Training Log Archive: Mess Engineer

Kincumber Minigaine.
3 hours.

My 5th (?) Rogaine. All others have been 6 hour events.
First ever one done without a partner so no-one to slow me down (effectively no one to blame).
Being solo risked pushing too hard early but ultimately paced myself well.
Much preferred the 1:10000 scale map compared to normal 1:25000 Rogaine maps.
Seemed to "get to controls" very quickly.

Overjoyed with distance covered and time.
PERSONAL BEST EVER!!
Basically completed my first ever solo half marathon.
I may just have to enter a real one sometime now.
And it included 120 metre hill climb from 39 to 20, and then corresponding descent back down again.

Control visibility / ease of finding varied totally randomly.
Some out in the open ... others hard to find.
Control #30 being about 200 m east on totally the wrong track was ridiculous. Most people found this by pure luck. In fact one person I talked to out on the course found it and then got totally confused since it was in such the wrong location.

Wildly misjudged how far I could travel today.
By turning around at #61 to #55 effectively wrote off the bottom half of the map and "boxed myself in" later running out of options.

Got to Control #20 in first hour (8 km) for 760 points.
So got 42% of my total score in the first hour.

Having visited Kincumber back in February (before the Rogaine location was announced) was a big advantage as I had walked the tracks before. In fact #67 was a spur I had visited previously, and seen the TAPE, and thought ... people must do Orienteering events out here!

I expected to get to #43 at after almost 3 hrs and got there with an hour to spare.
So added in #48-#31-#60-#41 which I had planned but expected to have to drop.
Ran past the start again at 2 hrs 20 minutes so still had time to fill.
So added in #35-#58-#10.
After that no choice but to come back early.
There was no way I was going to get out to #62-#27-#33.

Kym Van Netten and I played tag #52-#42-#57-#80-#25-#32-#53 but her route started with #10-#35-#58-#63 so she had a much more efficient option to south and picked up #62-#27-#33 as per of her final loop.
Those 3 controls made up the 110 point difference between us.
Considering Kym generally a lot faster than me, and that I could match her pace #52 through to #53 that also was a good thing for me today.

Number, Control, Points, Total
01, 37, 30, 30
02, 54, 50, 80
03, 61, 60, 140
04, 55, 50, 190
05, 44, 40, 230
06, 47, 40, 270
07, 63, 60, 330
08, 23, 20, 350
09, 34, 30, 380
10, 90, 90, 470
11, 81, 80, 550, 30 minutes
12, 66, 60, 610
13, 12, 10, 620
14, 36, 30, 650
15, 39, 30, 680
16, 67, 60, 740
17, 20, 20, 760, 1 hour
18, 73, 70, 830
19, 40, 40, 870
20, 30, 30, 900
21, 51, 50, 950
22, 65, 60, 1010
23, 91, 90, 1100
24, 52, 50, 1150
25, 42, 40, 1190
26, 57, 50, 1240
27, 80, 80, 1320
28, 25, 20, 1340
29, 32, 30, 1370
30, 53, 50, 1420
31, 68, 60, 1480
32, 21, 20, 1500
33, 43, 40, 1540, 2 hours
34, 11, 10, 1550
35, 48, 40, 1590
36, 31, 30, 1620
37, 60, 60, 1680
38, 41, 40, 1720
39, 35, 30, 1750
40, 58, 50, 1800
41, 10, 10, 1810
Finish

The splits tell the story.
First 6 km on streets so faster.
Then 7 km to 12 km through bush so up hill and then down hill again.
Then 13 km onward back through streets so back faster again.
After about 18 km started 'hitting the wall' and legs really starting to complain.

km, Split, Total, Control
01, 05:23, 0:05:23,
02, 06:08, 0:11:31,
03, 05:55, 0:17:26,
04, 06:48, 0:24:14,
05, 06:09, 0:30:23, #81
06, 07:03, 0:37:26,
07, 10:25, 0:47:51, Up hill!
08, 09:59, 0:57:50, #20
09, 09:16, 1:07:06,
10, 09:31, 1:16:37,
11, 08:06, 1:24:43,
12, 08:23, 1:33:06,
13, 06:25, 1:39:31,
14, 06:10, 1:45:41,
15, 06:43, 1:52:24,
16, 07:09, 1:59:33, #43
17, 07:14, 2:06:47,
18, 07:13, 2:14:00,
19, 07:01, 2:21:01,
20, 06:56, 2:27:57,
21, 08:24, 2:36:21, Finish

Ankle held up well.
Wore ankle braces which proved essential running downhill on tracks.
Huge blisters down back of both ankles, and leech bites bleeding on left foot.
Any running for rest of week going to take layers of band aids or similar to protect back of heels.

C • Now I understand 3

C • Analysis 1

Attended Maitland Park run as observer only as want to be fresh for Sunday Minigaine.
Talked to volunteers about the process and figured it out for myself.
Best time of day 17:01 which was pretty amazing.
My only ever opportunity to actually see macey finish as I never will running behind him!
Chat with macey afterwards.
Left shoulder on fire and been lying on ice pack from 4 am in bed. Now alternating with heat pack and hot shower.

4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
Weeding around house, pool, sweeping pool pavers, weeding driveway.
General light work tidy up.

Have backed off weight training in last week as started hurting in various locations such as lower back and between shoulder blades. 15 mins in to this and shoulder went into pain territory.

Class definitely confirmed I have reagravated my left shoulder.

Invested in a smaller 2 litre camelback today for Sundays 3 hour Minigaine.
For a short race shouldn't need the larger capacity of my 3 litre one either in water or the number of pockets.

5:45 pm - 6:10 pm
Weekly fallen stick harvest

6:15 pm - 6:45 pm
With a full jerry can in reserve now tidied up the front lawn and around the house.
Rest of the yard patchy lengths but can wait another month easily at current growing rate.

Event: Newcastle Park Night Championships
 

Up and down Darby Street filling in time prior to 6 pm.

The equivalent to Mondays Warners Bay version.
Some of the same people there but most new to me.
Around streets and crossing roads which meant several minutes in total of waiting at lights.
This was a positive and a negative.
Negative as standing around (so splits are all over the place and meaningless unless I was going to keep pausing iPhone - so Warners Bay will have to be the "no stopping pace record" run) but positive in the pack kept having chances to group back together again.
The 500 m "hill climb" up Parkway Avenue and then Memorial Drive at Bar Beach, at around the 5 km mark, proved tough but I picked a person to speed match and persevered.
I kept up with the main group for first 2 km and then caught up again at various stages afterwards.

Talked to people afterwards about various running clubs and will pursue this as an Orienteering replacement.

Skipped the last Night Park event and elected to get some sleep.

Skipped gym and dance.

4:50 pm - 5:55 pm
Was going to start the lawn mower but had less than 1 litre in the tank and nothing in the jerry can so risked running out on the grass. Painful to push it back to the shed so not going there.
Only small areas needed a tidy up anyway.

Instead used the whipper snipper to do drains, around house, front nature strip and dog yard. Can leave mowing for a few more weeks even though last did it on 19th February as peak growing season over.

Personal best ever. Smashed prior best time by 2:08 which is huge.
Ankle not screaming afterwards.
Can keep up with the lead runners for the first 1.2 km then basically have 4 km with no-one at all as a pace setter.

Splits over the last 3 weeks :
1. 4:21 vs 4:38 vs 4:20 1st time
2. 4:53 vs 5:08 vs 5:13
3. 5:15 vs 5:27 vs 5:31
4. 5:13 vs 5:34 vs 5:26
5. 5:13 vs 5:23 vs 5:26
6. 5:11 vs 5:46 vs 5:30
7. 5:02 vs 5:24 vs 5:39

Did the first 5 km in 25:00 exactly so still 10 seconds slower than Saturdays Park Run time.
Realised then that approx. 36 minutes was possible so pushed to maintain the pace for last 2 km.
Last 200 m was back in 4:42 pace so was pushing hard to set a record.

I can see under 36 minutes (< 5 min/km average) is an achievable target.

C • congrats 1