Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Had hopes of doing something long today but woke up with a tight back and was far from certain that I'd be able to do anything. It wasn't as bad as that when I actually started running, but still difficult enough that I thought I'd better not commit myself to 90 minutes plus (and going somewhere a fair way from home if it went pear-shaped). Ended up coming back from the south side of the river up the Darebin trail, just about manageable without giving me a sense that I'd given things away too easily (and this is meant to be a recovery week, isn't it). The gloominess of the morning and the uncooperativeness of the body did have a feel of late winter/early spring 2020 about it, but at least I wasn't planning my run timings around potential Dan Andrews media conferences (a lot of the big announcements used to be on Sundays).

The national fixture list today did have more than its share of cancelled events, most of them due to the heavy rain in the eastern states. Remembering what the track into Ballinafad Creek (aka Wild Cattle Creek) was like - and I assume it hasn't improved - I certainly couldn't argue with the decision to call that one off a couple of days ahead of time. In 1988 a thunderstorm unloaded on us mid-event (on a day where another storm ended up dumping 300mm in a few hours on a site in the Gippsland Lakes) and getting out was adventurous to say the least, especially as someone who'd only been driving for a few months. (A small Fiat may have been a suboptimal vehicle for the purpose, too).

Decided to follow this up in the water, partly for a bit of extra training and partly because I thought it might loosen my back up a bit. I think it worked for that, a little.

Thought that with a gloomy and occasionally showery morning it might be a bit less busy at Northcote than the last few times I've been there, but I'd forgotten about the indoor pool and swimming lessons (though this affected the availability of parking more than the availability of space outdoors).

During this session I spotted someone walking on the pool deck wearing a T-shirt from the Australian Mountain Research Facility. I hadn't previously heard of this and thought I should learn more about it; seems to be directed largely at ecosystems but they have some monitoring sites which might be of interest to us (especially for snow depth, where we rely on Snowy Hydro measurements which aren't as regular as they once were).

With a lack of Sunday bush events this month (in what's probably the best month of the year for orienteering in this part of the world), the Bendigo event was the best available option this weekend. This was at Dead Bullock Gully, an area I haven't run on before on the other side of the road from Browns Reef and pretty similar terrain (flat and very fast gully-spur in the western half, a bit rougher with some mining in the east). A lot of the controls were fairly straightforward and visible from a long way - this area has a lot of tracks - but still good to be out, and more or less completely clean (in a navigational sense). Hamstring still a bit iffy so walked a few more hills than I would have liked, but not the worst of days (even if I was just behind Ted). Haven't seen full results yet but Bruce did 42.

This area was the opportunity to reacquaint myself with the pleasures of Bendigo's many spider webs.

I went to the Melbourne derby tonight (the first A-League game I've been to for a while). The number of different ways in which those leaving Jolimont station for AAMI Park spread out suggested that this might be a decent route choice leg for a Melbourne City Race sometime (probably depends a bit if your control is Gate 1 or Gate 7).

C • April Fixture 3

Hamstring better than yesterday but still not 100% so settled for something in the minimum viable session range - hard going at times but at least I got through it. Was rather taken aback when my first kilometre split started with a 7 but I think there were some GPS issues there (unless you think I was doing 9s downhill on a bike path). Pulled up OK, although a bit tight again in the afternoon.

Thanks to Bridget's ABC interview I now know that today was National Read A Road Map today, having already found out via a sign on the front of Fairyfields that next Tuesday is International Unicorn Day (nice of whoever came up with this to schedule it during Victorian school holidays).

C • Which type 3

Back was no good this morning (and hamstring also iffy) so headed for the water, earlier than I might have done because I had set my alarm assuming I'd be doing a longish run this morning (and needed to be at work for a 9am meeting) - this meant i finished this off before sunrise, noting in the process that this year is about as late as it's possible for sunrise to get (daylight saving ending on the 7th, plus a leap year). Felt OK once I was in the water, if not overly smooth.

Had another go at running in the late afternoon - felt a bit better than in the morning but not enough to make it worthwhile to go out for a token effort. Had a scheduled session with the physio later so hopefully that will help.

Morning session in Horsham, from the motel on the south side of town to the river, down to a footbridge and back through the area on the northern side. (The footbridge wasn't quite where the map said it was; the name Anzac Centenary Footbridge is a hint that the map was older than the bridge was, although something about my sense of order was offended by the fact that it was officially opened in 2017 and not 2015). A pretty flat run in both the literal and metaphorical sense - picked up a bit later but didn't go under 6s on any kilometre. A little left hamstring discomfort in the first half.

Spent the day working from the Horsham library (discovering at lunch that Horsham is the sort of place where the person taking your orders calls the men "love" and the women "darl"), then did the rest of the drive after that. Saw various bits of evidence of fires of the last couple of months (although the Big Koala lives to see another day), and made a rare visit to Bacchus Marsh to get dinner because it was going to be a bit late by the time I got to Melbourne, encountering in the process a very chatty staff member (in a positive sense, she seemed genuinely interested in what I'd been up to), possibly because I was the only dine-in customer. Pretty tired when I got in the door, as expected.

Stayed on in Adelaide to do some archives-trawling before hitting the road. Before going into work there was a recovery session at a sparsely-populated Unley pool (summer seems to have gone out with a bit of a bang, even though the serious rain stayed east). Definitely felt like a recovery session where there was a bit to recover from (a little hamstring soreness this morning too), but not too bad as things go.

Hit the road this afternoon/evening as far as Horsham, spotting a few new things en route (like the rock dome near the west end of the Swanport bridge; how have I not seen this before?). Not sure there's going to be a rush on the advertised "rare new release" of land in Tintinara. Stopped in Bordertown for dinner and, having had a pub lunch, didn't feel especially like another pub serve of (insert main item here) and lots of chips so had a bit of a look for alternative options, and discovered a very basic-looking place advertising Malaysian food so thought I'd give it a try. Turned out to be a place where English was barely spoken (and I was definitely the only white person there), but the food was decent and remarkably cheap. I assumed the presence of such an establishment indicated the existence of a meatworks or similar and lots of migrant workers employed at same, and some googling confirmed this. (You get this a bit in some country towns; in Nhill it's a substantial community of Karen refugees from Myanmar working at the local duck processing factory).

C • Nhill 1

Day 3 of Easter at Narrinyeri. Definitely not one for the highlights reel, although for the first two-thirds it wasn't too bad - running decently, but scrappy in the circles (probably 30 seconds at #3 and #5, 15 at #4), having trouble pinpointing controls. It was on the final part that the wheels really came off, initially with about 90 seconds lost at #10 when I was looking too far along, then a parallel error of sorts at #11, reading the wrong boulder on the main spur which then dropped me onto the wrong part of the slope. Couldn't really make sense of much there and ended up dropping down until I could see the MTB track before coming back, but probably lost 4-5 minutes there. Perhaps the lowlight was still to come though - punched the wrong last control, reached the finish, realised and had to go back for the right one - another 90 seconds or so gone there. Brain was definitely not functioning at this stage.

After all that I ended up holding my overall position of 8th, although only because Grant missed #10 altogether when way in front (Anthony overtook me today). Craig and Andy did 43s, I probably should have been near or below 50.

It was certainly frustrating to have an Easter with so many mistakes - I couldn't have got a place, but 4th was potentially there with three clean runs. Particularly annoyed with myself that I didn't adjust properly to the demands of the lower visibility today. The positive is that my running seems a bit less uncompetitive this year (or maybe it's that I've stabilised and the rest are slowing down, with a few notable exceptions), so there's potential there if I can put it together in a race. Will be another six months before there's another chance at national level, though.