Training Log Archive: jennycas

Gilbert Valley Gambol 12 hour rogaine (except that as far as I can tell, this was primarily Wakefield River catchment). Anyway, along a north-south strip of hills west of Rhynie in the Mid North. Hash house in a camping area by a creek, where the local farmer kept adding logs to the campfire with a front-end-loader and the local CFS (of which he was a member) did an amazing job of catering with the most professional set-up I have ever seen for a bush kitchen. Nearly 90 teams across the 6 and 12 hour, and rain squalls across the hills at semi-regular intervals.

So being on admin wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It was, however, a very long day and I hardly sat down between 7am and 1am. There was always something to be done, so I never got out for a run, and was incredibly stiff the next day. I did, however, do so much eating in the comparative down time after the end of the roving 6 hour that I could probably log it as a activity (did I mention that the catering was really good?). Navlight worked really well; teams got their score printout to check straight away - so different from having to check control cards with a light box!

Only slightly exhausted. Would like to be sleeping better, but I'm not. Also am not aware of anything that I'm actively stressing about, but work could hardly be described as relaxing just now; maybe I'm passively stressed? Anyway, it turns out that packing to help at a rogaine takes nearly as long as packing to compete in it (I am hoping to run around a few controls during the admin down-time after the start, but not sure whether we will still be getting random starters for the roving 6-hour).

With Simon for half an hour, then Zara/Callum & I ran a bit more but I asked to stick to the flatter parts of the park.

Rain had cleared (temporarily?) and it was nice out, though cold where the sun wasn't. Bit slow on wet roads but legs are much less grumpy than a few weeks ago (and I don't have to anticipate groin pain when I get out of bed) so I guess the core exercises are taking effect. Caravan park magpie must have slept in, he only managed one go at me.

Struggled up the hill a minute slower than in recent times, but came down about the same pace as usual although it was getting dark. Brain, legs and lungs all very tired.

Spent the evening learning about Navlight (not so different from SportIdent in some ways, but better for a score event) and allocating the tags for Saturday's rogaine with Steve & Mark. Am helping with admin for the 12hr - it will finish at 11pm and then we have to process the results ASAP...

Decided not to go to North Adelaide in order to hang out with George who was actually home for once, and also to dodge the rain...was rather out of breath tonight, even more so than on the weekend. But legs weren't too bad.

Up through Glenalta and back with Simon, Eric, Bridget - impressively on her second run for the day - then around the school in Hawthorndene while the others got ready for the mapping meeting which the Uppills were hosting (I took my tired brain home instead).

Event: SA Middle Distance Championships - Barossa Range
 

Melville Caves, from the campground. Had to walk all of 50m from tent to start.

This was a badge event but I didn't really feel up to racing - backache had developed into cramps and I was feeling quite vague, so just tried as hard as possible not to a) trip over anything and b) lose contact with the map. Possibly not as imaginative a course as yesterday, and the controls were placed so that often I could see them from my approach direction, but there were definitely some legs requiring sustained concentration (might help if I did my road runs with a map, but since I mostly run on trails I can't mapread and watch my feet at the same time!).

Took the newly-mapped singletrack to 2 but then didn't pay attention when I crossed the big track at the end and nearly forgot that I had to cross another smaller track also. Very tentative with my bearings to 4 and 5, peering through the green for a glimpse of a rocky spur. A bit more confident on the longer leg to 6, alternating between "wing it" and "now what did I just pass?" When the answer was "a boulder as big as a house" I knew I was home free, so to speak!

Down the gully to 7, took the track option to 8 feeling guilty that I wasn't navigating through the bush but also feeling very glad this course was only 7km. 9 and 10 were okay (picked off the rock 2/3 of the way along the leg, that I'd had a control behind yesterday). Left 10 a bit more northeasterly than I had meant to, worked it out fine and headed up a parallel gully to the one I had intended. Deliberately veering away from the campground going to the last control, I checked out a high point I didn't need to visit (was consistently bearing too far right all day) and so I may have made 3-4 min of small errors all up; hard to say. Hard to say also how much faster I ought to be able to run through that stuff, but I know what to work on over the next month.

Anyway, glad I came along to keep Aislinn company :)