map which puzzled me for a while after running on the 1:15 000 one.