Training Log Archive: jennycas

It was strange to wake up, momentarily not recognise any of the people on the bunks around me, and then think "oh wait, they're not orienteers, they're road (trail) runners!"

Ran from Mylor YHA to Bridgewater via Engelbrecht Reserve, along the Heysen Trail under the train line to the freeway then back to the hostel via Aldgate Tce and Mi Mi Rd. A few doublings back for people until we got to Bridgie, then a bit faster on the flat stuff with John & Lauren. I turned back with Fern at the freeway, aiming for about 15km but I think it ended up being closer to 17.

Hamstrings still rather tight and more distance would have been bad for them (I blame the road trip a week ago), plus I needed to get back in time to help with the morning tea. 60 runners came along and Lynn catered excellently for them. Probably standing and serving for 2 hours wasn't as good for me as stretching would have been, though.

Now, I have 2 weeks to get faster before Easter. What are my chances? Memo to self: no runs over 80 minutes!
(This statement is not necessarily contradictory to training for a half marathon in 4 weeks' time, is it?)
Oh wait, you don't train for halves, you just go out and run them...

I really felt like a swim but when I got to Unley pool (which isn't at Unley, it's at Forestville) it was closed for a carnival so I went to Marion pool (which isn't at Marion, it's at Parkholme) by which time there was only 25 min until closing so the guy on the gate only charged me a concession fee. I had a lane to myself and the pool wasn't as grungy as I'd feared - apart from the changerooms which are truly institutional. I guess they were new(ish) when I was repeatedly failing Vacswim from about 1983 onwards.

From home to Flinders Uni via Shepherds Hill because I needed a decent warmup before sprintervals. I got there on time but then, of course, everyone else still had to warm up...

4 short loops 800m-1km around Flinders Uni, cunningly set by Simon. He didn't tell us until afterwards that we had different splits! I may possibly have taken a couple of cross-country route choices which wouldn't be allowed if it was mapped to sprint specifications.

6:59 (90 degree error out of one control - oops)
6:47
5:41
7:21 (ran out of legs and jogged the stairs)

Good fun but getting a bit dark to read the map, especially with purple printing. Spent 10 min collecting controls almost by map memory.

Then I went to Mylor for a sleepover with the road runners. It was great to hear the Six Foot Track stories from Kym, Terry & Paul. I am definitely putting in an entry next year.

I finally booked my flights to NZ, only about a month after Zara got herself organised. Costs the same Adelaide-Christchurch return as it does to get to Canberra & back twice, next month. Now all I need is a new passport.

Banana Girl strikes again! To be fair to myself, though, I am not quite that bendy, probably more the sort of banana which gets rejected in packing for not having the right degree of curvature. Are bananas better at floating or sinking?

C • swimming+ 7

Some days I have more energy than others. This was one of the others. So I plodded up the hills and was too lazy to go back for people. At least it had cooled down by the time we were running.

Up through Randells Reserve to the BP at Belair and back down Gloucester Ave. Don't feel like I have done enough hills lately (because coming back down is too hard on shins) but having now trawled back through my log to October in the hope of finding whether I'd actually measured the distance previously, it seems that this was the fastest time I've ever done for this run. Weird. It also seems that I've been complaining about my shins at least since October, so maybe I can't blame Cradle entirely. Both facts make me feel slightly less weary :)

To/from parents' on my new bike to tell them about my holiday. I still don't like how rough and unexciting Oaklands Rd is. Also, I should get a light. This time I took finger buns with hundreds & thousands, and came home with grapes (plus one-third share of the finger buns in my tummy).

Very lactic today. Sometimes I wonder if you can actually sustain muscle damage from your physio? Anyway, from other people's accounts it sounds like being at OASA management meeting wasn't worse than going bush at Morialta. I had sort of intended to fit in a jog when I got home at 8pm but it was dark already and still 30 degrees, so I did some quality eating of random foodstuffs instead, having been disproportionately hungry the last couple of days!

Took a while to warm up and I was definitely unco but it was nice to be doing this. Although I've always assumed that my body remains straight in the water, I'll reluctantly have to conclude that sometimes I'm more of a banana!

Attack of the Killer Physio

This was tough - and I was the one being passive! Don't think Kath will need to go to the gym tonight :) Shins and ITB will benefit from A Lot Of Stretching over the next couple of weeks.

Well, Kath didn't tell me not to run, and I wanted to ride over to Fern's & show off my new bike to everyone. 9 of us (a Monday night record?) went up to the end of the caravan park and back with lots of stops for stretching. Bridget found my impression of a sheep highly amusing - this was when a border collie was running along the street trying to round us all up. What I found highly amusing was the kid who had been walking along with his mother acting bored, but when he saw us all coming he took off running down the road hoping that we would all try to catch him!

Arrows-organised technical training at Narrinyeri, to which about 45 other orienteers came. They could do up to 5 short loop courses in the rocks, if they liked. I should thank Fern/Tyson/Simon/Bridget/John/George/Robin/Adrian for doing helpful stuff.

I saved my energy for putting out and bringing in controls because:
a) my shins were more than a little painful
b) I was really flat, having been too tired to eat dinner the night before when I got home from Melbourne
c) I put all the tapes out a couple of weeks ago so already knew where the controls were
I did, however, walk around John's line course and even then I managed to miss one of the flags - oops.

Felt heaps better after lunch at the Callington pub with John, Bridget and George, and after counting the takings and finding that we made $280 :)