Training Log Archive: jennycas

There's a large walled park/garden about 2km NW from where I'm staying, so I went to find it. Therein I saw more people running than I had thus far in the whole of Vienna, and lots of people walking dogs of all shapes & sizes. They really love their dogs here, and since most people live in apartment houses, there are signs absolutely everywhere warning people to clean up after their dogs (picture of a cute dog saying "Nimm ein Sackerl fuer mein Gackerl"). And Inspector Rex is even allowed on the tram/train, for the same price as a child!

I found this out because this afternoon I caught the tram 10km north to Nussdorf, from which it was possible to walk up to Leopoldsberg at 425m, 300m above the Danube and which is said to be the northeasternmost point in the Alps. (History question: what is the significance of 12 September 1683 in these parts?) From there the walking trail towards Kahlenberg dipped into a saddle and I encountered something which I think Ricky & Tash would really enjoy (and which needn't cause Kay to fear that her MTBWOC team members might get injured, because harnesses are compulsory): a treetop ropes course https://www.waldseilpark-kahlenberg.at/

Kahlenberg is at 485m and has a 22-metre tower, the Stefaniewarte, from the top of which there are 360-degree views over Wien and the Donau - totally worth the 1 Euro the little old ladies at the bottom were collecting. There was a cycling race going on in the vicinity and I looked it up when I got home; men did 9 x 20km laps down to the river and back up again, while women did 5 (and were rewarded with proportionately less prizemoney). I wandered back down to Nussdorf at leisurely pace, although I didn't stop at any of the Heurigen, and as I reached the Nutbush City Limits I found a statue which basically said "Beethoven lived here", and in fact the tram left from Beethovenstrasse.

In the evening I decided to do something different, and, having sussed out the delights on offer in the Prater (for some reason I rather like the canival atmosphere of amusement parks, especially at night) took the Wienerriesenrad ferris wheel which rises 65m above Vienna, for glorious sunset views of the city, the hills where I had been earlier in the day - although the river wasn't visible - and the colourful lights of the Prater. Basically there are about 30 cabins into each of which 15-20 people can easily fit, and the wheel takes about 15 minutes to go around. But it's also possible to pay 360 Euro for a romantic couples' dinner inside your own private* cabin, and the waiters step on board to deliver a new course at the completion of each circuit.

*apart from all the people in all the other cabins gawking at you, that is.

C • Sep 12 1683 3

C • Epic 3

Say what? Amazon bought PillPack for $1bn, and by doing so wiped $11 billion off the share price of pharmaceutical chains in the US: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/28/walgreens-cvs-shar...

C • Did you expect logic in financial markets? 2

Spent the afternoon, once I'd escaped from the conference, wandering Wien - across to the university botanic gardens near Schloss Belvedere, then Naschmarkt (impressive array of dried fruits, nuts, spices, cheeses, things stuffed with cheeses etc, but I already had pretty much everything I needed, from my local Billa) then back through the city centre, which is ridiculously conscious of its tourism potential. The sun had finally come out and everyone was eating ice cream, so I did the same. After all, I'd walked about 10km on pavement...therefore it took a while to get going on a proper run and I stuck to the tracks in Prater as much as possible once I'd found my way through the amusement park (hatching a plan for later).

Thought I'd better do some intervals since the WMOC sprint qualifier start list has put the fear of god into me, and just as I was thinking how totally flat it is around here, some stairs up the back of a 'grandstand' appeared to me in a vision and so I ran up & down them 12 times. And then I found a patch of woods with singletrails and signs warning of DROPCATERPILLARS - the Viennese seem to be incredibly risk-averse; the botanic gardens had a list of rules as long as my arm (and a Sunbathing Verboten graphic). And then I got a bit lost yet again and just like on Thurs I ended up further SE than I had intended but eventually spotted the Messeturm and made my way back through the modern university campus, wishing I had a sprint map thereof.

After a long day of sitting on my rear in the conference, knees & hips were tight but I needed some exercise - and fresh air, if such a thing were only available in a big city. So I headed for the river where the flat-bottomed 2-storey cruise boats have berthed for the night, north to the Reichsbruecke and across to Donauinsel (rather dry and overgrown and underwhelming, but I did see a stork among all the white swans), along the island to Praterbruecke and back up the west bank. I've been having real trouble with my directions here, partly because I haven't seen the sun yet and also the city is so completely flat. Where are all the hills?

Actually cooked dinner tonight for the first time in a week and am going to go to bed properly rather than crashing out at 9pm and waking up 6 hours later, still fully dressed...

Gestern Abend bin ich in Wien beim Zug angekommen. I negotiated the subway system, popped up into daylight at Messe-Prater near the conference centre and it was raining. But the apartment I'd booked in the Ausstellungsstrasse was just across the road, and the owner was impressed that I could speak enough German to negotiate a discount (since he preferred cash payment). 300 Euro for 5 nights, and the best thing is that it has a washing machine :) And he was so proud of having stocked the fridge with beer & cola - neither of which I drink - that I didn't have the heart to point out that there was no milk! So the second best thing's the supermarket just around the corner. After I'd had some fun in there looking at all the exotic things I could buy (G & I greatly enjoyed European supermarkets in 2015) I went to find the river which is basically at the end of Kafkastrasse about 15 min away. Hallo Donaufluss, meinem alten Freund! Last sighted in Ulm 3 years ago, and before that in Budapest in 2011.

This morning it was still raining and I figured the river would be equally as grey as yesterday, and I had to be at a conference workshop by 8am, but at lunchtime I sneaked out for a jog to go and find the Hundertwasserhaus: http://www.hundertwasser-haus.info/en/ which is the most colourful thing I've seen in the city so far. People keep telling me that Vienna is lovely, but I think my head is still in the mountains...any suggestions for what I should do with a free day on Sunday?

C • Wien 6

Arrived back in Trento about 9pm last night (glad I wasn't the person having to leave again @5am for Bulgaria as coach of the the Italian team for EYOC) and, hungry, wandered into the old town from the hostel and found "food truck city" which was basically about 10 vendors, so it was more of a village, but the smells were all mouth-watering. I settled on the paella from a Spanish van, and didn't really think when ordering sangria to drink with it, that this is basically wine...

Therefore getting going this morning was surprisingly difficult, but it was a lovely cool morning and I had brought with me a copy of the sprint relay map from WOC 2014, so I couldn't not go for a run around the old town (on an approximation of the men's course). Only one garden was locked; all the other little alleyways were still valid through routes and I enjoyed myself greatly. Less fun was trying to stuff all my gear properly into my big pack (70L is really only 57 when the attached daypack is 13) in order to catch a 9:15am bus to Innsbruck from where I'd booked a 12:17pm train to Wien. This all worked out ok, although I was a bit disappointed that the only way I could tell we'd crossed into Austria was the messages from Telstra!

C • Enjoy 1

Event: 5 days of Italy 2018
 

I took full advantage of the hotel's buffet breakfast before going off to climb mountains - up to Lago Malghette at 1900m (a beautiful little alpine lake where the rifugio is not just a hut, but a full-on restaurant) and then to the top of the Pradalago chairlift at 2109m, from which I could see across the valley to yesterday's training area and the big tent being set up for the arena on Groste for days 2 & 3 also at 2100m. It's impossible to describe just how beautiful it was being up in the mountains on a perfectly clear day, and I was sorry to go back down. Decided my knees wouldn't enjoy 550m descent and therefore, despite my fear of heights, took the chairlift - which was back down in Madonna di Campiglio approx 10 min later.

As a bonus, later in the day it was possible to take the cabinovia up to Passo Groste at 2440m, armed with a copy of the orienteering map and in the company of the mapper, with whom I debated which trees should have been individually mapped or not above the snowline. The actual orienteering event back down in the village was kind of an anticlimax - I had entered the long EOD course which was a bit bland but this didn't stop me from doing a couple of dumb things despite having previously walked around the village more than once. I certainly wasn't running very fast but did seem to have a bit of oxygen debt; hopefully more due to tired mountain-legs than general lack of fitness?

C • Bit of a wild thought 1

The 5-Days organisers had intended that the model event should be accessed by the chairlift which goes up to 2104m Monte Spinale from straight behind the event centre in Madonna di Campiglio, but of the 40+ chairlifts in this vicinity, only 3 are operating currently and that's not one of them. I was lucky enough to get a lift with some Finns via Stefanotaxi to the halfway point where I hid my gear behind a tree and hiked another vertical 300m up the ski run to the summit. Partway up, I began to hear cowbells, and the bovines were grazing all over the ski slope (with a guy and his 3 dogs sitting on a rock watching them) just like when Vanessa took me & G up to Schwialp in 2015!

The top part of this map, above the snowline, matches what the terrain will be like on Wed/Thur, but I'll be headed to Vienna by then, so it was lovely to get a chance to run in this terrain, even if I never got above a jog through the spongy rhododendrons and juniper, and the descent to the lower controls among the trees was a slippery slide (a bit of a chain of orienteers forming here and the people in front of me startled a big deer). Afterwards I sat on a rock in the sunshine and admired all the alpine flowers, So many things grow wild here which I would only ever see in a garden at home - ranunculus, forget-me-not, aquilegia.

Walked back to the town and was disappointed to find that nearly all the shops are closed over lunchtime, so I headed back to the hotel and made myself a cheese-and-jam sandwich! In the afternoon my tourguide took time out from his busy administrative schedule and we went to see a waterfall where snowmelt comes roaring down the cliff from a plateau above. Of course, it's not orienteering tourism without a map and so we critiqued the mapping from a previous event in this area. Also, I am usually a nervous passenger but I have been very good (by my standards anyway) about not panicking on narrow mountain roads or when there is a long tunnel. Maybe it's that my head is so weirded out already by being on the wrong side of the road...