Training Log Archive: jennycas

Event: Australian 3 Days Championship - Day 2
 

*sings* I made it throoougggh the wilderness...
Actually not that bad for a long day out in the countryside. Hill Park Dale (2006 Aust Long) is approx equal parts completely open farmland and detailed rock which is quite scrappy underfoot and fairly slow going. So I tried to minimise the forest running, which was mostly avoidable in the first part of the course, and also minimise climb to save energy for later on (I wisely didn't unfold the second half of the course yet) but it meant I ended up with a hybrid route down into 5 which was time-wasting. Always very slow going downhill in the rough stuff, but didn't have much difficulty identifying the control sites - although I lost a minute in a maze of bare rock on the approach to 7 after the birthday girl hooned past me.

Took a poor route back over the hill from the north side of the map and ended up fighting through green to get down into control 12 at the bottom of a gully in the green, & was surprised to see Anna Fitzgerald appear from above, having caught up to me 8 min in total. Managed to get away from her over the next couple of controls along the ridgeline but she caught me again through the scrappy stuff on the west-facing slope and so we found ourselves staggering up the steeeep hill from 17 side-by-side in complete breathless silence. I got cleaner lines than Anna on the next 2 controls, and finished a couple of minutes before her but that was still 6 minutes down. No big deal, and I definitely enjoyed myself out there although I had kind of hoped to be under 2 hours.

Anyway, this run certainly earned an ice cream, so it's a good thing that Cornettos were on sale from the event catering :)

C • Like a virgin? 3

W21E - Splits

Event: Australian 3 Days Championship - Day 1
 

As anticipated, times were longer than yesterday for the same distance due to this being an intricate school campus with lots of stairs. So I had no chance of cracking 20 min, especially as I wasn't feeling that great this morning and more than a little preoccupied by impending OA meetings. But managed to concentrate enough to interpret the 1: 3 000 map on the run without too much confusion although sometimes I went down or up flights of stairs which I probably could have avoided, and then there was the time I ran around the corner of a building, punched the control which I saw on a garden bed in front of me, then checked the number and of course I actually needed to be one building/garden further west. Guessing I could have saved up to a minute altogether on a better day?

Chairing the Technical meeting afterwards went ok although it suffered slightly from the time pressure of being squeezed in between Events committee & OA AGM. It certainly didn't suffer from lack of engagement by attendees!

W21E - Splits

Event: Good Friday Sprint Relay
 

6am flight out of Adelaide worked pretty well - certainly I'm glad I was't scrambling to leave work early yesterday, and it gave me the opportunity to catch up with a rogaining friend from Canberra who flew into Adl last night - and there was no pressure on me for the relay because SA had 2 extra women and Vic had (at least) 2 extra men so I ended up in an unofficial team of Abi/Jim/Blair/myself. And as 4th leg runner didn't see anyone running around me until gradually I reeled in Lily McFarlane and then promptly made a 40-second error on the shortest leg on the course. Overshot the courtyard I wanted, ran into a blind building corner where it turned out there was an undercover verandah leading to a stairwell, and actually started running up the stairs thinking the control might be at the top!

Dunno why I didn't just read the descriptions...at least I didn't actually look in the cupboard under the stairs. Anyway, it's been a while since I was able to run faster than I can think on a sprint, so I guess this mistake was sort of a positive :) And it was a really interesting uni campus, good fun course (thanks Ceri), scenic warmdown alongside the Swan River, and wonderful to see Manu again (thanks Liv). I was definitely ready for lunch @Zamia Cafe afterwards since my stomach's still on SA time.

Staying in East Perth with the Trewins so figured I'd go check out the original sprint venue for today, I mean take the opportunity to cross the new $90m Matagarup footbridge before the hordes started streaming across it to the stadium for this afternoon's game. (There was a steady trickle of Weagles fans already but I didn't spot any teal.) Explored Chevron Parklands around the stadium, which while pleasant enough aren't anywhere as intricate as this morning's venue, then came back via Windan Bridge & Claisebrook Cove.

Groped on boob & bum (separate incidents) by a flailer from the next lane :(

Up to/down from Bellevue Heights before heading to a pharmacists' dinner meeting. Work on turning the (still-closed) university gorge footbridge into a covered walkway appears to have begun.

The myriad frustrations are continually piling up upon themselves lately, so when I finally got to Nth Adl after battling city roadworks traffic and found no-one there, I was very tempted to go home & sit on the couch & eat junk food, but I've done that a bit too much lately (and it hasn't fixed anything), until along came Emily, Ben C and Jacquie & Mitchell, so I did some 200s with them despite not yet having warmed up, and felt better for it although am still not convinced that I'm not a horrible person.

Extended warmdown to KW St bridge and then back via the footbridge behind the zoo.