Training Log Archive: jennycas

Event: Melbourne Sprint Weekend
 

Oh dear, this was the one day of the month when I am usually very vague and disoriented and uncoordinated, but it was still a bit of a shock when standing on the start line and I looked at my compass and north was exactly the opposite direction from where I'd thought it to be (a cloudy day and I obviously hadn't properly noticed the location of the school campus in relation to the freeway/the direction of the freeway at the point where we turned off it). So this was bad, really bad, because I kept on making 180-degree errors; just couldn't get north fixed in the right direction in my head (even when we were leaving the event) and more than once ran completely the wrong direction, especially around the hexagonal building which seemed to spit people out at random corners - like from a centrifuge - and/or had to completely stop, compare map & compass then turn map around a full 180 degrees. Worst errors were on 7 & 8 where I think I lost about a minute and a half on each, but at least I got the long leg route choice right. The mud after that just sapped the will to live, though, and made a mess of my brand new shoes. So I think I lost about 5 min all up and was dead last in elites (which really should have a screening mechanism to prevent people like me from entering).

Not feeling much better this afternoon, which was a shame because I'd been looking forward to running on the campus where we attended a home-schooling conference in 1984 (yes, it has changed a bit). Straight out of the start was the tricky decision leg and I simply didn't see the stairs up to the overpass, thought there would be some on the other side of it according to the map, but all that was mapped was the upper level and since I was running underneath, the stairs I was looking for weren't there and the route right around to the southern end of the impassable wall was a very long way and that lost me a minute and a half straight up. On 2 I went into the wrong courtyard and had to go around, on 6 I simply didn't understand the impassable wall at all or that I was already beyond the end of it or that the control was inside the building. The artifical barriers in the 'maze' section at the southern end annoyed me because they forced route choices up/down horrible vertiginous stairs, and I was particularly frustrated by 18 where I ran to the end of the undercover area on the running level, as shown on the map, and there was no control because in fact it was one level below, down the stairs, but this was absolutely not obvious from either the map or the descriptions. After that I made some other suboptimal route choices, but had already lost about 4 min by then so hey, what did it matter, my feeling of impostor syndrome was already complete. A pity, because it was a really interesting map & course and I'd like to go back there and explore it properly on a more relaxed day. Think I am just trying to keep too much stuff in my head lately - worrying about parents, work, ARC...

C • Take up gaming. I started ... 2

7am flight to Melbourne with parents so that I could take them to visit mum's cousins for the weekend. Sequence of activities was: airport bus to city, meet Blair for coffee and to mug him for his car keys, catch tram to Fitzroy where his car was parked, drive to out past Cranbourne (via Studley Park so that they could see the river & Dights Falls, and some other detours), and then traffic was horrible at numerous choke-points on the freeway in both directions, so by the time I'd dropped parents off and got back to Fairfield it was well after 5pm and I was exhausted. But a run down Darebin Creek to the Yarra - exactly the colour of coffee - and along it to the pipe bridge was nice (if rather muddy in parts).

Trotted around an old Sprint Series course which I had set 4 years ago. Couple min slower now than then, but I guess it could be worse.

If it's raining on the pool, it's raining on the washing. Also, it's hard to predict that a water buffalo's wake will in fact precede them and therefore I inhaled water no less than 3 times (I guess that's on only 15% of 20 laps...) with associated choking and spluttering.

Made hard work of going up Yurrebilla through Waite but my reward was the 360-degree views from the ridgeline at the top (it seems to be newborn calf season up there) and knees didn't hurt too much coming down the front face of Brown Hill.

Up the hill from work, singletracks around the snout of Bellevue Heights, down into the gorge and along it as far as the waterfall (secret twilight rogaine reconnaissance) which is something that's not possible after heavy rain, then up from Sturt Creek/Magpie Gully to the school in the suburbs to check out something for the HH coordinator, and back down through the uni. Quite an enjoyable run but still didn't get rid of the pervasive negative thoughts.

Short-and-sweet course from Dante (when we last ran sprint champs here in 2016 the course lengths were straight line and the winning times about 21 min) which I mostly did well apart from utterly ballsing up 4 - running faster than I was thinking, I went up the stairs, couldn't find a control in the garden at the top, looked over the railing, saw a control below, went down the stairs and into the dead end, wrong number, back up the stairs and one garden bed further along and there was my control - 45 sec lost, and for the rest of the course I was fearful of Fern catching up to me, so I ran quite hard. Wouldn't have actually gained any extra places in the women's (W20, 21, 35 plus M16 & 45 all had the same course) without that mistake though. Not sure if I should admit that I won 35s but was eligible for 45s...

From Piccadilly - because I'd had to go there for a rogaine meeting - up Gore Rd/down Sprigg Rd. Feeling very stressed/anxious lately about how many things I have to sort out simultaneously (had intended to give away the OA board stuff a year ago in advance of becoming seriously involved in ARC setting) but a run by myself in the rain thankfully cleared my head somewhat, as did a couple of glasses of wine at the pub with G later. So now I think I can face Monday at work?