Training Log Archive: Bruce

Shadowing Mason on course 9

C • Mason's QuickRoute 1

Belltopper Hill State Series #8
I haven't run here for several years. The terrain is spur gully, but it now contains some bushfire regrowth in the south, making for some challenging low visibiltiy navigation.
There is also a re-vegetated paddock now with low visibility vegetation. Control 4 was in this area, and it caused me some grief. I navigated well to the circle, but I couldn't see any depression. I relocated off a small dam, but I could only see a knoll on the ground - but not on the map. This stumped me for a couple of minutes, before I stumbled across the control hidden at the bottom of a tiny depression.
Upon finishing, Sean Sunley assured me that the map should be accurate as Alex Tarr had done a re-map. This didn't feel like something that Alex would have mapped though.
Apparently the controller had decided that a control was required in that block of forest, and had added the depression to the map. Unfortunately the other important features around the control site were not added, and the control flag was hidden at the bottom of the depression. As a result, this felt a bit like bingo orienteering.
I also lost a little on 11. The bridge end felt like it was too far from the track for me.
Finally I lost more time on 15 standing at the edge of the broken ground, but not seeing the flag in the bottom of the pit.

Overall it was a fun course on nice terrain not too far from Melbourne, but I would hope to not come across these type of issues at State Series level.

C • the controller had decided that a control was required 5

C • QuickRoute 3

Course 3 - Splits

Terrain running
Melbourne Forest Loop

Fairfield Boathouse hills
10x from river level to the top of the steps

Yassos at Olympic Park
8 x 800m, with 500m float in between
Each rep was run between 2:38-2:39

Dozer's Dock run (Port Melbourne), with an extension around the MCG at the end.

6 x 3 mins with 1 min rest in between
A lap of the tan and back to work as warm down.

I did the session carrying my phone in case Torren's teacher called. He was a bit sick to go to school today, but both Anne and I were working.
The only phone call I got was someone looking to buy a bunk bed from an advertisement on gumtree.com that incorrectly has my mobile phone number on it.

Actually, this was almost the same training weekend that I did 2 weeks before Easter. On that occasion, Adam Scott and Jason Day came second in the US Masters golf.
This time, Sam Stosur won the US Open tennis, so hopefully that is a good sign.
What a great match by Stosur. She was awesome. The best that Williams could offer was another great argument with the umpire.

Some of the correspondence that crossed my desk this week regarding the Oceania Champs technical setup:

“I will be using a 14dB Yagi Antenna on a 4 meter aluminium poll (to optimise internet reception) that will connect via a 10m loss loss RG58 coax cable into my Telstra Next G Mobile Bigpond Ultimate USB modem, which will be connected to a 3G Network UBS Router (TP-Link TL-MR3420 4 Port 802.11n Wireless Router with 3G support).”

My brain started to hurt reading this. Darren Meeking and his team are doing a fantastic job. I cannot wait to see the event in action.

C • Raising the bar 3

River Run
I felt surprising good after a hard weekend for the stroll up to McRobertson Bridge and back.
We spent most of the time discussing Slips injury yesterday in the Dandenongs. From his log:
"Final big (wet and muddy) run in the Dandenong's this morning in the lead up to 9/10/11 marathon - 32km in 2:37.
Very lucky to still be running after a 100+ kg mountain biker came flying downhill around a corner on a metre wide gravel track, flew off his bike and collected me on the shoulder with his eye socket as he landed on top of me - bike ended up at my feet. Sore shoulder and ribs for me, he was worse for wear with severely damaged eye/cheek bone."