Training Log Archive: jennycas

Went up to Deep View with John & Sarah, then across to the top of First Falls (trickling faintly after the rain a couple of weeks ago; also the hills are actually green already!) and down. Feeling less uncoordinated than yesterday and managed to stride out a bit on the way back.

I needed to be back in Adelaide by lunchtime so hadn't entered either of the sprints today, and had asked Blair if we could instead go for an early morning run in the You Yangs before he dropped me at the airport on the way to the afternoon sprint which he was controlling. This meant staying at the pub in Little River (adequate motel rooms, decent steaks) and being able to come back there for a shower after a stagger around the loop track which circumnavigates Flinders Peak, a 350-m hill with lots of granite on it. I'd woken with a really stiff neck and felt fairly awful for the first 10 min but it turned into quite a nice run with good views when I wasn't trying not to trip over the rocks; can't imagine how people find doing a 50km/50 mile ultra in this area but there are lots of other tracks, some of them a bit smoother, as I discovered on the downhill run to the Big Rock and then the park headquarters, having wussed out on going up the peak itself even though I was tempted to follow in Matthew Flinders' footsteps (he didn't have a track, of course).

The afternoon's family function was to drop in on my grandfather at Mt Barker cemetery for his 100th birthday (he made it to 99 last year) and G & I left him some of his favourite pear cider, then went for a walk & picnic at Mt Barker Summit with my parents and cousins.The Mount is a nice bit of bushland, with views out over the ever-expanding town and the new freeway exit/interchange under construction at Bald Hills Rd, which can't come soon enough for the locals.

Was a bit tired & grumpy (among other things, about how there doesn't seem to be great communication between HP and the non-squad members of NOL teams, but also I'm having a lot of trouble convincing myself not to worry about work at the minute) before starting but managed to switch off & focus on the map ok; surprised at how simple the first few controls seemed because 10 was the first one where I really had to read the map - also where I first caught sight of Rachel though she didn't actually catch a minute on me until the end of the long route choice leg I think, and after that the final 5 controls didn't have much route choice either. But actually this meant it was sort of fun trying to race people.

Middle of the day was spent at East Beach near the circular swimming enclosure which I find fascinating; presumably it dates back to the 1800s. Also the botanic gardens on top of the hill are really nice and I wished I'd thoought of going there with more time to spare.

C • mix 'n match 2

New and tricky map for everyone this afternoon; a small area of buildings running mostly in north-south lines but with east-west elevation between them meaning some stairs, and lots of cornering which I was a bit slow on, and a second map/map flip after we'd come back through the assembly area. Read the map fairly cleanly although with some hesitation on the way to 4 (also in the control circle!) and didn't think of taking the outside route to 5, or to 10 - mind you, this meant I got to take the secret stairs which I'd almost overshot but I saw Rachel heading for them. She'd already caught me a minute before the map change and in the second half I just couldn't muster up any pace to chase after her, plus I took a route too wide to 14. It was certainly necessary to maintain map contact at all times, as evidenced by the fact that the Casanova-Kennedy challenge now stands at 2-all after the weekend.

Event: #Eurovision Melbourne Sprint Weekend
 

Uni campus with some open areas between buildings and the second control was on a boulder in the forest, which I completely overran. Through the building network (and through the car park) I was fine but lost half a minute on 14 which was a really short leg but I simply couldn't see the "wall" next to which the control should be. Turned out it was a metal screen descending from the building's verandah and which blended into the background facade beautifully, and through which the control couldn't be seen. Liv caught up to me (1 min) here and then both of us misread the way to 16 around the out of bounds where there was nothing inside it; I went far too wide to the right but at least this meant I'd seen where 17 was (inside corner of tennis courts) and that there was a dead-ended construction zone nearby (which caught out a number of people). I did dumb things on 20 (garden bed in car park) and on the last control where I again didn't see the small "building" because it was camouflaged against the big one, and turned back to the men's control on a sculpture instead. Guess I should have watched the finish chute to see what people were punching at the end of it - before I went out!

Afterwards a lady who I'd seen walking around a course with her 6 year old came up & said hello to me and it was Carolyn who I'd been in the SA schools' team with in 1989 and who is now a vet in Melbourne.

I rather like older university campuses (campii?) because of their intricacy, but unlike most other people I hadn't been studying the map beforehand, because I feel that doing so rather spoils the surprise. Which came in the form of the control at the bottom of a wall where I was standing at the top; I'd read the control description which did indeed say "southern paved area, northern part" as northern paved area, southern part, which I somehow think A LOT of other women did too, judging by the number of people who came to the top and peered over while I was punching the control at the bottom (and avoiding the spontaneously-opening door), having run around & down the steps to get to it. Not a lot of time wasted but if I'd realised I'd have done better to go right out to Swanston St and around. 7-8 was the other leg I didn't do wonderfully because of having to go down some steps to get up other steps to reach the fountain at the end. And what I've noticed on an area like this is that I am not very fluent at going up & down steps and around corners, and I actually lose more time relative to other people, just on pace, than I do on a sprint which has more open running. That surprised me! Of course, shooting out of an underpass and not turning immediately right to 12, but being carried by my own momentum around a garden bed with an uncrossable hedge, was rather my own fault, as was trying to go straight from 16-17 despite an unmovable building being in the way. Still, even if I took away what amounted to perhaps a minute's worth of errors (less than the morning anyway) I'd only have gained a couple of places at most; was 14-16th in senior women and behind 6-8 junior women in all 4 of the races across this weekend.

The nice thing about this event was that Peter Taylor who works in the maths department (between controls 3 & 4) came out with his family and after they'd been for a bit of a map-walk, we all had dinner together on Lygon St.

2 - Splits

I fear I may be one of those dickhead drivers who cyclists hate. Pulled out of a side street in front of a bike which was coming faster than I anticipated and closer than I realised in the darkness, causing the rider to swerve and yell angrily. I don't want to become part of a rant on someone's blog somewhere, but I had no way of saying sorry. Maybe I should stop driving at night?

Around Colonel Light Gardens before parents came for dinner. Had intended to do fartlek but legs weren't up to it; even this felt tough :(

Got up before 6am with the intention of doing a long run as rogaine training but there wasn't enough light to see off-road until nearly 7am, by which time I had reached Shepherds Hill but I was completely stuffed (too tired to make/eat proper dinner the last couple of nights) and sat down on a park bench for 10 min, enjoying the silence (apart from the kookaburras laughing at me) and then tackled one ascent of the hill and came home again. Did run alternating blocks fast & slow through the suburbs though, and could feel the 'tugging' sensation in my hips/groin which tightness may explain why I can't run fast enough to get properly out of breath. Finished off at my favourite coffee shop and walked home from there with a large latte in hand - caffeine aids muscle recovery, right?