Training Log Archive: jennycas

Event: NOL/WRE & Vic Bush State Series 3 - Eldorado - Kangaroo Crossing
 

This was meant to be the WOC long trial but the organisers hadn't realised that initially and then when they did lengthen the courses a little this was offset by the fact that they mainly traversed the kinder side of the map and that the undergrowth wasn't quite so green at the end of summer - and therefore the top women's times were still well under an hour. It did mean however that even by walking all the uphills and only jogging the downhills I wasn't out for too long.

First leg was a classic, probably the best on the course, and caught out A LOT of people. Net ascent/descent was only a couple of contours but the straight line looked fairly green & junky so I climbed, expecting to contour on a clearer line and then drop in to the gully above the control (which looked to me like a perfect attack point although I heard more than one person say they hadn't done that because they were uncertain of finding the right gully). The only problem was that I missed identifying the clearer strip and so went all the way to the top of the hill - oops. It took a little while to drop 100m in climb from there!

The next few controls were all fine, and fairly direct routes - Bridget passed me as I was hesitant in the green on the way to 4 so that was reassuring (good run by her today and you can see from the splits that she did best on the shorter middle-distance style legs) and Lizzie & Jasmine went past on the climb out of 8, then Anna on the way in to 11 where we both hesitated in the circle. I stuffed up 13 on the downhill run though, by dropping too low and having to climb up through some vicious green, but it's not orienteering if you don't get scratches. And it was even fun going back out there, control collecting afterwards with Duncan the Scottish guy. He was a bit disappointed when I told him we'd only seen wallabies not kangaroos.

Event: NOL & Vic Bush State Series 2 - Yackandandah - Rowdy Flat
 

Rowdy Flat isn't the most readable of maps, and when you get a print where the purple of the circles isn't that easy to distinguish from the brown of the contours, it makes for a lot of stopping to try to read where you've come from and where you're going to, not that I was moving very fast when I was moving. It really wasn't necessary for the organisers to impose a pre-start quarantine on the elites because the courses were so convoluted that nobody could have shown anyone else anything of benefit on the maps which were displayed at the finish.

I overran a track junction on the way to 1, came at 2 from below because the description said foot of a 6m cliff (but it really wasn't so then I had to scramble back up) and was generally very tentative getting in and out of gullies, also still pretty low on energy from last week's cold. Sometimes features seemed to take a long time to come up and at other times, like on 5 where I was expecting to see a boulder beside the track, I somehow ran an extra 100m and had to double back. Lost most time on 10 though I think, where I was so sure I had crossed the creek at the junction and gone up between the branches but it turned out I had gone one too far over; I wasn't alone in this but was slower on the uptake than most.

Lost about 8 mins on mistakes and quite possibly my lack of running speed accounted for about the same, but who's to say? Great run by Jas to win, anyway.

The Arrows stayed at the Old Priory that night and I'm fairly certain I managed to pick the same bed as I had when staying there with the schools' team in 1992. Wouldn't be surprised if it was the same mattress as 22 years ago also - damn uncomfortable.

Now at the stage of feeling a little better but sounding much worse and therefore getting all the sympathy (and wary looks) at work. I flew into Melbourne in time to go to the footy with Blair, as it turned out - which made for a rather late night :(

Attack of the Killer Physio
I dreamed last night that Kath was making me stick the needles into myself. But then I've had a lot of weird dreams lately.

Slow plod up to the redwoods, behind even the pregnant lady. But I couldn't get lost because I knew where I was going.

Either I'm a bigger wuss than I thought or this is a real head cold. Sooo tired today but had to go in to work for trainings and meetings and in the evening eventually managed to get my technical report for the AGM done, despite a head full of cotton wool and EPAS.

I took the Summer series map from a couple of years ago and ran around all 20 controls. Colonel Light Gardens is a bigger suburb than I thought! Legs were tired but I tried hard - and I definitely run differently with a map in my hand. Hip stiffened up afterwards.

Normally I wouldn't wuss out with a minor sore throat but I was so tired that I neither ran nor attended Wallaringa meeting and went to bed before 9pm.