Training Log Archive: jennycas

Legs know the drill: up through Shepherds Hill and Eden Hills to Blackwood, up & down to Belair, along Sheoak to Pony Ridge and back down Brownhill Creek. Got this done before the cloud lifted. It wasn't too bad; very slow up hills and I stopped to drink and stretch at 50, 70, 115 min (which stops would all be included in the timing of a paid run, but my knees needed them) but got to the bottom of Pony Ridge in 90 and finished fairly solidly from there, although I did ice my knees afterwards and had a fairly lazy day.

Funniest moment was somewhere in Belair where a middle-aged, well-groomed couple were putting her Louis Vuitton bags (possibly knock-offs, but I am not an expert) into the back of their car, supervised by the smallest and cutest of Border Collie pups - which promptly toddled out into the road to greet me, widdled next to my shoes in excitement, and then sat down in the puddle to the horror of the lady, who as she came and picked it up held the wee beastie as far away as possible from her smart jacket!

The map is seriously only 1km square, but Andrew M (course planner and mapper) had determined that the northeasternmost and southeasternmost controls were compulsory if scattering for either 15 or 17 controls - and these were each right at the top of a hill! This made the decision about which 5 for me to leave out rather interesting as I was having to run within 150m of some of them anyway. Suspect that I didn't make the best choices, but the inefficiency of which ones I did or didn't drop was far less than the imposition of going to the compulsory controls. A great idea, although I'd suggest that runners doing 15 controls probably only needed to have one as compulsory. Of course, there's always the AK version of scatter O in which you just get all 20!

To the redwoods, feeling not too bad and hearing all about Lauren's upcoming job in Port Lincoln - exciting - and then on the return trip I was in a hurry because of needing to be at a meeting in Hindmarsh by 8pm. I didn't know it was possible to get back from the redwoods in under 20 min. This makes up for not running yesterday!

Twice today I put on my running gear, headed out the door, listened to my knees and went back again. They told me that they would take a while to stop whinging and I should save them for the weekend if I want to do a proper long run.

I got to Morialta about 6:10 and the others had left but I figured that the probability I might catch up to them at one of their regrouping stops was greater than zero. As it turned out, probability was 100% - I found the group at 3rd falls and we went up to the road, down to Pretty Corner and down the park-rim singletrack from there. Legs felt pretty much okay and it was raining by the end - nice.

C • Rain 1

Hawthorndene run with Bridgemon, Fyson and Trangia (one half of whom is now quite bumpy). It wasn't possible to avoid all the hills and one of them set Tyson's heart off. My hamstrings have been pretty tight today and my brain nearly exploding with trying to understand the new electronic casenotes/drug chart system in hospice.

From Blair's parents' place in Aranda, with him across to AIS to meet Craig then the 3 of us headed past Bruce Ridge down through ANU to the lake, sighting 3 balloons this morning. Along the lake and up tracks alongside Black Mountain back to Aranda. Spinach pie for dinner last night (seriously, who considers that a meal?) wasn't really enough and so for the last half hour I was struggling a bit, especially with socks and ankle tape chafing, until I remembered that I had some lollies in my back pocket. Made it to the conference by 8:30 :)