Training Log Archive: jennycas

I'm getting good at these new-fangled rest days :)

Which is to say, that I was wide awake from the 4am churchbells onwards (having the windows open to cool the room down means that you can hear the 15-minutely chimes, which have been a problem for me the last 3 nights, although Thursday may have officially been the crappest night's sleep on record for all of us). So I finally got up at 5 and went for a nice walk up to the dragon cave and the playground, then came back to find Sus & Lachlan preparing to depart (sniff).

And now Blair and I are procrastinating on lugging our gear down to the station in the midday heat, and I am crossing my fingers that the border crossing into Croatia, and train connection to Zagreb somewhere in the middle of nowhere, works out better for us than it did for Fern & Amber two winters ago!

Although I really hoped to be able to finish in the top 10, I was aware that 8th in the first qualifier was due to some people having big blowouts in the leafy green gullies, and felt that 12th in the 2nd qualifier reflected more my place in the natural order of things when it came to running speed. This wasn't all about speed though, it was about keeping cool, both literally and figuratively. Did NOT run hard on the way to the start, and poured lots of water on my head. (Coped okay with being accidentally sent into the B final lane, too.)

Started in 10th place so I got another sticker on my number (I am definitely keeping that number). Track route to first control gave me thinking time and as I ran up out of it I could see the Hungarian woman, Kinga Schmaal, heading down towards it. A couple of compass legs then a complex track network through the sinkholes, and running down to 5 I could see the saddle it would be on, and then the control, from over 100m away. This was the case for a number of controls; they were dead easy to find, as long as you were in the right place and hadn't got confused by the track network in getting there. (In contrast, on Wed you had to not get confused by the sinkhole network, and on Tues by the erosion gully network, so those were actually more difficult courses.)

Picked up water on the longish leg to 6, left it too far uphill and got caught in some green, looked down and saw the Hungarian woman running through a clearing below me so I dropped to there (lost maybe 1 min). Narrowly avoided disaster leaving 8 when I came out to the wrong track at 90 degrees from where I expected and briefly started running the wrong way. Ironically, from that point I could have taken a shortcut on a smaller track I hadn't noticed at first glance - but I was close to brain fade (could feel my scalp crinkling so knew I was overheating quite badly) and stuck to the bigger tracks, thereby almost doing an unnecessary lap of a sinkhole. Must have been running reasonably fast 'cos that was still less than a minute lost.

And on the way to 10 I caught the Hungarian girl again, and promptly got stuck climbing over a log then bum-slid down the earthbank into the control, here we acquired the Slovakian girl then climbing out of 11 I was a bit behind and could see the Russian girl coming up. The others had gone different ways, I grabbed water, then suddenly coming into 12 we were in a chain of 4, but I was struggling to keep up. There was another water drop where I doused my head, by now the others were out of sight but I picked the right track to turn down to 13 where they had overshot it, except for Kinga who caught on just as I turned down the track. Russian and Slovakian came across the hill from another angle as we approached 13 which I punched first, then it was on for young and old (or for 35-39 year olds). I think we ran through another Russian girl here as well.

It's years since I've had the opportunity to race in a train, and from nowhere came the second wind or the adrenaline rush, and the realisation that there were only 4 controls to the finish - it was like running those last few controls in the last hour of a rogaine, where you give it all you've got. Which I did, and ended up 9th, one second ahead of 10th, (who had qualified in first spot but obviously had a shocker). I will say that I was well pleased with myself. A bit disappointed to have lost some time in the middle section, but glad not to have completely overheated, and I guess the errors were offset by the kick I got at the end. Did take a long time to cool down afterwards despite the hosing-down by hunky firemen and sticking my head under a cold shower.

Susanne was second, Australia's only medal, which is absolutely great for her. And Lachlan won M21 in the public races. They dared each other to wear their medals when we walked down the street for dinner, with Jim & Blair, who were 7th and 13th in their finals respectively. I felt proud to be in such distinguished company (and the birthday kids were wearing matching T-shirts!).

C • yay!! 8

All 7 of us went to the Hullam pool. Hullam means wave, and the wave pool functions as such on the hour. I started out with a few laps of the 33m pool but was so exhausted that I had to stop and catch my breath between laps, so I gave it up and went to play in the waves, such as they were. We all decided the model event was non-essential.

I had a late start today and it was a bit warm in the sun but Tyson's skill at making the clouds come over meant that it was shady when I went to the start so I ran all the way up the 1.8km hill (in hindsight should have saved my energy for later). Started out pretty steadily, and cleanly through the first few controls, then got into the fun stuff with the sinkholes where solid concentration was necessary, and I thought I focused pretty well. Started to run out of legs not long after halfway - there was more ankle-length vegetation today and I struggled to lift my legs over it - and wasn't so quick or confident on decision making.

It's interesting to compare splits with Sus and see that until about 8 I was a few seconds apart from her on each split but then I started to lose nearly a minute to her on each of the next few legs; took the wrong track on the way to 10, and went wider than necessary to 12. But hey, I was using the tracks as I'd promised myself I would do. And I used tracks as much as possible to 13, the steep downhill leg, meaning that I did 2 sides of a triangle and had a hairy descent to the control which I overshot only slightly. Apparently there was an elephant track along the 3rd side of the triangle, straight down the gully, and that's the way I should have gone, rather than losing 4 min to Sus on that leg.

12th on the day, 10th in qualifying based on the cumulative times of the 2 qualifiers. So I think that means I get a top 10 sticker on my number on Friday.

C • energy 3

Was feeling better today than yesterday, not that this would have been hard, so figured I just needed to hold it together and I'd survive okay. Sus was starting 6 min after me and I expected her to catch me late in the course but a poor route choice on 3 where I dithered and then got stuck in head-high rough open yellow, and misreading the tracks to 4, meant that I actually saw her on the way to 7, where she passed me. After this I was getting pretty tired (should have taken some lollies with me) but I dug my heels in for the uphill part of the course and when water came up partway through the long leg to 12 I grabbed it.

It was probably a fluke that I didn't completely screw up the approach to 12 in an overgrown hanging valley; I had actually gone up the erosion to its east instead of one to the west as planned, but luckily saw daylight ahead on the edge of the forest and worked out that I was in the erosion which went all the way to the forest verge, so I popped across at exactly the right spot.

Ended up in 8th place but I feel that I lost about 5 min through small errors or inefficiencies, being a bit exhausted - and the lessons I need to learn for tomorrow are: to read the tracks better, to run on the tracks more, and to take some lollies. It completely goes against my mentality to use tracks as a navigational aid, but maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks.

BTW, Sus was 2nd, and the top 2 are a long way ahead of the field.

C • That's a good run! Its ama... 4

C • wallaringa 1

Which is to say that today was spent at the IOF event advisers' workshop. Also, hamstring/ITB very tight today - I had noticed this yesterday and think it ws due to standing in the one spot for too long at the opening ceremony. And a sore throat came on from lunchtime, peaking overnight.

Komlo is originally a mining town, with lots of apartment blocks. The open ground between them was quite rough with lots of little embankments to run up & down. (We were warned to beware of clotheslines at head height but I didn't encounter any.) I struggled to read the map as fast as I was running, and I couldn't watch the map and my feet at the same time. Misread the description on 2 and had to climb back up the embankment, was okay through the middle section, poor route choice on the long leg to 9 where I had my map folded and didn't see the left route which Sus was 30 sec faster than me on. Then I made the short leg to 10 messier than it needed to be by another 40 sec, getting confused by paths & walls and so Sus caught me up (2 min) here. Chased her down the finish chute, she was 5th (5 sec behind 3rd) and I was 12th. Am okay with that I guess, it certainly wasn't a top-10 standard run.

C • sprint final 5

Old town, Pecs
I thought I should manage the sprint qualifier all right, having some familiarity with the town, and it definitely helped being able to look at the map and straightaway have a mental picture of how some areas would look. Ran hard, and kept passing women who I knew had started before me, got through the NW castle wall section fine and then did a bad thing at 9. Which is to say, I punched, took 2 steps forward by which time I had landed at the bottom of a small wall, looked at the map and had an "oh shit" moment because the wall was clearly mapped as uncrossable, decided the best thing to do was climb back up the wall, go 5m to the right and down the steps (all 6 of them).

Heard the observers mutter but it must have been okay, because I've qualified in 6th and Susanne in 4th. I was a bit flustered though and definitely lost a bit of spark after that, missing a through-courtyard route choice on 11 and going around instead. But I am really stoked with a top-10 time, probably means the field isn't particularly strong but I'll take it :)

C • Well done :-) 4

We got Amber to set us a sprint course out of the model event controls and I ran it pretty hard. This was among apartment blocks in the south of Pecs (we had walked about 5km to get there) and I was slightly surprised to see the little shops at street level. Felt okay running and was pretty direct with navigation but hoped I hadn't pushed myself too hard.

Ran back to the hostel with Blair who kindly carried my gear (not that I had much). Figured that by running rather than walking, lunch would occur sooner. Also figured that I needed practice at running in the noonday sun.

Proper orienteering, in much nicer forest than yesterday, with small, medium and large sinkholes, except that they were at the opposite end of the map to where we had parked so it was a long descent and subsequently a long ascent. I added in a couple of extra hills for practice because I was feeling quite a bit better than yesterday (could be because I crashed out before 9pm last night). Ran into Dick Ogilvie out in the forest and had a good chat. Apparently if you're camped in Orfu there's almost nothing to do there. We checked this fact out afterwards by paying 900HUF to swim in the lake there, which seemed to be the main attraction of the town.

Susanne, Blair, Fern & I were chauffered by Amber to the forest north of town where one of the training maps was on offer. Not a particularly inspiring map so it's probably a good thing we ran it first day. I was pretty slow both up and down the hills but reasonably confident of my footing, so that's a start. Not sure what I've pulled in my hip but hopefully it's just from pack carrying. The ' Mecsek extrem park' being next to where we were parked enticed the other girls into riding the mechanical bull, but I am too sedate for such entertainment...think this week will work out okay sharing a dorm with a good mix of people who can entertain themselves and each other, and enough space so that we're not in each other's faces all the time, because there's a whole town to explore. Except on Saturday morning, when the old town area (in which we're staying) will be out of bounds before the sprint qualification race!

Event: WMOC 2011
 

If I didn't go for a morning run in Budapest, I wasn't going to see anything of the city, so I headed out, camera in hand, across the river and up & around the castle hill (of course). Shins started out pretty tight from so much walking on pavement recently, and I wasn't sorry to be always stopping for photos, but eventually loosened up okay. Basically, I was just so relieved not to be in Athens. I didn't see any policemen on this run :) The Danube really is an impressive waterway; I can see why it became a major freight route. The views from up the hill, and of various churches etc, were pretty spectacular. I ran back past parliament, outside which there was no graffiti, banners or protesters - nicely reassuring.

C • Gorgeous city 1

Around Pecs, with Jim & Blair, after a completely uneventful train trip down from Budapest with Sus/Lachlan/Blair, and a happy reunion with Amber/Fern/Tyson at the hostel.

Not so many ants heading up the Acropolis this morning, even though it was a perfect temperature. This could have been because of the group of ants at the top holding flags, displaying banners and chanting. I decided not to become an ant. Anyway, my legs are really empty because I haven't had proper dinner since Tuesday. And I need them to lug my 20kg pack to the station shortly.

C • Weight 5