Training Log Archive: jennycas

Up Hillrise (not quite as slowly as I had anticipated) to Mead St steps and down through the quarries. Really windy out!
A bit sad that the Repat plovers seem to have lost their babies yet again. Every year the same pair manages to hatch an egg or even two and spends the next few weeks being fiercely protective, but often to no avail as the chicks have no road sense :( Then again, will the plovers themselves even have a home this time next year?

C • Silly plovers 4

Dunno why it's taking so long to recover from Sat. But actually I think tiredness is more mental than physical. A bit worried about how I'm going to get through Sept with being away 5 weekends in a row!

Breaking in a new pair of shoes, and loosening up some old joints, around the suburbs just as it was starting to rain warmly after a couple of suspiciously springlike days.

Hip flexors were absolutely horrible last night but not too bad today for a few hours of walking around taping night champs' control sites out at Narrinyeri. Permission from national parks has finally come through and we are even allowed to camp there (although no campfires or alcohol) which I'm very pleased about. Courses will reward the careful navigator, without being too physically challenging. So put Sept 16/17 in your diaries now :)

Seemed quite a warm afternoon*, so I'm glad I took water with me. Was pretty hungry by the time I got back to the car at 4pm; 3-day old pizza has never tasted so good!
*edit: 26 in Murray Bridge

C • ok I understand the no camp... 3

C • Sept 16/17 4

Over 150 teams were entered for this event, which was advertised as being at Jupiter Creek but despite the promotional photos on the website didn't turn out to include any of the historical gold diggings, something which I had started to suspect in the past week when there were photos of the water being nearly up to the footbridge over Meadows Creek right down at the southern end of Knott Hill. So, basically it was Jupiter Creek pine forest (which hasn't been used for foot-O recently because of felling & regrowth), Knott Hill pine & native forest, and some good linkages through farmland between them. Steve & I remembered somehow doing 42km in the 6hr at Bundaleer in 2010, but we were a lot fitter then, so planned for about 36km straight line, grateful that this is a flatter area, apart from the northern end of the course which I convinced Steve we should tackle first.

It seemed that the junior boys and the ultra trail runners had the same idea, so we were around them for the first few controls (including a stop to release a kangaroo from the fence it had just run into and was kicking mightily against, trapped by its foot but I managed to untwist the wires ok while on the opposite side of the fence from the growling roo) which we kept having to unwind the Navlight punches from if we got there first - but by the time we'd been around the furthest section and back through the narrow Heysen Trail linkage to the rest of the forest, couldn't see any other teams behind us. Crossed Razorback Rd, into the flat pines W of the HH, not enjoying bashing through the brashings but then we got into some open farmland and that was fine, all the way to the main Kangarilla-Meadows road, then we got into the Knott Hill section at about 2 hrs 45 (a bit annoyed not to find the water drop but think it was in the wrong place; we managed the whole 6hrs with 1.5L each).

Saw Meredith/Abigail/Joanna going the other way and figured that they'd covered slightly more ground than us already but had the steeper stuff to go at the end - so this was both reassuring and also emphasised to us that we would need to keep working hard. Made it through the sandy/scrubby section and out to the dam on Wicks Rd at 4hrs, figured we'd better go all the way to the footbridge as recommended to get the 90pts (could see that the creek would have been over my head last weekend but is now wadeable apart from the deep waterholes) and started heading north from here. Surprised at how many other teams were doing the same, and we were slowly overtaking all of them. Crossed the main road and the farmland got quite soggy underfoot so running wasn't always possible, then after we turned east was the most horrible leg of all, crossing squelchy bog with numerous fences both tightly-wired and electrified and I tried going under some of them which my cramping hip flexors protested bitterly at.

Anyway, we got back into the pine forest with just over half an hour to spare, and managed 2x40, a 50 & a 30 in that time, finishing with about 5 min up our sleeve although I had allowed for wasting about 3 min in the young pines, which had happened to us a couple of times earlier in the course but didn't happen now. Finished feeling pretty pleased with ourselves - the only other control we could maybe have got if all had gone perfectly was a 20, and as it was we'd only left out 5 controls, and had 2090 points. The junior girls left out 6 controls, and had 2050 points, so it was a very close race and a huge effort by them. No other team got over 2000pts, so winners are grinners - thanks Steve for a grand day out :)

C • Very satisfying day out! 9