Training Log Archive: jennycas

Woke up very stiff & sore, not only in knees but also in butt muscles, and not even anti-inflammmatories nor the entertainment of watching the WC sprint final (especially Lizzie's 3rd place, for which the crowd's loudest cheer was reserved) counteracted this. So I had no great expectations of my run; having seen that only the top 3 WC women cracked 20 min I expected to take more like 30. And so it proved. Enjoyed the course although not the slog up the hill on the long route choice leg - I so should have gone right, around the opposite end of the impassable fence. From the map change (where Carol Ross had caught me 1 min) I went right when everyone else went left but I think this was an okay choice except that I was no good at getting up and down walls. For the last section through the buildings I was a bit hesitant, and very fatigued, but don't think I made any real mistakes.

Good thing I'm not running the sprints at the March NOL races (I'm setting the qualifier on Flinders Uni) because I am clearly not a sprinter.

Sprint Champs - C2 - Splits

Probably a bit unnecessary, especially as my knees didn't like the pavement, but I tested the theory that Waitarere is a bigger town to run around than Ouyen - because it has been so lovely staying here in our beach house across the road from both the ocean and the forest, and I didn't really want to leave. Also I was still stewing about yesterday's run, but once I had finished off with a last visit to the enchanted forest I was a bit less grumpy.

We then drove to Wellington, watched the WC sprint qualifier around parliament, and that was the day gone. We have a very nice house in Oriental Bay but parking is a bit of a debacle because it's all very well to have vouchers, but finding an available eligible park is another matter. Should be able to walk to the sprint final tomorrow and am happier now that non-WC elites don't have to be quarantined even though we are doing the same course. It would have been a shame not to be able to spectate!

Waikawa Beach. We spent the morning spectating the World Cup race where the first glimpse we had of the runners was as they appeared high on the dunes on the ocean side of the river, then ran along the river beach and disappeared up into the dunes again in varying degrees of confusion, to reappear over the footbridge and into the last control. Some solid Aussie results but I am also interested in the pointy end of the women's field so this held my attention until the end. After the presentations were over and the finish infrastructure moved, it became clear that the public races were to start and finish across the river and we would be thrown straight into the dunes.

Sure enough, this was the case, and I took a while to properly read and understand which were the more outstanding hills - the use of an index contour to denote these did not aid in my interpretation thereof - and I lost a couple of minutes on the first control. Was mostly okay, if hesitant, until the leg to 11 back out towards the ocean, where I had in fact run too far towards the ocean and was deeper into big dunes than I realised, about 200m SW of the control and I kept thinking that the banana shaped depression at my feet should be the one near the control when it was in fact a couple of banana shaped depressions south of where I needed to be, so there went another 4 minutes :(

But the one which really frustrated me was from 12-13 where I should have gone south through the open sand blow and approached from the west, but instead crossed the sand patch and climbed the next sandhill only to find myself looking out on a sea of marram grass and lupins, with no elephant tracks, and at lest 3 ascents and descents of this stuff between myself and the trees where the control would be. By the time I had fought my way there, it would have been quicker to go back down and around, as I had lost another 4 min.

So I lost about 10 min on this course, which was completely unnecessary, and I am a bit pissed off, because I had thought that I am actually able to navigaate in this stuff. But I did manage to win a split (the second-last one, when a herd of junior boys came charging through and I tailed them down the hill). Very hot and sweaty when I finished, and the river looked good so I went for a swim even though it turned out to be only waist deep, and its bottom mud very squelchy underfoot!

Middle Champs C 2 - Splits

Same distance as yesterday but a lot tougher. Not to start with, which was in nice pine forest although even softer underfoot and I was glad that I have been doing some core exercises. About 2 controls in a Swedish woman appeared (presumably she started 2 min behind me?) and for about the next 10 controls I kept seeing her on and off - she was running faster than me but often less precise; although I had a consistent tendency to bear to the right it meant I knew for certain which direction I was approaching the control from, and the incentive to run faster helped.

Control 10 was the first in the macrocarpa (AKA spiky cypress with very low horizontal branches) and here I saw the really fast little Swedish girl who was the eventual winner, but she wasn't exactly confident of the depressions. The next few controls in the low-vis stuff I was seeing a number of international runners on and off, but disaster struck when we left this and headed west onto the open dunes, towards 17. I couldn't (still can't) read the vegetation; wasn't clear exactly where I had come out of the forest but thought I ahd made the thickets of coastal wattle fit. Couldn't make all the little thickets fit until I realised that sometimes the lupin was mapped. Couldn't read the contours at all, and the green stripe 'slow run, good visibility' didn't actually confer any visibility when you were in the bottom of a basin with head-high vegetation. Others had run much further south, but I was pretty much on the right line, just didn't realise that I needed to go further west to the open dunes. A few of us converged on this at the same time and chased each other to the next beach control, then it was another diagonal (my least favourite leg in this stuff when it crossed about 4 different types of vegetation) all the way to the radio control which I actually popped out onthe track about 100m north of then had to skulk back into the bushes in case anyone saw me.

And another diagonal, through the macrocarpa and hitting the 'open' stuff from a ridgeline, looking down and wondering which of the pine trees evident in front of me were mapped with a distinct tree circle or not and furthermore, which one of them hid my control? I should just have followed the men in front of me at that point rather than standing & wondering for a couple of min. 2 more controls in the macrocarpa, back out to the beach (sigh). It was really hot in the sun and we'd had only one water drop through the whole course, which I think is poor planning. Not thinking very clearly by now and bleeding time all over the place. Starting to check out controls which I saw other people punching because I didn't trust my distance estimation. Back into the macrocarpa after some slow-bashing through the grassy basins. Duck, weave, check bearing, cross gully and repeat. Thankfully only 3 short legs to go, and a lap of the dam for completeness.

Ended up 9th to my surprise. I mean, it was a very different field to yesterday, but also a very different course, and everyone made mistakes including those at the top. Disappointed at how much time I lost; felt like about 15 min altogether, and the woman I had been running with earlier was 12 min ahead of me. The gap to the next place ahead was 10 min though, and I'd really need to have remained completely focused to achieve that. There was a tight bunch just behind me, so I won't quibble top 10 :)

C • Great account 10

Event 2 C 2 - Splits

Event: 2013 Oceania Carnival & WC Races
 

First day of Oceania, sand dunes in pine forest. Long low ridges often with not much detail between them. Also not much climb, but very soft underfoot (somehow I was reminded of Europe, but with a southern hemisphere compass). Quite a few World Cup people running today.

Mostly happy with my navigating but it tended to go awry when I crossed tracks or saw other people and my big error involved:
a) going around a hill and coming out NW of the crossroads, not NE as I had thought, and then running further away from the crossroads wondering why I couldn't see the water (which, sadly, is not at controls in NZ). Resolved that by heading SW but then having crossed the correct track, I
b) had no proper attack point when leaving a bland basin and going into low-vis detailed stuff and consequently I did laps of it, possibly even coming as close as 10m to my control, and eventually relocating off some high points to the east, having one more abortive attempt in which I found the tape for that control's alternate site, and then finally finding the real thing.

15 min for a leg which should have taken about 6? The rest was pretty much okay, once in the wrong little gully, very hungry towards the end (it was lunchtime) and struggling to concentrate. A very similar time to Bridget/Lauren but I am left wondering how the Russian girl did 48 min!

Event 1 C 2 - Splits

We overnighted at Waitomo so we could go to the glowworm caves first thing - enchanting rather than spectacular, and not as extensive a ride on the underground river as at Te Anau, but dry caves which were reminiscent of Smaug's lair made up for this. Passed through the National Park region and admired snow on Ruapehu, fog on Ngaurahoe, then a long winding descent to Wanganui (I drive because I am not a good passenger) and eventually to our beach house at Waitarere, where we will be until Monday morning. Fern & Tyson were already there and had negotiated with some UK orienteers to give us their map after they had finished training with it in the pine forest which was literally next door, so I went for a run on a sprint course from earlier this year. It's magical forest, straight out of Lord Of The Rings.

We were all wide awake at 6am which is just ridiculous, as that's 3.30 Adelaide time. Anyway, started out across to the Domain with John & Andrew, then I left them to their own devices and I went up Mt Eden, which I had seen from the air when flying in. Did a lap of the perfectly (inverted) conical crater, admired the view to all the other craters across Auckland, and headed back down which my knees didn't like much. Now that I have seen the Tui birds squabbling in the pohutukawa trees, I know that I am in NZ.

Filled in the morning very nicely by catching a ferry from downtown across to Devonport, which huundreds of other people were doing on this public holiday (Day After New Year - seriously?) and consuming the best seafood chowder I have ever come across, before going to the airport to pick up the rest of the Arrows, and heading south.