Training Log Archive: jennycas

From Long Gully I suggested we go up Saddle Hill Rd to the top of the park and come back down newly-graded Queen Jubilee Drive. Fern protested that the hill was too big but then powered on ahead out of sight of me & Zara & Simon. I don't have much energy in my legs at the minute and they are stiffer than I'd like.

Also disappointed that according to the optometrist my eyes are fine and probably even the glasses I have are unnecessary; that doesn't explain the increasing difficulty I'm having reading fine detail on O maps.

C • Maybe the maps are getting finer 3

Hamstring wasn't happy this morning so I didn't run, but it was fine riding - as was the weather.

Figured that since I had gone to the trouble of going to North Adelaide, I should actually do intervals around the uni loop. Decided on 400s because I like these least, and my usual method is to just start out at 200m pace and then die in the second 200, which is unintelligent.

The outcome of my trying to run a bit more intelligently was:
1:28
1:32
1:33
1:32
1:31
1:35
1:37
1:30
So, you can see where I died a bit, but I'm pleased that I made myself do 8. Also pleased that I have been doing *some* core work, but still think my stomach muscles may hurt tomorrow.

Warmup 15:44 including runthroughs
200m recoveries (x 7) 8:15 - these got a bit slower as I went; funny about that...
Warmdown loop 11:32 (good thing Fern came along to keep me honest)

Short run from Turners Ave around Hawthorndene (I think we stayed entirely within the one suburb) with F&T, S&B, Lauren. Followed by Wallaringa meeting from which I came home surprisingly cheerful (but that may have been due to the sugar intake at supper - thanks Fern for hosting!).

Controller for SA Sprint Champs at Little Shepherd.

A fairly easy task given that Tyson was course planner, computer manipulator extraordinaire, permissions organiser and generally a one-man-band; Tjuringa being a very small club, half of whose members weren't available on the day. I found myself impersonating a Tjuringan during the start window and then briefly pretended to know what I was doing on the finish. (Legs complained about even the amount of putting out/retrieving controls I made them do.)

Next organisational commitments are:
- organiser for SA middle distance champs in the Flinders on Monday of the June long weekend;
- quite likely organiser for the Arrows' event at Shepherds Hill on June 17th, meaning that I may not be able to help with Wallaringa's Saturday afternoon event that weekend, but probably can on the 30th;
- controller for NOL sprint around the uni in Darwin;
- and the big one: planning courses for the Arrows' club relays at Rocky Paddock end August. Will be fine with the actual planning but have no idea how to do relays in OCAD. Should probably chase up forestry permissions for that now, then I can also get permission for the SA MTBO champs which Fern is planning and I am organising for Wallaringa in October.

C • Flinders 6

Rather flat all day - haven't really managed to catch up with myself lately, much less with George, but made it up the hill and back again before parents came for dinner. Somewhat painful on the legs, but also refreshing for lungs & brain. I took a different track in Randell's reserve and found a quarry I should have known about years ago. Pretty sure one of Brendan's Mitcham Hills Quarries geocaches is in there!

Scammed this one without meaning to. Electronic card wouldn't scan (there had been problems with the turnstile over summer) and so I presented it to the ticket window and was told that I had used the last visit up last week! I protested that 2 visits ago I'd been told that there were 2 left (on another day when the card wouldn't scan - presumably they told me that I had 2 left BEFORE they deducted that day's visit) and since the pool's closing for the winter on Sunday, the attendant let me in anyway. I had been about to go back to the car and get cash...

Attack of the Killer Masseuse
Are you sure that childbirth is more painful than this...?

C • I can say it is similar! 2

Short run up to train line and back with F&T, B&S, Z&C. I was the only one not wearing tights. Ran Zara home across the golf course by which time hands were cold and torch dim.

Flinders Uni loop. Very tired this morning and it showed in the slowness, although as I could feel hamstring getting tighter then I could feel neuroma coming into play. Stopped for a drink and to stretch at the hour mark which made the way home more bearable. Decided that headache was a combination of dehydration and caffeine withdrawal.

North Adelaide loop with Fern & Tyson. Robin cut it short and Simon, doing intervals, occasionally floated past us. I tried to push fairly hard and since my knee had benefited from the rest day, afterwards did a lap of the uni loop 200 hard/200 normal; my 6x200s were between 44 and 46 (couldn't even run fast enough to gt out of breath) and my reward was seeing Wendy and hearing all about how she ran in the North Face 100km on the weekend.

C • HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNY! 12

Feeling old. (And older tomorrow...)

Donated some money to OA by running in this as it was a badge event and therefore about $10 more than an OY would have been. Really wasn't in the mood for orienteering; slept erratically despite an early night, legs had even less in them than yesterday and the news of Jeffa's stroke was rather unsettling (although John, at the start, sounded positive - and he'd put a lot of effort into planning what was a good course if you felt like doing a long middle). Never got above a jog - knee didn't like going uphill or hamstrings downhill, but the day and the forest were pleasant and neuroma didn't make its presence felt until 2/3 of the way through. Didn't even manage to break 10 min/km :(

C • Not all OA's fault 3

Noticed that the Saturday afternoon event was at Craigburn, so squeezed this in after a morning of WOC/WUOC/WC emails (it's nice to be the bearer of good news, but I'm sad that I have no chance of getting holidays to go watch Sus in Switzerland) and before meeting Tyson at Shepherds Hill to tape/check sprint champs controls. I didn't have much in my weary legs, plus slipped on a patch of onion-weed and landed on the knee which has been bad since the rogaine, but it was a nice afternoon to be out. (Control 2 was definitely not on either of the mapped termite mounds.) Need to eat a lot of pasta before the badge event tomorrow, though.

Had grand plans for a long run but struggled from the start and had used up all my energy by the time I crossed Ayliffes Rd into the park. Enjoyed the scenery around the usual loop but back in the suburbs was really plodding, and hamstring not brilliant. (Note that hamstring/knee/ITB/neuroma are all good friends.)

Apart from races/rogaines, have hardly run over an hour since Easter. And yet I don't think I ran any slower because of this in the long on the weekend.

NTB. Nice morning both in and out of the pond.

Susanne asked me on the weekend what my goals for the rest of the year are and I looked at her blankly. Not that I don't have any ambitions, but the rogaine was sort of an endpoint beyond which I would then have lots of event-related things to be involved with, and so maybe I'll just focus on those for the next few months. Oh, and build up some hiking fitness?

Along Long Gully, up & over the hill, back via the redwoods. Annoyed to wrench my ankle on nothing in particular, and also neuroma-fied by the end. But a pleasant night out, mostly with Z as the others turned back at Karka.

Spending the afternoon at a meeting in the city meant that I got nowhere near completing my workload for the day, but I was home in time to go for a ride up the creek.

Work was so frantic today that I even had to cancel my physio appointment :(

If it takes half an hour to get a medication history reconciled, and there were 16 admissions to my ward yesterday, that's the whole day taken up by new patients without my seeing any of the others!

From F&T's with them plus Eric, Lauren, Biddy, through the forest, up the creek and over the hill. I said I couldn't log a run if it was less than half an hour, so Bridget made sure it wasn't.

Astley's Tower

Wasn't sure how interesting a course with 19 controls would be over this distance but it turned out a decent long race, with a reasonable amount of route choice aided by the singletrack network - and it was rather fun running along the cool sandy trails and through the creek bottoms under ti-tree thickets.

Only real error was at 2, where the control description said rocky ground and I could find none whatsoever on the map so convinced myself very quickly (ye of little faith) that the description must be wrong, as the circle appeared to be centred on one of the myriad miniscule watercourses fringing the main creek, not that I could tell which end of the watercourse the control would be. On the map the watercourses appeared to be about 15m long, so I stayed that far above the creek, thereby bypassing all of them as they were in fact much shorter, and overshooting the control by a couple of min. When I came back to the correct vicinity, and saw the control, I still didn't notice any rocky ground. On subsequent inspection of Robin's 1:10 000 map I identified 3, maybe 4, dots of rockiness in a row right on the contour line, but I still can't read them on my 1:15 000!

Anyway, put that one behind me and settled into the course. Made no other navigational errors though possibly had a couple of suboptimal route choices; took a while to adopt the (when in Europe) mindset of 'tracks are my friend' and so went direct for the first half of the long leg hitting the big track between 12 and 13. Saw Anna and Rachel going into 7 above me (and Lisa Grant with whom I ran for a couple of controls), used the track into 9 which Anna hadn't, was passed by Aislinn on the long leg back to 13 and then saw her & Anna at each of the next 3 controls! Sus passed me like I was standing still on the way to 13; I gues I was getting tired but it was the last hill of the day and I enjoyed the downhill then tracks into the spectator control although bushbashing from the west probably wasn't as efficient as track from the east past the start - or track past the finish and through the assembly area as some people did! From 16 back past the finish, noting the location of the last control for future reference (which Kathryn didn't and so she subsequently spent 4 min on it) and into 17 from the minor track to the north with slight hesitations; the main track on the south side would have been faster.

Enjoyed this run; not sure what my expectations for it were but am getting used to coming 17th. Enjoyed the whole week, starting with the rogaine (and seem to have pulled up from it okay though still a bit tired and the tight knee is twinging). Train back to Sydney took 3 hours. Best bit: the Hawkesbury crossing at sunset. Worst bit: going barefoot to the toilet (urgh). Flight from Sydney got into Adelaide about 1030pm.

C • Why? 4

Long NOL 2 - Splits

Event: NOL Round 3 / WOC Selection Trial - 'Coalfields Classic'
 

University of Newcastle

I commented to Susanne about the smell of green dampness which we don't get at home and she said "oh, I was thinking how dry it is". Anyway, a nice morning for a race around an interesting campus. Started okay, took the wide left route to 3 rather than reading the garden paths, nearly thought I'd gone through an unmapped gap next to the mapped passage on the way to 4 but both are shown so that's all right. Caught Katelyn (1 min) through here and on the way to 7 we both took the wrong path radiating out from the fountain, nearly ending up back at 1. A bit of zigzagging into 7 som maybe 40 sec lost? Rest was fine though taking the path not the road to 14 would have been faster, and after the spectator control I had a couple of minor hesitations and Jas went past me pretty quickly.

Good (mostly) clean fun, as the boys in the sterile production unit used to say.

Pelaw Main (old colliery)

Generally I don't like dumped rubbish but this was different, somehow. And there was heaps of old machinery etc which George would have liked exploring.)

Got into the map pretty well, I thought, although struggled to read the features (need new glasses?) which were in some cases mapped smaller than regulation ISOM size. Not that it mattered greatly because with accurate distance and direction you could often see the control towering over the feature on the ground. Hesitated on 6 because although I could see the flag it seemed too far west from where I crossed the road. V caught me 2 min at 7, I had a better route to 8, after 9 she was out of sight so I found the rusty 'derrick' at 10 all by myself without bouncing off the track like many people did.

Slightly too far right on 11, a bit wide on the long leg to 12, but my biggest mistake was getting out into the open by the spectator control and seeing the flag for 14, but not realising that it was mine because the ruin it was mapped on turned out to be just a slab on the ground. So that's maybe 50 sec lost, which was my only real error for the course, other minor wobbles (including hitting the track to the right of 16, but that may have been a bonus) accounting for less than another minute in total. What the splits show after the spectator control is a consistent decline in pace, and I certainly noticed that I couldn't maintain as I had started, as the neuroma became more troublesome - but still was happy to be less than 10 min down on the winner (my personal benchmark for a middle).

NOL 2 - Splits

Middle NOL 2 - Splits

From the hotel on Flinders St past the station and around the botanic gardens then back along the north side of the Yarra. Eventually loosened up but knee still didn't like stairs during the day. It appeared to have just rained - but you can't tell anything about the weather when staying in a hotel. Still, it was convenient to be a beneficiary of Sheridan's conference funding :)

I had to be back in the city for an 8:30am conference session so had negotiated with Blair that I would only do the first half of his long run. Which turned out quite enjoyable; I felt good and it's always nice to run somewhere new, see the mist hanging in the river valley, and not put my foot in any potholes in the dark. The flaw in the plan came when I couldn't get the spare key to work in B's front door and ended up doing some quality communing with his doormat while trying to keep warm, until he came back. (I figured I'd used up all my whinging rights last night already.)

It is possible that after this run I gave a very good impression of a very disgruntled orienteer!

After a day sitting in the conference I was looking forward to Street O (hitched a ride with Blair out to Donvale) as it was a fairly nice evening and there were heaps of people there, plus I quite like scatter format. Score events, not so much. And this turned out to be a score.

I didn't want to run for an hour as I wasn't sure how my knee would feel, so didn't choose A course, asked how long B was and was told 50 min. Got a bit worried when the start was late and even more so when literally at the last second I understood that finish time was still 7:50, meaning that I had only maybe 46-7 min, but I didn't actually know what time we had been started! Plus I then started my watch late...

Still, I was running quite well (I think) not that I could really tell who was behind any of the headlamps I could see around me. I went down to the south, did a loop up through the middle, and then started to wish that I had picked A because it would have been interesting to see how long it took me to get all of them. Somehow I started to think that I actually had an hour, and despite my neuroma killing me, headed south again, and at nearly the bottom of the map had the realisation that I had only 10 min left not 20!

Headed north as fast as I could, neuroma protesting at every step, and thought I'd just be okay because from the control on the street end I could cut through the shopping centre. Wrong! It was a dead end which I hadn't read properly in the darkness, and by the time I'd hammered out of there as fast as I could I was over 2 min late (having also miscalculated because of when my watch started) and really cranky to realise that the late penalty is 3 points per min, when a quarter of the controls are only worth 1 and another quarter only 2. Stupid score event...eventually calmed down when I noticed people actually moving away from my wrath!

C • I hate score events too 4

Having seen the results it looks like they must have recorded everyone as starting at 7:02 and so I am only down as a minute late, losing 3 points rather than 9. Also controls 1-5 are worth 2, 6-10 worth 3, 11-15 worth 4 and 16-20 worth 5, so out of a possible total of 70 I got 62 (before penalty).

Haven't spent time in Melbourne CBD for ages, so ended up doing a fair amount of walking/window shopping including camping-store alley and the immigration museum, before checking into hotel. Feet ok after rogaine but the sore spot in knee still is.

Driving back from the Flinders with Susanne and Zara. Nice to catch up and hear the story of their success. Not so nice to get home after dark and then have to pack for a 6am flight to Melbourne.

Event: Australian Championships Rogaine
 

I was looking forward to the rogaine at Angorichina because even though it was going to be fairly steep there should be no nasty surprises in terms of undergrowth. And it's just a magical place up there, the village on a spur above the creek, ringed by all the hills (would have seemed awfully isolated to the sanatorium patients, but that was the point). First time for teaming up with Mark even though we've moved in the same rogaining circle for 20 years. We looked at the map and figured we could do about 3/4 of it which would be about 75-80km actual distance. Decided against the very NW, but started out with the couple of steep pinches N and W of the hash house (54, 53), and then the inner NW. Susanne and Zara were with us for the first 3 controls...more on them later.

Soon worked out that sometimes it wasn't possible to go directly down to the major creek because of a major cliff, so we detoured a bit on 65-62. Easy through 41/51/61. Got to the water at 31 - no fruit there yet. Oh well, only 3pm. 81, 72, up the creek to 91 with lots of teams going the other way except for tall-and-short-girls who were behind us. We went 91-83 but I decided not to stay on the ridgeline all the way; much better to drop down to the creek halfway along. We did an in-and-out run along the creek past the dead goat to 83; looked up at the skiyline and I swear those girls were still up there - suspect they took a side spur by accident. 42 was just on dark and we overshot it a bit. 74, 73, didn't go to water so we can't be blamed for it running out later.

After 92, walking along the creek, I ducked a branch which Mark didn't see and it got him right between the eyes. There was blood and we deemed this a good time to stop for food, and after getting cold sitting in the creek bottom, thermals. But really it was a very mild night. 55, 66, then heading south down this creek towards 33 and water on the road, we passed Susanne & Zara heading north up the creek! What the - where had they been?

At water about 1030pm we saw Kay's team and also Randell's. Neither of them had been to 93 which would necessitate a steep climb over the hill, or 56 near Blinman Pools - and now I know why. From 67 we rock-hopped our way down the creek to where I had convinced Mark that we could leave our packs, go up and over the hill to 93, and come back to the same spot to continue down the creek to 56 rather than descending the hairily steep spur. This took a while. So did 56-44 up the creek including some waterfall climbing and a lot of pool-dodging (there are permanent springs and these redgum-lined creeks are absolutely beautiful in daylight).

At 44 we decided that, it already being about 3am, we wouldn't go east to 69/86/59 but south to 58, a shallow gully on a flat nothing which we were initially too far north of so lost a few min. There were 2 girls shivering and trying to sleep by the water at 47. I said to Mark "I've been there" and he said "So have I and I don't want to go back!". We were both pretty tired but psychologically okay, and I didn't feel we'd slowed down much although I couldn't both read the map and look where I was putting my feet, so had to keep stopping to see where we were going.

48 was okay then disaster struck on the long leg to 85, a flat vague creek in flat vague country in the SE corner of the map. We had a bearing, with the intention to aim off and hit the side creek just W of it. In fact, we somehow crossed over the main creek without realising it, then a road which we thought wasn't mapped (it wasn't, but it was actually S of the mapped road, not N as we thought). We worked out that we were too far S, so went back to the creek but thinking we were E of the control, headed downstream about half a km. Wrong! Then we were confused, and by now it was daylight. Had another go at heading W thinking we were in a ridge SE of the control, but in fact we were NW. Wrong! Should almost have cut our losses, but I really wanted to know how we'd gone wrong. Mark figured it out before I did. When we eventually found 85, having lost an hour, he pointed out that we'd crossed the creek less than 100m from it :(

Okay, salvage time. 76, 46, 84, 94 in the SW. Walking fast but couldn't muster more than a Cliff Young when we tried to jog. There were a few steep pinches up and over each range. Mark's blisters were bothering him though he didn't complain, and I was doing the pace-setting from about 8am onwards. 94 was an in-and out with a steep climb (I take a while ont he descents) then along the (very dilapidated) Heysen Trail to 45. Just before 10am here and we decided we hadn't time to manage over the hill to 57, but down the creek through magnificent red gate-cliffs to 75 was easy. 70 min left here, it only took us 17 to 35, so in fact we had heaps of time but no extra controls we could manage to get - and were in 25 min early.

Mark jokingly said "It's important to get in as early as possible if other teams are on the same score" and so it proved to be. We were very pleased when we downloaded, to find that we had cracked 2000 points even, but completely stoked to find out that this was good enough for 3rd mixed! Of course, this paled into minor significance besides Susanne & Zara's 1st women's and 4th overall, or Sarah Buckerfield's amazing mixed win and 2nd overall, but it was still 11th place, and a decent reward for effort :)

Also a great night out with a really good mate (who's only 5 days older than me). We reckon that if the Aust Champs in 2015 are later than May then we should team up and have a crack at mixed veterans...

Needed to stretch legs after driving to (and through) the Flinders ranges so went for a run down the road from the campground at Angorichina Village after setting up my tent. Hard to explain how starkly beautiful it is there, perched on a spur above the creek with hills rimming the horizon all around. Sunset wasn't bad either, with a rogainers' moon in the east. Got a lungful of dust from the cars driving in, though.

Squeezed in between picking up Susanne from the airport and Chris Brown from the airport. Nice run with F&T, Simon, John, Sus (of course!) Zara & Callum. Felt 'cold' but Sat night will be at least 10 degrees less, I'd guess.

Haven't had much energy for running lately, so went riding. Felt better-oxygenated afterwards, and compiled a mental rogaine packing list during. Discovered today that I urgently need to buy winter stockings - before conferencing in Melbourne next week - as my orthotics have eaten holes in every pair I own (mff munch chomp).

Went out 20 min earlier tonight and was having difficulty seeing my watch by the end. Having difficulty running, much sooner - lungs were the limiting factor. But glad I did it.

Somehow, on autopilot on the way home - watching my feet in the gathering darkness - I crossed over East Parkway instead of following it and only looked up when I came to an unexpected roundabout! Took me a few seconds to realise I had made a 90 degree error and was already at West Parkway...

And step 1 in the rogaine-packing plan brought forth the discovery that moths have eaten holes in the beanie which Zara gave me, and also been at my best jumper (mff munch chomp - grrr).

Just starting to rain on the pond. Nobody in my lane (but me). Which was convenient to start with, boring by the end.

Before going to the haircuttery. Not enough daylight remaining for intervals but also too stiff in hips/hamstring for speed work anyway. Will avoid sitting at my desk as much as possible over the next couple of days, otherwise 6+ hrs driving to the Flinders on Friday won't be good.

As I passed a lamp post in the park, its light went out. Expected to see an eagle on the next lamp post...