Training Log Archive: leepback

92.9

Club Night champs @ Rathmines.

Enjoyed the event and Sam's course. Thought good use of the area was employed. Felt I was running OK but my time suggests otherwise. Didn't feel as bad as other recent events but that was probably due to the lack of climb. Perhaps the nigth made me feel quicker. I always remember running around the yard at night and thinking I was going much faster. Is that a common phenomenon or just me.

Didn't have much trouble until towards the end when I lost about a minute on number 17 (on the waters edge) as I overshot it. I was looking on the concrete embankment until I decided to actually read the control descriptions, something I rarely did on this course) and found it was an earth embankment. Also had a bit of trouble on the last one, which seems to be the most commonly mucked up control of the night.

Too late for LeepBax so he and Mapgirl stayed home.

Long - Splits

State League2 at "Long Swamp"

We had a terrible night with LeepBax resulting in my having to drive him around Lithgow at 3:00am to get him back to sleep. Maybe it was the unfamiliar sleeping arrangements or new surroundings, I’m not sure, but he wasn't willing to go back to sleep and we thought either his crying when in bed or his laughing and continuous jabbering when out of it, was going to awaken everyone in the caravan park (the Rigby’s next door later said that they never heard a thing).

Once again I had an earlyish start and kicked off fairly sluggishly on the fairly long leg to our first control. Was puffing pretty heavily from the outset and knew the distance was going to be the major obstacle today rather than the navigation. This proved to be the case as I found it relatively easy going navigationally. I do admit I did have a couple of vague moments (mostly relating to the non-mapped extra tracks we had been warned about) and may have taken a slightly too-wide route to number 9 but in the main it was fairly straight forward if you kept your wits and a lot less technical than the previous day. My main trouble once again was that I totally struggled with the transportational aspect even though for the main part it was relatively flatter and less vegetated.

I was so tired that tripping due to not lifting my feet once again become a huge issue. I had 3 solid falls, a couple of other less-worrisome ones and many, many near misses. I was also really slow on the side slope on leg 7 to 8 or whatever it was and then extremely tentative coming down from there. My knees were really feeling it and I'm worried they are on the way out. This was backed up by suffering really sharp pain while carrying our suitcase upstairs last night on our arrival home. For a few milliseconds I thought the knee was going to collapse.

Overall the weekend was extremely disappointing in the fact it highlights the fact I need to find about 3 minutes per km to be anywhere near competitive. While I never expect to be near the pointy end of the field I do expect to be a little closer than I was this weekend. Only 2 weeks to improve somehow.

SL2 Hard 6 - Splits

SL1 @ Gardiners Gap East

Tough day today. I always knew it would be as that's what this area is like. Reasonably heavily vegetated, with lots of rock detail amongst fairly steep slopes. Was hoping to get a kick from my "extra" training run but to say that didn't eventuate is an understatement.

The day started poorly as we were about half an hour late heading off from home, then only about 40 minutes into the drive LeepBax decided, quite out of character, to have a spew. Must say those baby capsules are designed brilliantly to catch every last chunk. We spent about 20 minutes on the side of the F3 trying to clean he and his car carrier as best we could but had a mild aroma of vomit accompany us for the rest of the trip. To make matters worse Mapgirl had failed to locate my e-stick and newish Moscow compass. This meant I had to go and get one from rego and have this all fixed up. All this added up to me being a tad late and having to jog/run the 1.5km to the start but I did manage to get there with one minute to spare. Many athletes would welcome such a warm up, but all it meant was that I was already fatigued going up the spur to the first control. It got a lot worse from there. I felt like I had a virus or something. I couldn't believe how quickly I was tiring and cramping in the legs.

To make matters worse half way around I started making mistakes, going up the wrong "gullies" in the rocks etc. I tripped on several occasions and even hit my head on one of the HUGE rock features as I read my map while running beside it. OUCH.

Not a good day at all. Mapgirl though did have what I thought was an OK run for her. She was only a few minutes down on Maggie and in second place.

LeepBax had a ball and had no qualms about being left with neither mum nor dad when dad failed to return prior to mum's start time. Thanks to all the wonderful baby sitters that looked after him and kept him amused in our absence. He really seems to like the great outdoors and all the activity that is happening around him at orienteering. Shame we didn't get him on a string course. Ryder is already one up on him.

C • String Course 2

C • Any thoughts from the splits? 8

93.2