Training Log Archive: jennycas

A bit annoyed by this one. Near Mt Dutton on the shores of Coffin Bay, a stony field where every thicket of Acacia paradoxa was lovingly mapped in its precise dimensions, as being impenetrable green with tiny "passages" in between. And the lighter green, as I understood it, would be patches of mallee (as with yesterday's map if it had actually been printed in the correct colours). Started to seem like there was an awful lot of prickly acacia in amongst the mallee though, and I took a very long time to get through any of the treed thickets, which made my route choice down the hill to the shoreline very bad indeed (would have gone more directly but I thought I wouldn't be able to get down the cliff at the bottom) and I bled time (also quite a bit of actual blood). Very much enjoyed the - sadly only two - controls in the tiny sand dune patch, then got stuck in another clump of mallee when I should have gone straight out to the rocky beach. Next control was the misplaced one, the actual location of which I guessed correctly but foolishly spent time corroborating with others.

And from there it was across a fairly open patch, looking for a control beyond a clump of mallee or so I thought, but I just couldn't find the damn trees anywhere, and eventually plunged into the prickly acacia anyway, found a dead end and had to back out, ran back down the track to convince myself that the trees really weren't there then had to fight my way through the prickle thickets again. Turns out that particular lighter green patch was just meant to indicate that the acacia wasn't quite so awful there...so I'm rather frustrated at having lost about 15 min due to physically horrible routes when I think navigationally I was doing ok!

Afterwards we detoured via Wanilla so parents could look at the hall-and-supper-room where they met at a dance 50 years ago this month!

Event: The Sandmine/Broccoli Hill OY
 

"I am going outside, and I may be some time"
This was excellent fun! Pity I didn't get my head into the map right at the beginning (was worrying about whether parents would get wet walking home from church in Lincoln) and made either actual errors or inappropriately wide bearings on the first few controls. Had a good section navigationally through the middle controls including the Broccoli Hill area (not unlike the southern end of Cantara) once I remembered how to piece together this terrain, but I was still incredibly slow and dragging bad hamstring a bit, then ran out of my own legs right before the end and made a couple of dumb control-circle mistakes.

So probably lost over 20 minutes all up, but hey, it's such beautiful challenging terrain to be in, and the map/course setting clearly such a labour of love from David Winters - and the Lincoln club had done a great job of catering too. So when I saw all the juniors heading up the big dunes on the edge of the national park, I couldn't not go too. And the slight guilty twinge at marring a pristine landscape with my footprints was quickly erased by the sheer joy of being able to launch oneself down a dune, just as I remembered doing in childhood. The wind will have erased my footprints pretty quickly anyway...

I've always been keen to see what an O map of Coffin Bay township would be like, and I wasn't disappointed. Quite a fun not-so-little course, with some patches of bushland and limestone and tiny clearings mapped. I encountered Smokey (Tim Ashman) at the misplaced control and thereafter we couldn't get away from each other, so I ran harder than I otherwise would have.

Spent the afternoon on a scenic drive out to Coffin Bay National Park, with parents reminiscing about how there used to be no proper roads through the dunes - the track basically followed the beach - in their courting days in the late '60s.

Managed to get hold of a copy of the maps from Saltbush's event in the Middleback Ranges a couple of weeks ago, also permission from the landowner, so detoured in for a run there (parents walked around the easy course, meanwhile) on our way south. An hour to myself without interacting with increasingly-deaf-and-forgetful parents was the high point in a day bookended by being informed that my credit card is already being used in the US, despite its owner not being present there for another week, and being breathalysed on the way back from collecting Blair from the airport after I'd settled parents into our Port Lincoln accommodation. At the geographical high point of the course it was possible to see all the way east across Spencer Gulf to the southern Flinders Ranges, such was the clarity of the fine winter's day!

C • Middleback Range 2

Scenic sunset run around Whyalla (along foreshore from caravan park, up Hummock Hill, across to the transmitter tower behind the hospital, back via Flinders & Freycinet lookout) after roadtripping there with parents in the new car. The sun sets 10 min later here currently than it does in Adl, yay!

C • Well earned break! 1

Up the southern boundary, back via Long Gully with B&S, Liv, Emily. I really struggled with horrible hamstrings and general fatigue but did remind myself that I was in the illustrious company of Australian representatives. Declined to accompany them up another hill though and went back to work to finish off some stuff because I won't be there again for another 3 weeks.

YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There were 21 of us tonight which lent itself nicely to teams of 3, and Bridget made us do 16 x 100m each as a relay; even with waiting for Robin and Greg to do their runs I scarcely felt like I had a chance to catch my breath before it was time for me to run again!

C • Philosophy. 2

Hopefully hamstring will be okay despite tonight's efforts...