Training Log Archive: jennycas

Around the suburbs, testing out the lungs, after flying home with parents which took up most of the day (was weird that the flight Yulara-Alice boarded and took off half an hour early; I guess the majority of its passengers came as one busload from the resort). Don't know that I've ever spent a week feeling quite so under the weather but at least that didn't ruin my enjoyment of the holiday too much, and parents were great company. I hope for Geoff's sake that I haven't picked up too many of their mannerisms :) Do feel bad for Zara that I wasn't better value on the rogaine, although ours could certainly have been a much worse result...

Actually felt human today, for the first time in about a week, but was content to sit cosily in my tent listening to the start of the marathon in the distance at 7:45am when it was 3 degrees. Some people made hard work of it, too; not-even-the-last stragglers were still coming through the 39km mark as we returned to Yulara after 3pm, having spent the day out at Kata Tjuta.

"Many Heads" as the name means, and I am suprised that all 36 domes haven't each been given a name. The Valley of the Winds walk goes up & over a saddle (too rough for mum to go any further - that rock really is a conglomerate) and around behind the front domes, including a cool climb up to a narrow chasm between 2 monoliths, with views out to the jelly-mould hills beyond. I felt as though this would make good rogaining country, and the views were spectacular, but for some reason it didn't have the same spiritual feel as Uluru.

Splurged on the Field Of Light viewing in the evening - probably wasn't really worth paying the extra for sunset drinks & nibbles on the dune top although it was neat to see The Rock change colour and the lights begin to glow below us. Being up close among the ever-changing glowing lights was pretty cool, though, and the field seemed to stretch hypnotically on forever (and people got separated from their friends, especially after a couple of champagnes...) like the Dead Marshes in LOTR or maybe the poppy fields in the Wizard of Oz. Incidentally, the Field is right next to where the marathon starts, just a few km east of the village. I still think it's sort-of weird to have a resort in the middle of nowhere, but it somehow works. And tomorrow we are flying home!

The Killer Cough Monster (OMG, I'm gonna die in my sleep!) attacked in the night and I felt pretty average today. Certainly not up to running a marathon tomorrow (so it's a good thing I didn't enter) but I was curious to find out where it goes around town, I mean Yulara Resort. The answer is that it doesn't really go anywhere near the village, but starts and finishes out in the 'desert' to the east; with a view to The Rock, I guess.

Parents & I got up close & personal with The Rock, which is far more impressive and alive than any photo can convey and surprisingly peaceful given the constant comings and goings of other humans. We enjoyed a couple of short walks around its base, marvelling at the foolish ants going up the chain. I'm not normally very interested in aboriginal culture & history but am fascinated by the thought that the ecosystem of Uluru was so essential to their survival, and in so many ways. It definitely creates its own sort of magic.

C • Ah yes 1

C • Rocks 2

Spent a couple of hours in the morning going around the Kings Canyon Rim walk, which was absolutely spectacular and I could have dawdled much longer among the sandstone domes (would make a great sprint map if you didn't go over the edge?) except that my folks were waiting down the bottom and we needed to drive to Yulara campground in the afternoon, so it was probably a good thing that my camera went flat from taking so many photos...

We drove to Kings Canyon via Ernest Giles Rd - huge signs everywhere warning drivers that it is 100km of dirt and they should go back & take the bitumen, but actually it was fine so long as you weren't in a hurry and didn't mind going 40kph over the corrugations, which were worse coming the other way anyhow, and the red-dune-desert-oak country made up for them - and camped at the 'resort' (only place I've seen dingo-proof toilets) overnight, stopping for short walks at Henbury meteorite craters and Kathleen Springs. This was about all the exercise I felt up to doing today anyhow.

Very sedentary day in Alice but I did get the washing done and grocery shopped in advance of a few days out towards Kings Canyon & Uluru. Also we went to the botanic gardens and identified some of the flowers that had been out on course, particularly the purple Eremophila freelingii, otherwise known as rock fuchsia. And the bush with little yellow flowers is a Cassia. Also I now know that the trees we were walking through with the long yellow wattle-like flowers were mulga, which is indeed an Acacia.

I forgot to mention that when we were control collecting yesterday there were fresh dingo footprints all over the rogainers' footprints on the newly-made singletracks!

C • Dingos.. 1

My dodgy knee completely seized up after we finished (had been surprisingly good all rogaine) and voice started to fade out on me. By the time presentations were over and I had spent an hour removing invisible spinifex splinters with tweezers and finally made it into the showers it was 5pm, so the pre-dinner nap was fairly brief. Wasn't a great night's sleep either, hot & cold & sweaty & I have never before had a sore throat which lasted for (now up to) 5 days. And I woke up COMPLETELY WITHOUT A VOICE, which makes communication really difficult when travelling with fairly-deaf parents.

Swallowing breakfast took a while too, but there were scrambled eggs and bacon and mushrooms and tomatoes and cheese toasties, so I eventually made a decent meal of it before beginning on the unhurried task of packing up our campsite. Ross River Resort campground is a great place to stay, especially for families, and it never really felt crowded even with hundreds of rogainers there. Helped that the weather was perfect :)

I have no idea how SLE, and all their gear, and all Plaxy's gear, fitted into Plaxy's car for the drive back to Darwin, but parents & I didn't see the end result because of going off to collect a few controls. I'd picked ones which even mum could walk to, and this is the one day of the year when I am not walking *too* much faster than them, plus they got to see some amazing views, which was nice for them because they'd spent the entire weekend volunteering - dad on the hot water and mum on admin. There was an army of something like 100+ volunteers who all did an amazing job making the event run really smoothly and complementing the setting work of Julie & David and the organisational skills of Richard Robinson. WRCs have become vastly more professional in appearance since I first started attending them but there is still the same great communal atmosphere.

C • Hot water 6

Uncharacteristically, I made mention of a nap when we stopped to refold the map at midnight, and Zara looked at me in surprise. I wasn't serious, just daydreaming...also daydreaming about a cup of tea from the All Night Cafe in the centre of the map, but we agreed that it was a lure placed there in order to attract Pokemon and their catchers, because to the south of it was the escarpment which could only be accessed from further east or further west and so although we could have gone there through spinifex country in time to arrive about 4am, decided instead to follow a big creek SE to 49, through a low saddle to 116, and via 87 to the easternmost water drop which we reached about 11 hours since we had last been to water. (Susanne & Plaxy also had to reroute their course to reach this drop.) We saw Rob & Kathryn casually hooning past as we left 56 after this and Rob said that he had just filled up with 5.5 litres of water! I haven't mentioned yet how diligent the people manning the water drops were, camped there all night and recording the number from every team which passed through & checking where they were headed next.

Zara was still hoping that we might be able to do the southern spinifex section, on a plateau above the escarpment and which looked fairly subtle with some reasonably high points in a 20km line back towards the HH. Even though my trail shoes were excellent against spinifex, my orienteering gaiters weren't (shins padded but of course there's no real protection on the sides) and I was keen to avoid any big ups & downs because I was using all my energy on the navigation. Sore throat was a nuisance too, making it hard to swallow food or drink water, and I had to keep the Panadol up regularly. But at least it was a mild night where only one thermal was plenty and I would guess minimum 9-11 degrees.

I suggested not going further south as our time to cover this ground would be a bit unknown and the options for shortcuts at the end were limited because the only real way back was along a gorge. Plus there were still quite a few high points between us and the ANC and I'd thoughtfully left 102 north of the road for us to get after that :)

76, 95, 107 as the sky was lightening in the east (and actually the moon had been helpful too, but even before it rose it had been possible to switch off our torches and look at the shape of the horizon by the darklight all around us; at one point I couldn't help but give Z an impromptu astronomy lesson) and the sun just peeped over the hill as we turned east to come down from here. This moment on a rogaine makes the night all worthwhile, and we turned south to briefly cross the first red-rock range through a gap to 94, back out another gap to 57, meaning that we reached the ANC about half an hour later than originally planned but they were still able to make me that cup of tea at 8:30 and we were only there for 5 min - I didn't even need more water because I was having trouble drinking. Was nice to grab an apple there too. One thing I really appreciate on SA rogaines is the fruit at water drops. I'd take extra food to compensate against this absence but ended up eating only half of what I carried...

76 on a low range, 35 which was 2.5km down the road and I tried to jog but my best Cliff Young was only equivalent to Zara's fast walk because my feet were absolutely killing me (great grip on these shoes but not much cushioning), 102, to the north and then 64 which was along the line of hills following a string of people through the buffel-grass. Tracking was starting to become really obvious by now and although we had allowed 2 hours to get the couple of controls which were all that was available to us in the last 6km, after the steep scramble up to 52 there was a superhighway down the valley past 73, and the NZ supervets ladies were walking much faster than me but even so, we popped out into the main gorge at 11:15am and Zara did mention the 30pts about 2km south of there, with the words "but we'd have to run back" which is normally a challenge I'm up for, but I looked at my feet and they said "sorry boss, we just can't do it" so they carried me very slowly north towards the hash house on a lovely vehicle track but at that point, roads were even worse than cross-country on my feet.

Z was very patient with me but I can't believe that I stopped and gibbered at the river crossing only 500m S of the HH, when normally I love wading through knee deep - but my shoes were supposedly waterproof and I just couldn't see how there was room for water in them as well as my feet! Among the string of people overtaking us at this point, one guy offered to carry me over, but I told myself not to be ridiculous and plodded through, eventually finishing at 11:38am with 2400 pts. Fairly happy with the effort I'd managed to put in (except for the last hour or so) but feeling as though it was about 20% less than I'd originally hoped to be able to achieve (2800 would have been a good score, I think). Mind you, I couldn't complain about the way the controls had gone for us in the night, and after hearing other people's tales of woe about sometimes losing up to 2 hours on a control (a situation I'm not unfamiliar with) or having to seriously reconfigure their routes to get water, I started to feel less guilty about not having done proper planning and having been so slow.

The nice surprise, though, came at the presentations - 2nd women's vets, 190 pts behind the Russian women (who were 3rd women overall) and only 20 pts ahead of Susanne & Plaxy who were wishing that they had got an extra 30 which they would have had time for since they came in at 11:15. But it still meant that we were all on the podium together, which was nice. Sus was heard to say afterwards to a very happy Plaxy "Maybe we should consider training next time"!

C • 11 hours 7

Event: World Rogaining Champs 2016
 

When I woke up this morning I felt about 30%, and Zara did have an offer to join a couple of other teams but she wasn't keen to cramp their style, and just before map handout time I went through the motions of putting on my O gear, figuring that if I was going to be "well" enough to keep an eye on Eleanor (who had fallen in love with the inflatable Aussie boxing kangaroo and she & I held hands with it being dragged around the hash house for a while) I was probably well enough to start the rogaine although had no idea what I'd be like at 3am or even how I'd go up the first big hill.

Wasn't very helpful to Z during the planning phase, which went all too quickly - just kept muttering in shock about how the map was waaay too big and we'd only be able to cover 50% of it at most, so the question was which 50% given that the HH was in the SW corner and surrounded by some huge linear ridges meaning that the control placements nearby were limited. Although in fact, in many other parts of the map the controls were also over 2km apart. The other important factor to take into account was water, about which the competitors had been warned - plenty of water drops along the track running E-W through the middle of the map but none at all in the NE corner of the map or on the southern escarpment, because it just was't possible to get water drops into those areas. So it was no good planning a big loop to get all the high points in these areas if that would mean dehydration. At least the forecast was only for 21 on Sat/Sun, but the sun always seems warm in the afternoons in Central Australia.

As we were assembling for the briefing Kay mentioned that the NW corner was nice and I said that I'd been wanting to do that first up so that it would be a few more hours until we refilled with water and so Zara said ok and we turned the plan, such as it was, on its head. Very slow out of the start, shuffling on the road with all the other teams, and I wasn't even bright enough to suggest shortcutting across the floodplain on the way to 61. Through 61, 42, 96, 110, 41, 62, 81, 36, 54 we were very slowly gaining on teams who had started out much faster than I was capable of going, and at the water drop near the Sphinx had actually caught up with the Colwells and Chris & Karen, but then sat down with the trusty piece of string for a 20-minute planning session!

Basically, we were heading into the mid-northern spinifex section with the intention of picking the best bits out of it (and most of the points in there were pretty good, whereas along the northern rim they were interspersed with lower points) and seeing how much we could do of the NE section depending on time - so we were going to rethink again about midnight, by which time we had managed to do 91, 72, 112, 84 (following a creek line very carefully and getting our torches out partway through), 116 (steep scramble up a hill face with a bit of bouldering which made me very thankful for my grippy shoes, especially when having to retrieve first Zara's hat and them my map which rolled down the hill - the huge map was very springy when folded and kept wanting to escape from my hand. Compass thumb is now numb from holding on so tightly to it!), 82 which seemed to take forever because of suboptimal route choice, but actually many of the night legs took well over an hour, 48 (subtle gap in the hills which I really enjoyed navigating to), 117 incorporating my usual 11pm mental slump where I do dumb things navigationally, but it could have been a lot worse.

So, it seems that I have succumbed to the Eleanor Special: the cold which came back from Darwin with mum, who stayed in bed for 5 days and it explains why parents were both so listless last week that they had me worried. Dad in particular was very coughy and spluttery which is totally not ideal in a traveling companion who's sleeping in the motel bed next to you...

Sore throat came on over dinner last night, making it very difficult to eat the excellent pasta with which we were carbo-loading at a local Sicilian (therefore the pasta was chilli-loaded) restaurant and I had those lovely feverish hot-and-cold chills overnight, waking up frequently and reducing the probablility of being able to do a rogaine down to about 20%.

Nurofen at lunchtime increased the probability to 60% and so I walked around a few of the model course controls with Zara, avoiding any big hills in the 30-degree sunshine. I probably should have told her then to look for another team to join, but Lachlan did say that all he'd had from this illness was a sore throat, so I might be ok if the fever settled down overnight...took me an hour to eat my dinner though so that wasn't a good sign, and it was another terrible night waking up drenched in sweat.

C • Glad 6

Walked to/from the underwhelming botanic gardens (native plants, but nothing in bloom) before driving out to the Tropic of Capricorn monument on the highway 30km north of town - the highlight of mum's day - and then to collect Zara from the airport (sooo many rogainers arriving and on multiple simultaneous flights) before driving out to Ross River to set up camp and leave parents at RRR. We picnicked at Trephina Gorge on the way and did the short rim walk but there wasn't time to do the rogaine model event after socialising with people at the campground, because Z & I were heading back into town for a supposedly good night's sleep at the motel.

Went out early to check on a couple of controls as per Kay's request - they weren't far from where we're staying but in opposite directions from each other so this took a while, particularly as my knees & groin seem to be painfully tight this week, especially (but not limited to) in the mornings. Explained to the aboriginal guys camped in the bushes that there was going to be a control up the hill from them and they seemed ok with this. Explained to the competitors that they should give the camp a wide berth, but all they seemed to care about was whether there would be any spinifex on this map!

Mass start 3hr score (10pts per control, and bonus 10 pts for a photo of oneself sitting on the dunny at the pertinent control) seemed to work ok, as did babysitting Eleanor while mummy went orienteering with Plaxy and daddy went mapping. Was getting warm in the sun by the time I picked up a few controls around the Telegraph Station though.

On Territory time, Kay gave me a map hot off the printing press, and a lift to the far end of it, and I ran back to the start putting out 4 controls along the way then jumped in the car to collect Susanne & Eleanor from the airport - and a couple of Russian ladies to whom Sus had offered a lift because they needed to get to the orienteering. Numbers were good for this and hopefully gave people a taste of what the contours are likely to do and how rocky it can be underfoot (which my new shoes were ok with), but the funny thing is that the main thing which the internationals really seem to care about is getting to see some spinifex...

Walked up to the Ormiston Gorge lookout again at sunrise, but the sun took a long time to rise above the surrounding hills. Hope we won't be climbing up any which are that steep on the rogaine - I'm feeling a bit daunted...

Short walks at Serpentine Gorge (the steep climb up to the lookout totally worth it for the view, and mum was excited to instead look inside a Larapinta Trail walkers' shelter nearby) Standley Chasm (an effing expensive rip-off) and the rather lovely Simpson's Gap (black-footed rock wallabies on the rocks below the cliffs) took up most of the day and now we are at a cheap but clean motel Eastside. After unpacking, I went for a short run which was a bit of a fail in terms of finding access to the walking trails I wanted, so I ended up going cross-country, and found a control! I think it's for Wednesday's event.

North this time, up & over Anzac Hill then along the river (attempted to run in riverbed sand for about a km and thought how horrible this is going to be at about this time, next Sunday!) out to the Old Telegraph Station and explored some loops of walking trails around there. Didn't think it was particularly cold until my feet slid on some frost on a footbridge. Turned into an absolutely glorious day for a drive out through the West MacDonnell Ranges, with stops for short walks at parent-pace at:
Ellery Creek Big Hole
Ochre Pits
Glen Helen
and after setting up camp at Ormiston Gorge and consuming the NT's best iced coffees from the kiosk there, to the waterhole which is absolutely beautiful and has a beach to rival Wagga's. Plan had been to meet my friend Alex here to do the Ormiston Pound loop walk but she got stuck in Sydney for 24hr due to fog in Canberra - and in any case the signs warned of needing to wade or even swim through cold water, which didn't really appeal to me. I did do the half-hour walk up to the lookout at sunset, and came back to find my parents in bed already!

My parents & I flew into Alice Springs at lunchtime and after playing "spot the rogainer" (seriously, it's like being at WMOC week) I managed to convince them to walk up to Anzac Hill lookout (where the youth of today all seemed to have converged in search of pokey mangoes) but that was enough exercise for mum, so while dad was at church I went for a run along the Todd River from our motel in the centre of town, to Heavitree Gap and back. Legs actually felt pretty good, either because it was totally flat or because I'm on holidays!

Figured hardly anyone would be running @Belair tonight so I ran up through Randell's Reserve to meet Zara at her place, then with Callum we squelched along the creek track to the steps, up & over the trainline, across past the lower waterfall - a lot of fallen trees across the track in this section, which we had to clamber over and which would have made it impossible to drive a car to where we had the start in May - then past Belair Station and Belair Triangle (I hopefully begged Zara for food at the 2 hour mark and miraculously she produced a muesli bar!) and Z/C turned back at Kalyra while I continued on down Gloucester Ave. Nice night for a long run :) and I felt a bit better than on Sat - should probably have taken something to eat with me then too!

A meeting at FMC finished early and so I went for a run from there: up through the university pine forest where the yellow-tailed black cockatoos were soaring and squawking, around the tip of Bellevue Heights and along the Sturt Gorge rim singletrail, thinking how thankfully grey-box eucalypts are not the kind to drop branches in a storm, up to Eden Hills fire station and down to Eden Hills railway station, then there was just enough daylight left to check out the waterfalls on the side creek in Shepherds Hill.

Also enough time for $12 steak night at the pub around the corner, before online OA Board meeting :)

Over to Mitcham & back before work. Legs felt ok but wouldn't have wanted to go much further, and bad foot took a while to warm up. It wasn't very happy yesterday, so maybe it's a good thing that I didn't do a course, but I was very pleased by how many Wallaringans did get out on a course despite helping with the event.

Frank had set the Narrinyeri OY event, but couldn't be here, so Mark & AK & I put out all the controls yesterday, and I had thoughts of doing a course today, but found myself troubleshooting small things throughout the day, including running out to check a few controls. I hadn't been to the one which caused people trouble over the east side but I think it was partly due to the fact that there is more rock on the ground (in many places) than Alex saw fit to map in 1999. Anyway, all controls were in and the event all packed up by 2pm - and the forecast rain had already been through before we got there at 8am, so it was mostly a fine day. It's so green out there among the rocks and native pines!

Blackwood-->Belair-->Brownhill Creek, from Perry Ave. Thought I was going ok, even up hills, but the first half was about 5 min slower than I would have liked, and the last half even more so once I ran out of energy. Legs didn't feel terrible but I just couldn't make them turn over any more efficiently. Seems I have only one pace these days: 24-hr rogaine-plod. No wonder I was such a poor investment for Blair in the 6-hour.

Anyway, this worked up an appetite for 3x pancakes and 2x coffee @Fern & Tyson's, before going out to Narrinyeri to put out controls for tomorrow. I'd forgotten how beautiful it is out there, and the golden wattle is already starting to flower, so I picked some. Now when I get annoyed about how the accommodation booking I made for Stanthorpe 2 weeks ago has fallen through "because the house is being used for a family reunion" I take a deep breath and smell the wattle.

Short one after work (3 laps of Mortlock Park alternating fast & slow sides, which my legs managed better than my lungs did) before going to see what remains of DAAS with Geoff & Julie. The show was, in approximately equal parts: hilarious, crass and sombre, which is about what I'd expected. Nice to see the way in which Paul McDermott works an audience though.

C • DAAS 14

Urgh, morning runs aren't good for me these days. This was an absolute plod, feeling like my mitochondria simply hadn't started firing yet. Over to Brownhill Creek, along behind Waite, back through Mitcham. The 20 min on singletrails through bushland is always nice but it hardly justifies the half hour each way on pavement, which my knees didn't like. I could tell I was lagging about 6 min slower than usual for this loop so tried to cut it a bit short at the end (still late for work). Hadn't thought it was particularly cold but my hands took a long time to function again afterwards.

Getting a bit worried about the amount of rogaine training I haven't done, given that the WRC's now only 2 weeks away...

C • Lack of training 3

South Rd --> Anzac --> Greenhill --> Goodwood --> Cross --> Winston --> Avenue Rd on a damp & drizzly night, but at least this loop is reasonably well lit and paved, making it possible to maintain pace. Thought I'd push harder at the end to see if I could get under 50. Now I may have set a benchmark a little too high for my current fitness!

We stayed at the caravan park in Emu Plains last night and I'd thought it wouldn't be so far to run to the Knapsack Bridge and up the hill from there towards Glenbrook, but in fact it took 25 min each way on pavement just to get to/from the bushland reserve and since it was only 2 degrees when I set out, I was thankful for my foresight in having brought a thermal top but regretting my lack of gloves. Can't remember when I last saw frost at home in Adelaide...anyway the bellbirds were bing-bonging in the sunshine as I made my way up to Elizabeth's lookout, across to Marge's lookout and down to Lennox Bridge, from where I ran down the one-way road of Mitchell's Pass. Pretty sure pedestrians aren't meant to do that - but then neither are mountain bikers meant to ride up it against the traffic as I saw someone doing!

We flew into Sydney last night and while I slept pretty badly at the YHA in Glebe, its proximity to the harbour meant a scenic run in glorious winter sunshine around Blackwattle Bay Park where everyone was out running or walking their dogs, across Anzac Bridge (funny how I don't enjoy heights but do like bridges), then a lap of Pyrmont - which seemed almost deserted apart from the queue stretching around the block from the polling booth. The polling booth which we found later in the day, for interstate voters only (in Penrith) was the least obvious I've ever encountered, with no political signage whatsoever, and so quiet that G & I were able to swap opinions on who our 'top 6' were or weren't as we filled out the ballot papers!

Over to Mitcham then followed Brownhill Creek through the suburbs to Goodwood Rd which I crossed at the train overpass. Some nice mansions on this route but I always think of it as the 'murder run' because it passes by the sites of two such acts (that I'm aware of).

C • Murder runs 2