Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Australian Relays, in an M45 team with Fredrik and Dion. Going into the event, I thought we were in a good position - there were other teams which had two good people but we had the most depth. Tasmania was potentially the strongest opposition - I wasn't confident of defending anything less than 6-7 minutes against Jon if it came to that.

Fredrik and Dion did the work to put us in a good position. Fredrik had a 6-minute break on Anthony Stoner, who can be very fast on his day, and as long as Dion had a decent run I was going to take over with a good lead (it turned out to be 8 minutes over NSW and 18 over Tasmania, although of course I didn't know that for sure), so I just needed to avoid doing anything stupid.

This mission was duly accomplished. I became a little bit scrappy in the technical erosion stuff in the second half (but I think most did); avoided anything bigger than 20-30 seconds. The running was also somewhat better than yesterday (i.e. I could actually run most of the hills). While our lead in our own class was comfortable, there was potential for some battles with other classes on the same course. I couldn't run down Warren (in the winning M55 lead), but went out with a small lead over Tara (W20). She caught me at the first control after the spectator but then lost time on the next one; I saw her again 50 metres or so back going into the second-last and thought I might have had a fight on my hands, but she must have lost a little time there.

Jon did have a flyer on the last leg and did 31, but Tasmania were too far back to challenge for anything higher than second.

Event: AOC2018
 

Australian Middle Distance Championships, M45A, 7th. An interesting area but a disappointing run - really struggled with the running side of it, especially in the sandier parts of the ground (and there were quite a number of sandy climbs). Hit all of the controls well, on a course which wasn't quite as technically challenging as I thought it might have been (we didn't spend much time in the heaviest erosion), but at the speed I was going I should have been hitting the controls well. Carsten did 23, which was about where I expected the winning time to be.

A short run and a fairly ordinary one before hitting the road northwest. Went past the Arthur residence just as they were heading off, which gave me the opportunity to point out that the Victorian schools team trip was already more successful than one past one (the one where the team bus slipped its handbrake the night before the trip and wrote itself off in Peta Whitford's driveway).

This was a reasonably relaxed road trip, partly because I wasn't doing much of the driving. Went a slightly extended route (Kerang-Swan Hill-Robinvale), mainly because my parents hadn't been there for many years, and saw a lot of unhealthy-looking crops (at least until we got into the irrigation areas).

Finding places open for stops on the holiday was somewhat challenging, and lunch at Swan Hill was slow, but it did give me the chance to check out the local paper (whose existence I knew of because I've talked to them on numerous occasions). Like a lot of papers large and small, the local Magistrates Court provides them with a fair bit of their copy, but there's not quite as much raw material to work with in the crime department as there is in the big city, so it started with the front two pages about the fallout from an altercation outside a Swan Hill nightclub (which presumably means that Swan Hill has a nightclub), and finished up with the toilet roll holder from the public conveniences in the main street suspected of being stolen by a person or persons unknown sometime between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning. Not, I suspect, for the first or last time, the letters page was devoted to grievances over water management in general and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority in particular.

Feeling a bit more lively than the last couple of days (probably because I slept more), but still not really where I'd like to be two days out from a national championship. Still, an unpromising build-up doesn't always mean an unpromising performance.

Today was the first dry cool change of the spring (where a solid northerly switches to a squally southwesterly, typically in the afternoon, with no rain and often no cloud). Living in the northeast suburbs offers the advantage that on such days you get tailwinds on the bike in both directions. My south-dwelling bike-riding colleagues were not amused (but then they should have known what Melbourne's winds did before deciding to live there in the first place :-).

Hitting the road in the morning.

Had hoped for something a bit longer today, but felt rather run down and didn't want to push it too hard at this stage. Hints of Achilles soreness but better than yesterday. Checked out the latest status of the Chandler bridge before heading back via Darebin Creek (the reverse of what I've done previously on that path since it opened).

I took a fairly close interest in events at the ABC today, and a particularly close interest in what it showed about the capacity of ministers to get public employees whose work they disagreed with sacked.

Woke up with a sore Achilles - the sort of thing I'd try to push through if it wasn't a pre-championship week. Felt rather tired and flat this morning too - limited sleep for a few days seems to have caught up with me a bit. Took me a long time to get to sleep last night which didn't help - started thinking about issues to do with the JWOC long distance just before going to bed. (It was perhaps appropriate that I was doing this coming off the Brownlow Medal presentation; both are sporting occasions which must look strange to outsiders but are much appreciated by those who are actually involved).

C • Brownlow 2

Continues to get a little easier each time, although I was still half-asleep after getting to bed at midnight (after a trip back which was considerably smoother than the trip there). Most eventful bit of the session was discovering during one of the exercises that I'd brought a couple of WA souvenirs back with me - a post-session consultation with Dr. Google revealed that WA ticks generally don't seem to carry any of the nasties that European or North American ones can.

Bit of a false start as my goggles came off on the first lap; got going again once I worked out that the strap had just come undone and not broken (and dog-paddled into water shallow enough to stand up in so I could check it out). Once properly under way, was a fairly standard session - not as energetic as I was in the later stages of last week, and consequently a little slower.

Another close one today in the long, with John just getting the better of me this time; a 1-minute mistake at the third-last (frustrating because it was after getting out of the rock) ended up being the difference. Struggled with the running for a lot of today, to the point that I felt like I was about to cramp a couple of times later on, but held it together, more or less, on a course which was a lot less physical than yesterday (apart from the first leg). The map's showing its age a little in the vegetation - most of the rocky slopes are a bit greener than they're mapped - but is otherwise good. Naturally vegetation changes entirely explain why I was doing under 6 min/km 25 years ago and 9s now...

So ends a decent pair of competitions; will hopefully set me up for next week. As with the last couple of national carnivals, probably the best I can hope for is to pick up a minor placing somewhere along the line; I suspect this weekend won't be the last time I have a close battle with John this year. Feeling a bit stiff afterwards (and probably more so after the flight) so I think I'll appreciate a session in the water tomorrow.

Must be a long weekend - I haven't sighted a single hi-vis shirt in Perth Airport yet. (Nor have I spotted any disgruntled Melbourne supporters).

C • TBT Splits 2

WA Middle Championships at Jumbuck Hill, an area relatively close to the city which had less than rave reviews from the locals. It's steep; a lot of it is open or semi-open, but there's a lot of small rocks and even on the downhill bits there wasn't much opportunity to stretch out. Definitely felt like I was managing rather than racing - although I did manage to run most of the big climb to 1 - and struggling a bit with my quads towards the end (hopefully they'll come up OK tomorrow). Managed to avoid navigational disaster, though, on an area with a lot of scrappy rock; dropped about 45 seconds apiece at 6 and 10. That was enough to give me the points in the day's closest result, by 9 seconds over Tooms (who was a little faster but lost a bit more time).

The temperature overshot the forecast 24 considerably, and everyone was feeling the heat (myself included). The nearest site reached a maximum of 28.7 at 2.06pm, more or less the precise moment of my biggest climb of the course....

C • Tomorrow 2

C • Thanks... 1

Course 2 - Splits

In a bit of a rush this morning after my alarm didn't work properly (it's a clock radio which seems to be having more trouble than it once did in holding a frequency - woke up to faint static). A bit stiff and suspect I wouldn't have appreciated a run, but not too bad in the water after the first few minutes.

Perth's the next stop on the agenda - I'm trying to meet with all of the states during the course of this year (although it looks like Tasmania is going to end up having to be done by phone), and WA Championships weekend was a good opportunity. (It's also the first time for ages that WA hasn't clashed with something else). Having booked months ago, I think I can reasonably assume that a lot of other people on the plane will (a) be wearing red and blue and (b) will have paid at least three times as much for their flight as I did for mine.

And I saw it posted last night (possibly not entirely accurately) that pies have been withdrawn from sale by Coles and Woolworths after some were suspected of containing a foreign substance, possibly believed to be meat.

C • Pies 7

Not the easiest of trips. Ended up being 2 hours late (the last 20 minutes of it on the ground in Perth because the aerobridge broke down), then the luggage took ages because they were trying to put four flights onto the same carousel with the others empty, then had a taxi driver who was well deserving of a one-star rating had he been with a certain other company - he spent almost the entire trip in a foul-mouthed rant against the airport traffic controllers (mostly) and/or other drivers. At one point he said "some people shouldn't have a licence" (one of the few sentences which failed to contain an obscenity); given that he'd just driven into a 60 zone at 100 and had been bragging about how he sometimes overtook slow traffic on the freeway through the emergency lane, I was inclined to agree (but had to resist the temptation to say so).

A decent morning's work and the longest I've done since May. (Once upon a time, I used to do 90 minutes on Wednesday mornings before street-O in the evening - and covered about 4km more in those 90 minutes, too). A bit of a sore left hip but never got beyond nuisance level. Some good patches, particularly once on the other side of the river out around Hays Paddock and through the Kew hills (first time for a while I've been on that side of the freeway); various body parts fatiguing a bit in the later stages but still felt good enough to do an extra loop to bring it up to 90. Would certainly have taken this when I got up this morning.

Second attempt at doing intervals since I got back and the second failure - hamstring (left side this time) was sore as soon as I pushed off on it. Knew I was tempting fate by posting yesterday about how things were going well. Don't think it's too serious so hopefully it will settle down by tomorrow.

Jumped out of the blocks a bit faster than I sometimes do these days. Didn't quite live up to that early promise, but still a nice one across the Darebin bridge and across the river; seem to be in a reasonable patch at the moment. Somewhat unusually for me these days, was slower in the second half than the first, but that probably had something to do with the first half having tailwinds and the second half not.

I was having a casual look around the Swedish election results and noticed that the Gula Party ("yellow party") got one vote in all of Sweden, presumably its candidate's own. This sets something of a benchmark for spectacular electoral failure - the lowest I can remember in Australia (apart from lower-ranked candidates on Senate group tickets) is seven. Three other Swedish parties failed to make double figures. Sadly, Google has failed to enlighten me about what policies (if any) the Gula Party proposed to enact if elected.

C • Gula Partiet 14

What's starting to become a regular Monday morning session. Seem to be making some progress (and seem to be getting better at not getting slack on some of the exercises which you can let yourself get lazy on).

This was followed by a very smooth ride into work, only for the bubble to be burst when I arrived (in the form of a failure of the building security system which means we couldn't get into the bike parking area). At least I didn't have my work clothes in there too - there were quite a few people in bike gear around the office today.

C • Bike gear 3

Northcote in the evening. Feeling as if I was pushing it a bit harder than I have on the last couple of swims, and the clock agrees with that, in a session which had a sense of an evening's work solidly done. Feeling reasonably energetic in general - hopefully it lasts (at least until the morning).

Victorian Long Championships, 2nd M45, 6 minutes behind Fredrik and 2 minutes ahead of Dion (the round-number gaps indicating that we finished together). Not in the top bracket physically - struggled with the hills - but a steady run with almost no navigational issues, perhaps just a slightly suboptimal route on 8, the first long leg on a course with some technical mining early and late and longer legs in the middle. Saw Dion when I was coming into 9 (concluding, correctly, that we were about level at that stage), and Fredrik coming out. He caught the remainder of the gap to me at 10 and ran away from me after that, but then lost time at 12 (by which time Dion was also in sight), and we diced for the remaining short legs to the finish. We're the relay team in two weeks' time, so good to see everyone's in reasonable form.

One of the more challenging car park entries I've encountered - I suspect I wasn't the only person to leave a bit of paint on the post. Just as well I wasn't driving a hire car this week.

Headed out into Yarra Bend after the first front went through. A somewhat interrupted run, partly through encountering Keith halfway through, then through finding a dropped/discarded purse on the ground on the way back through Northcote and deviating to deliver it to the address (a couple of streets away) on the licence therein - not sure whether it was lost or stolen, although the absence of cash makes me suspect the latter. Felt a bit sluggish through most of the run, but no injury issues.

Was planning to do a pool run but got there and discovered I'd left my belt at home, so went for a swim instead. Not the greatest of swims and drifted out of it a bit later on, possibly because my mind was full of writing ideas (my first batch of draft material for IPCC was due tomorrow).

With Melbourne up against Hawthorn at the MCG, there weren't too many Range Rovers to be seen on the streets of the city tonight. (While we're on the subject of stereotypes, I suspect a lot of journalists would have liked the job of the Age reporter who was sent to Hotham to look for Melbourne supporters).

From which song do these lyrics come?

"When gallant Cook from Albion sailed,
To trace wide oceans o'er,
True British courage bore him on,
Til he landed on our shore.
Then here he raised Old England's flag,
The standard of the brave;
"With all her faults we love her still"
"Britannia rules the wave."

C • AAF 5

Starting to get closer to something resembling a proper Thursday long run. A bit stiff in the back in the first 5-10 minutes, but settled pretty well after that. Headed out mostly along Merri Creek, and it was long enough that I was able to get to my favourite section of said creek, the bushy bit on the west side north of Normanby Road. Achilles a little touchy at times in the last 20 minutes, but improved on yesterday (and definitely on last week). Was ready for some needlework on my calves in the evening.

The traffic through the inner north was vile. This is not such a bad thing when running (it's easier to cross stopped traffic than heavy moving traffic), not quite so good on the bike afterwards.

A handwritten sign at one point along the creek said that a tiger snake had been seen in the area. This might have been cause for diversion at 2pm but at 7.30am I thought it would be fine.

First time down to the river since I got back - out through Wilson Reserve into the east end of Ivanhoe. Always nice to be down there even if it meant picking my way across the Heidelberg Road early-morning traffic jam (possibly soon to disappear, at least temporarily). Working fairly hard on the hills and a bit of Achilles soreness later (although not on the scale of last week), but in general reasonably satisfactory as a session.

Got a reminder in the last couple of minutes of the run that I'm definitely back in Australia, in the form of a driver launching into an F-bomb laden tirade against a cyclist. I didn't see what the cyclist had done to upset him (and it's usually a him, although the worst abuse I've been on the end of myself was from a woman), especially as it was a quiet back street.

C • Cyclist 1

On the improve on all counts and decided to give a short run a go. The usual sluggishness early but settled into it quite nicely in the last 10 minutes or so. No injury issues. Doing this quite early before my first stint of state election campaigning (spruiking solar panel subsidies at Alphington station).

Florence may be getting all the publicity (and it certainly deserves some), but there's also a typhoon currently forecast to make a more or less direct hit on Hong Kong and Guangzhou on the weekend at category 4/5 intensity - I'm starting to get a bit nervous about whether the forest in the World Cup middle area will still be standing this time next week. (That said, the uncertainty in both track and intensity forecasts is such that I suspect the chance that Guangzhou will actually get a hit at that intensity is only 10-20%).

Feeling somewhat better today but thought it best to stick to a single session - the regular pilates engagement. Seem to be getting back into this and not getting lazy on a few of the exercises as sometimes happens.

It's going to be a pretty full-on week workwise (the first significant IPCC deadline is at the end of the week), so definitely don't want to burn myself out - on the other hand, runs later in the week might be good for collecting thoughts.

Woke up with something of a cold this morning, which was gratifying in one sense as it gave me a reason for why I ran so badly yesterday. Still thought I'd go out and see how it felt, not expecting it to be an especially physical course - sometimes I start feeling better running at the stage where I start sounding worse. As it turned out, I never really got the chance to see how that side of things held up because my hamstring flared up again coming into 2; at a level where I might or might not have been able to push through it (certainly would have tried harder to do so had the event counted for something), but not worth it here.

Bruce brought up his 300th NOL race today, and made a much better job of his 300th than I did of mine, getting his best result of 2nd (albeit in probably the weakest field to contest a men's NOL race since the first couple of years). He'll probably overtake me (306) sometime next year. Don't think anyone else is likely to get to 300 any time soon; Jim's in the 280s but not running many NOLs these days (although he got round today), then amongst active people you're down to Simon and Anna in the low 200s.

Event: OY10 - Wilmot's Waterholes, Applethorpe - Qld Middle Champs - NOL 11
 

I did get my top-10 place, but not especially convincingly; this was a disappointing run, feeling without any real energy (perhaps a bit better later on), and being 4 minutes down on Jim and Geoff was a good indicator of where this run was at. Didn't miss a lot but the biggest mistake was an annoying one, missing 30 seconds on the one at the start of the spectator leg (15) by misreading where the edge of the yellow was on the ground. Ended up beating two home, so 8th in the end.

Felt like the sort of run where I'm about to get sick - was certainly glad that it wasn't a more physical course - but I guess we'll find out if that materialises tomorrow morning.

Even by its usual standards, the quantity of roadkill on the Warwick-Stanthorpe road was truly impressive.

Headed up to Brisbane first thing in the morning (starting to get used to 5am starts), so today's options involved doing something after work before going to Warwick. Wouldn't normally leave work quite this early but it was forced on me by the fact that the car rental place closed at 5 and Brisbane pools on Fridays close at 6 - in any case, by 4.30 I was in "my brain hurts" mode after making some headway on the (virtual) pile of 231 papers on my reading list.

My chosen pool was the Centenary, on the north edge of the central city. Seemed to be working reasonably hard without moving all that smoothly through the water. Still not a bad session, and got out of there 5 minutes before closing time...

Did think it was a little unusual that there was an RBT set up on the highway 30km from Warwick last night, but having read this and this I'm suspecting that they were really looking for something other than drunk drivers.

Felt like a bit of a plod but got through the distance OK, at least in an endurance sense. Hamstring and back fine but left Achilles a bit troublesome in the last 20 minutes, which deterred me from trying to do any more. Got to see the rebuilt footbridge across into Bellfield (after a false start last week); the suburb itself is no great shakes to run through but it sets you up for the nice gentle downhill path back to the creek.

Media question of the day: "Does the Bureau of Meteorology believe there is evidence that praying for rain can lead to rainfall?". I suggested that we should respond that, as we have no records of prayers for rain and the places and dates they were applicable to, we were unable to assess that question, but I think we just declined to respond. (In fact, there is one case we could study - every year, Fred Nile prays for rain for the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, and it should be possible to see how the frequency of rain on Mardi Gras night compares with the long-term average for late February/early March in Sydney - but I couldn't find a handy list of Mardi Gras dates).

C • Question 7

C • Dates 13

Hamstring was OK for lower-speed running, but not quite ready for intervals - certainly didn't want to do anything to jeopardise this weekend. Stopped after the first couple.

Warm-up and down (not that there was a lot to warm down from). It was a day that was book-ended by dog owners who don't think the law applies to them in the morning, and drivers who don't think the law applies to them in the evening (at least the latter didn't involve any crashes, unlike Bruce yesterday).

Had a go this morning but not quite ready. Hopefully tomorrow. Would have been a nice morning for something longer - possibly the last cold morning of winter? (it was the coldest September morning since 2003).

One milestone for the Australian Championships this year - the largest class is no longer a men's masters class. This year it's M16 (45), with W17-20E the largest women's class. I take this as a positive.

C • The balance of contibutions? 6

At Fitzroy after an early-morning airport drop-off, a little shorter than usual to get to my next engagement in time. Hamstring a little sore this morning - not sure what it would have been like to run on but didn't put it to the test. A chilly morning again, certainly more so than we'll be seeing this time next week.

You learn something new every day: looking up Tina Turner on Wikipedia (to answer a question from my parents about how old she is - 78 being the answer) and seeing her described as an "American-born Swiss singer". She's now a Swiss citizen (and has a house on one of Geneva's more expensive streets, as previously noted here), and renounced her US citizenship in 2013, probably for tax reasons. I wonder if Switzerland will sign her up for Eurovision?

Pilates session. Starting to get back more into things today, which means doing things properly (or a closer approximation thereof than last week), which means some of the exercises were harder than last week. I take this to be a good thing.

Saw a couple of good online threads over the weekend. One was of news headlines which would make unfortunate titles for Enid Blyton books (a sample: "Five Arrested After 'Significant Quantity Of Cocaine' Seized In Cornwall"). Another was of how to determine your West Indian fast bowler name - add the name of the last seaside town you visited (this one probably works better in England) to the name of the U.S. President when you were born. I get Granville Nixon (from Granville Island in Vancouver), which sounds like it would fit reasonably well.

Victorian State Series at Boundary Creek. Hamstring a bit sore in the car on the way up there so I wasn't too surprised that the run was a bit of a struggle, especially given the steepness. Didn't really have any running fluency on the first six - didn't really have a feel for running in this type of the terrain at the start - but settled a bit more on the long leg to 7 (I went the track option, although straight was similar). Probably a bit better in the last third, with Ian Davies around for a fair bit of it. A little disappointed not to crack single figures on the kilometre rates (just) - part of me thinks the area is a bit slower than it once was (no-one went under 8s on any course), but I'm sure most of it is me slowing down. Simon Rouse did 60.

Early session (for a Saturday) showing Jenny, who's over here for a weekend workshop, the new Darebin footbridge and associated paths. She gets out of the blocks faster than I do these days so the early pace was a little faster than I normally do these days, but settled after the first couple of kilometres. Reasonably ho-hum as a run but starting to string a few sessions together, always a good thing on one's return.

A weekend day at home felt a little bit unusual. Won't happen next weekend.