Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

This one goes squarely in the 'at least I got through it' file. A struggle from first step to last (perhaps a bit more so at first than at last) - felt weak and tired, possibly a result of the late return last night, possibly not. I knew fairly early on that this wasn't a day to test boundaries and that I'd do well to get to an hour. As a result of this didn't get as far into the east side of Coburg as I'd planned, but did draw a few strategically placed lines to set things up for next time.

I was quite tight in the left calf (and lower left leg generally today). The sore spot on the top of my foot mentioned here previously eventually revealed itself as a deep blister and became drainable on Tuesday - since then the site has been gradually healing. It's not in a weight-bearing area so hasn't been noticeable when I run, but perhaps it's still been altering my form a little bit?

The promotion budget for the Zatopek is clearly higher than in previous years (i.e. they're going to some effort to tell people that it's actually on), but I was still a bit surprised to find at various points on the run that our old friend Bill Posters has been active on the Zatopek's behalf. (Hopefully he doesn't get prosecuted for his efforts).

One month to go in 2023. If things go to plan I'll probably narrowly surpass my 2022 annual running total, but will fall a few hours short for total training time (mainly through travelling so much and therefore doing fewer Pilates and pool sessions).

A pretty early morning run with Jenny (though it doesn't seem quite so early when you think of it in Melbourne time). In Basel you can go for a run in three countries but here you can do it in three council areas, heading north initially, checking out the flood debris in Brownhill Creek and scaling "Mount Glendore" (the tram/bike path overpass over South Road). Jenny was also good at picking out small parks on the west side of South Road. Felt a bit sluggish through most of this but back and foot were OK.

I didn't get quite so lucky with flights today and expect I'll be an hour or so late out of Adelaide. The workshop was good, though.

And it doesn't look like any billionaires will be turning up to my presentation at COP28 next week launching the WMO decadal climate report I've been working on for the last couple of years - it clashes with a session on "Responsible Yachting: Today and Tomorrow".

C • Council areas 1

All Nations intervals for the first time in a while, on a drizzly morning but not as drizzly as yesterday. Not especially sharp and slower than my recent outings here, though picked up a bit later on (62/66). Foot responded fine to the faster session and seems to have improved somewhat through the day more generally.

It appears that the rug shop on one of the Station Street corners is actually going to have a genuine closing down sale soon (a notice for a development application has appeared on the building).

Warm-up and down. A bit later in the morning than I'd sometimes do this, and consequently lots of traffic (but not so much that it was completely stopped and thus easy to get across).

I was flying across to Adelaide late today for a meeting tomorrow. With lots of interesting weather today around southeast Australia in general and Adelaide in particular, I thought things might not go entirely as planned. My arrival time was, in fact, exactly what it was planned to be, but this was because I was able to switch onto the previous flight (running 75 minutes late) from my original flight (running 90 minutes late last time I looked). I fell on my feet in this respect because I got almost the closest parking spot in the long-term car park to the terminal and had it been otherwise probably wouldn't have got to the terminal in time to change (and a nice post-arrival dinner was had).

Monday morning Pilates, with a decent turnout this morning (not always assured at 7am on a Monday). Seemed to go fairly smoothly, although probably coming off a lower volume weekend than usual helped there. The top-of-foot issue mentioned on Friday is still there - it doesn't bother me running (except on steep downhills, #18 yesterday was a bit uncomfortable) but I was wondering how it would respond to doing different things, OK seems to be the answer.

Moved on to the pool, fairly sparsely populated on a drizzly day. Almost a carbon copy of last week, picking up in the second half (although a bit of discomfort in the foot towards the end).

Managed to get through the OA technical/events/mapping workshop without too many dramas (and I think we might even have a workable plan for Australia's next forest Oceania Championships).

Victorian Sprint Championships at Whitefriars - I was controller here last year so this is the first time I've competed here. A nice area with enough irregular angles to keep things interesting, although the complex building area is pretty small. Didn't miss much on this run, just a slight glitch not seeing the first entrance at #13 but that would have only cost me a few seconds. Went via the steep slope both up out of #11 and down into #18 - not sure whether or not this was the best option (I think it was going up, a bit more dicey going down in the damp conditions). Was gradually catching ground on Cian through most of the course and went through him when he overshot #18 (he got me again in the chute), but generally a bit down on speed.

Ended up 6th; Kym Barnett (over from SA for the weekend) won with high 16s, but Tim Hatley (M55) and Tash (W21) both got down into the 15s on the same course.

C • 14:45 4

The 'Mad Dash'. For most people this was a mass-start race in groups of 5-6 seeded according to your morning result (a bit like the knockout sprint experience). I was working on the start so didn't get to run in the main group (not necessarily a bad thing), instead going out at the end in a pairing with Jayne, who had been otherwise engaged looking after a small person (as opposed to looking after a small check unit) - not a bad pairing as we'd been five seconds apart in the morning, but that included a mistake from her so I suspected she'd probably be faster. She was, edging away from me at a rate of a second or two a leg, with neither of us really losing much time, just a slightly suboptimal line into #2.

My back was feeling a bit stiff standing in the start area, but came up better for a second run than it sometimes does.

Of the numerous sprint finishes, one noteworthy one was Matthew Layton edging out Tash for second in the Course 2 A heat. I suspect 38 years is at the larger end of the recorded age spreads in sprint finishes.

2 - Splits

Mad Dash 2 - Splits

Relatively close to home today with the number 45 coming out, which largely covers Kew and Hawthorn. I decided to take this as an opportunity to get to some areas on the southern edge of Kew that are harder to access from home (including passing a large number of posh schools), not as steep as Eltham last week but up and down for lots of it without many flat bits. The plan was to go a bit longer today given the short day tomorrow; was looking all right for the first half, but the humidity caught up with me and I was definitely struggling through the last 20-25 minutes. Pretty slow again.

An ambulance was pulled up near Kew Junction when I got back - I suspect a car-versus-bike because the car stopped with its hazard lights on didn't look greatly damaged from a distance, and someone in bike gear was talking to the cops. Hopefully nothing too drastic.

Back to an early Friday session before hitting the pool - first time I've done this sequence for a while. Pretty awful for the first 10-15 minutes but got a bit better after that and was sort-of-reasonable towards the end. Clearing lots of bits and pieces in the middle of Fitzroy so lots of ins and outs (perhaps contributing to the slow pace, although not that much).

I've got a sore spot on the top of my left foot - either a blister or an infection (I suspect the latter since it's an odd spot for a blister), which has been there for a couple of weeks in some form but blew up a bit. Not a problem running but a bit sore walking, seems to have settled somewhat during the day though.

From there it was into the water, felt as if I wasn't moving that well early on but got into it eventually. More pleasant going west (nice view of a flowering jacaranda next to one of the buildings) than east (looking into the sun). Felt quite summery when the sun was out (the humidity has taken another step up, as noticeable on the run).

Thursday morning long run. Almost didn't get started, but once I did headed down through Yarra Bend and into the southwest corner of Abbotsford. Never a particularly easy run - it hasn't been a particularly easy week - and slow throughout, but did managed to keep plugging away and probably at its best in the last 10-15 minutes, once again getting out to 80. Starting to get a bit more humid.

Didn't quite do all the colouring-in I'd planned on in that corner of Abbotsford because a railway underpass was closed for building work - not sure how long for. (There were quite a few construction sites around Studley/Yarra Bend Parks labelled 'completion late 2023' which are definitely not going to get finished in 2023, although I notice the powers that be have sensibly blanked out the completion month/season for the Gipps Street ramp, due sometime in 2024). I'll probably need two more goes to finish off this area.

Summer Series at Bulleen. This was once regular territory for me when starting from Heidelberg and looking for some hills. I don't look for hills so much these days and hadn't felt great through the afternoon, but managed to get myself round, never feeling especially comfortable but managing except on the steeper hills. One small glitch early when I was too busy planning a route to notice that I'd gone past a turnoff; route was reasonable, I think (others dropped 6 instead of 12, which I think was much of a muchness).

Last week I used the warm-up to pick out post-run eating options, today I saw a likely prospect next to one of the controls. (The food was good, although I could have done without a roundup of all Sky After Dark's greatest hits in the table conversation next door).

Had hoped to do intervals today; left hip was OK when running slower but still a bit of soreness there when trying to run fast. Once that was done with, an extended trip back worked out reasonably smoothly as lunchtime runs go (and there weren't even too many red lights).

Read today of a protest march by physios in Bern (something to do with funding apparently), which did make me wonder what a physios' demo would insert in the standard "What do we want?" (insert here) "When do we want it?" "Now!".

Felt a bit sleepy at various times today. Maybe it's a lot of online meetings (four different orienteering meetings in the evenings this week, although none at particularly absurd hours).

(Update - just looked at my calendar, there's another one at 11pm tonight I'd completely forgotten about :-( ).

C • What do we want? 3

Looks like a bit of overnight excitement in the vicinity of yesterday's control 22.

C • Oh wow. To add to that we s... 3

Monday morning Pilates - I was a bit slow to get there after spending a bit more of the night watching cricket than was optimal, but others (who I don't think were cricket fans) were slower. A bit of left hip discomfort again beforehand but didn't seem to be bothering me that much. Still building into the new set of exercises but seemed to be going relatively smoothly.

Onwards into the water. Took me some time to get going but a decent second half, not quite as slow as last week (or maybe the water in Fitzroy is faster :-)).

There was a certain amount of schadenfreude this morning on seeing various posts reminding me of the various commentators in the expected places who earlier in the year were saying that the reason our cricket team was losing was that Pat Cummins was woke (or words to that effect), with a particular note of Maurice Newman, with whom we've previously had dealings on climate issues.

I was on the way home in time to see various club delegations arriving for the AFL draft. Not quite sure why the Eagles needed to send 15 people across from Perth to call out Harley Reid's name.

Melbourne City Race at Docklands, sort of home ground. Never moving particularly well and found this pretty hard work. Most of the course seemed relatively straightforward technically (perhaps that's because I knew where the stairs are), although I took a poor route on #3 and probably dropped 30 seconds or so. Best splits were in the multi-level section at the end, probably because others lost time there. A shorter course than I was expecting (it had been advertised as 10km straight line; my GPS was doing some odd things in the buildings but I'm pretty sure my running distance would have been under 11, and measuring afterwards the straight line was 7.9).

Leading times were just under 40, about what I expected. Quads felt quite drained afterwards - I was planning to take a rest day tomorrow anyway (fits in better than Friday with the week's logistics) but it seems like it might be needed.

Took my first City Circle tram on the way back (to get back to the vicinity of Southern Cross station).

1 - Splits

For the first time, randomness took me to the outer northeast - map 22, which covers the east side of Eltham along with Research. (Newly acquired knowledge of the day: the latter's name comes not because it had been an experimental farm in a past life, which had been my assumption, but morphed from Research Gully which morphed from Re-Search Gully, so named because gold was found there at the second attempt).

I used the Woodridge street-O map as the basis for this (although not the controls marked thereon). This part of town can be ferociously steep if you're going against the grain - the powerline track was once an if-I-want-a-serious-challenge long run destination - and is reasonably hilly even if you're going with it, as I was for a fair bit of this (you can hide quite a bit in 10-metre contours even on supposedly contouring roads). Found it pretty hard work for the most part, although better on the long gradual climbing parts; a bit of left hip soreness was again evident on the warm-up but not during the run. Quite a bit of grass slashing in progress - it's that time of year (and bushfires are always going to be in people's minds in an area like this - I don't think there's been a big one since 1939, although they would have been in a lot of trouble had the wind change on Black Saturday been two hours later).

A lot of politicians have an eye on their legacy, and being instrumental in getting the bit of land (which I went past today) reserved that saved a critically endangered species is one of the better ones.

This was a very pleasant late spring day, and once back home, the numerous basketball hoops that have sprouted in my street were getting some good use.

Back to Fitzroy. Struggled to get back to sleep after waking up for the last bit of the cricket, and felt predictably tired on getting up - think I would have struggled with a run today, but felt more or less OK in the water (if not especially smooth). A little bit of left hip soreness at times today, although it seemed to have settled by the evening.

Another of my excursions up into the east side of Coburg on a day when I had an evening physio session (the last one for a while with this particular physio, who's heading off on maternity leave). Main target here was clearing a group of north/south streets, which was accomplished. The run was a bit slow but consistent, left hip a little sore at times but settled down. A couple of reasonably chunky but short-lived showers.

I was aiming for 75-80 minutes; thought at one stage I might have overcommitted but ended up right on 80, my longest midweek session for several years. Will look at consolidating around this for a bit but the plan is still to be trying to get out to 90 reasonably consistently midweek a few months from now.

The local council (in which I reached 200 streets cleared today) changed its name from Moreland to Merri-Bek last year, and I noticed that now the primary school has too. I don't read the Herald-Sun so I don't know if they got outraged about this (they've distinguished themselves this week by running with a completely baseless story about Dan Andrews allegedly being rejected for membership of the Portsea Golf Club).

Summer Series at Beverley Hills, an area on the south side of Doncaster that is very hilly if you go east-west (in my Heidelberg days I occasionally came this way if I wanted a challenge on a long run), less so if you go north-south. Took a while to settle on a route but think I got a reasonable one in the end (not that you'd know it from the Maprun distances, which have me at 500+ metres longer than Victoria Greenhan even though we ran virtually the same course). Usual challenges with an evening run and walked a few of the steeper hills, but hit quite a nice stride in the last 10 minutes or so.

My warm-up was a multi-tasking exercise, checking out potential post-run eating places in the Jacksons Court centre next door. After spotting a place called Ms. Jackson it's not surprising that this was my earworm for the run (it's probably my favourite song of the 2000s so this was pushing on an open door to some extent). It didn't end up being where I went - in this part of town you can't usually go too far wrong with Chinese.

Last clear run home from here until 2028 - the roadworks for the connection of the Eastern Freeway to North East Link start tonight.

C • Distance 10

A morning swim in a new venue - the rebuilt Northcote Aquatic and Recreation Centre, abbreviated as NARC (which may cause a certain amount of amusement to the local Latin American population), which opened to the public yesterday. It's had a lot of money spent on it and definitely looks the part; it's also been realigned so that the 50m outdoor pool runs north-south rather than NW-SE, which could be problematic on a sunny morning. (Today was not a sunny morning, although it didn't rain that much). I still expect Fitzroy will remain my regular venue, but it's good to have this back as an option.

They must have organised some slow water for the new centre, judging by my performance :-).

South Wharf intervals. Didn't see that coming - significantly faster than my last couple of attempts, starting at 64s and going down to 62s (still only about 4 min/km pace, let's not get too excited). Felt reasonable doing them although a little lactic at the end of each rep. Not much wind, which probably helped.

Warm-up and down. Found the warm-down harder going than recently, which I take as a positive sign that I'd been trying pretty hard in the core session itself.

Notionally the MFR Monday night but no-one else was there by 6.05 so I set out on my own (possibly not the worst thing given how I expected to feel). Went round the east side of Yarra Bend for the first time in a while, discovering in the process that the bats are now definitely on that side of the river (with numerous notices about protecting wildlife, and one advising that Parks Victoria "were aware of unauthorised music performances"). Encountered on-the-comeback-trail Bruce during this stretch.

Back wasn't great and this run was hard going at times, although no worse than other Monday evenings. Definitely a big improvement on yesterday though.

I guess the Las Vegas Strip is not the place you'd live if you wanted a quiet life, but I'm still somewhat surprised that whatever laws apply to noise there allow a Formula 1 Grand Prix to take place in the middle of the night (the race starts at 10pm local time, and one of the qualifying sessions is midnight-1am).

C • 6:05 8

Actually managed to get through a post-flight run for a certain value of "get through" and "run" - this was not the most pleasant of half-hours and had multiple stops, not surprising with my level of whole-body stiffness. Started to loosen up a little later on. I'm not sure what I achieved with this other than proving to myself that I could do it, although an indicator of progress in the last couple of years is that 2 years ago, a weekly distance starting with 4 was a big week; this week I managed it in a week which included two long-haul flights.

The venue for this one was Airport West, which I've used a couple of times for going for runs on the way to the airport but not previously for ones coming from it. It was on the way into the city, and also has the important post-long-flight feature at the shopping mall (whose car park I started in) of a toilet that's open at this hour on a Sunday.

Didn't sleep that well on this leg, just one of those things, I think. (Had I not wanted to get any sleep, I could have watched World Cup cricket and Premier League football all the way from Dubai to Melbourne). The automatic gates didn't like my passport which I think is probably a sign of old age (for the passport) but I'm not going to have a trip-free window long enough to do anything about this until after Oceania in February.

It was then more or less straight into a most-of-the-day OA Board meeting, which I only fell asleep in once (and I have been known to fall asleep in 2pm meeting slots previously without needing any assistance from jet lag). I won't attribute staying awake thereafter to the sounds from outside of "What do we want? Free Gaza! When do we want it? Now!" (the demo went past the building we were meeting in). If things go to plan I'll be doing a day of work coming off this flight twice in the next 2 1/2 months, so pleased to cope with it more or less OK today.

Stationary bike session in the Dubai Airport gym between flights. Felt surprisingly good considering it was 3.30am Geneva time (I'd got a couple of hours of sleep on the preceding leg). Stationary bikes haven't got any more interesting since I last did it, although at least the TV this time had BBC News rather than the shoot-em-up they had last time (had I waited a bit longer, if what was showing in the lounge was anything to go by, I could have had the Dubai half-marathon or the camel races), and there was someone on the treadmill next to me for the last 10 minutes.

Once again failed to sleep until my alarm, but since it's my last day I'm not concerned about that (and if I was concerned I wouldn't have been going to bed before 9.30). Thought it might have been a damp run when it was raining as I warmed up, but it stopped as the run began and that was it (though with a bit of surface water in places). Headed broadly south with a target of the bridge across the Arve at the old power station (getting a bit outside the suburban limits), then back across some of the posh suburbs. I'd started out thinking I might aim for 90 if things went well, but it was feeling rather flat through the first half-hour and I settled for the basic loop for the most part. Improved later on in terms of how I was flowing, but back a bit iffy at times. A run which was a bit broken up by road crossings and pedestrian and construction-dodging (the pedestrians particularly involved schools, which seem to start at 8 here).

On the way back tonight - it's definitely been one of my shorter long-haul trips.

Mostly around the inner city on both sides of the lake, on a morning which wasn't as wet as I thought it might have been (emphasising how much of an aberration yesterday was in the context of this autumn, it had almost as much sunshine (8.5 hours) as the previous 16 days put together (9.3 hours)). Struggled to get myself going in the first half but a bit better in the second half. Pretty slow again - some of that was GPS issues in the inner city but even on the waterfront I wasn't going much under 6s.

One thing that's the same as back home is that running in the CBD involves a lot of dodging construction sites. One thing that isn't the same as back home was reading that, with a mountain railway shut down for works, one of the communities on it (presumably one without any other access to the outside world) has a rail replacement helicopter. Don't think a helicopter would have been much help with this morning's shutdown of the main Geneva-Lausanne line, though...

A day most notable for a Significant Running Milestone - bringing up 150,000 kilometres since I started training regularly in 1985. Like the 100,000 (done in Adelaide in 2007) this one was done while away with work (and I didn't have any fellow attendees to share it with this time, the one potential prospect being currently injured).

It was an unexpectedly clear morning for it, which also meant it was unexpectedly cold - probably ranging between about +4 and -1 depending on how built-up it was and local topography - nice weather to run in although there were a couple of moments where I was thinking I might have been better to bring my gloves with me. I planned things so that the milestone moment (7.5km in) would come at a spot with a good view over the lake and the mountains beyond (although sunglare affected the views, which were better the other way onto the snowcapped Jura). Got to the area quicker than I expected, so there was a bit of circle work in back streets to fill in the distance.

The run itself was not great, but definitely a considerable step up on yesterday. Seemed to be climbing a lot - it's one of those runs where you gain height gradually and then lose it all at the end. A bit tight again after the major downhill.

Hopefully the "liquidation grande: materiel militaire" I saw advertised refers only to clothing and the like, and not to things that go bang.

I'll need to last a long time to get to 200,000 (at my current distance it would take into my mid-70s), but let's see how we go.

On recent trips it's taken me a couple of days to find my feet and this was no exception - started out with plans of trying to get to an hour but it was quickly apparent that that wasn't happening (back was fine, just no energy and very slow). Managed to battle through a session such as it was; if past experience is anything to go by tomorrow will be better.

The Arve river was flowing very strongly, not surprising given how wet it's been (256mm in Geneva in the last three weeks), but the ground isn't as saturated as I thought it might have been with those numbers.

The meeting starts tomorrow so I decided to do some exploring of the south side of the lake as far as Evian (going to another country for lunch just because I can) before getting a ferry across to Lausanne and then the train back from there. Nice countryside, although Evian itself is a lot quieter on a damp Tuesday in November than it would be in the summer (and a lot of places are closed for holidays at this time of year, although not as universally as in the Alps). Following the scores on Cricinfo was also increasingly interesting as the day went on.

Flight went reasonably smoothly as these things go (and had an extra seat next to me on the first leg, which always helps). I was tight all over after it though, which meant that a brief attempt to run was abortive. Instead I headed for the water, returning to the Varembe pool (which has been closed for the last two years while they fix the roof). Went OK for the most part, but sharp cramps in both calves during the last 10 minutes were a reminder that things aren't entirely in balance.

Views entering Geneva were as spectacular as usual (and there was also the Sri Lanka-Bangladesh match to occupy me during the last few hours of the trip).

AWOC club championships on the map on the west side of Kangaroo Crossing - this is much more open than Kangaroo Crossing, but also steep and rocky (and the rockiness isn't as well mapped as it is on the other side of the road). Didn't have much energy through this (perhaps I was a bit ambitious yesterday), starting with not running terribly much of the big climb on the first 2 1/2 legs. Started to settle a bit but then had a bad patch, losing time on 9, 10 and 12 (although mapping issues contributed to the first two of these). A bit better to finish off. Tash did 50.

I then swapped my summer gear (and orienteering gear) for winter gear and headed for the airport - once again for Geneva (only a week this time). It will be a rather more sodden Geneva than I'm used to seeing it, with over 250mm rain in the last 2 1/2 weeks.

In northeast Victoria for the weekend (the pretext being the AWOC club championships tomorrow). Today started with my parkrun debut at Yackandandah (yes, I've managed to avoid them until now) - Jenny, who's travelling with me, was keen so I thought I might as well give it a go. Planned to do it at training pace but got dragged along by the field a bit; faster in the second half (as evidenced by a negative split despite it being net uphill). Felt ordinary early on but a faster time than I would have expected at this level of intensity. (One of these days I'll need to race one of these properly; based on what I was doing at the WMOC sprint I suspect 23-24 is probably a realistic target if/when I do so).

This run told me something I already knew, which is that Jenny runs down hills faster than me but I run up hills faster (I caught her with about 1km to go). I didn't quite manage to catch the man running in Essendon pyjamas (not the most oddball bit of club merchandise I've heard of - I once got an e-mail inviting me to purchase a Dyson Heppell garden gnome).

C • 1

Next stop was a training course Rowdy Flat. Rowdy Flat is one of the most technically difficult areas in Australia. It certainly isn't made any easier by the fact that many of the MTB tracks have faded or disappeared altogether (there's also some more green in the western half). It also wasn't made any easier by running on Leigh Privett's original map - things are in the right place, but it's a very different style and hard to simplify. It took me three controls to have much of a clue about what I was doing; from there it wasn't too bad navigationally, but this is very slow terrain to get through and running remotely fast was a rarity. A fun experience, but in its current form this is probably a bit too extreme to be doing competitive races on (I don't think it's been used, except maybe for AWOC club events, for about 10 years?).

Had a nice lunch at Stanley and some local exploring, including Stanley's mountain, and my first visit to Mount Pilot since the snowed-off event of 2000. The area grew back thickly after a 2003 fire and as far as I know hasn't been used since; looking at it now, it's not unrunnable, but parts of still pretty thick and with so many other options around I don't think anyone is going to be in a rush to bring it back.

C • Rowdy Flat map 1

Morning session at Fitzroy. Slightly disconcerted to see on the door of the pool a sign "Caution: Swooping Bird" (it's getting a bit late in the year for these, I thought) but the bird in question was absent this morning.

It's the first time I've ridden in a week: my hand is still not quite 100%, but is no longer significantly painful riding over bumps, so that's a definite plus.

Longish run from home, with Jenny for the first 25 minutes down the Darebin Creek path, then southwards into Kew, with a long climb to the central ridge then some ups and downs before coming back. Felt pretty good once warmed up and was particularly happy with the way I handled the main climb, although again struggle a bit after the big downhill (not as far to go afterwards this time though). A bit slower than I would have expected but generally happy with this.

Turned out that $20 million for the house at control #16 last night was a considerable underestimate.

C • Wrought Iron Gate 1

Street-O at Burnley. I think I've run on this map once before but not for a long time; it was once very familiar territory because the masseur I went to for several years was based there (I got to know Lisa Weightman because for most of that time she had the timeslot before me). It also used to be where Channel 9 was headquartered, a premises I last visited in the early 2010s to do what was supposed to be an interview with Al-Jazeera (I say 'supposed' because I got gazumped, as became apparent when I heard the words come through the headphones 'and now we have our first pictures from the scene of the blast in Beirut').

This is quite a small map but is split in half by the river (the Hawthorn side plays host to some very posh real estate - I'm not sure exactly how much the house that #16 was outside is worth but suspect you wouldn't see much if any change out of $20 million). This can make for some route choice challenges - I felt as if I had a few too many ins and outs but couldn't see many better options (although it looks like Ricky did). Running fairly similar to last Wednesday. #19 wasn't on the described feature which was annoying, although I probably only dropped 30 seconds or so.