Training Log Archive: jennycas

Event: BendiGo ToDay - Mt Tarrengower
 

So, it would have been nice to come down here and camp last night, but after packing up the sprint @Adelaide Uni (good numbers, but my courses unfortunately fell foul of the 'secret' underpass now having scaffolding across one end of it and my favourite control at the top of double-sided stairs being declared OOB by the security guard guarding a function on the lawn behind the museum - I had thought that was a university building) we wouldn't have arrived before 11pm. Instead, G & I left early and made it to Cantara while the campers were still getting up.

I'd heard that the coastal wattle is pretty thick these days; it turns out that so is all the other vegetation, and the gaps between the thickets have pretty much vanished and although some of the bushes have died off their skeletons still remain, so about 30% of this course was "fight". I tried to run along the more open basins where possible but there was a lot of ducking & weaving going on; would be interesting to know actual distance covered.

Navigationally this was a good fun challenge though. Stuffed up the first control through not being quite sure where I'd started from in the campground, was a bit off-line on the 3rd, then more cautious with the rest. Got a bit anxious when a rain shower came through and I had no map bag, but the 1994 offset-printed map is fairly robust :)

1:4 000 on the flatter SW slopes of Mt Tarrengower; nice little course with lots of changes of direction but not too much up & down. I struggled to simultaneously read the rock, the contours and my bearings - am blaming the sun in my eyes...so ran more than once to a control that wasn't mine (yet). Also arches were very uncomfortable and I was running quite gumbily for the first 15 min. Can tell that I haven't done any hills for the last couple of weeks, too. Still, really 2 min/km behind Bridget on a bush sprint? She's obviously running pretty well!

C • Thanks buts think it's caus... 2

Giving legs a rest because they need to run around (Jim promises not too much up) Mt Tarrengower on the weekend. Looking forward to road trip to Vic with G tomorrow :)

Solitary sortie along Long Gully and some side valleys in successful search of blackberries. Enjoyed myself after an exhaustingly full-on day at work, and even did a small amount of proper(ly uncoordinated) MTBing - before I had any berries to be bounced around.

Pairs relay with 4 legs each, 2 longer and 2 shorter:
A 0.8km, 5:44
C 1.3km, 10:30
B 0.9km, 6.05
D 1.2km, 9:28
I was paired with Joanna (to my shame, I've never taken the trouble to properly work out which is whom, of the twins - but reckon I know it now) and don't think I let her down too badly in terms of pace. Certainly I ran a lot harder than I would be able to do if this was a full-length continuous course! It was good fun not knowing which direction people would be coming from or when, because it depended on the order in which they'd had legs A, B, C, D :)

This was going to be hills, but I had nothing today and it turned into a plod around the foothills of Panorama, stopping to rest/stretch every few min. There's a nice little picnic area at the end of one of the valleys below the train line and I sat there a while enjoying the silence.

C • Enjoying the silence 14

Suburban O-pants-delivery run, including a lap of Forestville and some streets I'd never been down before.

1) 3.5km course where we each put out "our" first control and then continued around the rest of the course which was more in the thinned pines than it was among the rocks. For the first 15 min my arches were excruciating as they always are when first put into O shoes, and didn't enjoy going over logs much, and I had to stop & stretch a couple of times. 29 min.

2) 1: 5000 sprint-style course zigzagging among the rocks, where I just held off Adrian (2km, 14:24) but I was behind the young-people's pack from the start.

3) I wanted to run a bit more in the forest since I'd gone to the trouble of taping my ankles, so suggested to Zara that we do the 2.4ish km course I'd drawn up, by alternating map-memory legs. 19:30

Plus collecting a couple of controls.