Training Log Archive: jennycas

Spent a glorious afternoon out at Narrinyeri putting out controls for night champs - Geoff kindly came with me to help by driving around and putting out water, and we even put glowsticks at the culverts (compulsory crossing points) under the railway line, then he set up the Taj Ma-Tent while I taped some legs on the kiddies' course - and then all I needed to do was offer glowstick bracelets to competitors as they arrived, and dine on cheese toasties from the Junior Arrows' catering while waiting for finishers, and finally spend about an hour searching for a straggler who, although we initially located him, didn't get the hint about course closure...

Anyway, while doing this I noticed some glowing 'eyes' on a tree, and then on another tree, and another, so I showed them to Tyson and we managed to track down the geocache to which they led and which was located basically next to his campsite!

C • Night o 4

Night champs organising has been rather all-encompassing this week but I'm glad I went out to Belair, even if I did run so slowly that I'm wondering why I am going to Aust Champs next weekend.

Nth Adl loop with the gang although I didn't really do proper intervals, and cut it short past the delicious restaurant smells of O'Connell St. Feeling less worse than last Tuesday though, possibly because I haven't run for a week!

Stayed at Jamestown last night with my parents; after I had dropped them home to their place and managed to do my own unpacking & washing it was still a lovely spring afternoon so I hopped on my bike (left knee is protesting post-rogaine so I'll have to be careful) for a pootle around the suburbs, and ended up riding the coastal path between Glenelg North & South just on sunset (got there via old tramline and back again via new one). Being at the beach always makes me feel like I'm on holiday, and being at Glenelg now always reminds me how the sprint map of the foreshore is part of Stefano's legacy to us. I wonder what Manu's legacy will be? Hopefully some Aust Champs maps...

C • Glenelg 1

But actually, the night wasn't that bad apart from our complete failure at 4am to find a control on a creek junction in the mallee (we spent 45 min going up & down the creek but obviously never went far enough downstream), although it was pretty lonely; we saw a couple of teams at the SW water drop at 9pm and then no other humans until the safety loop car came to the eastern water drop at 5am. It wasn't particularly cold either; only a 2-thermal night despite the initial frosty forecast, and 'warm' enough for a very brief nap on the ground at 6am without even a coat on.

After sunrise it was a pleasant morning to be strolling among the hills, although my feet were telling me otherwise and as I got slower, our likelihood of being ahead of any of the 4 teams who had the possibility of beating us, decreased...then for good measure we ended up way too far east of a creek junction in the vague flat mallee (I have never navigated so poorly as I did on this rogaine: bearing too far right all the time, poorly estimating distance, inability to distinguish between macro and micro contours; think I was just too tired to focus on the map properly) and we also ended up 5th overall despite a last-minute jog to a couple of extra controls near the HH.

Good work by Paul & Des who were 240 points ahead of us and understandably a bit disappointed not to take home the winners' trophy because Wil & Dave from WA cleaned up the entire course - I had anticipated that they would achieve this, but didn't expect them to do so before breakfast!

C • Wil & Dave 2