Training Log Archive: jennycas

http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/29189826/

I've been feeling a bit funny in stomach & head, and generally exhausted, for a couple of days so was reassured by prior agreement with Fern that we would take this at a gentle jog, but worried by Tyson's parting advice to Fern at the start that she shouldn't run me into the ground, or words to that effect!

From the scout hall at Ridgehaven, the map extended east to Anstey's Hill - where we ruled out going up into the reserve for 200 points with 200m bonus climb - and west to where the escarpment drops to the plains below the Keithcot Farm O-map. Basically, Tea Tree Gully & Golden Grove. Initial glance at the map told me it was cleanuppable, by the Doses at least (who are locals) and once we had decided to leave out Anstey's Hill (for which I was grateful) the rest of the course looked to be about 30km so I figured we'd end up doing that with 30-45 min to spare, but 3hrs+ was going to be more than enough running for me.

With the sun on our backs, and at Fern's cracking pace, I struggled through even the first hour, but finally warmed up, finally had a drink, and then we were on a gentle downhill across the suburbs past Tea Tree Plaza. In the SW corner of the map we saw Steve/Riordan Dose going the opposite way from us, closely followed by Steve Cooper & teammate, and knew that they would have enough time to go up the hill and beat us, but I wasn't quite so sure of the other pair of guys we saw running in a similar direction a few minutes later.

Headed steadily north, steadily uphill, got 81 & 90 in the creek below Keithcot (the bushbashing leg between them being the only reason why we were wearing long socks, which made my feet really itchy) then across into the area which I recognised as having been on the old Woodlake O-map, and basically back down the creek to the HH. Didn't even need to get our torches out, though we probably should have for the last couple of controls. Got back just before the Geogaine winners AKA Tynomite & Christofuffle.

We had 40 min to spare, and were 4th. The Doses cleaned up, with less than 5 min to spare. So we wouldn't have managed to clean up, but could very likely have achieved what Steve Cooper did, which involved going up Anstey's Hill, but as a tradeoff, leaving out 20 & 43 immediately west of the hash house (but definitely no chance of managing the 100km bikeride he & his teammate were participating in on Sunday). And the team which was 3rd, 30 points ahead of us, obviously got everything we did, plus the 30 at the SW foot of the hill, which we had thought of as too far out of the way.

I enjoyed Fern's company and navigation very much but am going to need a pretty quiet running week before Canberra next weekend. Might focus a bit more on sleep & food, neither of which I got much of after the rogaine. Apparently 60 pizzas were delivered, but for over 200 people this was hardly enough, as they were delivered in staggered lots of 10, and on each occasion, by the time they had been laid out on the tables and the first layer of people had stepped back, the pizzas had vanished. I have never seen pizza dematerialise so quickly!

3:07
3:12
3:03
3:10
3:04
Wow, running up hills is even more boring than swimming! I thought about counting steps like I do strokes but instead tried to put my head back and shoulders down. The slower ones could be because there was an intermittent headwind, or where I lost focus. Overall, though, I'd say I'm getting back to where I was last September.

21:45 to the park and my stretching tap
10:15 downhill singletrack recoveries
19:53 home from the top of the hill

By the end my hamstring was feeding into my neuroma and grinning evilly as it did so.

Fern & I met Zara at her new house 'cos we wanted a stickybeak, and ran from there to meet John & Steve & Aiden at the park. Up through Echo tunnel (stopped to sample blackberries), along the singletrack past the waterfalls to the tap at the top of the park, down the singletrack to the redwoods and back Long Gully. Nice night for it and I felt better at the end than the beginning.

What I thought of as 't-shirt weather' from a running point of view turned out to mean frigidity, on a bike into the headwind otherwise known as an autumn gully breeze. Yep, March is here! And my legs are inexplicably weary, also the hamstring is tight again. But at least it was good on the weekend. And my OSA AGM reports are done :)

Everyone looked at me strangely when I mentioned memorising the colours on the compass (if you have a Jet) to take a bearing. Isn't that the point of the markings around the edge - they're not just there to look pretty? Works on a rogaine, anyway, and then you don't have to thumb the map!

C • colours 3

Tyson set 4 short sprinterval type courses, partly around the convolutions of the creek and partly through the long grass up the hill. I remembered how, at our second-ever event in 1985, it took mum & Sus & me an hour and a half to find the second control, on an easy course, in that creek network!

A 1.1km 9:01 (uphill)
B 1.2km 8:43 (downhill)
C 1.4km 9:27 (uphill)
D 1.0km 7:17 (downhill)

I was pretty stuffed but tried hard anyway. Wasn't real confident of the new shoes; bought them for rogaining because of the better grip but the laces were bruising/pinching my ankles after only 2 hours.

From home to the park and then warmup with the others 35 min.
Collecting tapes and then home from the park 24 min.
Not so sure that I will come back here in the morning to do hill intervals as planned...

Nice. Less stiff afterwards.

It rained all night, and probably on Jim putting out controls, but had stopped by the time we were warming up. Still felt like 100% humidity and I came back and exchanged tights for O pants before starting because I was too hot already. 2-loop race, mass start, and out of the blocks everyone was heading up the hill way in front of me. By the end of the first (1.7km) loop I was resigned to being on my own and when I saw the length of the second loop there was a quiet sigh as I ran up the hill on my own again.

Turned out not to be that bad, even though I did something dumb leaving the 3rd control and ended up approaching 4 from across the creek below, rathrer than down the spur above, which meant I saw Bridget and Vanessa heading out of it in the direction I was approaching from. Pushed it up the next couple of hills (ankle does ups better than downs) and passed Bridget somewhere after 6 on the long leg to 7 where I could still see V's Aust top in the distance and then got excited when I could see Tracy even further in the distance. I was a bit high on my approach into 7, then overcorrected and although I ticked off the gullies I ended up slightly too far right and because I could hear traffic on the road I panicked and thought I must have overshot it - which I had but only by 100m.

No sign of any other girls now, down into the creek and along to 9 which was a depression among pitted ground, I thought I saw the twin mineshafts which would mean I'd overshot it and so I turned back, Bridget came along and did the same thing, I went on further but then I saw the cliffs in the creek which would mean I'd overshot it and so I turned back, but it was just that the creek had washed out deeper in the recent rains, so I went on again, found it shortly after. (The lesson there was to come along the opposite side of the creek where there was only one erosion gully, to use as an attack point.)

After 11 I didn't see anyone else I knew to be on my course, had to make myself keep running, especially up hills, through wet bushes and through 48 million spider webs all of which clung to me and my glasses, which I had to wipe on my Arrows top at least 4 times. On the longish leg to 14 I thought I ended up a bit low but this actually meant less up and down and a good attack point at the end of the leg. Was getting a bit wobbly on rocky ground by then but in general ankle held up really well and I am happy with the shoes and with having remembered how to race. Could have probably been 2-3 min cleaner on navigation all up and would like to run 2-3 min faster (still, I was 8 min behind Kathryn in the last long race I did which was Vic champs, and 8 min behind today - although I doubt she was running her hardest - so I was fairly well satisfied).

Saved my warmdown for going geocaching at Kooyoora while the others went rock scrambling around Melville Caves. Having found the cache at the top lookout I then thought I'd almost have time for another which turned out to be 1km away in a straight line, but I had to follow the walking track down through the rocks then south on the walking track from the bottom picnic area. So I kind of had to run, and displaced a few more spiders in the process. Only one came along for the ride :)