Training Log Archive: jennycas

Such a nice sunny afternoon that I decided to ride the creek valley before meeting the girls. Was a bit tight for time heading home afterwards though and as I rode past the restaurant where I needed to be for dinner 45 min later they were probably already setting our table up!

Leisurely birthday run with Zara & Fern from Mitcham reserve, up around the quarries of Randell's Reserve and along Brownhill Creek - I got to pick the route and the views :)

Things to be grateful for: how efficient my car's heating is when I am driving home from the pool in wet swimwear and it's 6 degrees outside (for my American friends, that's Celsius, not Fahrenheit, but still...)

Conversational run in which I was able to keep up with Zara & Fern for once - a good thing, because my headlamp was going flat; had meant to charge it last night but some bad news about a friend drove that idea right out of my head, and in fact my brain was somewhat fried today (but legs seemed ok).

Since my car had been serviced at Glenelg today, I then parked near the beach and ran to Brighton Jetty & back.

On the weekend, something twinged unexpectedly through my adductor/groin/hamstring and it was still not quite right yesterday, but I figured I'd start with the warmup tonight and it seemed ok then. Still, didn't think that either suspension bridge sprints or 2x2km tempo would be good for it, so did some shorter bridge to bridge loops along the river through Hackney (very dark on the east side) with about 10 x 200-ish faster where it was lighter.

It had been a clear cold night, beautifully starry, when we went to bed, but never got frosty because the cloud came over, and in fact I slept comfortably apart from when the kangaroo ran into my tent (it tripped over the guy ropes and pulled the peg out) and was surprised to find Zara & Steve already up when I surfaced. We breakfasted, among other things, on the remnants of the cake which the birthday boy's mother had brought for him, then headed north again to find a stake and put it in the ground so that a control could be hung where there are no trees/bushes - good thing some of the fences are a bit derelict! In the northern part of the map we could definitely tell that it had rained properly a week ago; new green grass is already showing through.

The sheep look healthier than they did a couple of years ago, too, and we came across a ewe trying to protect her lamb from the wedgetailed eagle soaring with intent overhead. It soon turned its attention to us and by the time it had decided we weren't edible, mother & lamb had run far enough away for the eagle not to go back to them, so I think that as decoys we probably saved the lamb. Took about 4 hours to do another group of 8, then as we headed south to cross-check a control where M's parents hadn't found our original tag (some of them had rusted out as it's nearly 2 years since we first hung them), we encountered the landowners taking a truckload of sheep out to 'winter pastures' and they stopped for a chat, then a bit further along the road we encountered our favourite/most talkative landowners, who had ostensibly come out to feed the goats with kids in the goat trap, but really I think they were just hoping to find us and hand over a key to their gates so we can put a water drop out next week!

Anyway, it was after 8pm when I got home, absolutely exhausted, but over 80% of the controls have now gone out already between the 6 of us - Mark's parents are a godsend! I will say though, that much as I love it up there, I've been to some of the control sites 3 times now, and also I've spent far more of the past year on course planning/control hanging than I actually have had opportunities to race (especially with orienteering) so I will be glad when this rogaine is finally over (it's had a longer gestation than an elephant), even though there aren't any proper O events which I will get to do until August.

C • Kangaroo 6