Training Log Archive: jennycas

Stuck to my promise to myself and headed out to Largs this morning. After a decent warmup (postponing the inevitable) I tackled the Snake Pit 500m sand dune loop and did four laps, pleasantly surprised by the first couple not feeling too difficult even though they were at the pace which I used to consider incredibly slow:
3:26
3:26
3:31
3:37
The sun was starting to come out from behind a cloud and I was getting a bit warm by the 4th one, as evidenced by the times. After an extended warmdown, I decided to do a 5th lap, which had been part of my initial commitment:
3:28

23 min up the coast to the Largs North breakwater and return, with a bit of seaweed running (reminded me of how Susanne & I used to come out here to run with Ben & Reuben over 20 years ago) beforehand and 27 min down to the Largs Jetty & back afterwards. Glad I put the effort in.

I'd been a bit anxious about how this event might go, with an extra (easy) course this year and a waiver book for non-preentered people to sign, and not that many Arrows available to help, but actually tonight was fine, even though we got nearly 100 competitors and less than half of them had pre-entered. After winging it frantically on registration and hopefully not overcharging any families *too* much, I ran around AK's long course and enjoyed it very much. Admittedly I knew mostly how the controls were going to be placed, and we'd discussed some route choices during the setting process, but I still got caught out by taking one suboptimal route choice and also stopping one building short in the residential section. The best bit is that I felt like I was actually able to run harder, by my standards. Apologies to Zara for pushing in to punch a control in front of her but I was trying to get away from Robin!

I am not a fan of the Nopeet Loop, so I went off to do my own thing - up past the lake and across the trainline with the intention of going all the way up to the top of the park for a longer run on a cool evening but when I got to the tank above the lower waterfall my legs said "no more hiils, please" and so I took them downhill, past where we started the event last May, and then finished off along the creek.

In other news, why is everyone surprised that DJT isn't keen to take the refugees which even we are too stingy to process onshore, much less to keep? (And did anyone really think that he gave a s*** about relations with a little country called Orstraya?)

C • The ONLY thing I prefer.. 4

Gee, these midweek trainings are getting popular :) And there were 5 different little activities to choose from. I rejected the line course as being too simple, and decided to tackle the bubble course where giant purple circular 'bubbles' of varying size covered various key routes on the map between the greenhouses and you weren't allowed to even 'touch' them (or they'd explode?). This meant really slowing down to read the detail of which routes were passable, and quite a bit of doubling back. It also had the interesting effect, when I next did the normal course, of making me think that I still couldn't go certain ways. My brain takes a long time to rewrite itself when presented with new data, but once embedded, nothing can shift it!

The map memory out-and-back legs looked like they'd require too much thinking, and my own legs were pretty dead, so I snuck off to do the sprintervals around the gardens by myself at plodding pace in order to ride home before dark.

To/from Waite. That last 1km uphill slog really deadened my legs for running.

Work's been chaotically frustrating the last couple of days and since I couldn't decide what to try to finish off first if I did stay back, I decided instead to drive across town since it was a nice cool evening. Up to Deep View and into 3rd Falls with the gang (B&S, Sarah, Stefano, Nick, Angus) then up to the main road and down via Pretty Corner by myself. The path below 3rd Falls is even more washed out than I'd remembered it, maybe because of the post-Christmas rain event. I'm a bit sad that I was away at the times when both of the Big Storms Of 2016 happened :(

Pleasant pondage. Tried to focus on coordination rather than on the question of how one nation can be so selfish as to close its borders to numerous other nationalities, and so foolishly arrogant as to not fear repercussions from its actions? I guess we're not in a global economy any more, Toto. But if DJT wants to ban terrorism he's going to have to ban the internet.

I was actually first to arrive at Bridgie today! Think everyone was a bit tired this morning...certainly my legs made hard work of the Bowling Green Lane loop even though it wasn't too hot yet.