Training Log Archive: jennycas

Hamstrings protested against being made to run around the western suburbs of Orange this morning (in anticipation of spending all day on chairing the L3 controllers' workshop). Also I underestimated ground-to-map ratio...

I think everyone was feeling a little beaten up this morning, and a bit daunted about having a similar length course to yesterday. Starting an hour and a half later, it seemed quite warm already, and my decision to carry water was a good one as the first half of the course was in open farmland and I'm glad that I was able to pour water on my head whenever my brain felt in danger of overheating. Being well aware that others would be running faster than me in the open, I just tried to keep navigation as clean as possible (not hard as it was fairly straightforward) and then slowed right down mentally as soon as I'd crossed the fence into the green forest, telling myself that it was ok to actually stop to read the map if necessary. Slowed down physically too, being faced with a wall of young native pines, but I figured they would have the same effect on everyone.

Got the first green control ok although had nearly convinced myself that I wasn't in the right gully, then turned around and saw someone punching it. Second forest control I was too high on, misread the rocks and wasted 2-3 min there, but didn't panic. The next three danger legs in the green I took very slowly, counting off every little feature out loud as I went, and being utterly delighted when I saw the flag each time. This strategy paid off, because as it turned out, nearly everyone had more trouble than me and somehow I ended up in second on the day - with Belinda 10 min clear of me, mind you. And this run was good enough to put me in 3rd overall for W45, with Susanne 5th, so I was very pleased to receive a yellow mug with Australian 3-Days 2020 on it, especially as it feels a bit unreal after the past 12 months that this year's Easter races even took place.

It's also been wonderful, if a little surreal, to have Susanne around again and for us to go orienteering together just like how it used to be; in fact the majority of the W45 field was a roll-call of our junior squad days. Sus appears to have made no mistakes at all over the entire weekend, but then again, she is the best fine navigator that I know of :)

C • Junior squad roll-call 4

Day 3 Course 12 - Splits

Last time I ran on the southern part of Gumble was the 2007 Christmas 5-Days, when the international juniors all came out to Aust to compete 6 months before JWOC in Dubbo, and while Susanne & Lachlan & I all have slightly different recollections of that week spent in The House With The Bouncy Carpet, we'd none of us recalled the terrain being *quite* this tough. As Blair said, even Kangaroo Crossing is more runnable! The organisers had mentioned in the Easter event info that courses were planned under drought conditions and there is now more vegetation - but runnability is now about 20% slower than in 2007 I'd say, and these courses were set on the long side already...

Was glad to have an early start before it got warm but at 9am there seemed to be almost nobody apart from me and the spiders out in the forest; don't know how much time I spent pulling the webs off my face and apologising to the occupants! Took the first few controls veeerrry carefully because there's not much to relocate off in low-vis native pines which grow so thickly together that you can hardly get between them. Was a little low on my 4th control but saw Mace leaving it (and yes, this is one which could probably have had water placed at it without too much difficulty) and then we started off on a looonng leg to the SW in roughly similar directions although she was a bit to my right when we crossed the creek and I didn't see her after that (she was on W35 course).

My plan, such as it was, involved heading SW up to a comparatively open ridgeline and then S down a spur running off it, but I was so focused on going up - which seemed to take forever - that I didn't take the time to make the features I passed fit properly and so hit the ridgeline rather further north than I'd intended to do. Worked it out ok but that meant I had to go around in a semicircle to get on to the spur I then needed and this was a waste of time - took 3 min longer than Susanne on that leg and Tracy & Belinda did 15-16 compared to my 26 min! Wonder if they actually took the creek or even farmland around to the SE.

Next leg to 6 I somehow ended up deciding to do the massive slog up & over the hill because the approach to the control from going around either end just looked too risky. This meant a very slow descent into the control where Marina (on W40 course) passed me like I was standing still. I have absolutely no mountain-goat genetics, but at least my knees are holding up ok this weekend. Anyway, there were a couple of shorter legs up next which I felt like I did ok - Emily Walter caught up to me here (10 min, as it turned out) but I got away again on the next uphill leg, then it was another slog up to the ridgeline and again I came out too far north and had to bash through bonus extra green before beginning the danger downhill diagonal section which I executed perfectly apart from having difficulty getting down the cliff at the end, and giving Emily a very clear view of exactly where the control was. She must have had trouble on the next couple though because I actually managed to finish before her despite the uphill finish chute. I commented to Susanne who ended up a couple min slower than me - her navigation is cleaner though - that Tracy wouldn't get under 80 for this course, and in fact she did 82, which is a very similar time differential between us, also very similar overall times for both of us, when compared to Wattle Ridge.

Warmdown was taking Heidi around the Mini-Knat string course, which was in itself a bit epic and took her 45 min. Because she's so used to alligator punches in Darwin, the SI stick almost holds secondary interest, but she kept up a great running commentary "First we do the boopa* then we do the punch". Still think I got a better deal than Susanne shadowing Eleanor around the easy course which took E 70 min in the thick stuff. Sus & I were very grateful today, to have retired from elites!

*beeper

C • Water 25

Day 2 Course 12 - Splits

"Middle" distance day of Easter, hahaha. Which is not to say that this wasn't quite good fun, but it took a while, because there were so many controls to find. I started out fairly cautiously, and got into understanding the style of mapping the rock lines and slabs ok, whereupon it was ironic that I lost a minute on looking for what turned out to be an earth not rock mound in a gully where it was camouflaged by being covered in grass; still my fault for bearing being a bit off though.

Got through the middle section fluently enough although did see Belinda on the cross-over which meant she was definitely gaining on me (in fact she was in first place at that time) and at the same time I was slowly gaining on Natalie, who I first saw leaving 9 as I approached it, and I finally caught her the full 2 min at 16, whereupon I blew 3 min on a danger downhill leg due to getting distracted and running faster than I was thinking rather than reading the map (which basically required stopping to do so, even at 1: 7 500, because I otherwise needed to be watching my feet). I still shouldn't have gone down below the big line of cliffs; don't know what I was thinking although, looking at the splits, I can see that I definitely wasn't the only one to make that mistake and in fact that control is where Belinda lost the race to Tracy.

Anyway, I ended up 4th and even a totally clean run wouldn't have got me near Tracy's time, plus I can see that any of the top 6-7 could have been 2nd or 3rd without mistakes, so I'm going to have to try really hard not to make any more errors over the next couple of days if I am to have any chance of approaching anywhere near the placings. I used to have much better navigational focus, but sometimes now I just get carried away with the thrill of orienteering!

Day 1 Course 12 - Splits

Event: 2021 Australian 3 Days
 

After the stress of having to leave work early and get to the airport for a 6pm flight yesterday, and then driving up over the mountains to Orange this morning - it took the best part of an hour to get from Katoomba to Blackheath (although traffic was far worse later in the day from what I hear) but I did spot SLEH's campervan alongside at one point so waved to them - I was more interested in hanging out with Eleanor and Heidi than going for a run, so had entered just the public race, and certainly my result was fairly embarrassing as I did a complete 180 out of my 3rd control and later on lost another half minute on not seeing a thin strip of olive green on the way to 19 even though I'd successfully avoided it earlier in the course. Think my brain was overheating in the sun and also I was super-clumsy today; shouldered a railing with my collarbone when trying to avoid other runners going up the stairs and also managed to sideswipe the top of a metal fence post which didn't have a protective cap on it and the result was blood dripping all down my arm impressively enough for Heidi to offer me a Band-Aid when I finished.

Public Prologue Course 2 - Splits

I know, I know, procrastination on packing...going away is so stressful these days :(