Training Log Archive: Anvil

Event: Snowshoe Raid Adventure Run
 

SSR with Hammer. Good stuff generally.
Started off fine after I fixed my initial noob bindings, was feeling fairly comfy and cruisy until we were heading to CP50, then without warning I was lagging behind significantly - not tired, just couldn't get my legs to go any faster and slowly my hip and hamstrings started to become quite stiff. (I figured it was due to a recent 24 hours worth of plane legs)
One of my snowshoes also was starting to feel loose, but I couldn't tighten it.
On the descent out of #53, my shoe totally flies off and it all makes sense - the binding had torn, no wonder I had so much trouble lifting that leg out of the snow!
Change our plans, I head out and collect #62 and wait at the aid station and Hammer goes off in what turns out to be an epic adventure and gets matrixed. (thanks to 'Bent for lending me his spare snowshoes). A lot of 'top' level team mates were waiting there for a while huddled round the fire - misery loves company!
It's such an epic adventure for him, we just jog back as well as our broken legs can carry us, a smidge overtime. I'd advised so many teams pre-race to prioritise #63 & #64 over the matrix, quite ironic we didn't do it ourselves (though at the time when we had to make the decision on what to do, I was so annoyed at myself I wasn't paying attention to where we were on the course or what the time was)
Still, I loved this. Some of the sections were amazing - climbing over the escarpment to #48 and through the woods on #51-#53-#55 were gorgeous. Really looking forward to doing it again next year.

C • 63 and 64 4

7:30 hours of orienteering in the first 2 weeks of 2015
26 hours total in 2014
I think I should beat that number this year

If interested in more photos to get an idea of what I've been running in the past 2 weeks, the Orienteering Australia FB page has uploaded heaps every day:
https://www.facebook.com/OrienteeringAustralia/pho...

Long Sprint at Battery Point. Another new map in an area I know pretty well.
Pretty heavy in the legs at this point, so struggled round with no real mistakes.
Watch got soaked yesterday and is now frozen at 9:37am :/

C • Awesome to see all the nav practice! 7

Hobart Shorts Race #2 at Mt. Nelson.
Not the first time I've run here, so not really challenging in any regard. Had a cool little 4x4 control grid early in the course to make it more interesting - kind of like a maze without the need to set up a maze.
Couple of minutes lost on a rockface I've been to many times and never found cleanly.
It has been throwing down for the past 18 hours, pretty much all the trails could have been marked in blue. Not cold though, so was pretty fun out there.

7 Mile Beach. Gotta comment on the weather, it was epic - I don't think this is what the organisers had in mind having the finish line in the beach in the middle of January. Massive winds and bursts of rain, crazy!
I've been looking forward to this race the most, as we went through a section of dunes that had been totally cleared about 10 years ago and now is covered with dense pine.
Unfortunately we only had a few controls towards the end in there, but it was really cool. A compass was mandatory given absolute zero visibility and a dropped a few minutes on one of the controls, but ended up doing OK in there.
The rest of the course was pretty standard, I've been in those dunes so many times nothing really surprises any more. A few bits of time loss in the northern, cleared sections.

Race at UTas. New map in an area I spent a few years in the past.
Turn map over, first leg is across the central campus to a control in the corner of the engineering building :) Map in pocket and just headed down, fastest split - no big deal.
It was actually going pretty well till I picked a poor route through some green. I don't think it would have been that bad, but there was a lot of junk in there, my legs were uncovered and I'm still a little gun shy - that leg dropped me from 2nd to 5th and I wasn't able to catch it back.
Other than that, all good fun with some random nostalgia thrown in.

Oceania Long Race
Eh... I woke up feeling similar to the previous Tuesday and my knee was really stiff where I'd knocked it at Coles Bay.
So took it easy to begin with and just cruised through the early controls, picking up my 2 and 4 min man along the way.
Tried to increase the pace after that, but as soon as I put any effort in, my HR would shoot up like a rocket so decided to be content with getting the course done and enjoying being back in St. Helens granite.
Maybe cause I was going a little slower, but didn't get as caught up in the rough stuff than previous races, or maybe the muscle memory was coming back.
Pretty wiped by the end, the drive home was pretty bad and ended up veging for most of the afternoon/evening.