Training Log: jennycas

Following an afternoon of meetings, still needed to finish off real work, so I wasn't going to make it to Hanne's 6pm sprintervals in the city, not that my legs could have run up Montefiore Hill anyway. As it was, knees which had been sitting for so much of the day protested even this but it was a good thing to do before more sitting in online Wallaringa committee meeting. Also I ran past the property where G & I went to an open inspection on the weekend - can't turn down the opportunity to stickybeak a 2000+ sqm bush garden with the winter creek which comes out of Sheps, running through the middle of it - actually 'twas a lovely house too, not that we don't have our own perfectly nice one already (and it was only slightly embarassing that the real estate agent recognised us; as it turned out, from when we stood him up and didn't buy that place on Sheoak Rd after all in 2012, not that he had any hard feelings).

In other news, our current suburb has just had its first $2 million-plus sale, something I find hard to compute. And it's not obvious to me why this particular house was worth 50% more than one in the next street, given that both had been lovingly renovated and extended and $1.4-1.6 million is now par for the course for that kind of house in Clarence Gardens.

I know I should start doing some hills again but I've been sticking to flat pavement for maximum stability because I'm still running a bit drunkenly. Went over Mt Glandore tonight (if that counts as altitude?) and encountered the second Nepalese momo dumpling van in as many nights, this time parked outside Glandore Community Centre; last night's was alongside Jervois St Reserve and even shows up on Google Maps but I'd be surprised if it has a council permit.

After a warm windy day, it finally rained a bit on Adelaide itself. After it stopped raining, I went looking for Christmas lights in Edwardstown, generally more successful a hunt than Friday night was and legs/brain didn't feel quite so dead tonight either. The humidity was positively Darwinian though, I guess that's good acclimatisation for later this month?

Well my knees definitely hurt this morning and wouldn't have been up for a run so the only thing to do was to take them for another ride, no matter how painful. The creek valley may seem flat, and TBH there's only about 170m elevation gained between home and the far end of the road, but the outbound journey felt like extremely hard work especially as it turned out that my rear end was also unaccustomed to bike riding, haha.

Novelty-O as part of the end-of-year orienteering presentation evening, around the baseball clubrooms and playground/oval areas at North Plympton. What seemed like a straightforward line course was deceptive, in that:
- controls 3 and 4 were map memory, therefore they weren't on the map;
- controls 5, 6, 7 had multiple SI units placed and I was not alone in punching the wrong number (oops, DNF);
- controls 8-12 were part of maze-O;
- controls 14-16 were also not on the map and bearing/distance were required to find them, but first it helped to find the scale bar on the map...
I should have realised that this course was planned by someone who sets cryptic geocaches!

Also, somehow I managed to win W45 Orienteer Of The Year despite having run my age at only one OY event this year. Looked back through my set of OY glasses and I also have:
W35 - 2023, 22, 21, 20
W21 - 2012, 2010, 2009, 2006, 1996
W20 - 1995
W18 - 1993, 1992
W15/16 - 1991, 90, 89
(So maybe I don't need to feel quite so bad about becoming middle-aged and decrepit. Although soon I'll be telling the juniors how back in the day we had to mark up our own maps and punch our own control cards.)

Slow, but didn't seem as uncoordinated as I am on land lately.

Needed an afternoon nap, then it was such a nice evening that I took the old tramline bikepath to Glenelg East then alongside the Sturt drain to Oaklands wetlands and back along the trainline to home. Thankfully this was less strenuous on the knees than anticipated although I'd become exhausted just from pumping up Juliet's tyres.

I had been looking forward to orienteering on a new map along the Torrens at Henley Beach but it soon became clear that I'd not be able to escape from work at the time I'd intended to do...so, after dinner, went for a jog around the suburbs looking for Christmas lights and trying not to trip over cracks in the pavement because I was really dragging my feet, hopefully just from fatigue.