Training Log Archive: Lizzie

A leisurely paced mtn bike out the back of palmy somewhere along the Te Araroa walkway with Chris. Mainly on a gravel farm track, just up to some saddle and back. Very descriptive :) (greens rd? maybe?)
Turns out he's still afraid of falling off on downhills after an unfortunate incident when he was 5, so I got way ahead on the downs.

Actual time out 1.55 but there was a fair bit of waiting for Chris, and messing around climbing down mine shafts etc.

Went out along the Sledge Track and up to the Platinum Mines on Platinum Ridge (original name right there). A mean climb up to the ridge, and some classic narrow muddy NZ tracks through native bush :) Beautiful stuff! Think I demoralized Chris a bit with my fitness, and running up the track he claimed was impossible to run up :/

Celebrated being back running and training in wgtn bush by running into a tree and through some ongaonga.

Just the usual short loop in otari-wilton. A minute or so faster than in June though i think.

O-max prologue on the waterfront. No idea on actual time, will just have to wait for P to put her time up, then take 1min off that ;)

A couple of controls in the wrong place - but that's all part of o-max right?!

Mass start final.
Had a bit of fun dodging the 100+ Santas in the Santa Run based at Frank Kitts park. Then tried not to get recognised as I raced between all the Marsden girls showing up at the Town Hall for their end of year prize giving...

Token warm up to the toilets and back. Warmdown collecting controls - noone warned me about the heavy wooden trestles that were used as stands though!

WU down the beach, via the pile of sand that covers the Hydrabad wreck. Bit sad really, I haven't been down to it in years. Last time I visited there was a scrap of ship still above the dunes, and when I was a kid you could still see the port holes. Now it's just a sign saying the wreck is somewhere under the sand :(
WD back along the track in the coastal scrub.

More high intensity training!
The first of two 10min sprint courses on The Strip. I've wanted to run on this map for so so sooo long (well before it was mapped to sprint standards). I've always done little terrain runs through this block, but havent orienteered on it since the old Hydrabad map was destroyed by felling years back. (10yrs now?)

Anyway, we had 2 courses and set off at 30s intervals with no idea which course we or the others were doing. Then had a 3-4min break and the next course. I drew the lucky start position of 30s ahead of Chris....twice. Managed to hold him off until half way around the course each time, then he'd breeze past! He prob beat me by 50-60s.

Wicked high intensity session.

And something was dead around no.1. Just saying.

second course. Overshot the furthest out control.

Reran the first course to see how much faster I could do it. Makes a big difference when you know the best entry/exit to each control!
Body felt like it was dead the first two controls, but then once it realised it wasn't getting out of it, it settled down surprisingly well!

WU out to our wheel exercise, via putting out my control.

Then headed over towards the second exercise, slowly, by myself. Only to find felling going on around the start. i edged my way as close as possible without being seen, but there was a large machine making a pile of logs exactly where the triangle was on my map. I didn't fancy making the fellers grumpy, so just bailed back around to the van.

Most of the others did make it around and did another exercise. But can't say i'm too disappointed, I was smashed anyway! Just angry that they're felling yet another of our maps! And one of the best parts too.

Wheel exercise on Kaikokapu. Managed not to get caught up by Immy, although I was expecting her to appear over the dunes any second! Caught Laura, but then made a mistake in the green stripes, so she beat me back to my control before i collected it back in in the end haha.
Fun, but pretty darn tired.

Collecting in controls as WU&WD. Had a go at shepherding a couple of stray sheep back into the appropriate field, but was too slow/tired.

Back on Hapua wetlands for the first session of a couple of days training set by Jean. She was open from the outset about how hard she was going to make us go, and wasn't lying!
4 x ~5min intervals with 30s starts between us girls. A very tough session given the hills, and 4 races in the legs from the previous two days!
Felt like an absolute muffin attempting to cross some of the fences. That's going to need some work!
Legs were not impressed.

A bonus O session at Mt Lees as we were there anyway to pick up maps of Graham.
Did some route choice with Immy (although I was unaware of the contest to no.1!) Then slackened things off as the controls got vaguer/non-existanter towards the end of the course.
Some good fun, and ripped my legs up on blackberry. Yay!

Final session of the day out at The bombing range. On some very old WMOC maps that Graham had fished out for us. Certainly made things interesting!
White forest 2000 = Felled area 2012
Green stripes 2000 = White forest 2012
Open dunes 2000 = Lupin/green crap/landscaped dunes/anything but what's on the map 2012.

Actually that last one's an exaggeration. But felt like it at times! A good strength session anyway. Still on the look out for some decent open dunes to train on on the W coast though. All the areas I can think of haven't been field worked since about 2000 :s

And Immy found #137 on the way home. In an unmapped reentrant, covered in cobwebs, with a faded flag, SI box and all the trimmings. It gave the happiest little beep when we tested it, must have been waiting a very long time for an orienteer to visit it!

oh dear. WU/WD is getting more pathetic as the wknd goes on...

Mmmm back on steep open farmland... Had to remind myself what fun/pain it is to push hard up big hills!
First control was a simple looking but actually trippy little leg over a hill and dropping into a reentrant in forest. Made sure I hit the forest early and contoured into it - pleased with the aiming off. It seemed a bit like time wasted at the time, but listening to the problems some of the other girls had with the control later - it was definitely worth being cautious! Then -2-3-4 we all pushing hard around and up the hills, then reading carefully within the circle. Took the slower route to 4 and lost a few seconds to Amber, sneaky.
6-7-8 we were with James and Tim which undoubtedly helped with pushing up the hills. Then 9-finish was just a matter of putting myself through pain :)
Pretty surprised to come back with a 3.5min lead.

Had a good lead going after the prologue, so really was just a test of having a smooth race and putting out of mind the fact that others were chasing and waiting for a mistake from me.
Started off with Tim and Chris pretty much, our 2nd control was their 1st, so was close to them for the first 2.5 controls until they split off somewhere.
Lost a bit of concentration on the first loop of the butterfly, was far too high going to 6, so had to drop a lot of height into it. Then didn't climb enough coming back along the hillside through native bushh to 7. It's so confusing in the streams and reentrants in there! But I made the right call climbing at the end (poor Bryn disappeared off down instead, no idea how long it took him to correct). But 1min lost in those 2 controls.
By comparison the other loop was much easier to go hard on. I had La 50m or so behind on this loop, but she was so quiet I barely noticed her!
Back through the pivot and back on my lonesome. I botched up 14. Similar to 6 and 7 I got confused with height and reentrants in the forest. Should have just blitzed it to the corner of the open as I'd half planned.
Pleased with how I pushed up the hill on 15 and 16. Saw a red shirt behind me as I started up to 16 and just as I reached the last control Tim came flying past. Tried to hang on to him up the finsih chute, and fully would have had him, if it weren't for all the dust he was kicking up into my eyes ;)

won by 4.5mins all up, but only 14s ahead of Amber on absolute time on the course. Interesting to see we were very close on the splits where neither of us made mistakes - but then we made the same number of similar time mistakes, just on completely different controls!

Token warm up, then collected some controls.