Training Log: blairtrewin

Event: NOL 3 Qld Sprint Weekend
 

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).

A much earlier start than usual for a Sunday (necessitated by the start time of Jenny's workshop). We headed down Darebin Creek initially then along the river to the pipe bridge. My back wasn't great (and I don't think hers was either) and it was fairly slow going, but kept plugging away and had enough for a final 15-minute loop on my own at the end. A bit shorter than what I might have originally had in mind, but it's the first time in a long time (not exactly sure how long but I suspect it's close to or beyond a decade) that I've run beyond an hour three days in a row, so that's something to be pleased with.

A bit of soreness at the front of my right ankle beforehand (and more so last night), but this was a non-issue on the run and doesn't seem to have come up much afterwards.

Finishing a Sunday session at 8am does leave you with a lot of the rest of the day, but I didn't feel as if I did that much with it (apart from acquiring a replacement for the mobile USB modem that's going to bite the dust with the 3G network in a couple of months).