Training Log Archive: jennycas

SA Champs, NW of Peterborough. Wasn't totally enthused for a full-on 24hr, having been feeling a bit under the weather during the week (and just generally exhausted for months on end now) and since Zara had been fairly unwell not that long ago it seemed sensible not to push really hard, because we did want to enjoy the rogaine which Richard Sprod - and my parents - had put so much effort into organising; a pity that only 50ish teams came along, because it was amazing country.

Over 60 controls, and with the HH fairly central, meant that leaving it in any direction was valid so the planning revolved around which section to do first while we had the most energy and how to avoid being in really vague stuff during the 3hrs of pitch darkness before moonrise. Possibly foolishly, I never even contemplated the idea of a figure-8, or doing a running loop first up, because I felt as though if I came back to the hash house at any time then I would never want to leave it again...

In the end, we started out with the big bald hills in the NW, and even this section took longer than expected, partly because of some 'unforced errors' and also because I was feeling guilty about never letting Z stop for photos so we actually took a selfie at the trig point on top of Black Rock Hill!

By the time we reached the first water drop over the west side of the map at sunset I was ready for a nap, and as it was getting dark my usual 11pm mental slump came on, about 4 hours early :(

Didn't hurry to collect my car after its being serviced, so rode around Mitcham making use of the available daylight. This morning though, it was straight to work in the available time window between rain showers! Not feeling very sprightly this week so it's a good thing that a rogaine mostly requires plodding.

Bit of a Montefiore hills fail.

W21 courses on Paradise (and the other Burra maps) have often been about 12 km, but it's quite a while since I've run a race of this distance and so I was grateful for a much cooler day than yesterday and a flat start to the course - which had only 12 controls and therefore some good long route-choice legs, although climb was unavoidable. I started 4 min before Liv and really hoped she wouldn't catch up to me; think I was maintaining an adequate buffer until about 2/3 of the way through, when I left 6 at slightly the wrong direction and hit the fence to the south (on the edge of the OOB), then had to follow it west crossing about 5 unnecessary creeks. Also I lost a couple of min on 11 where I hit the wrong creek junction after a downhill leg. Comparing splits afterwards with AK and Liv who got me by 2 and 3 min respectively, I can see that I didn't do too badly, although I was initially a bit disappointed to be 20 min behind my 2009* time for a similar course on this map. Felt like a tough day out, but spring is my favourite time of year to be in this part of the world and the views were glorious. Plus, it was good rogaine training!

*only 10 min behind my 1996 time though, which someone kindly pointed out to me is half my lifetime ago...