Training Log Archive: jennycas

Got to Cradle Valley about 2pm and walked parents around Dove Lake, splashing through the snowmelt. Apparently it's pretty soggy up the top. Guess I'll find out more tomorrow, 'cos Blair & I are walking the Overland track. Parents have instructions to meet us at Lake St Clair on Saturday. Hopefully nothing will happen to them in the meantime.

Ah yes, Littlechild Creek, my evil nemesis. We sent Lauren out first in the relay initially not sure whether she was going to be up to running after headbutting a tree yesterday. She bravely persevered and did the whole relay course unaware that it was all over after the first control because she had punched the wrong one. Because the time allowed before the mass starts was so short, I went out in the second mass start and Sus in the 3rd, both unaware of our team's mispunch. Not that it mattered in the end because it didn't affect the Arrows women's 3rd in the team points :)

Anyway, I was pretty vague and wobbly (both physically and mentally) through the first few and took it easy because my knees weren't real happy. Saw Leida, who had been in the mass start with me, just before the creek crossing at 7 and so upped the pace a bit, starting with a plunge through the creek because I didn't trust myself not to fall off the thoughtfully-placed logs. Enjoyed the rest, saw Leida again at the next major creek crossing, finished without spraining any ankles this time.

Afterwards we drove to Launceston via St Columba & Ralph's Falls and got there just on dark. I am a bit over driving the Hilux on windy roads. But Sus & I found a great 'pizza pub' for tea.

It was a bit weird to pick up my map and go "I know where the first control is" because the start was very near to where our NE loop went last weekend. Second control "I know where that rusty pipe is which I can use as an attack point". Third control I hesitated too soon, but in general I was reading the mining detail fairly well. Now for a few granite legs, and an evil marsh - but there was a faint track across it. Saw Mat McGuire and Rachel West exiting the marsh ahead of me but didn't realise I'd gone a little further than intended on the track and so was heading up the wrong spur. By the time I crossed over to the right one when I saw the rocks, I'd lost Rachel. Next few controls in the granite were clean but slow, then from 9 I took the eastern route and when I hit the track was able to run quite hard (for me).

Mace came up behind me at 10 and we both entered the mining section together, both hesitated early on 11 and then she was too high to 12 and I never saw her again. It was interesting to suddenly have the final third of the course turn into a middle distance, but it suited me. I was very cautious but I really enjoyed the challenge of making the jigsaw puzzle fit. Rachel Effeney passed me on the way to 13, and again on the way to 20. She leaped the gulch on the way to the last control but I didn't see her do it, just saw her running away, and I jumped down into it and then couldn't get out for nearly a minute - any more and Anna would have beaten me.

Scraped into 10th by the skin of my teeth, wishing I could be faster but fairly satisfied with my navigation.

Long 3 - Splits

Around Bicheno - a couple of controls in the rocks on the foreshore, a left-or-right route around the hill which I'd already figured we wouldn't have to climb, more foreshore rocks past the blowhole, across the school oval and a lap of the rocks on the point. Great fun; also pouring rain, blowing hard, and therefore potentially slippery underfoot. So I took an overly-cautious route to the first control, which I then stuffed up, and Clare caught a minute on me already. At about 7 Jas also went past me, and I saw Tyson for a bit through the middle section. Took the wrong gap through the vegetation on the headland to 16, Bridget caught me at 17, it was all good fun if quite slow.

Sprint 2 - Splits

Best use of a day around Hobart (in possession of Blair's car):
a) coffee at Tricycle off Salamanca Place
b) not-quite-last-minute hike shopping at Kathmandu (on sale)
c) a run at Pittwater dunes
d) lunch at Richmond bakery and rather too much gift shopping around the town
e) botanic gardens - although sadly the subantarctic house was closed

I dug out a map on which I had set a short course a few years ago (before WOC trials 2008) starting about 1km from the car park, and staying in the more open part of the map. Probably better for my knees not to be going up & down any big dunes, and I walked any bits in the bracken to keep an eye out for snakes, so was pretty slow. Nice though, and I found a number of tapes, evidence of other orienteers' recent presence.

Afterwards paddled in the ocean thinking that an 'ice bath' would be good for knees. The only problem was that by the time I had gone in deep enough to get my knees wet, my feet had an ice cream headache!

A normal run! I haven't done one of these for weeks - but Blair was keen after we got to Hobart and a lap of Battery Point did seem like a good way to use the last of the daylight.

The highlight of the day, though, was watching the schools' relays in which Liv, Sally & Mel won the senior girls. SA hasn't done this since 1991!

I've never run on the Golden Fleece area before, so yesterday was my first time in St Helens tin mining. Today, despite being the same map, felt very familiar becaus it was suspiciously similar to Littlechild Creek. I've never had a good long run in Tas, particularly not at St Helens, so my expectations were low. Secondary expectation was that I'd be on my own after Bridget, who was last start, had passed me 2 minutes, which happened at 7. But I enjoyed this course, at least up until my orthotics started giving me blisters under my arches, which happened about half way round. Stuck to the ridges as much as possible, took the track on the long leg to 14 but bashed through the green to 15. Less than a minute all up on time loss in the circle, maybe some on route choice and of course lots on nonexistent speed. But it was okay, and a faster km rate than yesterday :)

Tasmanian Long Distance 2 - Splits

Event: Australian Championships 2012
 

Hmmm, a bit scrappy. Also junky underfoot, but knees actually held up fairly well (acknowledging extreme unco-ness, and a lot of bum-sliding into erosions). I kept stopping short, and looking for controls in ditches about as deep as my knees when the erosions were actually deeper than my head, in some cases. Creeks full of water and ferns were a) pretty and b) not easy to cross. I enjoyed myself but wish I had concentrated better, especially in the Bermuda triangle of casuarinas where I lost time on both 9 and 14. Which is not to say that all the other controls were clean either - a bit like my efforts on Rowdy Flat last weekend.

Middle Course 2 - Splits