Training Log Archive: Craig

Event: Frazzle - Standard Bush Event
 

Waiting to make sure Liam finished his E course safely before I started motivated me to do a decent warm up. He didn't keep me going too long. Pretty good effort considering he only started doing VE courses by himself near the end of last year.

H1 on the Southern part of Frazzle. Started ok hitting 1 cleanly enough but went a bit astray early on the second leg. I'm not quite sure what happened there. I think I just got pushed a litle off line by vegetation and then had to correct a bit abruptly much later than I should have. Rest of the leg was pretty good and then all pretty smooth for the rest of the first bush section.

Saw Juffy running out of 9 as I approached but didn't catch him until half way from 12-13. By then I could see Rachel and Simmo in front and had almost caught them heading up to 14. I didn't really know how to approach 14 so I just ran the easiest way around the rocks which was to run around the North side of the Eastern boulder. I saw a little opening in the rock and was going to run past as I expected to run around to the Western rock but I saw the camera in there and realised it must be pointing at the control. I expected to find Rachel in there or see her on my way out but no sign of anyone.

I ran left across the paddocks to 15 and looked back again crossing the fence on the far side and still couldn't see anyone following. Pretty happy with my route into 15 and simple leg to 16. Headed up out of 16 to run across the rock surface but wondered if it would be faster to run below and up gully. Saw a clear path off the rock surface and changed my mind to cut through and approach up the gully which was a mistake. Got quite thick just before the control and I ended up looping around behind it so I'm sure it was slower.

18 and 19 were simple but I was getting pretty tired by now and 20-23 looked tricky in the green so I decided to just take it slowly through this section and just try to hit them cleanly. Caught Sten at 20 and expected him to stick with me to the finish but I don't think he tried to go with me at all. 21 seemed further left down the hill from the knoll than I was expecting but I kept moving in the right direction so didn't lose much time. Could just about see 22 from 21 and hit 23 carefully and cleanly then trudged home across the rock surface to 24 and didn't have much left for a sprint finish.

H1 - Splits

Training on the Northern part of Frazzle. Did a relocation exercise with Oliver first. Oliver was pretty quick relocating but got a little lost when leading on the last leg. Followed that with a short control picking loop. I gave Oliver a couple of minutes start then spent another minute or two re-positioning the first control. Caught up to Oliver heading to number 7 and he was approaching a bit slowly so I accelerated past him, rushed out of the control in the wrong direction and let him back past while I did a bit more relocation practice.

I wanted to do a bit more distance and Cameron had done the relocation course by himself so I took him out for another loop to try to get him lost. Never really got contact with the map setting out so after a while I stopped next to a distinctive rock so we could both try to relocate. Cameron worked it out first and I just confirmed he was right. Got to the second relocation point and realised I hadn't started my gps. A bit annoying because the main reason I was doing it was to clock up a few more km. Took Cameron a bit longer to relocate than Oliver was but I was trying to make it harder for him.

Night scatter event organised by Richard & Nicole. I wanted to just jog around this so let Sten, Cameron & Oliver run off ahead at the start but I somehow got to the first control ahead of them and then got drawn into a bit of a race. Still kept it pretty easy letting Sten run ahead on the next few downhill legs and catching up at the controls. Ran right past 113 in the rocks without seeing it but nobody else saw it either and I ended up getting it first. Probably started going a little harder after this and started to get a little gap by 107. Through 105 I was definitely starting to race a little to try to get clear and Sten decided to do 106 before 115 just to make it more interesting than following me so I was soon on my own. I think I had a bit of an advantage once on my own as my headlamp was significantly brighter. Saw Cameron as I was running away from 108 towards 106 so knew I had a good gap on him. Tried not to run too hard but kept it fairly solid to make it hard for them to catch up. Nearly missed 110 as I ran up the creek past it before checking the descriptions and seeing it was on the fence.

Bought a cheap headlamp at Bunnings last night so I could do my easy run on the trails through KP this morning and make it properly easy. Headlamp was comfortable enough and bright enough but the beam is a bit narrower than I would like. Still not bad for under $20 and will do the job until I can get something better delivered. Couldn't see a thing when I went past the burnt off area where a bit of smoke was drifting across the road. Felt reasonably good just cruising around very easily. No real niggles today. Now time to get the kids up and head back there for cross country training.

Jogged around with Amy at school cross country training. Having a bigger group of her friends there today helped motivate her to put in a bit more effort from the start today. Went up the broadwalk at the start and she ran solidly to the road then tried to feign injury for a while when it got a bit hard but got going again for the last 400m and went up the tower happily with Asha.
Heading back a longer way she was near the front with Sienna for about 800m then complained of a sore back and something else until Daisy caught up and finished with her. Fair bit of walking at the end with Daisy claiming to have a stitch.

Early morning run around the river in the dark. Headlamp charger isn't working so I wanted to stay where it is lit. Moonlight was good enough to run without lights as long as there were no trees but I did lose the path on a bend once down past Tawarri. I wanted to take it easy today but I wasn't feeling very comfortable on the hard surfaces at a slow pace so I gradually wound it up to find a more comfortable rhythm. I don't really fancy doing the same thing tomorrow morning so I might have to get the bigger headlamp out and head back to KP.

GA's 5/8 surge course. Felt pretty good this morning, surprisingly, so I tried to put in a proper tempo effort this time. I guess I didn't do anything hard on the weekend but I expected to be feeling worse after Monday night tennis and feeling tired at the end of last night's run.

Easy run around KP after work finishing at OSHClub to pick Liam and Amy up. Decided not to run in the morning partly to give myself more time to recover from tennis last night but mostly just to avoid the cold.
No serious soreness from tennis yet but I'll probably feel worse tomorrow. Outside of right knee got a bit sore for a while in the middle and my quads were starting to feel really tired towards the end.

Easy run around KP sticking mostly to the sand which was nice and firm after the rain overnight. Felt pretty good, even the ankle was ok. Almost back to being pain free just in time to mess it up by playing tennis tonight.

Pennants vs Blue Gum Park. Close night. Came down to a deciding point in the deciding tie break of the final match which we won. Won both my doubles matches but lost my singles 2-4 1-4. First doubles also came down to a deciding point in the deciding tie break and I felt we were a bit lucky to win. Andrew lost his singles 0-4 0-4 so we did well to beat our singles opponents together in the doubles.