Training Log Archive: jennycas

G & I spent a day which would have astounded Kay with its laziness - I think the only thing we achieved was distracting Vanessa from study. Going up & down stairs was hard work today! After an evening dip in the lake (rather choppy, and water weed-y) V & I felt cool enough to go for a recovery jog in the nearby forest, which was punctuated by our humorous attempts to do strength & agility type stuff on the fitness course.

This was something else - an extraordinary day out and quintessentially Swiss, and it may be impossible to top among my orienteering experiences. It was also bloody tough!

We drove the one-lane road along the Wagitaler See to the far end of the lake which is at about 900m altitude, then with some of the juniors from V's club (oh goodness, if I thought I didn't speak Schwabisch, I really don't speak Schwyzer-Deutsch!) G & I spent the next hour and a half following a farm track & walking path uphill to about 1500m, with magnificent views of the Alps getting closer above us and the sound of tinkling cowbells doing likewise. Once we were above the treeline, the cows manifested, so bucolic and bovine that they could be patted and one of them licked my tasty sweaty rump. We veered left below the saddle and stopped at a cluster of huts where the farmers live for the summer to mind their cows and where a cable pulley allows for bringing essentials up the mountain. Also where some controls had kindly been put out for us - even with SI units - in a very tricky area of open limestone which had been used for Swiss O week in 2009.

I was really looking forward to the challenge but wasn't even at the first of the controls on the bare rock slopes when my fear of heights manifested. It's a bit unnerving when you're balancing on a knife edge of sharp rock, which is too small to have been considered significant by the mapper, and yet there seems to be no way forward or back; possibly down but that would lead to a crevice which might have either a rock bridge across it or a sinkhole in the bottom. I stood and gibbered for a bit then decided that I just had to be really careful, I mean wussy, and take the long way around each time, otherwise I wasn't going to get to enjoy the amazing scenery I'd come all this way for. And it was truly beautiful with all the alpine flowers among the heather and between the rocks. Generally I took the heather option, because even an open area of rocks has rows of tiny sharp knife edges which I'm not good at balancing on, and so I was super super slow (V took about half an hour for this section of the course, which took me an hour and a half then I called it quits and came off the mountain because they were bringing the controls in) but this gave me time to look over at the huts and cows in the next valley beyond the pass and the snow still in patches on the next range of mountains, where apparently there is a glacier.

The descent was pretty hard on my knees and there were plenty of stops to take photos down over the lake, pick wild strawberries and fill up with drinking water at the many free-flowing troughs along the way. We couldn't have had a more Heidi-like experience in the Alps (although the well-loved cliche-strewn books don't relate whether she went orienteering).

C • Sounds magical! 4

We left the pleasant little hostel in Ulm (beds for 20 people max) about 9am to catch a bus to the station then a train to Schaffhausen. I'd been tossing up between going there vs the Bodensee (Lake Constance) so was surprised that the train's route took us first south to Friedrichshafen and then west along the northern edge of the Bodensee, anyway. At Schaffhausen station I managed to change my Euro into Swiss Francs while buying tickets to Zurich, but balked at paying 8 CHF each to store our bags in lockers, so convinced G that we could take them with us on the bus to the Rheinfall (Rhine falls).

Probably not the smartest of ideas, since there was a steep downhill to the river which we'd have to come back up, but the falls were fairly impressive (Europe's answer to Niagara?) and well touristed. We walked across the bridge above the falls towards the castle but it turned out that 5 CHF was required to enter that side so we said "bugger it" and ate our picnic lunch on a park bench before catching the bus back to the station, then train to Winterthur where we could begin to use a Zurich region all day ticket, then we 'accidentally' got on an intercity train which stopped only at the airport before reaching Zurich Hauptbahnhof, otherwise we'd have been late to meet Vanessa.

V had arranged to go to some O training and had worked out the timetables, which involved catching a train and then a bus back towards Winterthur (we marvelled at the planes flying in to land, appearing so close above the forest) and afterwards a bus and train back to the central station, where we retrieved our packs and caught the train to Pfaffikon, arriving about 9pm. But somehow it had seemed an easier day than Monday. I realise though, that we caught no less than 11 different installments of public transport in the one day. Can anybody top that?

What they call continental European forest, on the edge of a village. I opted for the map version with tracks, and then proceeded to follow some very bad bearings between tracks - still getting used to this compass. I found it difficult to run in the forest, either because of the knee high blackberries (Vanessa looked at me blankly when I mentioned this, but her knees are a little higher than mine) or the young saplings in what may or may not have been mapped as light green, but either way was almost impossible to push through when hunting in the wrong place for a control. Which I did a few times. I finally got into the nicer part of the map with pine forest but then had to call it quits so that we wouldn't be late for the bus. Given more time I'd have finished the course, but it was probably good for my pack-carrying hip flexors that I didn't do so.

C • public transport 3

The cool change came through late yesterday and so we slept much better - also slept in - and the morning's task was to do the rest of the washing; no hardship as there was a market just across the street (theoretically a farmers' market, but I'm pretty sure papaya, among other things, isn't grown locally) and so we wandered around deciding what we wanted for dinner (fresh ravioli) and comparing the various berries for sale.

For future reference (some of which I knew already):
Erdbeeren = strawberries
Himbeeren = raspberries
Brombeeren = blackberries
Heidelbeeren = blueberries
Johannisbeeren = currants (black or red)
Stachelbeeren = gooseberries
Yesterday we picked the tiny wild strawberries which taste like bubblegum, but I can't remember what Susanne called them in Swedish. Do they have a German name?

The afternoon was spent writing postcards, which we had been procrastinating on doing while there was a postal strike in Germany. Once they were safely on their way to Australia, I went for a run. Upriver this time, and after about 15 min I got to where the Iller runs into the Donau, and followed the Iller-Radweg gravelled cycle path, through a strip of forest between farmland and the river. River must have been pretty shallow since people were wading on the shingle banks and someone was convincing their horse to go right across.

This run took place entirely in Bayern, since the state border is the west bank of the Iller. I came back via a road into town, and found the place where people were training for the Ulmer Kanu-Slalom to be held this Sunday; a permanent slalom course which has been created in a tiny man-made canal which parallels the Iller. The water was moving at a reasonable pace and some of the smaller kids were struggling to get their kayaks to go upstream. I sat and watched for a bit - so that I could tell Amber :)

Also I found a fortification embankment/wall which curves around the south side of Neu-Ulm and has a nice park alongside, so I followed the park and found myself about to gatecrash an outdoor symphony concert. But the orchestra was still tuning up, so that's ok. After dinner I took G back there as people were leaving the amphitheatre, and we read the information boards which said that the wall, which went around the whole of Ulm and Neu-Ulm, was finished in 1859. This surprised me, since the twin towns had been in separate states since 1810. But perhaps there was a joint goal of keeping the French out?

C • Smultron 5

After 20 minutes' running along the river flats, my legs felt pretty good so I decided to do intervals. Not sure that my lungs and core muscles were really up to it though, and I took a long time to catch my breath in the 'recovery' bits.

Why, may you ask, did I choose to stay in Ulm? Well, because neither Stuttgart nor Munich are on the Danube. But as it turns out, we are staying in Neu-Ulm, which is not technically the same as Ulm at all. Dear me, no, it's the suburbs on the wrong side of the river; in fact, it's in Bayern (Bavaria). Apparently so was Ulm, once upon a time, but then the river became the border between the states. So half of this run took place in Bavaria and the other half, after I'd crossed the river, in Baden-Wuerttemberg.

The latter part included a detour through the old town; I have never seen so many nicely-painted Fachwerk-Haeuser in such close proximity to each other. One, which is on a bit of a drunken lean over the Blau stream, is apparently officially in the Guinness Book of Records as the crookedest hotel in the world (the Schiefes Haus), but I don't know what the competition was like. Also I did a bit of sparrow-spotting; sparrow statues are to Ulm what bears are to Berlin.

In the afternoon G & I caught the train to Blaubeuren and walked through the town to the Blautopf, a sinkhole from which the Blau stream wells up and from whence it makes its way 20km downstream and into the Danube. The lake was a beautiful blue colour, but absolutely tiny compared to the Blue Lake at Mt Gambier. We also climbed uphill to a limestone crag with a good lookout over the town and river valley. I'm pretty sure that Amber and Susanne, and possibly Fern as well, have all done the same thing about 10 years ago?

C • Yep 3

This turned out to be basically a transit day - I didn't want to spend 6-7 hours on the train towards the south of Germany, so decided to fly for a similar price. This meant leaving the apartment before 7am for a 9am flight Berlin-Stuttgart (we caught the suburban bus to the airport, passing by all the fancy shops on Kurfurstendamm) but from Stuttgart airport we had to catch one train into the city, another from there to Ulm, and then bus to the hostel which we eventually reached about 3pm. After a late lunch we somehow fell asleep for a couple of hours (having not had a great deal of sleep, what with the thunderstorm and high humidity the night before) and in the evening finally did our washing, which success was marred by the subsequent discovery that 3 pairs of socks have now turned into singles and a favourite t-shirt of mine is also missing :(

Train trip from Stuttgart was interesting as the route gradually climbed east up a river valley, then over the Schwabisches Alp range of hills (not unlike the Mt Lofty Ranges in altitude) and down to the Donau (Danube). From Ulm it's only about 2500km downstream to the Black Sea...

By the time we got home last night at 11pm my feet were absolutely killing me after spending so long on pavement, but we had seen:
400+ of Salvador Dali's artworks, 90% of which were plain weird and the rest just odd (but I expected that);
a very good exhibition about the Berlin Wall, including how life progressed in the time after it came down - this was tucked away in a shopping centre arcade off Potsdamer Platz and it took us a while to find, but it was completely free;
the Topographie Des Terrors outdoor exhibition, also free, which summarised the timeline and activities of Nazi Germany fairly thoroughly;
The amount of kitsch for sale in the vicinity of tethered High-Flyer balloon and the Haus am Checkpoint Charlie, so we ignored those but couldn't avoid getting shafted by somebody who claimed to be collecting for a deaf charity (conveniently she was unable to answer any questions about its validity);
the amount of work currently taking place on Museuminsel, the impressive Berliner Dom cathedral and the palace being rebuilt in the original design (apparently it was replaced by an architectural monstrosity during the Soviet era);
lots and lots of tour boats on the River Spree and lots of hen's/bucks' day groups, both on and off the boats;
the kids who provided 'background music' while we were having dinner at an outdoor restaurant on the river and who then came around, cap in hand, to request financial appreciation;
the DDR museum which is set up to be fairly hands on with examples of the way life was 1945-1989 and which is fairly disparaging of the regime;
the enormous Alexanderplatz subway station at 10pm, and by some random extension of yesterday's fluke, Karina cramming into a crowded carriage right next to us and apologising for treading on my foot, so we arranged to have Sunday breakfast with her.

I went for a run beforehand and it started out truly awful because of how stiff & sore I was; not just in legs but stomach, back, shoulders feeling all completely fatigued. So it became: run 3 min, stop & walk or stretch 1 min; repeat until a reasonable amount of ground covered then turn and head for home. By which time I was in the Tiergarten, marvelling at the multitude of Maulwurfshuegel. Do the moles not get suffocated when churning through that amount of dirt? Also I found a tree which had been turned into a small shrine to Michael Jackson. That was kind of weird.

After leisurely breakfast with K we decided to walk no further than the Zoologischer Garten and aquarium which are just across the road. I haven't been to the zoo since going to Taronga with Amber & Tyson on the way to Aust champs 2001 (unless you count watching the JWOC 2007 sprint @Dubbo) and this seemed a comparatively shady way to spend the afternoon. My feet still really hurt after 4+ hours walking around, though.