Training Log Archive: fletch

A bit weird to have finished day 1 in daylight, but nice to get home, get repacked and ready to go again and still get to bed at a reasonable hour. Mch needed as we had to be up at 4am to get erverything sorted for the 5:30 info handout for Sunday.

Sunday's conditions were worse than Saturday with bigger swells and stronger winds so I was relived to have been left out of the ocean paddle for the morning. Used the shortened paddle time to warm-up past a couple of the controls after marking the route for the whole day, but got a bit disorientated doing it without a compass and it ended up costing us later...

Got going on this leg after realising one at a time tha we had all started without our race bibs, and quickly got the first control, then a bit of a disaster as I headed for the next from memory, without looking at hte map and screwed up getting to it, then left in the wrong direction. Headed in for the third one, got close, then had to choose to turn either left or right on a track. Thought it was left, but a team coming from that direction said that they hadn't got it, so I went hte other way. Bugger. Another added unneccessary loop before returning to the same point and going the other way. The rest of the leg was clean and it was satisfying to see a couple of teams go straight past a control and on to the next headland out near the far end of the run course.
Felt far from perfect, but knew we were running pretty close to the front after coming in off the paddle only about 10 minutes behind (a major improvement over yesterday)

Sat out a short inlet paddle, as it involved a beach run back to where the skis had been left from the first paddle, so no point swapping paddlers from the morning effort. Very shallow, so we decided to skip the optional extra. Don't know how it could have been worth it for anyone...

Weird to be out on the bike for the first time in the race and also weird to be in a bike leg without tRicky. MTBJen bolted out at the start and after that Tooms got his legs back and he took over at the front while I just hung on to wheels as we dragged a men's team for a large chunk of the leg before they popped as we hit the 5km climb to transition. Slow slog through a waterlogged paddock in the middle, but Nav was, for a change, very clean.

Knew we had to make the most of this leg if we were to make anything of the race. Got past a team or two in transition and blasted into it. Got going, made one little error early as we got used to the scale (which wasn't on the map) and cleared the course. tRicky got a bit cut up by some sword grass and then left his compass as a souvenir after taking off his thermal. I struggled a bit on some hills half way through the leg, but then the 4 gels I had in 15 minutes towards the end of the MTB as well as other food kicked in and I came good again. Given that there were 22 controls, with 15 optionals worth 10 minute bonuses each gave us a handy negative net time for the leg :)

C • Where? 5

This leg was largely downhill and on bitumen and we went pretty hard. tRicky tried to tow me up the first significant hill, but he took off so fast after he gave me the rope that he almost pulled me off the bike and I had to let go. Fortunately it didn't end up wrapped thru tRicky's wheel and he switched to alternating pushing Jen and me up the inclines. Got the one control with only a minor delay and blasted along ocean beah road to transition tucked into tRicky's draft doing about 28km/h into a 30 knot headwind. He's a machine.

Dumbass fatigue induced logic kicked in again, as I headed into transition, decided there was no danger in an inlet paddle and headed out without an food, water or warm clothes. The 7km downwind was easy and I got to ease up quite a lot as tRicky wasn't quite keeping pace.
Things rapidly went pear-shaped when we turned to go across the inlet. Tooms tried to aim us into the wind enough that we'd cope with the 1m wind chop whipped up by the near gale that had been our friend until that point.
Instantly I was bracing frequently and feeling fatigued doing it and knew I was in trouble. A few hundred metres in over I went. I went to grab the ski and it was already gone. I yelled out to Tooms, but hte water safety got to my boat first and brought it back and held it while I got in. they asked the useful question "are you going to make it?" My honest thought was "Not a chance" but I managed to come up with "I don't know, but I'll give it a couple more goes." It hadn't felt too bad sitting in the water, but out in the wind I knew I was in big trouble. I was freezing. Again I dropped both feet over the edge and prepared for a long, slow grind. The only thing I knew I had in my favour was that I had jammed in a lot of gels and bars in the preceding legs, so I figured I could probably slog it out without hitting the wall, something that vertainly would have ended my race.
I was getting colder and colder, but managed to hold a fairly straight line until about halway across, when the waves and wind were getting the better of me and I started to drift downwind. A few times I tried to lift my fet up onto the edge of the boat so I could get a few strokes in moving faster, as I had manged yesterday, but my right leg was shaking uncontrollably
Incredibly, I then fell in even with both feet over the edge. I manouvred around the boat to get back in from the correct side, but dropped my paddle in the process. Again, kindly retrieved by water safety. I figure the fact that I got back in by myself convinced them I could actually finish, so they gave me my paddle back and I struggled on.
I hit the far bank a few hundred metres from my target and in next to the shore it was sheltered enough for me to get the feet back in and paddle up to the river mouth, which I converged on with tRicky. Was nice not to have to get out and drag my boat as I feared I might.
A quick struggle up the calm river and fortnately had support crew to get my boat out of the water and super Jen to help me into a thermal, jumper and beanie.

Hypothermic tRicky is almost as slow with shoelaces as my brother with no excuses at all, so transition was not swift, but we got moving through to the finish line OK. Happily out super support crew had left hte car engine running and the heater on, so I climbed in with tRicky and curled up in a ball, still shaking uncontrollably. Had almost stopped shivering by the time we got back to our accomodation, and more warm clothes and a shower and I started to feel human again.
Knew tha ttoday had been better than yesterday, but stunned to arrive at Preso dinner and find out that we had finished third (overall and mixed). Crazy.


Still don't know what to think about the race as a whole. Despite improving massively asa paddler this year, big swells and big wind are still beyond my capabilities. I never did get out on the ocean as much as I promised myself I would and I paid the price.
I also discovered how bad my navigation is wneh I am frozen or stressed. Something to remember when trying to prepare for orienteering events. Also reinforced that it is not worth taking risks to save a couple of minutes when using dodgy AR maps. Far better to play it safe.
I felt so negative for most of this race and so good for most of last year's that it doesn't seem right that last year we didn't finish and this year we came third.
Part of me wants to say without question that I will never do a race with ocean paddling ever again. Part of me wants to face the challenge, yet knows I am unlikely to ever fit in a regular ocean paddle, and part of me thinks AR will have to be put on the backburner completely if my knee gets fixed and I want to return to serious orienteering competition.

Still think it is a great team to work with. Jen is awesome at everything, tRicky is super strong and did a great job surviving the paddles with skills no better than mine and I suspect Tooms will be the strongest in the team once he gets his foot fixed and can do some long runs again. Tim and Ray do a fantastic job as support crew and Sue's cooking is ace.

Plenty to ponder over the next few months, as it's certainly a case of there being no point in doing more of these races unless I'm prepared to do MORE training, or I'm prepared to a have a weekend away from home to have a social race with a less competitive team.

Event: Great Southern Adventure Race
 

A bit apprehensive about this paddle, but the break at Ocean Beach looked pretty manageable so I was confident that I'd be alright, though wondering why we left Jen sitting on the beach and had both tRicky and me paddling. Went out next to Tooms, negotiated the first wave, saw the next one coming and decided to wait for it and then go. Soon became apparent why Tooms decided otherwise as it was going to break much closer to shore and basically on my head, so I made a belated charge at it, nearly made it, bt got folded back against my ski and came out. Sat in the break zone getting smashed for a few more waves, then backed out a little, aimed over near the rocks and got out cleanly in the rip. Met up with a patient Tooms and realised tRicky was doing it tougher than me. Continued in a similar vein towards the first can, ut we were out past hte shelter of the headland before we got there and I really started to struggle. Things got worse for me across to the second and third buoys and we were gradually falling off the back of the field as tRicky and I alternated swims. It got really big about hte time we made the last can and I was getting tired of climbing back in, and, critically was getting VERY cold. It had pretty much gotten to the point where I couldn't stay in, and was ready to pull the pin, when John encouraged me to drop my feet over the side and just slug it out, which I did. Glad to have Tooms keep me company for the very slow and hard slog back to the beach. Got further in than many towards the baech before coming off in little more than waist deep water and finally getting to the beach.
We were nearly an hour off the lead at this point and pretty devastated. I felt terrible for letting the team down so badly and was finding it hard to convince myself that it was a positive that we were at least still in the race.

C • Steady as she goes... 1

C • Steady as she goes... 2

Figured we would at least start making inroads into the other backmarking teams here. Bolted out along the rocks to the first control (4), got it, then headed up and over the next little spur and down into the next main gully to collect No.5. Straight down to itand ready to punch - hang on, it's No. 6. Started to head back towards 4, then concinced ourselves that we were in the right spot and they must have just swapped the flags by istake, so headed back past '6' towards where 6 should have been. Got there, everything fitted, but no control. Grumpy. Headed over to 7, got it no worries, then headed back past 6 over a couple more insignificant little gullies and found 5 hiding under a rock. Clearly wrong. Up to the main road and foolishly decided to chance the overgrown track that was the obvious short way into control 8. Up the track, hacked through a couple of thick bits and got a bit scratched up. Missed the non-existent junction and went too far before giving up and bailing out back to the raod and back down to the main road. Another 10-15 minutes down the toilet. It was here that we first faced the prospect that one more serious mistake would see us miss the first time cut-off. Got them cleanly(ish) from there ad returned to Tooms at transition who assumedwe must have gone for the big time bonuses on the optional checkpoints as we'd dropped another 20 minutes on one of the female teams.

A short carry along the beach, then into the inlet for an easy downwind paddle with Tooms and paddleJen. Totally clean and pretty quick. Actually passed a couple of teams, which felt good, but knew we were still in a major hole.

Blasted out of transition and caught a couple of teams early, then promptly ran 500m past the turn we wanted when the bib track marker had been pulled off. Carelss, and hardly ideal given our rubbish race to that point. Ran the track pretty hard early except for an 'unscheduled toilet stop detour' and a short pause on a bridge, then began the hill climb up over Mt Hallowell. Decided it was worth the 25 minute bonus to hack our way to the top of the hill for an optional checkpoint. Heroically decided that all 3 of us could go up to the summit, unlike several other teams that we saw at this point who left one or more team members down on the Bib Track. Got it pretty cleanly, hacked back down the way we came up and then plodded on towards CP19. Misjudged how far we'd come and left the track early to look for it, before bailing out and trying again when we got to the nice signposted track that pointed us straight to the control. Not as fast on the descent to the climbing and a little frustrating to have to sit there and wiat ofr a couple of teams to clear out while we sat in the wind and rain getting cold waiting for our turn. Only ourselves to blame for being in that position though, really.
Flying fox and abseil was easy enough. Didn't really enjoy it due to extreme cold, but no issues. Then followed the green tapes out to the Bib track and proceeded to follow them along the track in the wrong direction before hitting another team telling us to turn around. Another silly little mistake :( and Hageby's caught up to us again. Surprised that they were in the straggler's part of the field with us, but they had major rudder issues and had to do much of the first paddle twice.
Ran the last part of the track pretty hard, giving Tooms a little tow up a few of the hills as I was due to sit out the next (long) leg.

MTB leg. 40km. 2hrs 36 minutes.
The team flew around this leg and did a great job picking up all the optionals out there, whilst riding past a bunch of teams that didn't.

A short river paddle, the first part of which was very shallow and taken very slowly. I tried to prove how much of a gumby I was by getting stuck on the first log, then Jen tried to jump down a hole when we had to portage up and over a steep bank. This leg would have been much faster with trailing rudders, but pretty insignificant compared to my morning disaster.

Waiting to start this leg had been the first massively encouraging time in the race, as I talked to a few others in transition, including the Goats, who had started the MTB in 8th and I kew they would ride OK - then Dalto told me he'd see nthe PPS tema out there and we came into transition only 15 minutes behind them with a few more time bonuses in the bag.

Still pretty down about our efforts overall but though we were sitting around the edge of the top 10. Turns out with the bonuses we picked up that we were actually sitting in 6th.

Little relaxed cruise along the beach in the early afternoon. Had forgotten that other people use the beach during the day, especially when it is school holidays, sunny and warm. A bit weird to run the usual stretch of beach and have to pick a path through the crowds.

Useful (drunken) piece of advice for the day "Keep jogging mate." I did. And I enjoyed it.
Went home amd had a stretch. Nice way to loosen up a bit before the long drive tomorrow.

C • You've got to love those comments. 1

Out from Floreat with Tooms and Boltboi, south to the SAS abseiling tower and return. One swim when I got carried away with trying to go really fast coming back downwind, apart from that all good. Still high concentration needed and not a really fluent stroke, but good enough. Should be able to survive the weekend. Glad I finally got out and did this coz I didn't fel comfortable for the first ten mintes, but was increasingly confident afte rthis.

Seeing Tooms go sideways coming back into the beach looked like it could have been interesting, but somehow he still stayed in.

C • Velcro 1

4 laps. 2 min recovery. Felt OK, but a bit slow for how hard I was working. First one was probably a little too fast. Really struggled on 3rd and 4th reps, having to drop the effort on the flats and downhills to make it to anywhere near the finish. A bit surprised how well I held the times given how mch it felt like I had backed off.
7:35, 7:41. 7:55, 7:53

OK - feel a little less negative about these times now. I had remembered running them 'much faster' last time (turns out it was early March). But then we only did 3 reps, all with massive recovery, as Evo and I finished the first rep wit a clear lead and the other two were handicapped, so there was about 5 minutes plus recovery - may have even gotten out to 7 or 8...) times were 7:43, 7:26, 7:23.

Start of Easy week

Finally got off my fat lazy behind and out into the garage for a ride at 9:15pm. Where has my motivation gone. Having the ipod with me for the first time in months made it slightly less boring and monotonous than usual. Felt good after. Dunno if it will last though...

6x5:2, plus WU and CD