Training Log Archive: jennycas

Finally the fog in my brain has lifted but unfortunately it was necessary to spend a significant chunk of the day at work. Had arranged to meet parents for dinner at Brighton Jetty and they were walking the 3km from their home so I decided to run the 11km from mine. G kindly met us there and drove us all home afterwards :) There's a lot of pavement between my place and the beach (which was nice when I finally got there) and a brand new tight spot in the inside of my knee developed within 10 min; I thought I was going to have to turn back but with stretching and massage it became ok. Not sure how a long run will go tomorrow though.

Hip has been intermittently really bitchy but in between times completely fine over the past few days. Not running on it doesn't seem to make any difference, so I went for a run. It was a golden sunset evening and there was also warm rain. Plus no hip pain until after I finished. Aggravating factor often seems to be wearing any sort of clothing which drags downwards on my hip joint - even stockings.

Made it to staff meeting on time.

Attack of the Killer Masseuse
Tight knees & calves. Hip played up afterwards.

I've never been stoned but the post-rogaine feeling is sort of how I imagine it must be: extremely vague, randomly & inappropriately cheerful, ravenously hungry!

There were a plethora of restaurants open in Katoomba on Sunday night, even after we'd finally got clean & decent at 8pm, and we ate the best potato wedges with sour cream & sweet chili sauce that I've ever come across :)

I think about food A LOT. And I can't seem to survive without carbohydrates. Here's what I ate on the rogaine, after having pasta for breakfast:
6 baked potatoes with cheese & Vegemite (they do get a bit manky after a while though);
5 muesli bars;
5 or 6 dried bananas;
a few handfuls of fennel Taralli (like pretzels but bigger, better and more Italian);
half a dozen pieces of my banana flapjack which I whipped up late on Thursday night by mashing together 3 overripe bananas with oatmeal (both oat flakes & porridge oats), adding cinnamon & currants for flavouring, a handful or two of flour to thicken it up and then spreading thinly on a tray and baking in the same oven as the potatoes;
plus I had salt tablets, magnesium tablets, Kopiko coffee lollies (which are the best way of keeping awake in the night);
caramel slice and an elderly orange at the ANC.

I have decided that I'm no good with immediate-release sugar (lollies) or protein bars, and that rather than mixing any drinkable Powerade I'll just take some powder with me to eat straight from the Ziplock bag when I feel a bit low on electrolytes. All my food was easy to identify and efficient to access. Pleased also with having avoided any serious fatigue/weariness in the night although I did get the usual 11pm slump which was warded off with Kopiko. Knees were ok until afterwards, and my hip started to hurt really badly about 8pm but surprisingly this responded to Panadol (on a background of pre-emptive anti-inflammatories). No blisters to speak of. The big toenail which probably would have suffered was already destroyed in the 12 hour.

So, lots of positives to take away from this, and it was hopefully good hill training for Point to Pinnacle! Was still fairly tired on the drive into Sydney, and the flight home, and at work on Tuesday, and have heaps to do with organising a L3 controllers' workshop, the minigaine (although the setters have done all the hard work) and a conference workshop all in the next month, so think that my training for a half marathon with 1270m climb is probably going to be suboptimal.

C • planning + 2

C • thanks too 1

Found 98 just on midnight; we were cautious and checked out a couple of extra unmapped gullies first, then ended up too high and had to drop to the control. So I say it was a bit lower than mapped, but others say it was too high. Either way, something was weird with the bearing we took NE to 62; we stopped way too short, met up with another team who had gone off the edge of the spur and found a creek they didn't expect. Started heading west to relocate and ended up unexpectedly back at 98. Tried again, going further on an easterly bearing this time but somehow ending up too far north and having to cross a gully to get to the knoll with the control on it, when from the map we should have just needed to go down the spur until we hit a broad flat saddle. Again, I overestimated the anticipated broadness/flatness.

So, this leg took us an hour and a half, but worse was to come. We hurried down the spur to the north, catching up to 2 older guys and the Kiwi couple, Mark & Annie but then slowing right down to fight through some thick stuff. At one point I was breaking a not-very-good path through the kangaroo thorn for 6 of us. 47 was easy, and 78 should have been too; take a bearing NE off a track bend looking for a shallow gully in some comparatively flat young native pines. This didn't work out so well for us, and we overshot the gully entirely (possibly too low?). Headed back to the first creek we'd crossed, and tried again, going due east. Followed the gully we did find, all the way up to the fence line, encountered Mark & Annie, listened to what they'd attempted so far, ruled that out as an option and tried to triangulate off the track again, from the gate with them in tow. Still no control, back to the first creek, and due north of where it became a channel. Still too high, started meandering down, and Zara spotted the control flag, in a vague hanging gully which did not have the same direction as the creek even though the map said they were parallel. Phew! We'd spent over 2 hours on this, though, and probably would (definitely should) have given up sooner if it wasn't for the other team being with us. And I'm willing to bet that if the controls had been made of corflute, as they are in SA, rather than being just an O-flag with no reflective qualities, we might have seen the damn thing on one of our previous 3 passes through the area.

Oh well, it was now after 4am - where had the (moonless) night gone? The 4 of us picked our way down the creek towards 102, which from the map was on a little spur only 10m above the creek junction but on the ground was waaay up the hillside, about 40m climb it seemed. From here it was up to the ridgeline for 72, with the faintest lightening in the sky. From the top of the ridge we could see the new crescent moon rising pinkly in the dawn sky, and the scarves of cloud hanging in the canyon valleys below. It's moments like this which make having been up all night worthwhile - that and the fact that the ANC was still going when we got there at 6:30am (looked like it had been fairly well ravaged and pillaged by the hungry hordes in the night, but I got a cup of tea and the second-last piece of caramel slice, which went down well). We were off our feet here for half an hour, replanning the remnants of our route, and I probably should have put a second layer on then but I hadn't done so all night - just wore a t shirt for the whole rogaine - and we were about to climb another big hill, to 99. From which we dropped straight away to 71, then up the track to 80, then down into the valley to 67 on the banks of the Capertee river. Along the river under the beautiful big sheoaks to 93, up the track and then up a massive hill to 85, slightly miscalculating the place where we'd hit the ridgeline, which was my fault and I then turned south instead of north (every time we gained a 5 min buffer by being efficient on one leg, we'd seem to lose it and more on the next control; we weren't moving too slowly though by our standards). Surprised how much some of this area reminded me of Kangaroo Crossing or the Warbys O-maps; even though the rock wasn't granite, the native pines and hanging valleys seemed very familiar.

Down to the track, up to 75, along the ridge to 95 and then my fried brain did a dumb thing in the warmth of the morning sun. Would have been logical to go around the ridge to 83, our last control perched high on a saddle above the hash house valley - but no, I thought we could short cut across the gullies. Didn't seem nearly as steep as expected...Turned out I'd navigated us along, instead of across, the major gully and we hit the ridge 300m east of the control but then turned further east. The OH CRAP moment of realisation came with only 30 min to get back; by the time we reached the control there were only 22 min remaining and 100m of descent to do in the first 500m of the 1.5km leg to the HH. Easily achieved with a bit of jogging - thank goodness the gully floor was clear - and then I realised we'd still have to ford the Capertee river. And I hadn't got my feet wet all rogaine! The ford I knew to be knee deep and quite wide, from driving through it on the way in, so it seemed simpler to squelch through the trickle immediately downstream, which turned out to involve the blackest smelliest mud I have ever come across (and which caused me to later donate my shoes to a rubbish bin in Katoomba, but Zara couldn't do that because hers were brand new!).

We jogged in with less than 3 min to spare, to an ecstatic welcome from Carolyn (tinytoes) which was lovely, just like having my mum there. By the time I had staggered across to the campground, removed shoes & ankle tape and some of the dirt, a couple of splinters but none of the scratches, and put clean clothes on, then headed back to the hash house, there was no food left. Unless you count a scraping of rice, a smattering of salad, some slices of bread and processed meat. Which I don't (where's my BBQ that I have been hanging out for over the last 24 hours? A rogaine is the only time that I eat sausages) so I went back and ate my 2 remaining baked potatoes with cheese & Vegemite then returned for the presentations.

3rd women's, 2nd women's vets, on 2940 points. Surprised to later find out that this was 21st place overall; I'd have expected it to be lower given that Rob Preston's 1st placed team had over 4300 points (nobody cleaned up the course). 2nd women had 3130, which I think we could have managed if we'd not got so lost in the night. They were 15th, and Thor & Tamsin were 11th on 3310, so I'm pretty sure we couldn't have managed first women. Guessing we covered less than 50 km. Need to get about 10% fitter before next July, and stop making massive mistakes. I don't know what's wrong with my navigation lately!

Anyway, it was a really good experience and enjoyable rogaine with lovely scenery and both Zara & I decided it was definitely worth all the stress & effort of getting there. Getting to Katoomba afterwards was an effort too, because we were both so tired. It took about 3 hours to drive, plus we had a nap at Capertee Valley lookout, so we didn't arrive at the motel until 7pm.

C • Ripper report 7