Training Log Archive: jennycas

It's quite a while since I've run in Sydney sandstone and I was expecting to struggle with interpreting the detail, but had remembered the golden rule of being careful with your bearings particularly across bland hilltops. Set off to 1 slightly too far left but at least I knew I was, down the spur to 2, a couple of ridiculously short & easy legs to 3 & 4, back across the spur to 5, turn and run up the hill to a termite mound with the flag on its approach side, across the spur to 7 which a few people had trouble with but I dropped into the little gully okay, across the spur to 8 which boulder I spotted easily, a ridiculously short easy leg to 9, across the spur to 10 which I was one tiny gully too low for (I think I used some unmapped bare rock as my attack point) and then the fun was over.

A long leg north straight down the spur hardly needing to navigate until crossing the river, a few control-picking legs to the spectator control, a few moderate-standard legs to the finish. So basically the second half of the course really wasn't WRE-standard navigation. The men and the older age groups got into the rock a bit more and I can see more than one control which could easily have been used to make the women's course more interesting. Presumably we'll get more rock tomorrow; I should be careful what I wish for!

Course 2 day1 - Splits

Event: Easter 2014
 

Bush sprint on Rylstone Common. Off to a slow start and hesitated halfway on the first until I was sure which of the rocks I was seeing were where, so Laurina came through me at 3, but I kept seeing her for a while because both of us had a bearing too far right on 4 (went past 6). The only other real time loss was on 14 where I was too wide and saw a control on a boulder, which I took to be my #16, NE of 14, when actually it was another rock SW of 14. Although that probably wasn't even a minute lost it felt like more - I would have liked to get in under 20. And to have been a bit higher up than the equivalent of outside the top 10 in junior girls!

C • lauren 2

Frantic scramble to leave work in time to catch a 6:45pm plane and I felt like I left so much unfinished...it's just that everything seems to be taking longer now in EPAS-land.

Have been trying to remember to use the core muscles on that side, but I can really tell that my left arm does nothing in particular. Nice morning for a splash :)

C • Easter 2

Attack of the Killer Masseuse.
Just back; no time for legs. Over the last few weeks I'm getting a horrible crunching feeling in my tailbone when I sit for too long which isn't cool.
Apparently my undies were on inside out - whoops!

C • Can't recommend 2

Getting sick of
a) waking up too stiff in the midsection to even contemplate running at that time
b) staying back too late at work to get a run in daylight....I had every intention of going to North Adelaide but didn't leave work until 7:20pm and was consequently late for OSA meeting - had no idea that there was any such thing as part of a lunar eclipse :(

Head-clearing run around Hawthorndene with B&S, the newlydad, and the dadtobe (after which I was late for Easter 2015 meeting).

Um, well, what can I say about this? At least it was a nice day weather wise...had intended to go out early after setting up from 8am, and come back to help on the finish but got caught up with little details like putting out bunting for the kids' courses, and when I started my head wasn't really in it. Neither were my legs, which weren't at all keen on lifting themselves over anything or going above a jog, so consequently I walked the majority of the course.

Lots of mistakes because I just wasn't properly focused: on 3 where others have said there was more rock than mapped, although I was too far west (trying to read the vegetation boundary) and therefore found no rock for quite a while; on 8 where I had to have a couple of goes and went way past the rock; on 14 where I was too far east and had to bounce off the track beyond and have another go; on 15 where I must have been so close but didn't go quite far enough down the hill (at least I went back up to relocate off an obvious feature fairly quickly) and on 18 where I looked on the wrong rocks.

Oh, and then there was number 5, circled on a small knoll in the green along the creek and the description was high point (brown dot) 2.5m high, north side, which seemed a bit odd as the high side was the southern/creek-facing one. I did a couple of laps of this and found no control, then, figuring that the description better reflected one of the high points I'd passed coming down the creek, went back to check both of them out, then back to the knoll, did another lap and a half of it, decided that the control simply wasn't there and so on my way towards the enxt control detoured back past the start to ask Lexie what the story was? She said that her dad's tape had been found on the high point further upstream but that they had to go with the knoll which was circled on the map, and that since that knoll was so overgrown, the people putting the control out decided to put the actual flag about 10-15m to the north. Pity I came from the south and never went more than 7m north of the control...

Anyway, all these minor frustrations paled into insignificance beside the news from Canberra that Geoff Mercer died of a heart attack while out rogaining with Alex Tyson on Saturday. (Apologies to Richard if you haven't heard from another source already.)