Training Log Archive: jennycas

Talked Blair into going for a run up the Bluff Hill lookout from the YHA in Napier before we drove to Wellington with Robin. I'm no good on hills but the view was worth it. Have taken a lot of photos this trip. And really enjoyed being part of the latest incarnation of the Arro-gang; a bit sad that the party is going its separate ways today. But it was great to be able to cheer on Susanne and Bridget and Simon together!

Spent the morning perched on the hillside above the very narrow assembly area, I mean old airstrip, watching the World Cup runners run their prologue through an area of knolls and basins as the morning got hotter. The public race(s) started at midday in a mass start where I lost the pack of girls halfway through the first leg where they jumped down a cliff on to the road and I took a while to find the way down, so ran by myself thereafter. It was a fun course, apart from the section through newly-planted pines where the grass was taller than me, the hillside steep and slippery, and I thought "if I get any hotter I will spontaneously combust". I lost a couple of minutes on 11 where I went around the wrong side of a basin and ended up too low, and of course I was nearly last. Steep ups and downs in open grassland are no good for either my knees or my ankles, but also a bit more training would go a long way, methinks.

Spent the afternoon watching the WC chasing start final which was really quite exciting in a "poor bastards, having to chase each other around the course on this hot afternoon" sort of way. It was really well set up for spectating, with radio reports from the hilltop across the valley (funniest moment was when spectators coming down off the hilltop lost control of their 'chilly bin' which slid down without them) and a couple of exhausted sprint finishes. Also some fairly exhausted spectators by the end; I think I was at the event for 9 hours all up, but I did get some champagne drift from the presentations, which is as close as I'll get to a medal ceremony myself :)

Really impressed with all the WC organisation, and with the race atmosphere, and it was great fun being there but even I cannot believe that I spent so much of every day on orienteering and did so little of any other kind of sightseeing (apart from the inside of numerous very good restaurants).

Event 7 - Course 2 - Splits

Not really orienteering - I got to the start in quite a good mood after Tyson had said that it was fun wading through the creek (also that the course was tough and took him over 2 hours) but very quickly realised that I wasn't up to a long course today; feeling fairly average and dizzy with cramps and when halfway to the second control sitting down under a tree became the most appealing option, I decided to abandon course and jog back to the finish via the controls along the creek. Which caused some confusion on the results board as the electronic display steadfastly refused to show me as a DNF and it looked like I was winning!

Lauren, Amy and Clare had bigger problems; starting at 2pm (seriously, there was no reason for W21E to start so late after everyone else) on a 6.9km course which actually took over 2 hours and when the water had run out at the only 2 water drops on course meant they really struggled, and when they finally finished (Lauren had abandoned course because of blisters, but also she had definitely overheated) Jim and I sat them under a tree and poured water on them and made them drink sports drink for about an hour before we tackled the long winding road back.

Event 2 2 - Splits

Went out in the midday mass start before Lilian got back, after Lauren had a run to forget - not that the outcome of the relay really mattered. Had Tyson and Emily Prudhoe for company through the first few controls - it was open farmland and a fairly warm day so I had no shame about wearing my daggy hat:) Struggled up the hills, which reminded me a bit of Marne Rocks, but only real time losses were twice going over a rocky knoll into a control when I could have gone around the bottom, and over-running the earthbank on the creek slightly because I confused the fence corners.

I had pasta for dinner, and a good night's sleep, yet still not much energy, and a very low threshold for not finishing the course even before I started. Which is a bad attitude to have, on the one hand, but on the other hand I have finished every bloody course I've started for at least the last 6 years (apart from when I staked myself in the leg in Tas @Easter 2009) just so I could count for Arrows points - and today I had the luxury of not needing to do so. I also had nothing in my legs on even the first few little hills, which were in lovely soft pine forest. And then on the climb out of 5 which was in the steep jungly gully, the tight spot in my calf which has been niggling for the past few days pulled really tightly in a way I didn't like. So I ran the leg along the road and thought I'd see how the next hill was, but I had to walk up that, and then coming down out of 7 I saw Tyson ahead of me and he was walking too. The long leg all the way across the map didn't look appealing when the finish was so close by, so we walked back together :)

C • Long courses 5

Long Champs - 2 - Splits

Spent all day at the IOF event advisers' workshop in Masterton with Robin & Adrian. I had already been to one of these before, in Hungary, and in hindsight my time could have been better spent at the museum with the rest of the Arrows. We did walk around Henley Lake (for some reason I kept thinking of The Ghostly Spanish Galleon of Finley Lake, immortalised in a Spiderbait song and which subsequently burnt down) at lunchtime to do the 'forest controlling exercise' and I managed to put a dent in the hire car's bumper because of a low railing I didn't see in the carpark - awkward.

Woke up very stiff & sore, not only in knees but also in butt muscles, and not even anti-inflammmatories nor the entertainment of watching the WC sprint final (especially Lizzie's 3rd place, for which the crowd's loudest cheer was reserved) counteracted this. So I had no great expectations of my run; having seen that only the top 3 WC women cracked 20 min I expected to take more like 30. And so it proved. Enjoyed the course although not the slog up the hill on the long route choice leg - I so should have gone right, around the opposite end of the impassable fence. From the map change (where Carol Ross had caught me 1 min) I went right when everyone else went left but I think this was an okay choice except that I was no good at getting up and down walls. For the last section through the buildings I was a bit hesitant, and very fatigued, but don't think I made any real mistakes.

Good thing I'm not running the sprints at the March NOL races (I'm setting the qualifier on Flinders Uni) because I am clearly not a sprinter.

Sprint Champs - C2 - Splits

Probably a bit unnecessary, especially as my knees didn't like the pavement, but I tested the theory that Waitarere is a bigger town to run around than Ouyen - because it has been so lovely staying here in our beach house across the road from both the ocean and the forest, and I didn't really want to leave. Also I was still stewing about yesterday's run, but once I had finished off with a last visit to the enchanted forest I was a bit less grumpy.

We then drove to Wellington, watched the WC sprint qualifier around parliament, and that was the day gone. We have a very nice house in Oriental Bay but parking is a bit of a debacle because it's all very well to have vouchers, but finding an available eligible park is another matter. Should be able to walk to the sprint final tomorrow and am happier now that non-WC elites don't have to be quarantined even though we are doing the same course. It would have been a shame not to be able to spectate!

Waikawa Beach. We spent the morning spectating the World Cup race where the first glimpse we had of the runners was as they appeared high on the dunes on the ocean side of the river, then ran along the river beach and disappeared up into the dunes again in varying degrees of confusion, to reappear over the footbridge and into the last control. Some solid Aussie results but I am also interested in the pointy end of the women's field so this held my attention until the end. After the presentations were over and the finish infrastructure moved, it became clear that the public races were to start and finish across the river and we would be thrown straight into the dunes.

Sure enough, this was the case, and I took a while to properly read and understand which were the more outstanding hills - the use of an index contour to denote these did not aid in my interpretation thereof - and I lost a couple of minutes on the first control. Was mostly okay, if hesitant, until the leg to 11 back out towards the ocean, where I had in fact run too far towards the ocean and was deeper into big dunes than I realised, about 200m SW of the control and I kept thinking that the banana shaped depression at my feet should be the one near the control when it was in fact a couple of banana shaped depressions south of where I needed to be, so there went another 4 minutes :(

But the one which really frustrated me was from 12-13 where I should have gone south through the open sand blow and approached from the west, but instead crossed the sand patch and climbed the next sandhill only to find myself looking out on a sea of marram grass and lupins, with no elephant tracks, and at lest 3 ascents and descents of this stuff between myself and the trees where the control would be. By the time I had fought my way there, it would have been quicker to go back down and around, as I had lost another 4 min.

So I lost about 10 min on this course, which was completely unnecessary, and I am a bit pissed off, because I had thought that I am actually able to navigaate in this stuff. But I did manage to win a split (the second-last one, when a herd of junior boys came charging through and I tailed them down the hill). Very hot and sweaty when I finished, and the river looked good so I went for a swim even though it turned out to be only waist deep, and its bottom mud very squelchy underfoot!

Middle Champs C 2 - Splits

Same distance as yesterday but a lot tougher. Not to start with, which was in nice pine forest although even softer underfoot and I was glad that I have been doing some core exercises. About 2 controls in a Swedish woman appeared (presumably she started 2 min behind me?) and for about the next 10 controls I kept seeing her on and off - she was running faster than me but often less precise; although I had a consistent tendency to bear to the right it meant I knew for certain which direction I was approaching the control from, and the incentive to run faster helped.

Control 10 was the first in the macrocarpa (AKA spiky cypress with very low horizontal branches) and here I saw the really fast little Swedish girl who was the eventual winner, but she wasn't exactly confident of the depressions. The next few controls in the low-vis stuff I was seeing a number of international runners on and off, but disaster struck when we left this and headed west onto the open dunes, towards 17. I couldn't (still can't) read the vegetation; wasn't clear exactly where I had come out of the forest but thought I ahd made the thickets of coastal wattle fit. Couldn't make all the little thickets fit until I realised that sometimes the lupin was mapped. Couldn't read the contours at all, and the green stripe 'slow run, good visibility' didn't actually confer any visibility when you were in the bottom of a basin with head-high vegetation. Others had run much further south, but I was pretty much on the right line, just didn't realise that I needed to go further west to the open dunes. A few of us converged on this at the same time and chased each other to the next beach control, then it was another diagonal (my least favourite leg in this stuff when it crossed about 4 different types of vegetation) all the way to the radio control which I actually popped out onthe track about 100m north of then had to skulk back into the bushes in case anyone saw me.

And another diagonal, through the macrocarpa and hitting the 'open' stuff from a ridgeline, looking down and wondering which of the pine trees evident in front of me were mapped with a distinct tree circle or not and furthermore, which one of them hid my control? I should just have followed the men in front of me at that point rather than standing & wondering for a couple of min. 2 more controls in the macrocarpa, back out to the beach (sigh). It was really hot in the sun and we'd had only one water drop through the whole course, which I think is poor planning. Not thinking very clearly by now and bleeding time all over the place. Starting to check out controls which I saw other people punching because I didn't trust my distance estimation. Back into the macrocarpa after some slow-bashing through the grassy basins. Duck, weave, check bearing, cross gully and repeat. Thankfully only 3 short legs to go, and a lap of the dam for completeness.

Ended up 9th to my surprise. I mean, it was a very different field to yesterday, but also a very different course, and everyone made mistakes including those at the top. Disappointed at how much time I lost; felt like about 15 min altogether, and the woman I had been running with earlier was 12 min ahead of me. The gap to the next place ahead was 10 min though, and I'd really need to have remained completely focused to achieve that. There was a tight bunch just behind me, so I won't quibble top 10 :)

C • Great account 10

Event 2 C 2 - Splits

Event: 2013 Oceania Carnival & WC Races
 

First day of Oceania, sand dunes in pine forest. Long low ridges often with not much detail between them. Also not much climb, but very soft underfoot (somehow I was reminded of Europe, but with a southern hemisphere compass). Quite a few World Cup people running today.

Mostly happy with my navigating but it tended to go awry when I crossed tracks or saw other people and my big error involved:
a) going around a hill and coming out NW of the crossroads, not NE as I had thought, and then running further away from the crossroads wondering why I couldn't see the water (which, sadly, is not at controls in NZ). Resolved that by heading SW but then having crossed the correct track, I
b) had no proper attack point when leaving a bland basin and going into low-vis detailed stuff and consequently I did laps of it, possibly even coming as close as 10m to my control, and eventually relocating off some high points to the east, having one more abortive attempt in which I found the tape for that control's alternate site, and then finally finding the real thing.

15 min for a leg which should have taken about 6? The rest was pretty much okay, once in the wrong little gully, very hungry towards the end (it was lunchtime) and struggling to concentrate. A very similar time to Bridget/Lauren but I am left wondering how the Russian girl did 48 min!

Event 1 C 2 - Splits

We overnighted at Waitomo so we could go to the glowworm caves first thing - enchanting rather than spectacular, and not as extensive a ride on the underground river as at Te Anau, but dry caves which were reminiscent of Smaug's lair made up for this. Passed through the National Park region and admired snow on Ruapehu, fog on Ngaurahoe, then a long winding descent to Wanganui (I drive because I am not a good passenger) and eventually to our beach house at Waitarere, where we will be until Monday morning. Fern & Tyson were already there and had negotiated with some UK orienteers to give us their map after they had finished training with it in the pine forest which was literally next door, so I went for a run on a sprint course from earlier this year. It's magical forest, straight out of Lord Of The Rings.