Training Log Archive: o'man

Course 2

Only my 2nd time on this map and I'd sort of forgotten how much of a mission it is!! It seems that what's not up is down and there are large stretches that don't seem all that runnable (at least for me) - I guess the times reflect that.

Because 1) I have trouble with spur-gully maps and 2) it's rather steep I tried to concentrate mainly on navigation with some varying results...

1: Went to the right of the control and had to come around (a cliff - there was a bit of that today) and back up to it

4: went OK, was careful not to get caught up in the first set of cliffs/gullies unlike Scott who went astray there

8: went along the valley past the hill and up the reentrant due west of the control to try and avoid unnecessary climb. If I'd looked a bit closer on the map I'd have seen that the climb wasn't really avoidable so should have taken the reentrant before the big hill - silly me. Better route choice may have been from 7 head SW up the hill and over the top

13: got sucked under by the white tape very, very close to 13 - I could see the control but thought it was on the white course so went into the rocks - ended up in a bit of a no exit (small) cavern and got forced across the stream by the rocks. Got to the control and realised I was within 10m of it before and it was the one I'd seen :-( Once again looked at the map and the control is indeed right at the end of the rocks

14: took the long way around to 14 via 15 however getting into and out of the white was quite a mission as it was very steep. dropped my map on the way out as I thought it was better/safer to hang on to a tree rather than plunge into what looked like a bottomless chasm

C • tough hilly terrain 2

From Browns Rd through Riverhead to home via my normal direct(ish) route with the addition of a nice piece of singletrack right at the beginning. Only thing was I'd never been on it and it had a decent covering of pine needle so was a bit hard to follow. I did however make good use of the occasional dollop of horse poo to confirm that I was still on the track!!

A bit tired tonight so a little bit of a struggle. Was going to be an short easy night however C wasn't too good yesterday and decided was best for her to have a night off so she dropped me off and went home to cook dinner - it's a bit hard to complain about that now isn't it?

Beaut night for running through the forest though, tired or not

C • I stood in a nice dollop of... 7

Thanks to having a decent headlight (it looks like it will get a decent workout this winter...) I went from work up mt eden, mt st john, mt hobson, then through newmarket up khyber pass back to work.

Fairly strong run, felt like a fairly decent pace the whole way except for one slowish bit through newmarket near the end where I eased off a bit.

Nice view from the top of mt eden with an orange glow to the west and the city lights below. A slight shame some of the orange glow was caused by pollution that the light easterly had pushed out west - it was rather nice all the same!