Training Log Archive: jennycas

Dropped my car off for a service, struggled home through CLG (checked out an unmapped laneway). Knees felt the hardness of the ground and it was already rather warm out.

A bit better than Tuesday although I'm not sure why my knee was clicking. The jets of warm water from the bottom of the pool were slightly too warm.

Redwoods return run with Bridget, Nick, Angus. Legs and brain felt better than I thought they might after staying up late wrestling with online tax last night and sitting in my office for far too much of today.

Attack of the Killer Masseuse
Sometimes I think it would be worth giving up running in order to avoid such torture. But my muscles get horribly tight doing nothing anyway!

Not very efficient this morning, maybe because I was distracted by trying to recall what it was which we Wallaringans found so sporadically hilarious - both individually and collectively - at last night's meeting.

Legs still a bit hammered from Sunday so took it easy into First Falls and up past Giant's Cave with Bridget, Charlotte, Sarah. Just before the end though, we found the zigzag singletrack marked towards Hogan's Hill so went up there and came down the boundary fence.

Over to Hahndorf via the Heysen Trail spur (we yelled at the girls to hurry up and cross the line before the train we could hear coming arrived, but turned out it still had to make its way up the hill from Balhannah) and then to Verdun, up Silver Rd, back via the waterhole on Cox Creek. I always find the Hahndorf-Verdun section along the road really boring, and it was hard on my knees, but the rest was nice. The forecast rain and thunder had already been and gone; less of both than I'd have liked.

Detoured via Stirling markets with Z afterwards and found the perfect birthday present for Geoff - a scale model of the solar system, as a ceiling mobile :)

C • move 4

Piffle. Of course it's not to scale. How daft am I? Otherwise, if we hang it in the new house, Pluto would need to be in the old house. Also the sun needs to be about 10x larger to provide any meaningful sense of scale. Actually I don't think any of the planets are in proportion - but it does look cool.
This just makes me want to create my own, really-to-scale, model :)

From house B where we were watering the garden and deciding that we probably will have to paint the rooms ourselves after all, to house A via Mitcham, Waite, Carrick Hill, Brownhill Creek, while G drove a truck towards Melbourne. Took it pretty easy and stopped & stretched often; thirsty work.

My knees (particularly the left where the cartilage is minimal) really haven't enjoyed even walking around this week, but didn't raise any protests in the water.

Up the hill and down the hill; legs took a while to get going and I thought about turning back at the trainline with Mr T, but am happy that in the end I didn't . Callum the kelpie waited at one junction to tell me & Zara which way Lauren & Anton had gone! Fairly hazy and humid tonight.

Glad I didn't just stay at work until it was time for OSA meeting. A warm night but cloudy so this was actually not too bad and I enjoyed the loop to 3rd Falls. Didn't get to admire the views much as I was watching my feet a lot; the down track in particular has become pretty rough. The summer smells and the sound of the yellow-tailed black cockatoos made me want to go rogaining!

Attack of the Killer Physio
Did a good impression of a board. Kath suggests I try less running to give my rigid legs a break. Didn't think I could do much less than I do already!

C • LOOK 10

Bowling Green Lane loop with B&S, Lauren, John. Don't think any of us were feeling particularly sprightly this morning, but we did it anyway, and it was nice to be out in the countryside.

Slow jog around Colonel Light Gardens gathering ideas for Summer Series control sites. Probably should have taken the map with me...

Meander across to/through Mitcham, mostly in the warm darkness. Probably should have gone out a bit earlier! Fairly uneventful apart from the random person standing on a street corner who randomly said something like "Jesus is watching you and he'll be coming back one day".

Through Echo Tunnel and up past both waterfalls, then down Ballast Pit Track and the steps with B&S, Zara/Callum, Lauren and Anton (who asked me how long I'd been orienteering and I said: nearly 30 years!). Really nice evening to be out among the wildflowers and my knees didn't start to get uncomfortable until they began the descent.

Hawthorndene run with Bridget & Tyson. It wasn't warm tonight. Fern sensibly remained snugly inside with Patrick (who now weighs about as much as our big cat) and afterwards showed me her WA sprint maps.

Trying to stick to flat ground as much as possible, so I skipped Bridgewater this morning. Hopefully by avoiding rough stuff I might be ok for 3 hours of minigaine in 3 weeks' time, if my potential team mate is still speaking to me :)

C • What happened between you a... 5

Attack of the Killer Masseuse
My legs have been really tight since WA, I think because of running in spikes on hard ground, and this in turn is pulling on my knees :(

But still not as painful as my running over the cat on Wed night would have been for him. I swear he was nowhere to be seen when I got in the car to start reversing out of the driveway; next thing there was a dragging sound and a yowl. You can imagine how bad I felt! Thankfully (?) I've only taken lots of skin and fur off the inside of his back leg and the vet confirmed that it should heal ok. Cat is feeling very sorry for himself and continually trying to reverse away from the plastic cone tied around his head...

C • poor kitty 3

From house A to house B via an indirect route. About 20 min into this my knee became really bad. It's ironic that the tendonopathy in my right ITB has finally settled after 3 months just in time for a sore spot to emerge under my left kneecap - which it did in spectacular style right at the end of Thursday night.

My body clock's still been on Perth time this week and I've struggled to not be late for work, so this happened in the evening. I had a whole lane to myself as the sky deepened to purple :)

C • Was that you or Andrew who ... 5

Redwoods run - in daylight - with Zara/Callum, B&S, Lauren. Nice scenery and company but my knees have been quite unhappy the past few days and I think I am going to have to nurse them through summer.

A bit vague this morning, as evidenced by the fact that I nearly forgot to kick off my sandals before entering the water. And tried to unlock my car with the pool pass card!

Event: Sprint the South West
 

Work. And chocolate. The latter does not compensate for the former.

Woke up at 5am, packed, got petrol, washed hire car, returned hire car, checked in, said "OMG" and other less ladylike things at the length of the screening queue (Perth definitely needs a reconfigured domestic terminal) and just made it through in time for a 7am flight. Horrible gusty landing in Adelaide had everyone looking a bit twitchy; it was still nearly 30 and blowing a gale. G & I then explored our new (future) domicile and gave my parents a guided tour and while we were picnicking with them around the camping table (no gas or electricity just yet) a medium sized branch was ripped off the tree next door and flew across the yard, nearly taking out our clothesline! I think that was the 109km/h gust...

Still a bit strange to think of Avenue Rd as "ours" but we won't move straight away because there are a few things to be done to make it more secure (front window screens) and energy efficient (curtains on the big glass windows at the back) and also no longer hospital green on the inside. Seeking advice on how to convince a pair of predominantly outdoor cats to move with us!

Moondyne Rd, just over the hill from yesterday's event, on a much wetter day. The women's race (at least) had a funny configuration with a route choice option out of the start being back through the assembly area and up the hill through the carpark and toilet queue. There were a couple of controls in the rocky green then back out to the farmland for a running leg and repeat; rather like yesterday except that the grass was longer and soggier.

Zoe ran first for the Arrows and was a casualty of the fact that the women's course started out at 180 degrees to the men's, something which it took quite a few women a little while to catch on to. Fern ran second and valiantly struggled around half her course in the rain before calling it quits and coming back just before I was going to head out in the 3rd leg mass start. So my heart wasn't really in it and I made some shocking mistakes, at least partly because the bubble in my compass had returned and my bearings were all over the place.

Ballsed up 1 by being so near and yet so far, left 2 at 90 degrees in the wrong direction and couldn't make out which fence I'd crossed, went up the wrong gully on 3 (but I wasn't alone). Had to walk the sodden hillside over near the OOB crop as my legs just wouldn't lift. Coming back towards the spectator control I found Liv sitting by the track with a nice Newcastle lady watching over her. Turned out she had done her ankle quite badly and been helped to hobble 400m to the track by this lady and a Dubbo friend who had gone back to the finish for the ambulance. There wasn't much helpful I could do once the ambulance turned up apart from taking Liv's SI card back to the finish - since I was going straight there I didn't bother finishing my own course.

Most successful thing I did today was managing in the afternoon (despite a power failure due to the feral weather) to get Blair's O gear washed and dried in time for him to put it (and himself) on a plane to the other side of the world, and making a salad to take to Richard & Nicole's for dinner. As a bonus, I didn't have any dirty O gear either when I got home on Monday :)

Warranine Brook. Patches of granitey bushland with open paddocks in between, often influencing route choice. Nice sunny day for it although I could have done with starting earlier than 11:30 (and finishing nearly at presentation time, by which time the results were no longer on display) and I was very grateful for my hat.

Zoe had overrun the first control so she was coming back to it as I punched, then shot past me across the paddock. 2 and 3 were in green sheoaks with fallen timber and I went a bit wide to 3 but not wide enough to make use of the track; Laurina went past me here. 4-7 were in the paddocks; at least the grass wasn't too long and bearings could be pretty direct. Clare came past at 7. Climbing up to 8 Bridget and Krystal passed me. I poured a drink for myself, then for Zoe, then spent the rest of the course wondering whether I really had punched that control!

Everyone seemed to do something slightly different on the way to 9. I went a fair way to the west and via 1. Think Laura & Lizzie (20 min) passed me on this leg. 11 was back into the green and I found this control along with Anna & Aislinn, after which I knew that everyone had passed me. I liked the sheoak country best and 13 in the green was a good challenge whereas 14 just involved following a creek up the hill until it petered out, and there was the control. The next few shorter legs were a good way of finishing the course although I wombled a little on 17. Other than that I don't feel that I lost any time - certainly not in the control circle although quite probably on route choice. And definitely on fitness. Ended up 13th of 15 and lost another 20 min to Lizzie in the second half.

At least that means I'm consistent. I'm probably on a par with how I was at the Aust champs in WA in 2006, although perhaps with better endurance. At least my ITB didn't trouble me at all today, and I found myself thinking, as I did in the sprint on Monday, that maybe if I can get back to some decent training Oceania could be quite good fun although I can't yet decide between W40 and 21E.

And I've discovered the perfect post-run recovery food: chocolate brownies with ice cream and stewed rhubarb & apple :)

Woke up pretty stiff & sore but I was keen to go up to Mt Brown lookout for the view over York. It's not as great a climb as going up Brown Hill, thankfully. Crossing the Avon River involved a crash course in Suspension Bridge Running 101. I like to think I'm a faster learner than Blair :)

Spent the day driving out to and walking around/up Kokerbin Rock, which claims to be Australia's 3rd largest monolith, with Steve & kids. I'm a bit suspicious about the veracity of such a claim because when I looked up Australia's 2nd largest monolith it turns out that at least 6 different rocks/hills make that claim! This was an excellent piece of granite, all the same.

C • Kokerbin Rock 6

Solo lap of York in the last of the daylight in order to alleviate stiffness from standing around watching the schools' relays (yay for Sarah & Meredith & Emily coming 3rd in junior girls!). Definitely had the feel of a late spring/early summer afternoon with the golden light and the smell of drying grass.

C • We were all very happy with... 1

Senior girls' course from the Aust Schools' Champs. Pretty warm by the time some of the schoolkids were finishing; at least it started to cloud over before the public event. I took it pretty easy, but also I couldn't run any faster anyway through the long grass with small rock underfoot, which my knee particularly didn't like. There were some good elephant tracks in places, although using these didn't stop me from being progressively overtaken by a string of W50s, starting with Carolyn Jackson on the longish leg to the south, where I came at the control from below and since the control was about 2 contours higher than mapped, she, coming from above, found it well before I did. I made a few dumb mistakes in the second half, starting with not being able to work out why the spectator control I had arrived at had a different number from the one I wanted to be at, and then not being very focused on my bearings on the downhill legs and so letting Christine Brown and Hilary Wood pass me by. By the end I was walking fairly casually and promising myself that I will be more diligent with my back exercises in future, so that I can run properly up hills again.