Training Log Archive: jennycas

After hiding my other shoes from Kay so she couldn't play another April Fool's joke on me, I trotted off to the start, feeling surprisingly good for the final day of an Easter. First control looked so easy I thought there must be trick to it. And in fact none of the course was especially complicated, or steep. It was really fast open terrain (thank goodness the reverse order 'chasing' startlist wasn't based on real time behind each other or there would have been an awful lot of 'cooperative navigation'). I was a bit low coming into the gully on 2, and went rather wider than intended on the long leg across to 6, so came into it from below, as did Claire Butler. I thought I was running reasonably fast (for me) but Belinda came through me at 8 and was off in the distance, while I struggled to catch back up to Claire, losing a bit of ground every time we crossed the channel! We picked up Rachel West at the end, and then a bush picked up my glasses and I took a few seconds to find them; they were well camouflaged. Finished strongly and really pleased with my Easter as a whole although I'm consistently around 18th not just at the end of each day but even on each split!

C • Split consistency 5

As we drove home I regaled a patient George with the countback of all the Easters that I've been to since 1989 (missed '04 and '05) and came to the conclusion that I have consistently enjoyed the Victorian Easters the most. Maybe because it's possible to drive across and have one's own car - and stop at bakeries on the way; St Arnaud on Fri and Bridgewater on Mon - and because the events are generally much closer to where we're staying, the weather's not as hot (it always feels like Autumn and the start of the O season), and so I'm less buggered by the time it comes to meetings. And because more of my friends are present at a Victorian Easter :) We noticed the absence of JohnN though.

C • Autumn 1

Day 3 W21E - Splits

So, 7.2km wasn't really far enough for a classic length race even if it was on Mt Alexander. (And I suspect the advertised 350m climb was a typo as other similar courses had more like 250m?) But it was a course that made good use of the available area, even if the phi loops possibly contributed to, rather than prevented, bunching...anyway, really nice morning, course and terrain - a lot like Mt Beckworth but not as hot as a month ago!

I was probably foolish to take the high route and drop (what seemed like quite a way) into the first couple of controls, and Al Jones had caught me 2 min at number 2 already. Natasha came through me (4 min) at 3, where I was looking on a rockface too low (which I now can't see on the map unless it's rocky ground) and they were both a fair way ahead of me going up the hill to 5 which was the first of our common controls for the loops, but then they were both punching it as I came in, so must have fluffed it a bit. Natasha and I both had the downhill side of the loop first and both lost time going into the next control, but when we got to the common control at the bottom of the loop there was Al coming in from doing the straight line down the middle of the loop, so she must have lost time too. They were ahead of me on the uphill side of the loop and I blew the control at the end of it by being on some patchy open just lower than the clearing I wanted, and looking for a boulder on the edge of it. Then I saw Al and Tash coming down from above and realised I was too low, so went up to the proper clearing and they went back up too - I thought they'd already found the control but they hadn't.

I got the common control ahead of them and then took the straight line south, seeing Susanne hooning through the forest parallel to me. Actually it wasn't straight south; we both climbed a bit, passing control 9 we'd been to already, and then dropped in to it. She was out of sight fairly quickly after that. The longer legs across the hillside were clean for me although fairly slow, and it took until the end of the long leg for Natasha to catch up to me again. She was over the hill pretty fast though. I guess I need to do rather more hill-and-terrain work. But that's okay; I am still at the point of being happy that I can run fairly pain-free :) And I could have cut out about 5 min of mistakes; think my goal ought to be being able to get back to about 20 min behind the winner, as I was in Hanny's glory days, rather than 30 min as I currently am behind Lizzie.

C • Probably not a typo 3

C • Classic length race 5

Day 2 W21E - Splits

Nice day for a run in the forest. At the beginning it seemed almost too simple, as things were popping up exactly where I expected them to and my knees felt good running - also felt as though with a bit more training I'd be able to run faster still. Saw Clare leaving 5 in the green as I approached it, then hesitated a little and Mace was coming in as I was leaving. Didn't get a clear line through the junk on the next couple of legs but found the controls okay, also came across Claire Butler, and then the 4 of us were around each other for the next few controls but 11 was at the top of an embankment and I was too wide/hesitant coming down off it so lost sight of Mace & Clare. Only real error was probably not even a minute on 18 where I hit the fingers of erosion gullies pretty much right but saw a bunch of older men coming from the SW so checked the minor creek in the direction where they had come from (I do know better than to chase old men, really!).

I used to think that being within 10 min of the winner on a middle distance was fairly good by my standards, and I'm reasonably happy with my run, but there's such a big women's field that it means I'm 18th (which would be 20th if Vanessa & Rachel were here).

Day 1 Course 2 - Splits

Event: Easter 2013
 

Sprint around Latrobe uni campus, nicely set by Toph. The mistakes I made were in the bush - overrunning the first control by 50m and ending up at the second (I suspect I wasn't alone, but I had the second-fastest split belting back to 2!) and then on the northerly bush leg 5-6 I aimed right on purpose, but when I came near the road and saw the houses I thought I had to go further right because they should be to the left, but I was actually looking at other houses further right, which were folded under on my map. Figured it out pretty soon but probably lost about a minute, and 4 places (or 7 if you include the junior girls), between those 2 errors. But I'm sure that those other people made mistakes too, and could say the same. Not sure about my route on the leg after the spectator control; that got a bit messy at the end. But mostly I felt that I was making decisions well, and also running quite well for me, certainly faster than I was thinking!

Prologue Course 2 - Splits

Knees were a bit hammered from terrain (3 days in a row at Easter could be problematic in that regard) so I swam. Smells emanating from the bakery were very fruity - I guess they're making hot cross buns!

Terrain loops of Blackwood forest, jumping as many logs as possible. Not super fast because the needles were slippery especially when playing pine tree slalom. But felt fairly good, certainly stronger than I have for a while. (Really meant to start doing this a few weeks ago!) Was still warm out but I think I finally acclimatised to 30+ earlier this month. Also it was good to concentrate on something other than this afternoon's somewhat disquieting meeting (neither first nor last in the drip-feed, death by a thousand paper cuts, sequence of Things That Are Happening To Repat For The Good Of The SALHN).