Training Log Archive: Lizzie

Having made my mtbo debut last week I thought it was time to make my proper rogaining debut...
Sah bailed on me on thursday, but set me up with Ben.G as a partner. Luckily he'd done an 105km ultra the weekend before, which handicapped him back to my pace!
We planned a pretty reasonable course, with some options for add ons/cut offs towards the end. Our route split from all the other teams after about 1.5mins, and didn't see another team until over 2hours in! Somewhat luckily for us, we hit the dodgy bits early - where tracks were non-existant and the resulting bush bashing was...fun... From then on we were cautious when it came to relying on smaller tracks, but were pleasantly surprised to find they were all there, and infact on occasion they went further than marked on the map!

Made 3 mistakes which resulted in 15mins extra bush bashing (trying to cut a corner early on - lesson learnt!), 1.5km extra running and a bonus hill (missing a non-existant track junction), and 1.5-2km extra running (got carried away running in unusually open bush and completely missed the 2nd water stop, but couldn't afford to skip it).

Comfortably made it home on time, but would have been a different story if the last track we were aiming for had been one of the non-existant ones!
Energy and leg wise I was fine, no cramps and running the last few km on the flat I still felt reasonably good. Probably thanks to the peanut butter and banana sandwich at 4.5hrs, which made me feel invincible...

Lesson of the day I think was that fallen over trees are a rogainer's best friend. they give you 10-20m free passage through otherwise horrible bush! It almost feels like cheating :)

Ended up winning XO 6hr, Craney and Rob.W got 1600 odd points to our 1300. (they beat all the 12 hr teams too though! We had 4th highest score over all 6 and 12hr teams I think)

C • Tough day out! 3

Thursday mixed, won 4-1. Played up front for a bit, felt lazy cos I didn't have to run nearly as much as normal! ...so went back to midfield. Scored both our goals, which count double cos I'm a girl - win. Missed a heck of a lot more than I got in though. oops.

And filled in for a friend's team after, but really just ran around aimlessly - they're in our league so wouldn't want to help out too much ;)

Twilight at the Pinnacle.

Grass wasn't too long, and it had cooled down a bit, so that kept me happy! Bit of tracking already when I started, but did my best to ignore it. Plenty of running on bearings, and some decent hills. Just the one miss really on 8 (maybe, or 9? need to see the map). Got dragged too far left rather than up and over the hill, lost 20s or so. Got caught by Lachy at 10, and he got away heading to 13 and 14, but still had him in sight (just) at the finish.
Good to be back out on a course :-)

Token warm up and a plod around the map for a warm down.

argh too much biking! My legs felt like they'd forgotten how to run, all bow-legged and weird!
over to and up little blackie from the office, a couple of extra single tracks then back to work.

women's 9 aside against Belwest...who watched us play last week and decided to stack their team with belco players! Not cool. Would have helped to have a ref that called some fouls as well...

lost 3-2. and no, I'm not bitter at all ;-)

to/from uni. over to Remembrance park and back. Set a new record across town to get back to uni in time for soccer

Won 3-1.
Did a lot of sprinting the length of the field, only for the ball to not come to me and having to turn around and sprint all the way back on defence...

My Mtb orienteering debut.

Really enjoyed it. Fast fire trails around Pierce's forest, a couple of single tracks, but think it was faster to just blast the longer trail routes. Managed to stay on my bike, not embarrass myself time wise, and didn't encounter any snakes. So an all round win really!
Took a couple of silly routes where I decided it would be more fun to take a longer/hillier route than go back the way I'd already ridden...not really the right mindset for a race, but I was just out to enjoy myself :)

I think I'm ACT champion now, by means of being the only W21A entrant!

Also learnt that refolding the map while riding is slightly harder than refolding while running...