Training Log Archive: jennycas

Southern Flinders rogaine, with the HH on a farm east of Germein Gorge, north of Wirrabara. The landowner had competed in one rogaine before - last year's SA champs @Nackara - and enjoyed it so much that he wanted to set an event on his property. I'm never quite sure in advance how I feel about 12hr events because of the time pressure of navigating in the dark at the end, and it's been a bit of a complicated week at work so I wasn't particularly energetic (need to get fitter before the next 24hr, but one advantage of having gained a little weight since NZ is that I wasn't having to hitch up my tights all the way around as I was at the ARC a couple of months ago), and a bit daunted by trying to choose a logical route on a map with 2900pts available and nobody likely to get more than about 2000.

For some reason Zara & I thought the steep section in the NW with the high points would have horrible scrub, when in fact it turned out to be open sheep-grazing country with fabulous views. So we went south towards what's left of Wirrabara Forest then north through the middle of the map where there were plenty of controls but the points weren't high, and only got to part of the more lucrative stuff before heading for home - ruing the choices we'd made when we saw just how stunningly beautiful the open hills of the NW were, particularly the waterfall at 61 and the vista out across Baroota Reservoir to Spencer Gulf and Point Lowly. But what we did, we executed fairly well if rather sedately - some other teams who would have been moving faster than us initially struggled badly with cramps later on or got lost after dark, whereas we survived the massive scramble up to 93 on sunset and then the steep descent into 56 in the dark (theep thit ith thlippery) and then were smart enough to head east in flatter farmland and although we ran out of time to go to the control on the cemetery, got in with less than a minute to spare after a mad dash to 20 pts just down the road.

Somehow 1640 points turned out to be a winning score! Kate & John chose a northerly route (we really should have gone that way too, but it was just so hard to decide during planning time) and so they made it all the way to the 100-pointer on the waterhole, then ended up coming in a minute before us with 80 pts less. Great effort by them :)

C • congratulations 3

C • Yay! 8

Around Hawthorndene with Zara (+ Callum of course) discussing logistics for the weekend's rogaine. It was really foggy down by the bottom corner of the forest!

Drove to Sheps after work and did an abbreviated 3-Hills loop (it did contain all 3 hills). It's so quiet in the park after dark, with only the sound of the falling rain - and the heavy breathing of a clod-hopper!

Trotted over to Mortlock Park after work and ran 5 laps alternating fast & slow sides, by which time it was too dark to see where I was putting my feet but at least twilight lasted longer than a week or two ago. By the end of extended warmdown, my brain actually wasn't hurting.

Have been just so stiff & tight & headachy through back & neck & shoulders lately (new mattress too soft?) that even AOTKM didn't achieve much loosening, but then I came home and consumed an entire packet of potato crisps for dinner and although I could feel my cholesterol levels rising as I did so, the repetitive action of hand-to-packet-->chip-to-mouth, was quite soothing and I managed not to think too much about tomorrow's SALHN clinical reconfiguration meeting.

C • Clinical reconfigure meeting 2

I wasn't sure, from Ruhi's description of the courses having been set as middle-distance style because of fire regrowth & felling, whether this meant that they would be shorter to avoid the crap or because it's all really crappy...Leg of Mutton was always the nicest section of the South Para map, being closest to the reservoir and with more open forest with actual rocks, so I remembered it quite fondly from about 15 years ago.

Today only about 15% of it was as nice as I remembered, but the rest was still fun in an "I like low-vis green navigation because it brings everyone else back to my level" kind of way and I didn't mind fighting through the young wattles because they're still much less painful than yakka. And once I got into Irena's mapping style, wasn't too far off on most of the rock features, plus I kept seeing John & AK and this kept me running harder than I otherwise would have. Very glad though that the last thing I did before starting was to eat a banana - and afterwards I required TWO sausages from the junior squad BBQ.

edit: I've just dug out my map from the 2000 SA champs on South Para where the 10.8km course took me 149 min, and as I recall, when I finished and the course planner bounced up to me cheerfully asking how I'd liked it, I may have sworn at him...

C • South Para 2000 3