Training Log Archive: fletch

Time and distance a guess. Forgot the GPS. Pulled the controls from the last camp in. Did it in three loops instead of 1. It wasn't any faster.

Wasn't feeling it today. A bit tight in the chest and struggling from the start. Wore the right shoes and gaiters, but the wrong pants, so my knees were suffering a bit trying to run through fields of lupins? (I'm not very good at plant identification) and thistles. Totally over it by the end, and probably pissed off a farmer by driving down his driveway, past his house and down an access track to get to where one of the controls was. Had a "Ring me 04xxxxxxx THE OWNER written in the dust on my windscreen when I got back from the last loop. Had permission to run the activity, but was meant to do the collection last weekend and hadn't rung him before I headed in yesterday, so probably fair enough.

On the bright side, all of the controls were in the right place.

The other bright point was doing this on work day and getting back late enough to miss my Exec meeting after school.

Training didn't seem overly important this weekend.

One of my year 12 students (whose Dad is also a work colleague) who finished school on Friday and was meant to be at his graduation ceremony on Saturday night had a severe bleed on the brain on Saturday morning and is in a critical condition in Perth.
It's well beyond initial medical expectation that he has made it this far. The clot has been removed and some blood drained from the area. Not out of the woods by a long way, but best case scenario is a long period of rehab. Too early to tell much as there is still too much swelling.

Praying for you and your family, Ben.

C • Paper 1

Casual cruise around a few controls with a new praccie. She can read a map!

Had to be out and about to get phone reception. Got more of the course done in our little wander than any of the kids did in their allotted 4 hours.

O-Rocs and gaiters was a far better combination than 190's and socks in terms of grass seeds getting through everything.

Intensity 1 for mental effort. Hard to be encouraging all day.
Knew it was going to be a long day when the first girl was off her bike and walking up a gentle incline on a bitumen road about 5km into a 60km ride.
Eventually arrived over 8 hours later, with 9 students still on bikes and 4 in the bus. Needless to say, the rogaine the next day was a complete waste of time. No group found more than 2 controls of the 14 that I put out. Might save myself some effort next year.

Jumping off the cliffs at Ellendale Pool was fun.

Loop from Ellendale Pool hanging controls for the regaining part of school camp on Tuesday. Lots of the map is cropped, and I had permission to go through it, but tried not to where possible. That added a fair bit of distance, which I didn't need at all, but looking at the total distance, I've well and truly over planned for what is a 4hr jaunt for the kiddies. I thought it was only about 1km straight line, so either I was very roundabout, or I can't measure properly.

A bit slower having to get the control locations just right, hang the controls, put the bacg back on and get going etc, but there's no way that any of my students are going to get anywhere near finishing that, even if I bump it out to 5hrs.

Pretty knackered by the end. Didn't take any real food and didn't really want to use my last two gels, but probably should have.

C • Thistles? 2

Solid-ish ride out to Sunset with a little extra out and back along Chapman road, the a social cruise into the ride2work breakfast. Nice feed, cruisy ride back home, got ready for work, then walked in. That's the way it's meant to be done right?

Can't remember the last time I rode the Avanti. Chain is rusty from being stored outdoors and neglected for nearly a year. Gears need tweaking too. Hardly surprising.

Event: WA State MTBO Championships - National Series Rd 3
 

Event: Sprint the South West
 

Seeing as I am about 4hrs from the nearest O map, with a non-orienteering family, what are the options for next year that will keep me fit/ get me fitter and also be enjoyable?
A) olympic distance tri in April
B) marathon in July
C) *shudder* rogaining state champs...
Anything else???

C • Not dead yet 38

Did enough of a warm-up that everything stopped hurting, but never got faster than a shuffle, then waited for the mass start. Looking forward to it until we took off up the first hill and I was immediately dropped by the entire field.
Sloppy into the first control, identified where I was OK, but didn't trust myself and ran off to relocate on something else before returning. 2nd control I stood on top of the cliff which had the control at the bottom, but didn't see it. Repeat process from No. 1. Was way off line and very confused on the way to 3. By then, everyone was long gone and I settled in for a slow struggle around the rest of the course. Not too bad navigationally until 18, where I missed a control that I had seen previously on a course cross-over and wandered around for about 4 minutes before returning to essentially where I had been the first time again. One of the slowest runners for the day and nearly half and hour down on the leaders.
One race too many for the week. Absolutely shattered.

Just about died of shock when I turned over my first 1:15000 map in a few years. Took my time through the first couple and got them fine, but drifted off one trying to find a runnable line on the way to three, and by the time I worked it all out and came into the control from behind, Craig had punched and was on his way out. Caught up pretty quickly and alternated between tagging along with I'm, and trying to pull away a bit when we headed up hills. All I managed to do was get far enough in front agh we would be back together once I had missed the control at the end, or I would be a bit behind and have to lift further rot get back on his tail.
I got sloppy heading over the top of hill into 13, and when Craig punched and ran off down the hill without me seeing, I could make enough sense of things to figure out where the control was, but just couldn't convince myself to run up the hill to the right spot. Dropped nearly two minutes there.
Ran hard through the next couple, but somehow missed the control in the thick stuff at 15 three times, despite an attack point all of about 100m away. Another 4 minutes binned, and motivation waning badly.
Dropped another minute or more at 17 when I got the direction off the top of the hill wrong and wandered around in some unmapped rock.
Poor route to 19 and energy pretty much all gone and heading to 20, the train of seeded runners started to go through me, with on the the Danes going past and disappearing at a rate of knots.

One control later, Robbie P and Tomas came through, but they both appeared to be struggling physically as well, and I dig deep enough to keep then in sight through the last 7 controls to the end, helped by them bouncing around a little in the circle.

A bit disappointed to have run about 10 minutes slower than I should have, knowing I could have been about 8 minutes quicker by just pocketing my map and rolling Craig as closely as possible, but that wouldn't have felt terribly satisfying.

3rd West Australian behind Tomas and Craig. Beat all the Victorians (one mispunched) and nobody else had a full team, although we would have beaten ACT even if Lachy Dow was official), so Nomads won the men's NOL for the day.

East loosener, with 5 1 minute surges thrown in. Still no feeling it, but could have been worse. At least I'm not sore.