Training Log Archive: jennycas

Left home at 0630 to collect Wataru from Bridgewater in time to get to Mt Crawford Forest for 8am to put out controls for today's training which he had set. Nigel and Leila were also to assist, and thank goodness for them, because by 0830 the rangers still hadn't appeared to unlock the gate into the forest and so Wataru and I had to run nearly 3 km up to the start location on the Tower Hill ridgeline before we could put out any of the mini-flags (leaving the Rocky Paddock ones to Leila and Nigel but they still had to hike a fair way from the main road also). I got my half-dozen done reasonably efficiently and then ran back down to my car, by which time the gate was open and others had started assembling at Sailors Gully picnic area.

Yeah, so this wasn't the most organised of days. Despite advertised meeting time 0930, the last person made it up the hill to start at 11am, by which time I'd already decided that there was no point in my actually doing the full training course as I'd probably be needed for collecting controls anyway. But I hadn't bargained on spending 45 minutes to cover less than 1 km in a patch of physically green prickly acacia which Vincent and I had decided in 2018 should not be used for control sites. Wataru knows that now too...but despite 3 attempts, and I actually found the correct patch of rocky ground in the middle of the prickle bushes on my third attempt, I still failed to find where he had put the flag on that one and will have to go back another day. I will also be picking thorns of Acacia paradoxa out of myself for the next few weeks; I think there are even some in my scalp :(

Another 45 min had all of the remaining 8 controls easily collected in the hilltop farmland and I was back down at the cars, whereupon it turned out that everyone else had left by then (Toby had asked "why didn't you just put out streamers which could be left there?" but apparently he did actually collect the 3 flags closest to the cars) and Wataru was still finishing doing the actual course so Remi - who was waiting to take him home - and I had to go back out and collect the ones in the pine forest on the hillside slopes, which was another half an hour. And I eventually got home at 1530, 9 hours after I had left, which is a bit ridiculous and definitely not something I had signed up for. But it was a really nice day out there (apart from the horrendously prickly scrub and the disconcerting blood patches on the forest roads which must be where some sort of feral animals being culled had been shot and left to bleed out before being chucked on the back of a ute to drip all the way down the track) and being able to do some blackberry picking by the creek while waiting for others to get their act together was a nice bonus.

The sun was getting low in the sky by the time I went out after helping on the start, and I was very careful of both my hamstring which has been noticeable since the knockout sprint and the dodgy ankle which I've tweaked twice again this week, but I managed not to trip over anything (not even kangaroos) and since I know this area pretty well after setting last year's schools' champs, only real time losses were getting in and out of the dry creek channel each time I had to cross it, and general slowness because I didn't have time to warm up, not that this would have made a great deal of difference. Pleased that my colleague and his girlfriend came out & jogged around a course together; seriously it's over 20 years since I've managed to convince anyone I work with to come orienteering! Lumberjack cake from the EscapeGoat MTB cafe next to the finish, definitely hit the spot afterwards, and I didn't have to help with any control collecting because now there are so many eager junior Arrows :)

C • 20 years an few takers 2

Western Belair loop, then to Long Gully and back along the creek, with Zara/Roo, Steve/Lexie, Fern on a hot evening so the two dogs stopped for a swim in two dams. There was the slightest drizzle before we finished though; infinitely better conditions than this day 40 years ago (we couldn't see the Adelaide Hills on fire from my parents' place near the beach but I do remember the stinking hot northerly wind and the ashen colour of the sky). It's horrifying to read how many volunteer firefighters lost their lives on Ash Wednesday 1983; thankfully they have much better protection and equipment now.

Bush sprint training, around the creek network in Sheps, the idea being that in pairs one person did a few controls as a sprinterval while the other ran directly to the finish of that leg/start of the next section and waited for their teammate to arrive, then the first person got the direct route while the other did the controls, and so on, until we had each done all four of the navigation sections and also run out & back along the main creek twice each way. Definitely this was a longer exercise than last week's!

What's better than a loveable corgi? A corgi with three Dachshund girlfriends!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-fcd3Hv85s
Apparently in Finland, Valentine's Day is a day for celebrating friendship :)

(G & I still can't figure out where the blasted f'n possums are getting in through all the heavy-duty netting, to eat our apples every night - they are definitely not our friends.)

So tired yesterday afternoon that basically all the activity I did was grazing (as in: it took me two hours to sweep the kitchen floor because I kept stopping and snacking), therefore I figured a short jog this evening was a good idea.

C • Grazing 5

So wooden this morning that I could actually have impersonated a tree in the forest, but it was nice and cool and we had a big sociable group so there were lots of regrouping stops - out along Cox Creek under the freeway, a lap of the trails in Mt George conservation park, UP Mt George Rd which many of the others had never been on, down Rangeview Drive, back through the golf course opposite Woodhouse scout camp. We are so lucky to have so much lovely bushland around in the Adelaide hills, it's done a (possibly too) good job of regenerating over the past 40 years.