Training Log Archive: jennycas

Was feeling pretty average earlier today but discovered a (remnant-from-Christmas) stash of Haigh's chocolate in my desk drawer and after its consumption, decided I would go to Morialta after all. Nice evening for a fairly casual run up to Deep View and across to the top of First Falls, with Daisy whose ankle didn't appreciate the rough stuff, and Olly who was her tourguide.

C • Remnant chocolate ? 10

Event: Sprint Adelaide (Single day entry only) race 5 - Mt Barker Primary School -
 

Did a decent warmup this morning - down the end of the street I found a stile over a fence and a footpad running through a paddock with hay bales and cornflowers, so I ran around there for a bit and then came back to a complete standstill in the long queue for the single Exeloo but this did mean I got to hear some gossip from Angus' beer-O last night (the host was noticeable by his absence this morning). Tried to run a bit harder today and not slack off on the long running legs; at 1: 3 000 the map was readable enough to plan ahead, and I was reasonably happy with my time given current lack of fitness - although annoyed, when comparing splits with Blair afterwards, to realise that for the first control I could have just crashed through a garden bed instead of going all the way around the building - I saw that the east end of the GB was mapped in olive green but didn't register that at its west end it was just white.

Still, I think the only person I could hypothetically have overtaken with the direct route was Abigail. (For some proper perspective, my time was nearly 6 min down or Grace, who really is astounding - pity she's only on loan to Aust from the UK). Anyway, a great weekend of races, thanks in no small part to Jim's one-man-band efforts.

Needed to go over to Ken's to show him the Lochiel Park map corrections, so I rode to/from.

Event: Sprint Adelaide (Single day entry only) race 3 - Flinders University - Morn
 

Event: Sprint Adelaide (Single day entry only) race 4 - Flinders University - Afte
 

This was the first race of the knockout sprint and I was paired with Meredith on the start line, and kept seeing her throughout the course (she had A, I had B), and then we raced each other to the finish unit which she punched first but we were recorded as finishing in the same second, haha. Took anti-inflammatories last night and so hamstring was less painful today, although still restricted in movement and I wasn't very fluent on the stairs, of which there were plenty. Therefore I tended to take wider routes although maybe these weren't as efficient; even so, I didn't expect to be quite as much as 4 min down on Bridget. Flinders Uni is so much fun with its network of convoluted courtyards :)

Mass start in the C girls, on the southern side of the lake, and I feel I did well to avoid the traps although a couple of times took an up-and-down route when I should have gone wider/flatter. Ended up chasing Meredith into the finish again!

Flinders Uni knockout sprint final
Spent a couple of hours putting out controls, taping off garden bed near the last control, opening gates in the childcare centre so it could be a through route, and had the start set up well before the first competitors were ready to use it. The elite course had mass starts (which I hadn't been aware of until this morning) for C, B, A finals, so it was a good thing that I'd set a snap-decision route choice leg right out of the start, but a bit unfortunate that competitors in later finals got to witness the decisions made by groups starting before them. Also unfortunate that the start clock I'd been given turned out to be a minute slow (not that I knew this until afterwards) and so all the results on the elite course are shown as being a minute longer than they actually were. On the bright side, it does mean that the top runners got close to the 10 min winning time I was aiming for, and I'm particularly proud of the route choice trap which I set on the second-last leg, avoidance of which won Simon the race.

Had intended to run home afterwards - amazing that everything was packed up by 7pm - but I was pretty buggered and the beach seemed like a better option...

Event: Sprint Adelaide (Single day entry only) race 2 - Heathfield High School - A
 

Managed not to mug any little old ladies or further aggravate my hamstring.

Fun course from Olly, which started out around the lake in Woorabinda then crossed the train line and did a couple of laps of the school. Measured as straight line I believe so actual distance quite a bit longer (we really need a consistent approach on this). I walked anything cross-country, and jogged fairly cautiously on the rest, and am still not sure whether I made the best route choices in a number of places, but it doesn't really matter because it was a lovely area to be running through, even if I did have to roll under a locked gate!

Event: Sprint Adelaide race 1 - Belair Golf Course - Night
 

Adrian's golf course night O which was the first race of Sprint Adelaide. Perfect conditions for it tonight and I enjoyed running around (mostly by myself, having got there later than I would have liked because Blair's plane was delayed) although I could either read the map - just; my night vision is woeful - or watch where I was putting my feet. The one time I tried both simultaneously, I stepped in a ditch and jarred my hamstring nastily. Only real mistake was on 15 where I mistook the looming outline of a sand trap rim for the looming outline of a tee platform and went north when I should have gone south, so lost about 40 sec. Great fun and I am very glad that I suggested a night race for this weekend.

Tweaked hamstring just by turning over in bed, so thought better of running today, a decision made easier by the fact that it reached 46 degrees outside - although I feel that I cheated on living through Adelaide's hottest day on record given that for most of it I was shivering inside the air-conditioned hospital.

Fun little control-picking sprintervals on Olly's brand-new map of Park 25. He'd previously said that this activity would be fairly "chilled" which can only be an oxymoron when the official temperature is 40 degrees at the BOM weather station less than 500m away!