Training Log Archive: jennycas

Left home at 6:30am to collect parents and then put event signs out before Geoff got to Lucky Hit with the trailer at 8am and the Arrows all started putting tents up while AK checked all the controls. Was continually busy with various tasks up until the 10:30am mass start, and then steadily confiscating maps & troubleshooting mispunches pretty much until the presentations, which is when the gingerbread biscuits came into their own :) Simon's courses were well received even if some of the control placements were a wee bit subtle, John did a stellar job of computing with Tysonium backup, and Bridget commentated despite being sick - hope she doesn't lose her voice! One really nice thing was that when we called for volunteers to collect controls, lots of juniors came forward.

By the time everything was packed up, signs collected and parents dropped at home 10 hrs after they had left it, I thought I'd still have enough daylight for a run but wasn't sure if I'd have enough energy. Parked at Somerton and headed south along the beach to Seacliff, then up to Marino Lighthouse, back down to the coast and north again, realising just how much slower I am at this than when I was 15. Even after it had got quite dark, the temperature was still fairly balmy, so in the end I went as far north as Glenelg Jetty but was really slowing down by this stage as evidenced by the fact that the final 1.7km back to Somerton Park appears to have taken me 12 min. Knees and groin and neuroma all pretty unhappy for a significant portion of the run, despite which discomfort I enjoyed myself.

C • HUGE day 4

Had to pick up the gate key from Mt Crawford forest headquarters so went for a run @Rocky Paddock (campground was popular) using a couple of 3km courses which I'd unearthed from a training day in March 2009. Legs very tired and I really struggled going up hills but they were nice little courses and featured some control sites which aren't usually used there. Started to wonder if I had in fact set them, and sure enough...

Spent the afternoon putting out all the relay controls at Lucky Hit (this involved a bit of Subarallying) and then John & Amber/Sara came along to help set up the graveyard/changeover area. It's gonna be a perfect day for the club relays tomorrow!

The lights were on @the ovals at Mortlock Park so I ran 6 x broadsides across the rough grass, about 225m each. Felt slack for not doing more but these were hard enough.

Warm up/down and the rest of the usual loop across to Lower Mitcham. Was pretty buggered and kept stopping for no good reason, on the pretext of stretching - admittedly my knees have been really tight this week. Might be time for new shoes?

Staggered into Shepherd's Hill before Arrows came around for pizza and relay-map-sorting-and-bagging night. Very slow plod on tired painful legs; hopefully they'll have more energy once this event is over.

Implemented phase 2 of Operation Relay Prize Making tonight and now there are two dozen orange & white "orienteering control" gingerbread biscuits sitting in my kitchen :)

Bridget put out some control stands and SI units in a sort of star and gave everyone an SI stick and we had to practice sprinting and punching. I started out incredibly gumby but eventually managed one clean run of 32.6 seconds. Then we did the 'course' the other way around...good thing that my punching skills don't form a major part of my ability to orienteer :)
Surprised how out of breath we all got by doing these (in the end I did 9)!

Around the uni loop 'fore & aft, plus some run-throughs. Oh, and a bonus group plank.

A bit sad that I won't be in Sydney on the right weekend to run the Big Foot Sprints at Rookwood Necropolis: http://www.bigfootorienteers.com/drupal_2/node/144

Also getting really frustrated trying to find a house in Auckland to book for WMOC week next April. Either the owners don't respond at all to enquiries from out-of-country (a problem I encountered for Oceania 2013 also) or they tell me that they can't take bookings for next year yet!