Training Log Archive: jennycas

For most of last week I wasn't really sure that I had the time & energy to go rogaining, but I packed everything on autopilot (everything but the ankle tape, as it turned out) and Zara & I drove as far as Cradock on Friday night, getting there too late to pull together our rogaine packs and so I was still frantically putting food in my pack during the briefing and emerged from the portaloos at the start of the 10 second countdown.

Hash house was at Willow Waters Gorge, east of Hawker, with steep hills all around and the first climb to the nearest 20 points was a slight shock to the system. We chose to start out heading north up the western side of the map but it seemed that nearly everyone had headed south; although Andrew Slattery and Conrad Elson were with us for the first half-dozen controls, they were doing the 12 hr.

Terrain varied from steep to flat and between mallee (shaley hillsides), native pine, scrubby acacia and patches of spinifex and the vegetation differences were marked on the map although not always with precision. We moved pretty smoothly through the daylight hours, at a walking pace which was solid rather than hurried, but managed to come unstuck with the first control after dark; waited too long to get headlamps out, weren't sure exactly where we had crossed the creek, and I panicked and made us relocate off the top of the nearest hill.

A little spooked by this (I don't think I've ever gone into a rogaine feeling quite so tired mentally, and we still had the whole night ahead of us to keep concentrating) I agreed that we should take the track to a 30 pointer rather than hunting in the native pine for 40 points. We then had trouble with the control after that which was described as The Creek but was actually on A Creek (unmapped channel in the pines and I think we'd gone within 100m of it before bailing out to the big creek and having another go, during which time we heard another team go past talking about how they'd stuffed that one up, so we triangulated back in the direction they'd come from and found it.

Took a 90 on a flat gully in the mallee very carefully and then up into the hills, stuffing up the end of that leg also because of going up an unmapped creek which was in fact a gully under the edge of the control circle. Followed ridgelines for the next couple of controls and then down the track to water, by which time it was after 11pm and we had seen very few teams.

I tried to avoid getting water in my mouth because there was plenty of organic matter on the bottom of the pool and some of it looked like it had gone through a possum beforehand. Calf/foot not happy since last night :(

Last night I only finished work at the time I was meant to be participating in OA board meeting but today I bailed as soon as was decently possible in order to fit in a run before rogaine-packing. Had been feeling exhausted from all the funeral-arranging but perked up at the thought of 24 hours in the wilderness, Hunger-Games style. Which may be why I was trawling the supermarket to procure the most energy-dense foods I could find! That's hunter-gathering for the modern age, right?

This is too good not to share: I was explaining the concept of rogaining to a couple of nurses on the wards this afternoon. They listened politely, then one, who's twice my size, said through a mouthful of chocolate "You mean it's like the Hunger Games except nobody gets killed?"

C • Thanks for sharing 9

Attack of the Killer Physio
Now I feel both physically and mentally wrung out.

Around Hawthorndene with Fern, chatting and trotting - each of us felt that we were moving a little faster than we would have done on our own :)

Jog around the suburbs before going up to Mt Barker to start sorting out the funeral and empty my grandfather's room at the nursing home. G & I were impressed at the funeral director's patience in interpreting the preferences of my slightly-eccentric extended family.