Training Log Archive: Mess Engineer

Event: Newcastle NOY4
 

My dogs were going nuts barking at something around 6 am.
Setting off all the other dogs in our culdesac.
Went out to investigate.

Options from prior encounters
1. Huge goanna - nope too early and too cold
2. Black snake - nope too early and too cold
3. Half mangled but still alive rabbit dropped by hawk - not this time
4. Echnida/Possum/Koala/Wallaby/Kangaroo - not that I could see
5. Other neighbours dogs - not this time

So decided there should not be anything out this early that could injure my dog so lifted him up over the fence to see what he was going off about.

He sniffed around for a minute then absolutely bolted (2 x faster than even Macey so I had no hope of keeping up - and he ignores me yelling at him once he is in hunt-kill mode). He sprinted down to the leaf pile by the shed and bailed up a fox. Fox was twice as big as him and they raced around with his nose just behind the foxes tail. The did several 'light speed' laps of the yard and then 200 m down the bush (well out of sight) before he eventually came back ... walked to the entrance to the dog yard and waited for me to let him back in. No signs of injury. Then he went back to bed!

So Buster the Fox Terrier became a Fox Terror-er.
Yet again I am amazed by his sense of smell for tracking and his insane desire to kill every creature he can regardless of how much bigger it is than him.

1st Run - Hard Medium
Nominal 4.5 km.
18 Controls.

Screwed up almost every control so was even more demoralising than last events one big 20 minute screwup. More later.

2nd Run - Moderate Long
Nominal 4.4 km
12 controls. (5 shared with prior course).

Pushed hard throughout. No significant screw-ups.
If I managed this sort of time for the (equivalent distance) Hard Medium I would have been in the Top 5.
So issue not fitness but hopeless navigation.

My vet Lynda Hewson started 42 minutes before me (10 am) and I overtook her at Control 6 so she wasn't happy.

3rd "run" - Easy Long
3.6 km Nominal
9 Controls. (5 shared with prior courses)

Lynda wanted to go out for a 2nd "run" (which ended up being 90% walk, 10 % jog). Can't remember ever fitting in 3 events before ... but we were outside the closing time and therefore totally unofficial. Easy easy navigation but generally discussed track options ie Lynda wanted to go along here ... whilst I would suggest along there.

She gave me her second Polar heart monitor to try out so I will experiment with that in upcoming runs and exercise over the coming weeks.

With three runs today that ought to be a good start to my plan to recover my cardio fitness post holiday.

Hard Medium - Splits

8:00 am - 8:55 am
Moved 5 more wheelbarrows of dirt from beside trench to valley near house.
Yard still fairly wet but managed not to bog the wheelbarrow by only filling it level to the top and taking a slightly different path the 150 m or so each time back and forth.

Break to change as was cold earlier but now warmed up enough to revert from tracksuit pants to shorts!

9:10 am - 10:55 am
Moved 10 more wheelbarrows of dirt from beside trench to valley near house. End in sight.

Break

12:30 pm - 1:50 pm
Moved last 7 wheelbarrows of dirt beside trench to valley near house. Probably half a wheelbarrow left if I levelled off the ground next to the trench a bit better but I may do this once it has rained and softened a bit.
But thats now pretty much all the various spare piles of dirt I have around the block (without creating more .. but if the trench gets made deeper I will hire an excavator and trailer this time)

From Wallalong Gardening Part 4

So this valley now has over 100 wheelbarrows of dirt fill in it. Raised up well out of the slushy swamp (can see the puddle to the right). If the downhill Neighbours yard ever dries out sufficiently for her excavator driver to come back hopefully he will dump more on top so I can get it back to a gradual slope draining to her side.

From Wallalong Gardening Part 4

Break

3:45 pm - 3:55 pm
Backfilled the decimated 'white ant crater' as they are showing zero signs of life or recovery after my poison attack. Dirt still stunk of poison even with the rain.

From Wallalong Gardening Part 4

From Wallalong Gardening Part 4

3:55 pm - 4:15 pm
One last wheelbarrow of decent topsoil from elsewhere by the trench which I used to fill in various small dips and hollows in the grass.

And the biggest positive out of today is I managed all this easily.
Last two weekends of stuggling effort with sniffles seems to have been overcome. If I pace myself I can go all day ... its only when I got flat out that the cardio capacity becomes the limit.

Looking forward to some Bush-O on Sunday.

Straight from Cycle Class to treadmill at 13 kmph

Class ran over.
I have lost so much cardio fitness since Tasmania.
With partial retreat of sniffles, and diet started this week, hope to work my way back.

C • ? 3

Debated whether to continue attending this class as not enjoying it at all.
Looked too cold and dark to go for a morning run.

Managed the first 2/3 OK but then burpees pushed me very close to brink of vomit town again so spent the last 5 minutes trying to not step over this edge.
Instructors think this is fine which I find bizarre.

And I don't think I will following their recommended solution of doing 200 burpees a week until my body adapts to it.

C • comment 1

Sniffles much reduced but still hanging on.