Training Log Archive: simmo

Australian Long Distance Champs at Chapel Flat near Ballarat. The first 2/3 of the course were in slowish spur/gully with a fair bit of climb. Was reasonable to 4 but knew lots of guys would be going faster than me. From 4 onwards we were in gold mining, which I thought was over-mapped compared to Alex T's style, and lost 1 min on a couple of controls (5 and 7) then 3 mins at 8. 17th today, but only a minute covering the 4 guys just ahead of me. Winner took 47:36 but my impression of the course was that someone should do it in well under 45; Carolyn Jackson won W55 in 45:44, with Anthea (with a heavy cold) 48:06.

Australian Sprint Champs at St Patricks College, Ballarat. Didn't expect to retain my title given this is my last year in M65 and a strong field, but managed to get 2nd and could have won but for a mistake near the end. Despite my lack of race fitness was able to keep the pace up for 11 mins, and seemed to be able to run as fast as anyone else. Had to stop at several controls to see where/how to get to the next one. Small area, with lots of circles and numbers and many turns/crossovers.

Quite pleased with this result.

Legs feeling better today - did a 4km walk in the forest behind Heathcote.

Legs a bit stiff today, managed to get up Hanging Rock and back down again, but wasn't tempted to do any scrambling.

C • No picnic? 2

Australian Middle Champs at Petticoat Gully. Spiked the first two again, but then Scotland came back to haunt me. Leaving 2 I had to cross a track then go right on a second track, but turned right at the first track and went 500m before realising. Passed no. 6 on the way into 3, and then went back to 6 instead of to 4! fortunately 3-6 was a loop of short legs so probably only lost 3-4 mins, and had the fastest split to 6 (unsurprising as I'd already been there twice). Then total disaster, SSD style. Didn't really look at options for a long leg to 7 and decided to go straight across the steepest and most Rowdy Flat-like area of gold diggings. Got off line then mistook a road I could see far below for one further ahead and started searching when I thought I'd gone far enough. All the features were pretty similar. Found several controls, none of them mine (I thought). Eventually bailed out to a road and relocated 500m W of the control. Afterwards I noticed a good route to the left with much less climb and hardly any mining stuff, and also that one of the controls I had found was my no. 13 (didn'tlook far enough down the description list).

After 7 I was reasonably quick except for one minute helping a very lost junior in the middle of the mining at my no. 10. Finished 23rd, winner was AU again in the same time as yesterday, so I was 18 mins down, with about 14-15 mins of mistakes.