Training Log Archive: jennycas

Event: SA Middle Distance Championships Wirra Wirra
 

Tyson set great middle distance courses with tricky short legs (I often had my bearing correct for about half the distance, then veered at the end) hunting for a rock in low-vis low pines and making good use of a pivot/water control. I couldn't get up much speed or fluency today but enjoyed myself, even when it hailed on me! Running out of my own legs towards the end but mentally would have been happier for the couse to go on longer.

This didn't end well...

We hadn't many club members available for control collection so I agreed to drive out and collect 12 in the far SE of the map; Tyson told me the creek crossings should be ok but of course everything was so much wetter than yesterday morning that I didn't dare cross some of the low-lying swampy areas where I could see his wheel marks, and therefore had to walk much more than intended, and then go back for the water casks - it is possible (just) to carry 12 controls at once but maybe I should log it as weight training.

Started hailing just as I got back to the car, and I was a bit worried about the final swampy section 200m from the arena, so intended to veer a little left on to higher ground. Which would have been fine if I'd seen through the hail on the windscreen, that right in front of me the swampy creek dropped into an erosion on my left. Which I worked out when my left front wheel suddenly dropped about 40cm with a disconcerting crunching noise :(

Attempts to reverse out of the channel resulted in detachment of half my front bumper but no backwards motion. Thankfully Tyson and the Ashforth clan were still around and I called them over rather sheepishly, and Tyson rang the ForestrySA ranger while S & H (aged 6 and 4) gleefully said things like "Your car's stuck in the hole!" which I had to acknowledge as being factually correct, if somewhat inconvenient. Anyway, nice Ranger Dan turned up within the hour with a decent sized ute (none of the rest of us had proper 4WDs) and a very strong chain and pulled me backwards out of the hole, no worries mate, and then produced some cable ties to secure the sadly-trailing bumper!

Definitely ashamed of my stupidity, but at least it's still driveable. Hope we don't get in trouble with the rangers for driving across the creek and into the forest? It does seem, reflecting on our history of events here over the past 30 years, that Wirra Wirra is nearly always too wet in Aug/Sept and this causes problems.

C • vehicle 8

Detoured to check out the waterfall in Sturt Gorge, on my way to collect Zara for night O. Definitely worth it after last night's rain, and the Magpie Gully cascades were flowing nicely too.

Haha, I am very bad at night O, and this was my annual opportunity to prove it. You know that obscure love song from the late '90s which goes "Well, my heart's running 'round like a chicken with its head cut off"? Well, that's me - the heart was attached to a pair of legs which did a lot of running but kept continually getting turned around 90 degrees any time I tried to use my compass (tracks were the safe option but sometimes cross country was unavoidable). Good fun and glad I went along on a wintry night :)

Knees not great this morning, but it was warm out and the water was lovely in.

Nearly crosseyed with tiredness but squeezed this in between work and OA board meeting - ran the knockout qualifier courses from Sprint Adelaide weekend and was about 90 sec slower on each than last Jan, which is definitely not ideal. A couple of times I found myself thinking as I ran "must get out my maps and see which route I took then" before realising that I was carrying the same physical pieces of paper today!

Found some Nurofen in my desk drawer this afternoon, so by end of day my leg allowed me to go for a run around Tyson's M21 course from 2012 sprint champs (which I controlled). I just about doubled Simon's time from then, but admittedly it was getting pretty dark in the creek bottom by the end!

Would have liked to run @Nth Adl but even after icing it throughout the day, shin was still very swollen, tight & painful - sigh. At least I'm finally catching up on my backlog of orienteering organisational commitments (now that work has quietened down a little and so I'm not still doing real work after work).

The outdoor pool opened on the weekend and I was all excited about going for a swim (in preference to running because my bad shin is feeling really compartment-y) but this morning when I walked the dog there was lightning less than 2km away, thunder which he's too deaf to notice, and hail which bounced off his coat - so I thought better of self-immersion.