Training Log Archive: jennycasIn the 7 days ending Jul 24, 2016:
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Sunday Jul 24, 2016 #
12 AM
rogaining race (WRC 2016) 11:30:00 [3] 30.0 km (23:00 / km)
(sick) shoes: Keen trail shoes
Uncharacteristically, I made mention of a nap when we stopped to refold the map at midnight, and Zara looked at me in surprise. I wasn't serious, just daydreaming...also daydreaming about a cup of tea from the All Night Cafe in the centre of the map, but we agreed that it was a lure placed there in order to attract Pokemon and their catchers, because to the south of it was the escarpment which could only be accessed from further east or further west and so although we could have gone there through spinifex country in time to arrive about 4am, decided instead to follow a big creek SE to 49, through a low saddle to 116, and via 87 to the easternmost water drop which we reached about 11 hours since we had last been to water. (Susanne & Plaxy also had to reroute their course to reach this drop.) We saw Rob & Kathryn casually hooning past as we left 56 after this and Rob said that he had just filled up with 5.5 litres of water! I haven't mentioned yet how diligent the people manning the water drops were, camped there all night and recording the number from every team which passed through & checking where they were headed next.
Zara was still hoping that we might be able to do the southern spinifex section, on a plateau above the escarpment and which looked fairly subtle with some reasonably high points in a 20km line back towards the HH. Even though my trail shoes were excellent against spinifex, my orienteering gaiters weren't (shins padded but of course there's no real protection on the sides) and I was keen to avoid any big ups & downs because I was using all my energy on the navigation. Sore throat was a nuisance too, making it hard to swallow food or drink water, and I had to keep the Panadol up regularly. But at least it was a mild night where only one thermal was plenty and I would guess minimum 9-11 degrees.
I suggested not going further south as our time to cover this ground would be a bit unknown and the options for shortcuts at the end were limited because the only real way back was along a gorge. Plus there were still quite a few high points between us and the ANC and I'd thoughtfully left 102 north of the road for us to get after that :)
76, 95, 107 as the sky was lightening in the east (and actually the moon had been helpful too, but even before it rose it had been possible to switch off our torches and look at the shape of the horizon by the darklight all around us; at one point I couldn't help but give Z an impromptu astronomy lesson) and the sun just peeped over the hill as we turned east to come down from here. This moment on a rogaine makes the night all worthwhile, and we turned south to briefly cross the first red-rock range through a gap to 94, back out another gap to 57, meaning that we reached the ANC about half an hour later than originally planned but they were still able to make me that cup of tea at 8:30 and we were only there for 5 min - I didn't even need more water because I was having trouble drinking. Was nice to grab an apple there too. One thing I really appreciate on SA rogaines is the fruit at water drops. I'd take extra food to compensate against this absence but ended up eating only half of what I carried...
76 on a low range, 35 which was 2.5km down the road and I tried to jog but my best Cliff Young was only equivalent to Zara's fast walk because my feet were absolutely killing me (great grip on these shoes but not much cushioning), 102, to the north and then 64 which was along the line of hills following a string of people through the buffel-grass. Tracking was starting to become really obvious by now and although we had allowed 2 hours to get the couple of controls which were all that was available to us in the last 6km, after the steep scramble up to 52 there was a superhighway down the valley past 73, and the NZ supervets ladies were walking much faster than me but even so, we popped out into the main gorge at 11:15am and Zara did mention the 30pts about 2km south of there, with the words "but we'd have to run back" which is normally a challenge I'm up for, but I looked at my feet and they said "sorry boss, we just can't do it" so they carried me very slowly north towards the hash house on a lovely vehicle track but at that point, roads were even worse than cross-country on my feet.
Z was very patient with me but I can't believe that I stopped and gibbered at the river crossing only 500m S of the HH, when normally I love wading through knee deep - but my shoes were supposedly waterproof and I just couldn't see how there was room for water in them as well as my feet! Among the string of people overtaking us at this point, one guy offered to carry me over, but I told myself not to be ridiculous and plodded through, eventually finishing at 11:38am with 2400 pts. Fairly happy with the effort I'd managed to put in (except for the last hour or so) but feeling as though it was about 20% less than I'd originally hoped to be able to achieve (2800 would have been a good score, I think). Mind you, I couldn't complain about the way the controls had gone for us in the night, and after hearing other people's tales of woe about sometimes losing up to 2 hours on a control (a situation I'm not unfamiliar with) or having to seriously reconfigure their routes to get water, I started to feel less guilty about not having done proper planning and having been so slow.
The nice surprise, though, came at the presentations - 2nd women's vets, 190 pts behind the Russian women (who were 3rd women overall) and only 20 pts ahead of Susanne & Plaxy who were wishing that they had got an extra 30 which they would have had time for since they came in at 11:15. But it still meant that we were all on the podium together, which was nice. Sus was heard to say afterwards to a very happy Plaxy "Maybe we should consider training next time"!
Zara was still hoping that we might be able to do the southern spinifex section, on a plateau above the escarpment and which looked fairly subtle with some reasonably high points in a 20km line back towards the HH. Even though my trail shoes were excellent against spinifex, my orienteering gaiters weren't (shins padded but of course there's no real protection on the sides) and I was keen to avoid any big ups & downs because I was using all my energy on the navigation. Sore throat was a nuisance too, making it hard to swallow food or drink water, and I had to keep the Panadol up regularly. But at least it was a mild night where only one thermal was plenty and I would guess minimum 9-11 degrees.
I suggested not going further south as our time to cover this ground would be a bit unknown and the options for shortcuts at the end were limited because the only real way back was along a gorge. Plus there were still quite a few high points between us and the ANC and I'd thoughtfully left 102 north of the road for us to get after that :)
76, 95, 107 as the sky was lightening in the east (and actually the moon had been helpful too, but even before it rose it had been possible to switch off our torches and look at the shape of the horizon by the darklight all around us; at one point I couldn't help but give Z an impromptu astronomy lesson) and the sun just peeped over the hill as we turned east to come down from here. This moment on a rogaine makes the night all worthwhile, and we turned south to briefly cross the first red-rock range through a gap to 94, back out another gap to 57, meaning that we reached the ANC about half an hour later than originally planned but they were still able to make me that cup of tea at 8:30 and we were only there for 5 min - I didn't even need more water because I was having trouble drinking. Was nice to grab an apple there too. One thing I really appreciate on SA rogaines is the fruit at water drops. I'd take extra food to compensate against this absence but ended up eating only half of what I carried...
76 on a low range, 35 which was 2.5km down the road and I tried to jog but my best Cliff Young was only equivalent to Zara's fast walk because my feet were absolutely killing me (great grip on these shoes but not much cushioning), 102, to the north and then 64 which was along the line of hills following a string of people through the buffel-grass. Tracking was starting to become really obvious by now and although we had allowed 2 hours to get the couple of controls which were all that was available to us in the last 6km, after the steep scramble up to 52 there was a superhighway down the valley past 73, and the NZ supervets ladies were walking much faster than me but even so, we popped out into the main gorge at 11:15am and Zara did mention the 30pts about 2km south of there, with the words "but we'd have to run back" which is normally a challenge I'm up for, but I looked at my feet and they said "sorry boss, we just can't do it" so they carried me very slowly north towards the hash house on a lovely vehicle track but at that point, roads were even worse than cross-country on my feet.
Z was very patient with me but I can't believe that I stopped and gibbered at the river crossing only 500m S of the HH, when normally I love wading through knee deep - but my shoes were supposedly waterproof and I just couldn't see how there was room for water in them as well as my feet! Among the string of people overtaking us at this point, one guy offered to carry me over, but I told myself not to be ridiculous and plodded through, eventually finishing at 11:38am with 2400 pts. Fairly happy with the effort I'd managed to put in (except for the last hour or so) but feeling as though it was about 20% less than I'd originally hoped to be able to achieve (2800 would have been a good score, I think). Mind you, I couldn't complain about the way the controls had gone for us in the night, and after hearing other people's tales of woe about sometimes losing up to 2 hours on a control (a situation I'm not unfamiliar with) or having to seriously reconfigure their routes to get water, I started to feel less guilty about not having done proper planning and having been so slow.
The nice surprise, though, came at the presentations - 2nd women's vets, 190 pts behind the Russian women (who were 3rd women overall) and only 20 pts ahead of Susanne & Plaxy who were wishing that they had got an extra 30 which they would have had time for since they came in at 11:15. But it still meant that we were all on the podium together, which was nice. Sus was heard to say afterwards to a very happy Plaxy "Maybe we should consider training next time"!
Saturday Jul 23, 2016 #
Event: World Rogaining Champs 2016
12 PM
rogaining race (WRC 2016) 11:30:00 [3] 30.0 km (23:00 / km)
(sick) shoes: Keen trail shoes
When I woke up this morning I felt about 30%, and Zara did have an offer to join a couple of other teams but she wasn't keen to cramp their style, and just before map handout time I went through the motions of putting on my O gear, figuring that if I was going to be "well" enough to keep an eye on Eleanor (who had fallen in love with the inflatable Aussie boxing kangaroo and she & I held hands with it being dragged around the hash house for a while) I was probably well enough to start the rogaine although had no idea what I'd be like at 3am or even how I'd go up the first big hill.
Wasn't very helpful to Z during the planning phase, which went all too quickly - just kept muttering in shock about how the map was waaay too big and we'd only be able to cover 50% of it at most, so the question was which 50% given that the HH was in the SW corner and surrounded by some huge linear ridges meaning that the control placements nearby were limited. Although in fact, in many other parts of the map the controls were also over 2km apart. The other important factor to take into account was water, about which the competitors had been warned - plenty of water drops along the track running E-W through the middle of the map but none at all in the NE corner of the map or on the southern escarpment, because it just was't possible to get water drops into those areas. So it was no good planning a big loop to get all the high points in these areas if that would mean dehydration. At least the forecast was only for 21 on Sat/Sun, but the sun always seems warm in the afternoons in Central Australia.
As we were assembling for the briefing Kay mentioned that the NW corner was nice and I said that I'd been wanting to do that first up so that it would be a few more hours until we refilled with water and so Zara said ok and we turned the plan, such as it was, on its head. Very slow out of the start, shuffling on the road with all the other teams, and I wasn't even bright enough to suggest shortcutting across the floodplain on the way to 61. Through 61, 42, 96, 110, 41, 62, 81, 36, 54 we were very slowly gaining on teams who had started out much faster than I was capable of going, and at the water drop near the Sphinx had actually caught up with the Colwells and Chris & Karen, but then sat down with the trusty piece of string for a 20-minute planning session!
Basically, we were heading into the mid-northern spinifex section with the intention of picking the best bits out of it (and most of the points in there were pretty good, whereas along the northern rim they were interspersed with lower points) and seeing how much we could do of the NE section depending on time - so we were going to rethink again about midnight, by which time we had managed to do 91, 72, 112, 84 (following a creek line very carefully and getting our torches out partway through), 116 (steep scramble up a hill face with a bit of bouldering which made me very thankful for my grippy shoes, especially when having to retrieve first Zara's hat and them my map which rolled down the hill - the huge map was very springy when folded and kept wanting to escape from my hand. Compass thumb is now numb from holding on so tightly to it!), 82 which seemed to take forever because of suboptimal route choice, but actually many of the night legs took well over an hour, 48 (subtle gap in the hills which I really enjoyed navigating to), 117 incorporating my usual 11pm mental slump where I do dumb things navigationally, but it could have been a lot worse.
Wasn't very helpful to Z during the planning phase, which went all too quickly - just kept muttering in shock about how the map was waaay too big and we'd only be able to cover 50% of it at most, so the question was which 50% given that the HH was in the SW corner and surrounded by some huge linear ridges meaning that the control placements nearby were limited. Although in fact, in many other parts of the map the controls were also over 2km apart. The other important factor to take into account was water, about which the competitors had been warned - plenty of water drops along the track running E-W through the middle of the map but none at all in the NE corner of the map or on the southern escarpment, because it just was't possible to get water drops into those areas. So it was no good planning a big loop to get all the high points in these areas if that would mean dehydration. At least the forecast was only for 21 on Sat/Sun, but the sun always seems warm in the afternoons in Central Australia.
As we were assembling for the briefing Kay mentioned that the NW corner was nice and I said that I'd been wanting to do that first up so that it would be a few more hours until we refilled with water and so Zara said ok and we turned the plan, such as it was, on its head. Very slow out of the start, shuffling on the road with all the other teams, and I wasn't even bright enough to suggest shortcutting across the floodplain on the way to 61. Through 61, 42, 96, 110, 41, 62, 81, 36, 54 we were very slowly gaining on teams who had started out much faster than I was capable of going, and at the water drop near the Sphinx had actually caught up with the Colwells and Chris & Karen, but then sat down with the trusty piece of string for a 20-minute planning session!
Basically, we were heading into the mid-northern spinifex section with the intention of picking the best bits out of it (and most of the points in there were pretty good, whereas along the northern rim they were interspersed with lower points) and seeing how much we could do of the NE section depending on time - so we were going to rethink again about midnight, by which time we had managed to do 91, 72, 112, 84 (following a creek line very carefully and getting our torches out partway through), 116 (steep scramble up a hill face with a bit of bouldering which made me very thankful for my grippy shoes, especially when having to retrieve first Zara's hat and them my map which rolled down the hill - the huge map was very springy when folded and kept wanting to escape from my hand. Compass thumb is now numb from holding on so tightly to it!), 82 which seemed to take forever because of suboptimal route choice, but actually many of the night legs took well over an hour, 48 (subtle gap in the hills which I really enjoyed navigating to), 117 incorporating my usual 11pm mental slump where I do dumb things navigationally, but it could have been a lot worse.
Friday Jul 22, 2016 #
Note
(sick)
So, it seems that I have succumbed to the Eleanor Special: the cold which came back from Darwin with mum, who stayed in bed for 5 days and it explains why parents were both so listless last week that they had me worried. Dad in particular was very coughy and spluttery which is totally not ideal in a traveling companion who's sleeping in the motel bed next to you...
Sore throat came on over dinner last night, making it very difficult to eat the excellent pasta with which we were carbo-loading at a local Sicilian (therefore the pasta was chilli-loaded) restaurant and I had those lovely feverish hot-and-cold chills overnight, waking up frequently and reducing the probablility of being able to do a rogaine down to about 20%.
Nurofen at lunchtime increased the probability to 60% and so I walked around a few of the model course controls with Zara, avoiding any big hills in the 30-degree sunshine. I probably should have told her then to look for another team to join, but Lachlan did say that all he'd had from this illness was a sore throat, so I might be ok if the fever settled down overnight...took me an hour to eat my dinner though so that wasn't a good sign, and it was another terrible night waking up drenched in sweat.
Sore throat came on over dinner last night, making it very difficult to eat the excellent pasta with which we were carbo-loading at a local Sicilian (therefore the pasta was chilli-loaded) restaurant and I had those lovely feverish hot-and-cold chills overnight, waking up frequently and reducing the probablility of being able to do a rogaine down to about 20%.
Nurofen at lunchtime increased the probability to 60% and so I walked around a few of the model course controls with Zara, avoiding any big hills in the 30-degree sunshine. I probably should have told her then to look for another team to join, but Lachlan did say that all he'd had from this illness was a sore throat, so I might be ok if the fever settled down overnight...took me an hour to eat my dinner though so that wasn't a good sign, and it was another terrible night waking up drenched in sweat.
C • Glad 6
Thursday Jul 21, 2016 #
Note
Walked to/from the underwhelming botanic gardens (native plants, but nothing in bloom) before driving out to the Tropic of Capricorn monument on the highway 30km north of town - the highlight of mum's day - and then to collect Zara from the airport (sooo many rogainers arriving and on multiple simultaneous flights) before driving out to Ross River to set up camp and leave parents at RRR. We picnicked at Trephina Gorge on the way and did the short rim walk but there wasn't time to do the rogaine model event after socialising with people at the campground, because Z & I were heading back into town for a supposedly good night's sleep at the motel.
Wednesday Jul 20, 2016 #
7 AM
running 57:00 [3]
shoes: Asics Kayano 21
Went out early to check on a couple of controls as per Kay's request - they weren't far from where we're staying but in opposite directions from each other so this took a while, particularly as my knees & groin seem to be painfully tight this week, especially (but not limited to) in the mornings. Explained to the aboriginal guys camped in the bushes that there was going to be a control up the hill from them and they seemed ok with this. Explained to the competitors that they should give the camp a wide berth, but all they seemed to care about was whether there would be any spinifex on this map!
Mass start 3hr score (10pts per control, and bonus 10 pts for a photo of oneself sitting on the dunny at the pertinent control) seemed to work ok, as did babysitting Eleanor while mummy went orienteering with Plaxy and daddy went mapping. Was getting warm in the sun by the time I picked up a few controls around the Telegraph Station though.
Mass start 3hr score (10pts per control, and bonus 10 pts for a photo of oneself sitting on the dunny at the pertinent control) seemed to work ok, as did babysitting Eleanor while mummy went orienteering with Plaxy and daddy went mapping. Was getting warm in the sun by the time I picked up a few controls around the Telegraph Station though.
Tuesday Jul 19, 2016 #
11 AM
orienteering 1:00:00 [2]
shoes: Keen trail shoes
On Territory time, Kay gave me a map hot off the printing press, and a lift to the far end of it, and I ran back to the start putting out 4 controls along the way then jumped in the car to collect Susanne & Eleanor from the airport - and a couple of Russian ladies to whom Sus had offered a lift because they needed to get to the orienteering. Numbers were good for this and hopefully gave people a taste of what the contours are likely to do and how rocky it can be underfoot (which my new shoes were ok with), but the funny thing is that the main thing which the internationals really seem to care about is getting to see some spinifex...
Monday Jul 18, 2016 #
5 PM
running 38:00 [3]
shoes: Asics Kayano 21
Walked up to the Ormiston Gorge lookout again at sunrise, but the sun took a long time to rise above the surrounding hills. Hope we won't be climbing up any which are that steep on the rogaine - I'm feeling a bit daunted...
Short walks at Serpentine Gorge (the steep climb up to the lookout totally worth it for the view, and mum was excited to instead look inside a Larapinta Trail walkers' shelter nearby) Standley Chasm (an effing expensive rip-off) and the rather lovely Simpson's Gap (black-footed rock wallabies on the rocks below the cliffs) took up most of the day and now we are at a cheap but clean motel Eastside. After unpacking, I went for a short run which was a bit of a fail in terms of finding access to the walking trails I wanted, so I ended up going cross-country, and found a control! I think it's for Wednesday's event.
Short walks at Serpentine Gorge (the steep climb up to the lookout totally worth it for the view, and mum was excited to instead look inside a Larapinta Trail walkers' shelter nearby) Standley Chasm (an effing expensive rip-off) and the rather lovely Simpson's Gap (black-footed rock wallabies on the rocks below the cliffs) took up most of the day and now we are at a cheap but clean motel Eastside. After unpacking, I went for a short run which was a bit of a fail in terms of finding access to the walking trails I wanted, so I ended up going cross-country, and found a control! I think it's for Wednesday's event.