Training Log Archive: jennycas

Looking for things to do around Central Australia with my parents after the WRC, I came across the website for the Australian Outback Marathon on July 30th. Not that I'd be up for 42km but, you know, the half might have been manageable if it were flat. And if it didn't cost a minimum $775 to enter!

Turns out you can *only* enter by purchasing a 3-night accommodation package at Yulara Resort, although there is a No Accommodation option (for campers?) for the bargain basement price listed above. When I enquired as to what bounties one receives in return for this largesse, I was informed about the airport transfers, dinner the night before the race, commemorative t-shirt and pre-race yoga. There may have been more 'freebies' but I wasn't listening by then because I was trying really hard to prevent myself from saying to the nice lady "What a complete rip-off!". I mean, the race doesn't even go anywhere near Ayers Rock, it just does a couple of laps of the resort...

I've managed to book return flights to Qld for Aust Champs for both myself and Geoff for less than that :)

C • Flight vs run 3

More like a crepe today, or maybe a pikelet. Did go to Belair but didn't make it very far before turning around and plodding for home.

Flat as a pancake today. Hopefully it's 'just' a cold sore and not actually a cold (yes, I know they are totally different viruses). Now that the Ultralong is over I can begin focusing on organisation for schools' champs and club relays, which are only 2 weeks apart in August.

Tired today (partly because of getting up at 5 to drop Blair to the airport although I did then go round to my parents' for breakfast to make mum special birthday porridge) and had no more energy than yesterday, although at least the ground was much smoother underfoot.

Really not in the mood for it today - hot, tired, cranky, still brooding over yesterday's oversight with the start triangle (should I be sacked as a controller?) and conscious that there was still some dissatisfaction among the elites with the misplaced control from Sat. Picked up the map hoping for a nice course over the back of the range (started from the bunkhouse in the gap) and while the first couple of controls were successfully found in young pines, the route to 4 was directly up & over the range, down the scree slope which I hate (possibly wasn't worse at the night champs because in the dark I couldn't see how steep it was) and then I must have been right on top of the control but didn't see it so went too far east, and by the time I came back to it lots of people who'd started after me were pouring down the hillside. I overshot 5, too, because the point at which the track went from wheel marks to foot pad was much further west than originally mapped, and by the time I came back to the control people who I'd overtaken earlier in the course were passing me, so I called it quits and jogged back to camp, although that quickly turned into a walk and I was happy to chat to V and her mum about their sunrise walk up the Bluff. By all accounts when the course did get back over the range again it was quite nice but I'd already taken over half an hour for less than 3km and was completely out of physical and mental energy even though I didn't run 20+km yesterday.

C • 20km+ yesterday? 1

Some fast, although not necessarily smooth, talking yesterday afternoon had averted a crisis in terms of any complaints being made against the middle distance race, and I was deeply relieved although not yet inclined to relax because the Ultralong wasn't over yet (although Robin and I and her GPS were all in concurrence about the placement of the controls) and we were out at the event site pegging maps on the clothesline at 8am in preparation for the M21E mass start at 9:30, followed at 5-minute intervals by W21E, M20E, W20E. The latter, because of a short first loop, were first to pass back through the map change and from then on there was a steady stream of competitors passing through for their second map. Unsurprisingly, the flow rate slowed down a bit when it came to the 3rd map, as it was getting warm in the sun and some people were exhausted but very few pulled out - and nobody changed their shoes, despite a number of people having left a spare pair along with their snacks and supplies.

I didn't have much opportunity to keep an eye on how the other age classes' competitors were going until after the final 3rd-leg elite map had been taken, and when I did get to grab a cheese toastie cooked by my long-suffering spouse in aid of the junior squad's catering, the next thing I found out was that the course setter's spouse was not very impressed by the 'special' map he'd been given; unfortunately the course run by M65A, W45A and M21AS had somehow ended up with the elites' start triangle 100m west of the finish instead of the other age classes' start triangle 100m east of the finish - oops. Surprisingly, only one other competitor commented on this!

Final part of the day was control collecting. G dropped me & Zara off at a water control halfway up the map and we walked north in parallel lines, collecting about 10 controls each, to the northernmost water control where he met us. It was lovely to be walking in the late afternoon sun with the glow on the Chace Range, but it was also nearly dark by the time we got back to camp - and the Uppills, having coordinated the rest of the control collecting, weren't back any earlier than us, so they must have been exhausted too.

C • Best long weekend ever! 7

Event: NOL Round 3 - With Wildfire Sports Ultra Long
 

We left camp at 8am to put out the rest of the controls, hoping that tomorrow should be an equally crisp morning for the competitors. They'll have to walk over a km from the parking but the nice sheltered assembly area is worth it. And the map-change clothesline looks pretty professional. All this was done well in time to get to the afternoon's event, the one which nearly didn't happen and had been pulled together over the past 5 days by Bob & Gil (emailing the map files back to the printer's from Wilpena). I was looking forward to the intricate little hills of Mannawarra but in fact much of this course was in some quite subtle vague stuff and I kept bearing too far to the right which probably lost me small amounts of time on a number of legs although I was running quite well by my standards, and definitely enjoying it.

When I came to the misplaced control though, my heart just sank; so near and yet so far. Less than 50m away from where it should have been but in a little side gully at right angles to the one where it was meant to be - damn! I initially thought this had resulted from a transcription error between draft courses and final print but found out afterwards that it was a placement mistake made by both course planner and controller who had approached, late in the day and weary, from the opposite direction to which most of the competitors would be coming, and found a little hanging valley without checking which way it ran. As I ran away having lost less than a minute, all I could think for the rest of the course was that I really really hoped no one would put in a complaint which could lead to a protest that might force cancellation of the event. It was obviously a control which was on nearly all of the hard courses and I was perfectly certain that the organisers wouldn't be voluntarily offering to cancel the results, because then they wouldn't have an event and we'd be back in the same position where we'd been a week ago.