Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Knockout sprint qualifier. No miracles this time - my heat was free of mispunches and I was down the bottom. Fairly tight first section in a primary school and I dropped probably 25-30 seconds on #3, going out of a covered area one exit too early and getting confused. Settled somewhat from there, but back starting to give trouble and probably would have been better to go left on the long leg, also took an unnecessarily wide line on #19 aiming for a gap which didn't exist. Generally too scrappy a run although a clean one wouldn't have changed the final result. Fun spectating day though.

I didn't see them, but the event info warned about covered areas in the primary school part with low clearance. This seems a slightly strange piece of construction since you do see the odd adult-sized Year 6 (I had one in my year who was pushing 190cm, and unsurprisingly went on to be a professional basketballer).

The scratch races for those eliminated earlier were the scene for this, but I was struggling from the beginning and couldn't stay on even this bunch's modest pace. Didn't miss much on a map which was a bit clearer than this morning's (had some advance warning from the semis of the artificial barriers, which weren't too confusing).

Some impressive runs this afternoon, not least with Cooper Horley's win against senior opposition. Brodie also got into the medals despite allegedly being injured and doing as much as he had to to get through the morning; I was tempted to make reference to Gordon Greenidge (a 1980s West Indies opening batsman who was always at his most dangerous when he started limping, one notable example being here), but no-one other than possibly Bruce would have understood it.

Event: NOL 3 Qld Sprint Weekend
 

NOL sprint at Griffith University. Didn't get into the map for a couple of controls, by which time I'd dropped 30 seconds or so through not really making sense of the multi-level at #2. Settled technically after that, despite taking a fall in one of the bush bits at #5, but not running quite as well as I'd hoped from the warm-up, and my route choice around the road on #6 was probably over-conservative (on the other hand, going right on #13 worked well). Well off the pace as expected but I think in terms of relative position I would have wanted something around 22; a bit disappointed to finish behind Eoin and Mark Freeman too (although I wasn't last). Pat won with something just under 13.

I've said before that there are three certainties in life, death, taxes and last-minute construction on a sprint map, and today delivered on the third in spades (though not the first, and not the second unless you count the GST on my coffee). Anna had the dubious pleasure of applying some fresh texta to maps, although at least she only had to do 200-odd this time and not 700-odd like at the 2016 Australian Sprint (where she was setting and I was controlling).

Sprint relay at John Paul College in Chatswood (a less posh suburb than its Sydney namesake) in the south-east of Brisbane. Quite a complicated campus but more readable at 1:3000 (I must be getting old). Running in a composite three-quarters of a team with Alison Stubbs and Nicholas Mousley; I thought we'd do well to complete three legs in less than the winners took to do four and so it proved, as a few of the final-leg women went through me at various stages. Pretty clean run and don't think I had any significant route choice misadventures, but back was struggling a bit in the second half and generally I wasn't running as well as this morning (although I've certainly had worse afternoon runs on two-race days). Was in a bit of a scrap in mid-course with Lazarus de Oliveira (he was a bit less slow, I was a bit smoother), and was a bit puzzled when he came in from the spectator control at about 2/3 distance, but it turned out he hadn't seen the map flip. Fastest leg times in the mid-11s.

We're probably not the fastest people to have run around here: Genevieve Gregson featured on a poster on the way in about distinguished former students (as it happens I'd just been reading a piece about the challenges the Olympic selectors will have in trying to pick a team of three from the six closely-matched and qualified marathoners).

Morning swim at Northcote, having reshuffled my plans on seeing that Melbourne Airport's long-term parking was booked out (and hence that I would get the bus from the office). Not the most energetic of sessions but I've had worse. Pretty quiet at the pool this morning, and quieter still on the commute (and in the office) - I guess Cup Monday gives us plenty of practice at this.

Lunchtime run from the office, heading northeast with a general target of circling the Queen Victoria Market with a couple of side excursions to clear a couple of laneways (this pocket of Melbourne has quite a lot of small laneways, although too many are dead-ends to make for a good sprint area). The quietness of the rest of the CBD definitely wasn't matched around the market, but I managed to avoid knocking over any other pedestrians. and by halfway settled into probably the best I've felt on a lunchtime run this year (not the highest of bars to clear, but still a good confidence boost heading into the weekend).

The two laneways I completed are mapped as CL1573 and PT5131. This is not a newly-developed part of town so I'm a bit surprised they haven't been given another name (maybe these were among the places referred to in the council ad I saw a few months back trying to trace relatives of people they wanted to name things after, which I noted because I found it hard to believe that they had to put an ad in the paper to track down relatives of Joan Kirner). Quite a few well-known identities have been laid to rest at the nearby Catholic Church but most of them aren't the sort of people that are likely to be honoured in the names of public infrastructure.

Off to Brisbane tonight. You can tell the weather in eastern Australia is pretty benign at the moment because every flight on the board is currently showing as being on time.

A Thursday long(ish) run but not as we normally know it, taking advantage of the holiday to do it somewhat later in the day than would usually be the case. Didn't feel great before the start and it was a bit of a slog, but didn't fall apart either and finished off OK in the last couple of kilometres.

With this I finished off my first suburb for a year, Abbotsford (which leaves only a few bits of Kew remaining to complete a 4km circle). Also have quite a few local council milestones coming up with Darebin on 595 streets and Yarra and Boroondara both on 396.

It was then onwards to the MCG, with a finish that was a bit frustrating but satisfying at the same time. I was there for the draw 29 years ago too, but one thing I definitely wasn't doing in 1995 was decamping after the final siren to a bench outside the MCG to join an international videoconference (interrupted briefly when I got hit by a stray football).

This morning, my Wednesday mission to do some new colouring in on areas adjacent to existing colouring in took me to an area northeast of Preston Market (this also gave me an excuse to check out the market, a once regular haunt which I haven't been to for a while). This is a block of suburbia, some gentle climbs but nothing too dramatic.

Not the best of runs; the first 10 minutes felt like last week, but it didn't improve after that in the way that last week did. Not catastrophic though (and I'll appreciate being able to start a longer one tomorrow later than I usually would).

I was walking back after a post-run coffee at the market behind a couple of cops, one of whom had their radio on speaker which revealed that their colleagues were on their way to an address in Reservoir to greet this bloke with a "you're nicked, sunshine" (or words to that effect). Either their intelligence was faulty or I wasn't the only person overhearing police radios because he was still at large as of this afternoon.

Back was pretty ordinary this morning. It wasn't much better at lunchtime, definitely not up to intervals, but did manage to get through something which is better than nothing, and perhaps even improved a bit in the later stages. Quite a warm lunchtime (perhaps Melbourne's last of the autumn?), which is good practice for the weekend.

Standard Monday morning Pilates. Felt OK doing the exercises without getting a sense that my body would have welcomed a serious running session this morning (though it would have been nice being out on the first proper clear, cold morning of the season).

Onwards to the pool at Fitzroy, swapping things around a bit this week to fit in better with my plans for Friday. Felt more or less OK during this, and nice in the water (as always, the colder the air, the warmer the water feels).

One of the things which got mentioned from a certain well publicsed court case last week was the judge's reference to 'the ordinary person on the Belconnen omnibus' (a nod to a well-known figure of speech in English law, except there it's Clapham). This caught my attention as someone who spent a certain amount of my youth on the Belconnen omnibus (or waiting for one).