Training Log Archive: jennycas

Evening run, GPS in hand, to try to loosen up after a day driving to/from Clare (involved lunch with friends at Skillogallee, and tasting at other wineries). I found all 5 of the geocaches I was looking for, so that made me happy, but right now nothing seems to make my legs happy. Perhaps they'd prefer not to run for a couple of days?

C • Skillogale 1

C • Skillogallee 4

Figured this would be good for my rather unhappy hamstring/hip and I think it was. May need to work on strengthening the dodgy ankle a bit more.

I was delighted to be the recipient of Lauren's prototype O-Gang (Arro-Gang) t-shirt last night. It's so retro it's cool (well, as much as anything can be in orienteering), and we're pretty sure the SA girls at least will be pleased to have one, possibly with people's AP names on them. And we'll probably talk the boys around to it :)

If anyone ever comes across a copy of The O-Gang by Hazel Edwards, in a second-hand bookshop, they should buy it, ostensibly for small children of their acquaintance, and then surreptitiously read it themselves. Susanne brought it along last Easter and we amused ourselves for hours acting it out on a wet day at Coles Bay. I still think it would make a great pantomime!

C • Gang-O Kids 1

I can't remember when we last orienteered on the Fourth Creek map (Fourth Creek being the source of the water in Morialta Falls when they are falling). It was a popular event and so I had to recycle John's map, which he hadn't even sweated on. Plus it was nicely pre-folded in the right places. This could be because he went to all but one of the same controls as me. The scatter O ended up having 18 controls instead of 20, so when John left out 3 as usual he went to 15 rather than the usual 17, while I went to 15 as always (having been caught before by not counting properly).

My legs were hammered tonight, the only thing tighter than my left hamstring being the right one. Hmmm. I've always felt that doing faster stuff is bad for me, and this doesn't disprove it.

Along the creek there was a koala on the ground with a bunch of people standing around trying to give it a drink and take photos of it. How did they know it wasn't just on its way from one tree to the next when it got waylaid by all these humans? (I assume koalas have to climb down one tree, walk across the ground, and climb up the next, unless they have any Tarzan-like skills that I'm unaware of.)

C • wait what john...not sweat... 1

Tyson was talking about finding the shortest way from the bottom of the park to the top, but I didn't realise everyone was going to follow him, and I ended taking the usual route up past the lake, across the train line, up past the water-doesn't-currently-fall(s) and to the tap at the top of the park, stopping only to let an echidna cross the track in front of me. Going uphill felt like someone had tied a lead weight to my behind, but I kept putting in the effort, and got there in under 45min. Then I found the singletrack down to the redwoods, sampled some blackberries at the bottom, and made it the 4km back from there in about 18:30.

I'm definitely lacking the enthusiasm for a final long run this weekend, but might feel better by Sunday. Perhaps I could go hiking instead. How do you taper for an 80km run, anyway?

Sure enough I woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a...physio, and I woke up too late to run because getting home at 11pm from back-to-back OASA meetings, and then having dinner, will do that to you.

So I fitted this in after work before going for a Nepalese banquet with a group of gastroenterology doctors (yes, diarrhoea was one of the conversation topics). I thought I'd be slow, not having done this since I can't remember when, but I covered at least as much distance as previously - could do with some more aerobic capacity, though.

Three hills loop in the rain. Generally slow, and I struggled on the hills. My back's really stiff after sleeping 3 nights on the hall floor in an attempt to catch the breeze from the airconditioner. But hey, it was raining! The Chihuaha Of Death (for so I'm sure it thinks of itself as) came out and barked at me again. With its fur all fluffed up around its face from the rain it looked like a malevolent flying fox. Did I mention that it was raining? When I got home I dripped all over the newly-washed kitchen floor and didn't even tell myself off :)

Attack of the Killer Physio

This was both useful and necessary. Already I can sit more upright. (The feeling of having been beaten up won't kick in till tomorrow.) Kath implied that I could take a break from hauling watering cans around - fine by me. I'd almost forgotten about the joys of needles, but hopefully they will keep me going for another month, my next appointment having been cancelled due to Kath's being on leave (so much for my planning ahead).

Any energy I had left after a crap night's sleep has been expended on lugging watering cans around gardens A and B. (Could explain why my hip's grumbling, now I think of it.)

The warmest night I remember trying to sleep through was when George & I were camped at Chambers Gorge during the March heatwave a couple of years ago. All bedding was basically at body temperature, and I kept expecting the feral goats to eat our tent in the night. It was too hot to cook dinner, but in the morning we had to use the steak which had thawed out, so we made yiros for breakfast. And when we got to Angorichina later in the day, where the generator only runs from 8am to 10pm so there is no power overnight, the ice-cream freezer in the general store was wrapped in layers of sleeping bags in a halfway successful attempt to keep the contents frozen!

Blackwood-Belair-home loop via Shepherds Hill, Eden Hills, some ups and downs between Blackwood and Belair, and down Gloucester Ave. My legs didn't have the Pony Ridge extension in them although that was the original plan; therefore I was home before the time when we usually start our Sunday morning runs, and before the sun was too high. There are 4 taps along this route and I drank at all of them.