Legs did their usual trick of starting slowly and warming up. For the first 15 minutes or so I wasn't expecting great things, but as I warmed up even the small hills didn't seem so bad. Finished strongly.
Fun little map, with lots of wriggly bits and runthroughs.
6.5 km in 6:18 average pace. Average HR 156 bpm, max 178.
A double-header of mountainbike orienteering out west at Maryborough - State Series #2 on Saturday afternoon, and SS#3 on Sunday morning. Most people stayed overnight either in Maryborough or close by, and half a dozen of us camped in the YMCA grounds - the event centre for both days.
SAT: Mosquito Flat
Very easy terrain, very complex track network that left many of us stumped. Just as I was about to start, the heavens opened and we found ourselves in the middle of a thunderstorm. Very wet, very muddy!
Big problems finding control #2, looping around and around the same area without really knowing where I was (still pissing down). 25 minutes later, I found the bastard, then had a clean run until I got lost on the way to #5. At this point I was ready to give up and DNF. I pointed the bike back north-west toward the finish and headed off, when I passed a track/fence combination that I recognised on the map. Backtracked to #5, then had a reasonably straightforward run to complete the course.
Course: 3 (Women's B)
Course Length: 9.2 km
Actual Distance: 18.3 km
Time: 1:26
My messed up control #2:
SUN: Bull Gully Wells
After a thorough debrief at a group dinner at the Golf Club last night, I was ready to nail this one. So promptly got onto the wrong track on the way to the first control. I couldn't believe it! I wasn't lost - I knew where I was, but I'd been following the track network so carefully, and I still missed it. I did the rest fairly easily, until the second-to-last control, where I got to the right area, but couldn't match what was on the ground in front of me to what was on the map. After riding around in circles for a while, finally saw someone else duck off onto a side track, and followed him into the control. (Yes, "social navigation" is allowed - but is your source trustworthy?!)
Course: 3 (Women's B)
Course Length: 13.6 km
Actual Distance: 19.2 km
Time: 1:28
Slight embarrassment at the prizegiving. I'd got second-to-last in "Women's Open B", but there were only two of us in this category, because most of the others were in age groups (W40, W50, M50, etc). Women's B is a cop-out for when you don't want to race in your age group (which for me is Women's A, and too long for me at this stage). So I got an award - a cute stained-glass dangly thing.
Click on an image below to see the full-sized map.
 Mosquito Flat |  Bull Gully Wells |
| Weight | 71.3 kgs ▲ |
| Walking | 22.6 kms |
| Running | 13.4 kms |
| Cycling | 37.5 kms |
Hot! WALK: 6.1 km. Heels rubbing on shoes after half an hour; developed a pair of light blisters by the time I'd finished. Why...? Same shoes and socks as when I run, or when I walk in the mornings. So either because of the heat (30 degrees at 7pm) or the intensity (9:27 average pace). Came in 5 minutes early, but my feet were ready to stop.
Warm night; not quite as floaty as Monday, but a good run anyway. Quite a bit hillier too.
One thing I noticed on Monday was that as I ran back to where I'd parked the car, it felt like I could keep running forever (gotta love that feeling!). Tonight, I just felt heavy on the way to the carpark.
6.2 km in 6:14 average pace. Average heartrate 164 bpm (max 180).
MON: 4.8 km. Nice cool morning.
Feeling a bit sinusy today, and yesterday while driving to orienteering. Rather than wait for a full-blown sinus attack, have bombed it early with high-dose sudafed. Here's hoping.
TUE: 5.8 km. Cool, crisp morning - misty over the valleys until the sun came up over the hills.
My horrible bathroom scales are paying me back for Sunday afternoon - I'd had my normal post-orienteering lunch of tinned fruit and 3-minute noodles; and stopped at the supermarket on the way home for some fruit. A packet of corn chips and some sun-dried tomato dip fell into my basket, and I managed to scoff the lot later that afternoon while reading the paper. With only a large bowl of fruit for dinner, I figured the calorie count would balance out. No such luck - 72.4 kg yesterday, and the same this morning. Urgh.
Visit to the myotherapist at lunchtime - lower back, outer calves, and hip flexors. He did some "cupping" on my back which he warned me would leave me with black circles for 3-4 days. Just as well I don't go in for backless dresses and bikinis then, ha ha.
WED: eek! I look like an Extra from an Aliens movie.
6.0 km. Mild morning, and walked the long way around all my loops without realising how far I'd walked!
THU: had a restless night last night, not getting to sleep until the wee small hours, then waking up every 2 hours. Opted out of my walk this morning, and will walk the Street-O tonight. Scales back to 71.3 kg (but still up a bit).
Well, I'm not sure where my legs have been hiding for the past few weeks, but they came out to play today. Started slowly, as usual, but easily, and I sped up as I warmed up. Running smoothly, with only a couple of micro walking breaks. Felt really good. A Score event tonight, so had to keep one eye on the time, and the other eye on the "best" controls to go for (different controls are worth different points value). Got back with a minute to spare.
7.2 km in 5:54 average pace. *happy*
My pace chart:
you can see where the average sits nicely on the 5 min line, with clearly defined stops at each control (the peaks).
First bush orienteering event of the year. Low key event in the bush north-east of Daylesford. Went okay, walking on the rough bits and uphills, and running where I could through the more open bush. Enjoyable day, although the 5-hour drive (round trip) takes a large chunk out of the day.
Course: B (Hard navigation)
Course length: 5.5 km
Actual distance: 7.3 km (MB has it as 7.9 km)
Time: 1:40
My course:
Weekly stats:
| Weight | 71.0 kgs |
| Walking | 25.9 kms |
| Running | 19.4 kms |
| Cycling | 0 |
MON: 5.8 km. Nice, fresh, cool morning, perfect for walking.
TUE: 5.1 km. The GangGang Cockatoos are back - I passed a tree making familiar crunching noises, and sure enough, a small herd of birds were making inroads into the berries.
Managed to "break" the strap on the Gizmo by falling off a driveway (inspecting a vacant block) and landing squarely on the hand which was carrying the camera, which managed to twist the unit in such a way that the pin came loose. Carried it carefully home before reattaching it with no harm done.
And today is Couple's Day, in case you hadn't noticed. The day in which men all over the country live in fear of Stuffing Up; while the women either look smug because their man got it right for once, or venomous because he didn't. Lots of Happy Couples taking over-priced balloon flights over the Valley this morning.
WED: 4.5km. I meant to go further - to go the long way back home. But once I hit the start of my street, the feet went onto auto-pilot and forgot to go around past the school. c'est la vie.
THU: 5.6 km. Cool and overcast.
Decided not to cycle in today - I think the sudden increase in distance (from zero to 40+km) is affecting my knees. And I have a couple of busy cycling weekends coming up, so I'll leave it until after then to do the work trip again. Will run (or walk, haven't decided yet) tonight instead.
FRI: 5.0 km. Another cool, misty morning.
Last night didn't happen. A horrible, hellish day at work that didn't see me leave the office until 7pm, which left zero minutes to get to the Street-O event half an hour away. Plus it was still 30 degrees, and all I was good for was crawling home and blobbing in front of the tv.
Started slow, and tried to keep a steady pace around 5:30 with no walking breaks. Mostly managed it, with only one short slack-arse break, another one to clamber up a short bank, and one more near the top of a hill. Felt okay.
6.4 km in 6:26 pace. Average HR 162 (max 183).
Lovely surprise waiting for me in the fridge when I got home - leftover chocolate sauce! Mmmmm. :-)
Vanilla and Vodka soaked Strawberries with Chocolate dipping sauce
250g strawberries, washed and halved
1/2C vodka
1/2t vanilla extract
chocolate dipping sauce
150g dark chocolate
2/3C (single or pouring) cream
Place the strawberries, vodka and vanilla in a small bowl, cover and refrigerate for one hour. To make the chocolate sauce, place the chocolate and cream in a small saucepan over low heat and stir until melted and smooth. Pour chocolate mixture into two 1/2C glasses and allow to cool slightly. Place the strawberries in bowls and serve with sauce. Serves 2.
And hilly it was. Pretty sluggish to start, but freed up around half way. Trying to disconnect my head from my legs, and just let the legs carry me around. Sort of worked, but I haven't been able to recapture the magic feeling from a couple of weeks ago.
5.6 km in 6:37 pace. No HRM, but I wasn't taxing myself any.
I haven't added a picture for a while, so here is tonight's map:
Quiet weekend, apart from yesterday's short MTB. Pretty quiet week too, on reflection. Played in the garden, and did 3x walks to the shops for fruit'n'veges (Sat), newspaper and bread (Sun) and a late afternoon icecream (Sun). ~6 km total.
| Weight | 71.0 kgs ▼ |
| Walking | 11.2 kms |
| Running | 13.1 kms |
| Cycling | 47.1 kms |
Melbourne Summer Series #3 (I didn't go to the first two); this one at Emerald Lake Park and Wright Forest. Picturesque area, and lots of (too many!) faster riders screaming past me on narrow winding tracks. Score event - get as many controls (out of 20) as you can in 75 minutes. Went out fairly hard for the first 20 minutes; made a navigational error, missed control #12, found myself at #8 and couldn't be fagged going back down the steep hill I'd just crawled up just so I could climb up the correct hill. Lost motivation, slowed down, caught my breath, and cruised around all the controls on the way back to the start. Back 20 minutes early, for a 47 minute ride. 9.4 km.
Big crowd (75 riders), including lots of bush orienteers who don't do the State Series MTB events. Scored about mid-way through the field, so a surprising number of riders who are slower than I am. :-)
Wonder where I would have come if I'd been out for the full 75 minutes.
Looks like some weird kind of asian dragon! The start/finish is the left-most (western) point, and I went anti-clockwise round the course.
Another slow plod, this time because of the heat. And the hills, although I felt like I was running okay on the hills (and choosing a route where I could run contours) - just no energy overall.
6.5 km in 6:55 pace.
Bought a floor pump for the bike today. I need to swap tyres twice a week to alternate between the street tyres and the knoblies, and the microscopic pump that I have is hard work over ~20 psi. Half a dozen pumps of the new one and I'm up to 40 psi already. Nice...
MON: the Body wouldn't get up, so we stayed snuggled up in bed listening to the radio.
TUE: 5.2 km. Cold! the Body was quite happy to sleep in again, but it got overruled. I wanted to see the road work that caused me to do a detour last night when I was within sight of my street. And Seville now has a nice, newly-sealed roundabout for the hoons to skate around on.
WED: the Body rebelled again this morning. It's feeling a bit under the weather, and it's nothing to do with the cold snap we're currently enjoying. I hope it perks up again soon - I have a run tonight, cycle tomorrow, and MTB-O on Saturday.
THU: rolled out of bed with the alarm, and cycled into work. I have a new PB: 1:07 (was 1:14). Started to rain lightly on the final section, and has been pissing down in bursts ever since.
pm: Got home dodging the raindrops. 10mm of rain during the day had made the trail very sodden, but still got a PB on the homeward leg too: 1:12. I'm getting fitter, hah hah. 37.7 km total.
FRI: cold.
Struggle street. No energy, and didn't ever feel like I'd warmed up. Plodded around for 6.6 kms, and surprised myself with an average pace of 6:42 (I wasn't going to tell you if it dropped below 7:00). Given the number and length of my walking breaks, I must have been running okay when I was actually running.
Fantasising about KFC on the drive home, but luckily for me, there were no junk food outlets on the back roads to Seville. Cooked up some hot toast (+ vegemite + honey (not together!)) instead.
Cold. Am sitting here with the fire on. :-)
The first State Series mountainbike orienteering for the year. Tracks were dry and fast with a mix of forest roads and single track. Did Course 3 (Women's "B") and had a good ride.
Started well, by heading in the wrong direction and finding control #5 before orienting myself correctly and heading off towards #1. No other mishaps, but opted for what was marked as a narrow path across a deep gully which turned out to be better suited to monkeys than bicycles. To get down, I got off and hung on to the seat as I carefully followed the bike down a seriously steep track. Getting up the other side was just as hard, pushing the bike in front of me as I kept skidding on the dirt.
Energy levels were good, and managed to ride fairly strongly around most of the course. Took 5 minutes longer than Peta (who's an excellent orienteer and a pretty hot mountainbiker), so I was feeling pretty pleased with myself, until she told me that her derailleur broke half way around and she finished the course on one gear.
16.6 km in 1:20 travelling time.
| Weight | 71.3 kgs ▼ |
| Walking | 12.4 kms |
| Running | 12.9 kms |
| Cycling | 54.3 kms |
MON: 4.2 km. Overcast and cool; misty, drizzly sort of weather. Nice for a change. With 26mm of rain over the past 24 hours, everything was very sodden.
TUE: 3.4 km. Short one this morning, as I had to take the car in for a service (it passed).
WED: I listen to my body. Last night it said that it wanted pizza and garlic bread, and this morning it said that it wanted to sleep in. But the Body had better listen to the Bathroom Scales which reported 72.8kg this morning.
THU: the Body listened, and the Scales responded. Back to 71.4kg this morning. Cycled to/from work: 37.8 km.
FRI: 4.8 km. Cool. Pleasant walk.
Woke up with sinus pain again, grrrrr. I hate this. Took some sudafed before my walk, but my head still aches in behind my left eye and upper jaw. Am I rundown perhaps? I don't feel run down...
postmortem: hit the faceache hard at lunchtime with a 12-hr sudafed and a couple of painkillers. And it's gone. Spent the afternoon with a runny nose (left side only), so definitely sinuses - even though my nose was clear before taking the sudafed.
Tricky little course. Running okay, although the course had too many fiddly navigation bits to record a decent pace. Control #16 was down a metal stairwell; #4 was hidden on one of many "fence ends"; and everyone agreed that #2 was in the wrong place and the map wasn't detailed enough.
Coolish evening, although the humidity level was quite high.
6.1 km in 6:50 pace. Average HR 161 bpm.
