Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Ballarat series event at Nerrina, giving Jim and Max a chance to get into a bit more Australian terrain while they're here (and giving me an outing as well). Navigation was clean but my running definitely wasn't on the level of yesterday, not running many of the hills. Also found it surprisingly hard to get the feel of the terrain - kept catching my feet on stuff (and had the standard post-Europe reminder that in Australia, when you fall over it hurts). At least I slept right through last night so hopefully my body clock is back on track (more or less).

1 - Splits

Still don't have my body clock back to normal, but it didn't matter this morning. Once I worked through some early tightness in the first 10 minutes I settled into an excellent rhythm in what turned out to be one of my best runs in the last four years. On a day when I was in the zone, it also helped that the route and the location meant I didn't have to stop once, either for traffic or to settle down my body (can't remember the last time I went for this long without having to do either of those). Think I have to go back to early 2018 for the last time a non-speedwork run was at a faster pace than this.

This all happened in a somewhat unlikely venue; today's number was 40, which took me to Sunshine West - the first time I have set foot in the suburb. Pulled up a 2011 Western Series map so that I could see where I was going, and noticed that that event started at the Ralph Street Reserve (when's Aston going to get his park?), so naturally that was going to be my start location too. The suburb itself is fairly humdrum post-war suburbia (and includes the Sunshine Heights school, which is just as ridiculous as Chelsea Heights - the street-O map correctly has no contours) but the middle 3k were on a nice path along Kororoit Creek. Noticed looking at the 1991 Melway afterwards that the powerline strip which runs north-south through the suburb was the originally planned route for the Ring Road (which is actually further west). It's a side of town where the real estate agents are called Nguyen and Tran, and among the shops was Macca's Halal Meats (selling beef, chicken and camel burgers).

Not too much sunshine in evidence, but the rain mostly stopped while I was running.

Woke up a lot earlier than I planned on again - at least today it started with a 4 rather than a 3 - and suspected (correctly as it turned out) that I wouldn't feel especially awake around lunchtime, so instead changed my plans to run in the morning before a pool session instead, going south of the pool and covering most of that block. Very slow to start but settled down nicely from about 2k onwards, and unusually didn't need my standard stretch-out-the-back stop at around 8-10 minutes.

Part 2 didn't go as I would have hoped - various parts of my lower body (not just the feet) were threatening to cramp for most of this, and it was unsurprisingly a slow session. A bit of right shoulder soreness at times too. Not sure whether this was simply swimming after running (a combination I haven't done for a while) or whether I had other issues, but I did do some eating of salty things through the rest of the day.

A longer session, getting out reasonably early after having been awake since 3.30 (not by choice) - suspected (correctly) that I would fade badly in the second half of the day. The run was decent on another chilly morning - a bit of early back tightness in the first 10 minutes and again from 45 minutes onwards (but neither as bad as yesterday), but solid in between in sometimes quite hilly terrain. Relatively slow. A bit longer than the standard hour, but that's something I'd like to stretch out to 70-75 over the coming weeks.

Cleared a few more bits of Kew East - only a small pocket now to go, which I should finish off without much difficulty the next time I'm out here.

Major thing that's changed in the hood in my absence is that one of the local cafes has closed down, not a great surprise (it went vegan about 18 months ago, which was an interesting experiment but not a successful one - I think their trade would have been lucky to have been a quarter of what it was previously).

C • I think a vegan cafe would ... 8

First run back on home soil on Melbourne's coldest morning for four years (and probably my coldest run since my last cold-season trip to Geneva). Had plenty of energy to start with but thought the back might throw a spanner in the works in the first 10 minutes; it settled down and the run became quite reasonable, although a short climb late set it off again for the last few minutes.

Slept at a reasonable time last night but still felt less than productive in the afternoon.

Today's landmark was reaching 100 streets in Moreland, while it's still Moreland (which it won't be for much longer). Seemed less traffic around than usual, probably reflecting more people working from home (the office was certainly thinly populated today) as Australia seems to have talked itself into a Covid panic while I've been gone - something which definitely looks bizarre from a European (especially northern European) vantage point.

C • Spoken like someone who's never actually experienced COVID? 5

Back home, getting in around 6pm. These days I'm not up to doing a run straight off the plane, but I remembered that Ivanhoe pool doesn't close until 9.15 and thought a session in the water would do me good. Turned out to be a bit busier than I'd planned on - the deep end at Ivanhoe is short and the area I "normally" use ("normally" in as much as I haven't set foot in the place in two years) was otherwise occupied by the Ivanhoe Sea Scouts doing lifesaving training, so had to mix it with the lap swimmers in the normal lane instead. Managed to avoid crashing into anyone (or causing anyone else to crash into each other). A fairly lacklustre session energy-wise, as you would expect.

Second leg of the flight was pretty good - got a decent amount of sleep. The route was unusually far south (will have to check tomorrow whether the upper-level winds were doing anything unusual), only just clipping the southwest corner of WA.

My final mission in Europe was to head out (very) early for a run. I wasn't sure where I was going to be able to find to do this - it wasn't completely obvious from the map that there was a way off the airport without going on a freeway, and I was wondering ahead of time whether I'd end up just having to do laps of the car park. While the area isn't exactly pedestrian-friendly, I did manage to find a way which only required running on a road (not of the freeway sort) for 100 metres or so, taking my cue from people - probably airport workers who don't want to pay whatever it costs to park - walking in the opposite direction. Ended up getting to the edge of Fiumicino town before it was time to turn around.

It was actually quite a decent run in the circumstances - certainly helped that it was about 10 degrees cooler than yesterday's (although still probably 20 degrees warmer than my next run) and there wasn't the strong sun of yesterday. Also the first time for a while I've started a morning run at a time which starts with a 5, although that's (hopefully) making a start towards adjusting my body clock.

First leg down with no issues; I'm currently between flights in Doha. The connecting flight is currently showing as 30 minutes late and my experience is that if they admit to a delay three hours out it's probably going to be longer than advertised. At least I don't have any connections hanging on it.

(And some of my work from the last couple of years has just hit the streets).