Training Log Archive: jennycas

Event: Oceania 2019
 

Charles Sturt University, Wagga, on a map which was much more poorly printed than 2 years ago and so I had great trouble figuring out where the start triangle even was on the map, or which was OOB olive green vs runnable yellow, therefore I took ridiculously wide routes on the first few controls - but made no real errors among the buildings, and none on the rocky hillside section either (I took the wide northern route around to the west side); although I climbed higher than necessary on the leg along the hillside, the ridgeline was was the safe option and in fact the only places where Winsplits thinks I made mistakes were when my knees wouldn't let me run downhill. Or fast at all, which is how I ended up 36th in the combined junior/senior elite field!

Enjoyed myself though (apart from knees) but was annoyed that 2 hours in quarantine meant all my friends with small offspring had left the event by the time I finished - but I managed to track down the extended Radford clan later on and spent a lovely evening with them :)

C • Quarantine 9

Course 4 - Splits

Swim was swum. Gear packed for flying to Melb tonight and hitching a ride to Wagga with Blair while G will drive across to meet me on Sunday.

Sprint Adelaide medium course, which I don't think I'd previously test-run in precisely that incarnation last January. Took the wide route around the child-care centre because kiddies were still being picked up. Brain enjoyed itself, knees not so sure, especially on stairs. This Sat's sprint will have 50% more climb :(

After the warmup lap, Ben decided against intervals and I didn't think my knees would like 100s either so we convinced Zara to come down to the weir with us, then upriver as far as the zoo footbridge. There was no way I could match the others when they decided to do a few sprints after all, but plodding pace felt ok.

Really, Orienteering Canada is registered as a charity - WTF?

C • Legal terms 2

Parked at Seacliff and ran along the foreshore then up to Marino lighthouse in the hope of watching the sun set, but sadly it was behind cloud at that time. Lovely patch of bushland up there though, and on the way back down I snaffled a couple of grapefruit from a freebie box outside someone's house - they'll be useful for breakfast with parents tomorrow.

Event: SA Middle Distance Championships Wirra Wirra
 

Tyson set great middle distance courses with tricky short legs (I often had my bearing correct for about half the distance, then veered at the end) hunting for a rock in low-vis low pines and making good use of a pivot/water control. I couldn't get up much speed or fluency today but enjoyed myself, even when it hailed on me! Running out of my own legs towards the end but mentally would have been happier for the couse to go on longer.

This didn't end well...

We hadn't many club members available for control collection so I agreed to drive out and collect 12 in the far SE of the map; Tyson told me the creek crossings should be ok but of course everything was so much wetter than yesterday morning that I didn't dare cross some of the low-lying swampy areas where I could see his wheel marks, and therefore had to walk much more than intended, and then go back for the water casks - it is possible (just) to carry 12 controls at once but maybe I should log it as weight training.

Started hailing just as I got back to the car, and I was a bit worried about the final swampy section 200m from the arena, so intended to veer a little left on to higher ground. Which would have been fine if I'd seen through the hail on the windscreen, that right in front of me the swampy creek dropped into an erosion on my left. Which I worked out when my left front wheel suddenly dropped about 40cm with a disconcerting crunching noise :(

Attempts to reverse out of the channel resulted in detachment of half my front bumper but no backwards motion. Thankfully Tyson and the Ashforth clan were still around and I called them over rather sheepishly, and Tyson rang the ForestrySA ranger while S & H (aged 6 and 4) gleefully said things like "Your car's stuck in the hole!" which I had to acknowledge as being factually correct, if somewhat inconvenient. Anyway, nice Ranger Dan turned up within the hour with a decent sized ute (none of the rest of us had proper 4WDs) and a very strong chain and pulled me backwards out of the hole, no worries mate, and then produced some cable ties to secure the sadly-trailing bumper!

Definitely ashamed of my stupidity, but at least it's still driveable. Hope we don't get in trouble with the rangers for driving across the creek and into the forest? It does seem, reflecting on our history of events here over the past 30 years, that Wirra Wirra is nearly always too wet in Aug/Sept and this causes problems.

C • vehicle 8