Training Log Archive: jennycas

I woke up to the most beautiful sunrise over the bay at St Helens, a mysterious parcel from Susanne which turned out to contain cornflake cookies with starfruit jam - surreptitiously made at the hostel on Friday night - and the realisation that my annual cold had well and truly kicked in. So, I went out with a healthy attitude (if you can't enjoy orienteering on your birthday, then when can you?) but the rest of me really wasn't too healthy at all; I was cold and hot by turns, which wasn't a good sign.

I was already well aware, after the embarrassment of my AMDC result in WA, that I had every chance of coming last but I still didn't expect to achieve this quite so comprehensively! Navigation was mostly okay although I did bad things with my route choice on the long leg to 2 and then compounded this by being way too far up the hill, and next to the wrong gully, looking for the control (but in my defence, I miscounted gullies because one of them was hidden under the control number - grr).

One advantage of being so slow is that you can watch the race unfolding around you as others pass by (the crossover configuration of the course aided this) and another is that you can see things which no one else notices, like the helmet orchids on the ground during the long slog to 7. And, truthfully, I even enjoyed the creek-bashings because the course had been set to avoid the worst of the green. Did walk the button-grass swamps extra cautiously for my ankles' benefit, yet somehow this made me want to go bushwalking in Tas!

C • birthday 2

2 - Splits

Event: Australian WOC Trials
 

Had spent the morning watching the fog and worrying about whether the planeloads from Melbourne would actually make it (bit hard to hold trials without half the field) but by the time I started I had seen everyone but Reuben and I ran into him out on course, so that was okay. Lack of speedwork lately meant I didn't really have a sprint gear but I was running smoothly enough apart from a wobble on 5 where the singletrack through the hedge wasn't the optimal route, and then a shocker on 9, where, as I came round the building from the right, I thought "okay, I'll run that way as I leave" not realising that "that way" was at 90 degrees to the right way! So I went north not west, and couldn't work out where I was for over a minute. (Heard afterwards that Bridget and Wendy did the same thing, having come from the east also. People coming from the west didn't make that mistake!) I do enjoy a sprint which makes you think, and therefore I'm pleased that this was technical enough to force me into an error, if that makes any sense.

I went down with a good thump on the 'bridge' at 10, startling Susanne who was looking down below. No damage to me but scraped a a swathe of blankness across my map - luckily a section I'd already run through, but the print quality really was crap - and after that I was rather tentative, so fairly slow through the remaining buildings. Both Sus & I ran into the dead end at 11 because the ghosting around the number made it look like there was a gap in the fence (there actually was, which some people squeezed through, but it was in a diferent place - not a mapped gap and the fence was officially uncrossable).

Benbullen, Diddleum Plains. Lots of water flowing in the creeks and lots of marshes to squelch across. Lucky I don't mind getting my feet wet :) Took a little while to work out the first control, being momentarily distracted by the sound of Julian falling in a hole on the way to what was later my number 11. The course wasn't rocket science but you needed good bearings and the confidence that the control would really be where you thought it was, as some of them were incredibly well hidden (I remembered this from 2009). I heard quite a few comments afterwards along the lines of "there was something funny with the map" or "there was an unmapped gully" and although this didn't trouble me, I know what people were meaning - but I'd say that it was more in the cartography than the mapping, and that sometimes a kink in the contour was over or under-emphasised.

The drive via Scottsdale to St Helens afterwards, being both dark and winding, seemed to take forever.

2 - Splits

2 - Splits

Another warmish morning, and the pool closes in a week so I am using up my tickets.

I think I know why I am slightly apprehensive about this weekend; the races during which I have broken myself most successfully were both in Tas (and according to Juffy's log discussion this week, two points make a trend).

a) WOC trials 08: fell in a hole in a marsh on the way to the last control of the middle distance (and Ezy had to piggyback me out of there because I'd done my ankle good and proper).

b) Easter 09: Staked my leg 3/4 of the way round the long day (and had to take my O pants off and wrap them round my leg to stop the bleeding, thereby scaring Briohny when she found me sitting down with no pants on).

C • tas 2

Running potentially late, but my goggles had re-materialised so I didn't have to spend time on buying new ones. Kicking better than usual. Feeling like things are reasonably well organised for this weekend now that I have managed to find a venue which will take 28 people for dinner on Saturday night.

Short-and-sweet run with Zara/Callum, John, Bridget, Fern, Tyson, at the end of which we collectively got over/under/through a less structurally sound section of 'the fence' and after which we did maze-O on the Uppills' back lawn because it's normal to have a maze on your back lawn (Adrian had spent all afternoon preparing it). Really good fun and was over too soon - the 4 courses were each all of 80m in length!

Shortest loop in the park and even then it got dark way before I expected. Taking my headlamp was the last thing I thought about, but didn't actually do, on my way out the door!

Something about a 6am flight back from Melbourne at one end of the day and an OSA management meeting at the other - after which I consumed pizza and rang Susanne :)

Yay, a flat run on a Monday night! Not even a given for inner-suburban Melbourne, so I appreciated it. And the company. And the food. Fine MFR tradition (and this is the 4th time I've gatecrashed one of these runs, I think). Also, maybe these trail shoes will be okay for running in if I break them in gently. Hamstring's been fairly good this weekend.