Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Morning swim at Fitzroy. Started out reasonably promisingly but rather faded away. Left arm even weaker than it usually is. Quads felt quite stiff again this morning, although the swim helped.

We've come to know and love the quirks of Eurovision voting, and we got another one last night - after 65 years, Israel are still not prepared to let bygones be bygones and give any votes to Germany. This had gone unnoticed for many years because in most recent years no-one else was voting for Germany either, because their entries were rubbish. The only other obviously mutually hostile pairing at Eurovision are Armenia and Azerbaijan - even Serbia and Croatia happily vote for each other these days.

Around the Tan from Clare's new premises in some trendy East Melbourne apartments (complete with excellent view). The run didn't live up to the surrounds - I was never really with it tonight, and certainly not enough with it to go with Simon when he decided to stretch out. Also an Achilles twinge at one point of the first time in a couple of weeks, but that settled quickly.

Some good photos of orienteers in the latest R4YL, although worra's name was spelt incorrectly and Miss Jones probably won't be too pleased to see herself referred to as a "former elite orienteer" (while in the process of doing the same time, to the second, for a half-marathon as I did for my last one).

Metro event at Plenty Gorge. Might not have gone to this had my club not been organising Stiffer than usual after a long run - obviously I still have some work to do getting used to proper long runs again - and it's probably fairly marginal as to whether this should be classified as a race effort.

Got off to a very unpromising start when the first control was in the wrong place. I lost 3 minutes here (Bruce also lost a fair bit of time). Took a while to get my motivation going again after that, but started to settle down in the middle third; never super-fast though. The course was a good deal kinder than it can be here, with no river crossings and most legs having options to stay high out of the steep areas (options generally worth taking).

Bruce's 10k PB obviously took less out of him, as he did 45.

I thought I might have had more running today, in the form of collecting the more far-flung controls, but I got back from my first lot of control collecting (a stroll around the easy course) to discover that Tim Dent was already off doing it.

My longest normal training run (discounting Wilsons Prom, a bit of a special case) since this weekend last year, and probably close to my best run this year too. Headed out somewhat later than normal after watching a video of last night's football (something to send me out on a high), something which has the plus of being more awake and the minus of dicing with late Saturday morning traffic, lighter but less predictable than a weekday peak hour. (Going across the entrance of a Bunnings at 11.30 on a Saturday morning was probably a suboptimal route choice).

The first third was mostly fairly flat, along the south side of the Yarra initially and then through Westerfolds. Hit a nice rhythm on this section and carried it through onto the hillier section through Eltham and Montmorency (although the route was certainly not as brutal as routes in this part of the world can be), reasonably strong up the hills and flowing well down them. Twinged a groin muscle going down a steep hill into Greensborough at about 1.40 (nothing too serious - seems fine after cooling down), and the going was heavier from there. The last half-hour was hard work, which is understandable given my lack of this type of session in the last few months.

Certainly pleased to get this under my belt; it only needs the reintroduction of my second session on a midweek day (usually Wednesday), which I'll probably do the week after next, to consider my training back to normal. Sets the weekend up nicely with a football win on Friday night and a long run under my belt on Saturday morning :-).

I'm also impressed by the efficiency of the railway construction workers; I knew the line (and road underneath it) was closed for bridgeworks this weekend but hadn't quite registered that this involved removing the old bridge and building a new one in the space of 48 hours (at least it should be 48 hours; there will be a lot of disgruntled commuters on Monday morning if it isn't). The old one was there when I started my run and had gone by the time I got back. The road detour goes up our street, which is predictably busy; the people who are auctioning a house today probably aren't too pleased that their quietish street has been turned into a main road for the day.

C • Helps to think of Wilsons Prom as more of a 4-hour rogaine! 1

A fairly standard session at Fitzroy. Nice when in the water.

Today was the day when I organised the annual Ivanhoe ALP quiz night (among the features this year was the paper plane contest where people were invited to fly a Barnaby Joyce press release into a rubbish bin). I'm always on the lookout for current events to inspire questions, and there was a good one during the week arising from an industrial dispute on the site of the new Melbourne wholesale fruit and vegetable markets in Epping - it was alleged that members of the CFMEU had cut a fence and spread lettuce leaves on the ground to try to entice kangaroos onto the site. (I was also impressed by the effort's of the Age's online headline writer, "A few CFMEUs loose in the top paddock").

A pretty solid morning's effort, although with a bit of left hamstring soreness at times - didn't really restrict me and largely disappeared by the end. South and south-east initially through North Balwyn to Box Hill North; must have been confused by the dark (which it is for the first hour of these now) because I missed a turn on a route I've probably done at least 50 times before. Returned through Doncaster, via one of the less hilly routes.

A long run can give time for contemplation and this one gave time for contemplation of some of the exchanges between our organisation's leaders and sundry Coalition senators in Senate Estimates yesterday. These certainly did not dispel me of the impression that in the event of a change of government later this year, I may find myself looking for another career or another country. (That said, a lot would depend on who the minister was - Greg Hunt, the current shadow, would be reasonable, others would not be - and the previous government did put money into research as a substitute for actually doing something about the substantive problem, a cue which is also being followed by the current incumbents).

C • Long run 4

The Tan, an essentially unsupported run after the first 500 (one of my colleagues came along but had dropped off by then). Promising start but dropped away a bit after the first kilometre, and lost any faint chance of a good time after losing a few seconds to roadworks in the middle (the 2k marker was also a casualty of this). A slower last km than I thought I was doing, which shows what a slight drop-off in mental intensity will do. Still, feeling vaguely optimistic for a sub-14 in a proper race, which I'll get in a couple of weeks.

No 2k marker and hence no 2nd or 3rd km splits. First k was 3.40, last was 3.47.

To/from the Tan. A mild sunny lunchtime and, as would be expected, lots of people out.

From a Hawthorn base down south into Toorak and back past Kooyong and on the bridge hanging under the freeway (with the addition of a couple of out-and-backs down a side street to occupy the five minutes for which the Kooyong level crossing was blocked - it's one of the places where tram lines cross railway lines and the trains only do 10 km/h, and there were two trains in close succession - a hazard of Heyington street events if you get the timing wrong). A run that threatened to catch alight in the first few minutes, then turned into a steady but unspectacular effort.

One part of the work day was devoted to a briefing on the new initiative for compiling national environmental information. This was another piece of evidence for Canberra being a small town - the Department of Environment person handling the briefing was my next-door neighbour in Canberra and a year below me at primary school. (The ABS - relevant section head, Ecmo - is apparently a bit dark that they're not involved at this point of the project).

One area where we don't have a lot of information from our existing sources is terrestrial and landscape data. This, I think, calls for some fact-finding missions. Forested areas should be a high priority because of the importance of remnant vegetation, with a particular emphasis on former mining areas because of potential environmental damage, and areas with lots of rocks because of their abnormal runoff properties from impermeable surfaces. Naturally some company would be needed on these expeditions - occupational health and safety and that sort of thing. Some collaboration with the ABS would be in order, if only in the name of fence-mending, and I think there could also be a place for the Victorian DPI, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and the NSW EPA; we could also do with a forester and a soil scientist because I don't know anything about tree health and soil, a geological surveyor and someone to look for weeds would also come in handy, and it might be worth taking a couple of Melbourne Uni meteorology students along for the experience. Sound like a plan?

C • Data Balkanisation 16

Swim at Fitzroy. Not much I can say about this - there's only so many ways you can describe chasing the black stripe. Warmer than the last couple of mornings, which for swimming is a good thing - the distance from the changerooms to the pool is a long way at 3 degrees (although on such days it's lovely once you're actually in the water).

On the way into work I passed the massive demonstration against clearway extensions which had set up outside the Supreme Court. I went past quickly but the crowd seemed clearly into double figures - it might have even been as much as 15. This won't have stopped them from getting a couple of minutes of publicity on tonight's news. I didn't check to see if any of their vehicles were illegally parked.

Ran at lunchtime because of an evening meeting. This was one with a bit of a difference when it came to the destination. AJ won the OA athlete of the year award again this year. Last year we arranged to do a presentation at the trials for MTBO WOC. There was no suitable event to do a presentation at this year, so instead I organised to do a handover at the most convenient location - outside his workday premises at Fishermens Bend in the middle of a run. Fortunately the award isn't that heavy.

The run was actually pretty good, which could have been related to either or both of (a) coming off a relatively easy weekend and (b) the first run in new shoes. Light rain throughout, but not enough to seriously dampen said new shoes.

State Series at the Balt Camp. This isn't the most technically exciting area in the world but is a pleasant forest to run in, and is not overly physical (mostly fairly flat, although there is a bit of bracken and fallen timber). A good steady run on another nice day, although lacking a little bit of pace. Only one 10-second miss, almost overrunning 11 - the most difficult control on the course, a ditch on a vague spur. (Bryan and David Brownridge both lost significant time here). Just managed to get in under the 6 min/km mark. Bryan did 49 (and it should have been 46-47), Morten (whose home ground it is) 51, Jim 53 and David 55.

It's amazing how much more quickly things come up at 6 min/km at 1:10000 than they do at 12 min/km at 1:15000; this took a bit of getting used to. Today's map had the same number of visible point features as last Sunday's, but this time that was because none existed.

C • Canberra forecast 2

Southern Cross Relay after the State Series event. Went out on the last leg five minutes behind anyone else, and was consequently lacking in motivation. One small miss but only a few seconds.

The trip home suggested that a piece of political action I may have missed was the passage of the Utes (Speed Limit Exemption) Act 2010.

Mornings don't come a lot nicer than this for running. There had been some overnight frost - enough that I got to do some crunching of the frost in the grass and fallen leaves at one point - but the sun was starting to get some penetration from the clear sky. It was the sort of day when it would be difficult to have a bad one, and this one was pretty reasonable, especially as I took on quite a challenging course, doing the hilly North Balwyn-Bulleen traverse for the first time in a long time. A bit of soreness but quite happy with my strength. May was my favourite month in Canberra, and this was Melbourne imitating it.

There was another positive afterwards as some long-standing ill-feeling seems to have been resolved with the owner of the next-door unit (his nephew, with whom I get along OK, is the actual resident) - this dates back to an episode about eight years ago when he had some issues with the body corporate and was waiting for me outside after an AGM with a view to resolving his issues forcefully. We hadn't spoken directly since but I'd heard via another neighbour a few months back that he'd mellowed in his old age and wanted to let bygones be bygones, and today was the first time we'd met since.

Pool running at Fitzroy. Seemed a little cold early on but nice once it got going. Not getting anywhere near enough sleep this week - something I might be able to do a bit about this weekend (which means probably passing up the Champions League final).

It hasn't been a good week to be Michael Johnson. There were two of them in the news yesterday and both of them were in trouble: the politician (the soon-to-be-former local member of quite a few Queensland readers) for dodgy business dealings, the footballer for possession of a white powdery substance.

A good honest Thursday morning effort and the longest midweek run I've done since last winter. Started from near work and headed out through Essendon (past my grandmother's place) as far as Avondale Heights before returning along the Maribyrnong, more or less. The main geographical feature of the run was the crossing of Steele Creek between Essendon and Avondale Heights, which seemed a much bigger hill when I was a kid than it does now - I think I just wasn't used to roads that went across steep valleys in straight lines. (It's probably 300 metres at 12%, or thereabouts). The run, on the whole, was pretty solid. Some left hip soreness in the middle but that had more or less gone by the end. Tired somewhat in the last half-hour.

Often from this starting point I would have headed out through Royal Park instead, but this morning might not have been a great time to be running around that vicinity as there was a breakout from the juvenile detention centre overnight. Turned out it wouldn't have been an issue as the escapees were (allegedly) otherwise engaged holding up a supermarket in Dandenong. They're at least a bit less incompetent than the would-be muggers in Sydney who failed to notice that the scene of their attempted mugging was right outside the Sydney ninja warrior academy. (I'm always partial to a good incompetent-criminal story, although I'm sure Constable Frogga's got some better ones that didn't make the press).

(And, as it turned out, avoiding the scene of a past crime took me straight past the venue of a future one - this afternoon's police shooting).

C • Incompetent criminal stories 2

A morning run around the base of Eaglemont and Ivanhoe. Didn't quite live up to its early promise but certainly none of the extreme sluggishness that's been present the last two days - must be (sort of) recovering from the weekend's exertions. Starting to get quite chilly in the mornings now, although no frost yet, even on the Yarra flats.

Spent the middle of the day at a Sports Commission briefing on the new government sports policy (conveniently, of all the places in Australia they could have held it, it was within 10 minutes' walk of my office). The outcome that I've gleaned from what was said is that we should maintain our existing levels of funding, but it is unlikely we will make the cut of those sports slated for a slice of the new money announced in the Budget.

C • too cold? 2

An attempt at a track intervals session (400s) at Clifton Hill. It was an attempt because I had some unwelcome company, in the form of someone exercising their dogs. Dogs are not allowed on the track at all and are not allowed anywhere in the reserve except on a leash, but my companion was not interested in doing anything about controlling his extremely active animals, who seemed to think it was fun to get in the way of anyone on the track. As being taken out sideways at speed by a large dog offers considerable potential for discovering why Melbourne is supposed to be the best place in the world to get a knee reconstruction, this didn't exactly make for a smooth session. As it happened, I was feeling as unenergetic this morning as I was last night and didn't need too much of an excuse to pull the pin after three repetitions. Times are meaningless as I had to take evasive action around the dogs on all three reps. Spent the ride home mentally composing my complaint e-mail to the council, although I doubt they'll do anything apart from possibly put up a more prominent sign; there's not much chance of finding a local laws officer at 7.15 in the morning.

C • candid camera 6

10 minutes warmup to the track, then down the river to take the total up past 40 minutes after abandoning the intervals session. Not in the best of moods for the second part.

Expected to feel very ordinary this morning, for the obvious reasons (as well as staying up too late last night to watch Our Mark in Monaco). Actually felt fairly reasonable with no obvious signs of stiffness, and had one of my better swim sessions for a while. A bit of a scare when I had a twinge in my hip about halfway through, but that disappeared after a couple of laps.

Sights of a Monday morning in the big city: coming out of Fitzroy pool (which involves crossing Alexandra Parade, one of Melbourne's busier roads), a woman of reasonably advanced years and equally advanced size was crossing in the other direction, wearing a swimsuit and clutching a lit cigarette.

Monday night MFR run from Zoe's high-rise apartment in a small group. I didn't have any real muscle soreness and neither did Kez, our other returnee from yesterday's battlefield. It became apparent early in the run, down into the Fitzroy Gardens, that I didn't have any energy either, but managed to muddle through this run, more or less. Not really looking forward to an intervals session tomorrow morning.

NOL Long at Belanglo. I was expecting this to be a long race from the start and was mentally preparing for something in the order of two hours. As soon as we hit the eucalypt it was time to reassess expectations; the eucalypt part of Belanglo has greened up a lot since I was last here in 1996, and two hours was going to be conservative. With my lack of a base this meant I also made my pace conservative, perhaps a bit too conservative as I was caught early by Michael Adams.

My line into 3 was poor, unable to find a good way down the cliffs, but otherwise I was solid technically for the first 13. It certainly didn't take long to realise that the map had serious printing problems, with dot point features (principally boulders and high points) barely visible (they printed at about the size of a single rocky ground dot), and cliff line gaps, important here, also hard to see. (The green was also fairly meaningless - almost the whole eucalypt area was light green, and the mapped green wasn't discernably worse than anything else). Shep went through me (six minutes) at 13, a little later than I expected (turned out he'd lost time early). I had my first time loss at 14, 30 seconds or so, and then a more significant one at 17, one of the aforementioned invisible knolls, with about 2.5 minutes gone. Jules (who also lost time here) went through me and I didn't expect to see him again, so I was quite surprised when he went through me again 30 minutes later at 23 (he'd lost major time at 18 and 21).

We hit the spectator control, with what I thought was about 30 minutes to go. I was together with Steve Todkill at that point and holding up OK physically, and edged away from him over the next few controls before losing it again with a 90-second mistake at 29 (my fault this time, although the map print again didn't help). The last few controls were fearsome with two gorge crossings; I couldn't run much up the steep hills, but otherwise held it together to the finish.

I can't say I was really racing here, but at least I got through a very long and physical race which will count for a bit later on. As a WOC trial it was disappointing; I don't have a problem with a long WOC trial (in fact I think it should be set to a winning time of 105 or thereabouts, since that's what WOC races have actually been won in in recent years more often than not), but I do have a problem with it being held on such a badly printed map.

C • No results and no News 15

NOL sprint at Macquarie Uni. A reasonably solid effort but not enough to make the points. Took a bit of time to get properly into it and was caught by Kez by 7 (both of us taking a slightly suboptimal route choice). Held on better than I thought I might have (with some help from small mistakes on his part), but didn't have an extra gear for the finish. All in all a reasonably par sprint result at this point in my training.

There was a schools cross-country race happening at the same time, although this was nowhere near as incompatible a combination as the 1988 double-booking of the Canberra showgrounds involving the ACT junior road 10km championships and a street machines meeting (the cloud of burning rubber passed through on each lap must have had performance-enhancing properties because I ran a PB). On the evidence we saw, a fair proportion of the field were there not because they were good runners but because they were lousy rugby players.

One of the people attending that caused some confusion when they asked where the GPS cross-country was, creating visions of some technology-assisted sport (perhaps a local variation on ARDF?), but in fact the GPS (=Greater Public Schools, in the English sense of "public") were the group of schools involved. Acronymal confusion is not totally foreign to me - at various times I've had dealings with four different ASCs (Associated Southern Colleges (the Canberra equivalent of GPS), the Australian Securities Commission (now ASIC), the Australian Sports Commission and the Australian Science Communicators). My favourite is that one of the terms Americans use to describe what we would call a superannuation account is an Investment Retirement Account, which I believe landed an American company operating in Britain in hot water when an item appeared in their accounts for 'IRA contributions'.

C • It's actually an Individual Retirement Account. 1

NOL Middle at Wattle Ridge. Some signs of potential in this run but brought undone by two erratic sections, one between 9 and 12 and the second over the last three controls.

Felt good in the warm-up (especially for a second race of the day) and started steadily with no real time loss in the first eight. Small misses (15 seconds or so apiece, although the splits suggest I lost a bit more time than that on 9 - perhaps a poor line through the cliffs) at each of 9, 10 and 11 spoilt that, but the worst was yet to come - I went up one spur too early on 12 and ended up relocating on 13. Lost about 2.5 minutes there. Settled back in for a while after that, catching Evan at 14 (a control I was very unsure about but hit OK), but then lost it over the last three, overshooting 20 by 30 seconds or so, drifting very wide on 21 (but ultimately not losing much time), and very unsure on 22, the (bingoish) last, making use of the streamers. 20th was ultimately a disappointing result - a decent run would have been around 49 which would have put me on the edges of the top ten (at 8 I was in ninth).

Hill Top was the former home of a certain notorious figure more commonly associated with tomorrow's venue, not that this is widely advertised (you couldn't really expect them to put a sign at the entrance to town, 'Welcome to Hill Top, former home of serial killer Ivan Milat'). It is unknown whether the pits in the vicinity of the last control are to do with either his activities or police investigations into his activities.

C • a certain notorious figure 2

Pool running session, at Ivanhoe this week because of logistics associated with going to the airport this afternoon. Not too bad a session although the small area of the deep end at Ivanhoe makes it a less good venue than Fitzroy for this type of session. Felt like I was working reasonably hard.

The Tan. Had hoped to go close to (or under 14) but didn't manage it; my endurance has come a long way in a few weeks but the speed hasn't followed it, yet. (The hard week coming in wouldn't have helped, but there are greater goals months down the track which that is serving). Felt reasonably smooth, but lacking a top gear, and better on the hill than in most earlier rounds. In a few good scraps at various stages, notably with one of my colleagues who was 20-30 metres in front of me for the first half; I passed him with 1k to go but didn't have a lot of confidence that I would be able to defend the lead in the home straight, and so it proved.

Km splits 3.42, 3.51, 3.42, 3.41.

To/from the Tan, with more traffic lights than usual.

The Herald-Sun posters today would have confused an overseas visitor (or anyone else who doesn't know about football): 'Cat Tells - My Drug Shame'.

I was worried I might have aggravated my Achilles in bizarre fashion this afternoon when I managed to roll a table on wheels into it while setting up a room for a talk, but after a few painful minutes it seems to be OK.

With the reshuffled week this was a bit of a nothing run through Viewbank. Achilles a bit tight for first 20 minutes but OK by the end, encouraging after the hard work of the last few days. Lacking strength up the hills. A little bit of nuisance-level rain most of the way.

This week is being reshuffled a bit, mostly because of the weekend, so it was a rare instance of a long run on a Tuesday (which did mean three in five days). It was the coldest day of the year so far, and having woken up to the sound of rain, I checked the radar to see if there was a break in prospect. There wasn't (not that it would have affected my plans if there had been), so I gritted my teeth and prepared myself for a couple of cold and wet hours.

The first half was reasonably routine, although slow even by the standards of my recent long runs (a dark wet morning probably carries some of the blame for that), heading into town as far as the Studley Park bridge. Had a bit of an intimate encounter with some mud coming out of Studley Park just as it was starting to get light; this was a bit of a shock to the system but obviously woke me up, as the run got significantly better from then onwards. Felt quite strong through the second half, and particularly through the last half-hour, once I realised that this run was a bit longer than planned and therefore there was some work to do if I wanted to get home in time to make the 8.17 train. (The incentive here is that the 8.17 usually has seats, the 8.26, which is coming from further away, almost never does except in school holidays). I didn't think I'd run the last part fast enough, but managed to set a new end-of-run-to-station PB of 13 minutes (and that included having to wash quite a bit of mud off various body parts). More normally I count on 16.

In general the last few days have given me quite a bit of confidence about my ability to last 110 minutes (which is what I expect to be looking at on Sunday) better than I would have a few weeks ago. Whether I'll be able to do it at any sort of speed is another question.

I also note that the quiet streets of suburban Canberra have been introduced to the expression well known to Melburnians in the Underbelly era, "the victim was well known to police". In the extremely unlikely event that anyone here finds themselves on the wrong end of a drive-by in a Canberra street, technically most of us would be known to police (at least we would be known to Constable Frogga), but I don't think that's quite what the media had in mind. (Visiting Vancouver a few years back when one of the local gangsters got shot revealed that this euphemism is used elsewhere in the English-speaking world, too). It is a bit of a standing joke that no-one has been convicted of murder in the ACT courts for years, and hence someone on a blog referred to the unfortunate events as the first known instance of a "drive-by manslaughter".

A new venue for the Monday morning swim because of the location of the Monday night run; the Brunswick City Baths. As the name suggests this is a somewhat venerable complex (if not showing its age quite as much as Hawthorn), but it's a pool and it has water and it wasn't a bad spot to swim. One thing which was a bit disconcerting was that the deep end was 5 metres deep (presumably it was used for diving, although there's no board there now), but the sites were angled rather than vertical; I was swimming in the outside lane and kept feeling as if I was being pushed into the centre. A fairly sluggish session.

Monday night run from Jasmine's in Brunswick. Fairly quickly split into a short group and a long group, which meant I had Reuben and Vanessa for company, and that's all. Headed down around the zoo and Princes Park, and past the monument which marks (unofficially) the spot where the first of Burke and Wills' six wagons broke down (they lost another two before they got to Essendon).

The run took a while to get going, but was in fairly standard Monday night mode by the time 15 minutes were gone.

Long run from my place out to Greensborough initially, then across to Templestowe (a combination which meant a reasonable number of hills, although it would certainly be possible to put together a much fiercer course than the one I ran). Wasn't quite sure about this coming off yesterday's race, and indeed didn't feel myself for large parts of the run, although it was a lack of energy rather than muscle stiffness, and improved a fair bit in the final third before tiring at the very end, as I did last time. Still good for a 2 hour-plus run to become a more or less routine event again, even on a not-so-good day.

The roadside flower vendors were out in force, not surprisingly. Mother's Day created complications later on. As I'm usually doing these runs on my own at this time of year we don't descend en masse on some eating place post-run, but I have got into the practice of browsing the Sunday paper over a hot chocolate at one of the local establishments; today tables were a very scarce commodity. Twice I walked into places with one table left and a group of four just behind me; I could hardly claim a table in such circumstances (well, I could, but upsetting people in your own suburb is not really in the interests of diplomacy). The hot chocolate never did happen this week.

(No Mother's Day gatherings for me this year: my parents are somewhere in rural Queensland).

Cross-country at Lardner Park. Even if I was in the same shape as last year I wouldn't have expected to match the time of last year (31.23), an unusually dry year on a course that has its share of mud and slippery ground - hard to know how much this was worth but I'll guess 30 seconds or so. (The mud wasn't actually as bad as I thought it might have been, and was really only an issue in the finish area and around a couple of corners).

As expected the start was a bit frenetic and I thought I started with a bit in hand, edging through the field once things settled down. Was feeling OK through most of the first lap (16.12) and thought I might have a decent chance of getting my target of a sub-32.30, but my quads started to hurt in a significant way on the first (and largest) climb of the second lap and I slowed down from there. Felt a bit better in the last 2k but got overrun on the downhill finish by a few (including by Tony Bird, which was a little disappointing). In the end, given the conditions, this was probably a minute or so down on last year, a par result but not beyond.

Evan did 29-something and Bruce 31. Kathryn was 5th in the women's race.

Pool running at Fitzroy. Seemed to be working a bit harder than usual, or maybe that was just my imagination.

Every Friday for the last couple of months I've either been out of town or worked deep into the evening, so it was a bit of a shock to the system tonight to reacquaint myself with the antics of Friday evening CBD traffic. A few breath tests wouldn't go astray, I suspect.

Wasn't expecting a lot after feeling a bit off-colour overnight, but decided to at least start and see how I felt. The answer was that I was pleasantly surprised - while it was never particularly quick (albeit slowed a bit by dropping off envelopes, and slippery ground in places), it was solid, and it was only in the last 10 minutes that I really tired at all. A pleasing effort on the whole.

It rained for most of the run, although it stopped in the last 20 minutes. The rain had some flow-on consequences because my top had a red patch from a chafed nipple (not a totally uncommon event on a wet day) and it kept going long enough to generate a red patch in the same spot on my work shirt. Fortunately I had no TV appearances today.

I wonder if the new business I passed en route, Grand Wash Auto, has had any letters from trademark lawyers yet? (Speaking of which, whoever it was who wrote a warning letter to Jessica Watson about the use of the term "pink lady" probably shouldn't be looking for a future career in public relations).

C • I think they got the damage control advisors in very quickly 1

Original plan for this lunchtime was to support a colleague trying to post a Tan time (and perhaps have a shot at one myself), but I had a meeting which ran overtime and he had to leave without me. Decided then to turn it into a 250 on/250 off fartlek session on the Tan. (As it turned out there would have been a few obstacles to a fast time, in the form of abundant pram-pushers and tree-loppers). Felt good on the way there, but didn't really get much speed going when it came to running fast.

Everyone was remarking on how cold it was today: it was so cold that it took until almost 1 o'clock for the temperature to exceed the average May maximum.

We have a geographically challenged spell-checker at work, which was wanting to change "Kalumburu" into "Korumburra". This prompted me to think whether there is a pair of places in mainland Australia which are further apart than Kalumburu and Korumburra (except for places a bit south of Korumburra like Fish Creek). Someone suggested Augusta and Bamaga; will check this out in the morning.

Swapped my regular Tuesday and Wednesday this week, based around Clifton Hill and out to Kew along the river. Didn't get off to a promising start and was coughing and spluttering a bit in the first 15 minutes, but this turned out to be a stuck bit of food rather than forthcoming illness (at least I think it is). Turned into a steady effort after that. Achilles seems to have come up fairly well from the weekend, despite the hilly course.

Went to Northcote because of its proximity to tonight's run venue. I guess it was appropriate, given that I was expecting to spend a fair bit of today talking about record high temperatures in the state of Victoria, that I experienced record high temperatures in Northcote pool - 32.something degrees to be precise. It was enough to send you off to sleep and my performance suggests that that's pretty much what happened.

Exchange (slightly paraphrased) a few days ago between Bruce and myself over arrangements for the next NOL round:

Bruce: I never hear anything back from (Victorian team member who shall remain nameless) when we're trying to work out arrangements for the NOL weekend.
Me: I've just sent him an e-mail telling him I have some OA funding for him and asking where I should send it - wonder how long it will take to get a reply to that.

(One hour later)

Me: Answer - not very long.

MFR Monday night from Nicola's place. An easier pace than recently (and certainly easier than last week). Didn't have to work too hard but pretty comfortable - no sign of post-race soreness. Headed out as far as Darebin Parklands but too dark to get properly into the parklands themselves.

The novelty of this occasion was my first Monday night run media interview (although as it turned out, by the time the interview happened most of the others had gone). I was a bit nervous about it because it was with the new Melbourne Talk Radio station, which features the likes of Andrew Bolt and Sam Newman amongst its talent. I'd never heard of their evenings person; on stations like that they tend to fall into one of two categories, the extreme-right nutter (David Oldfield, Stan Zemanek, Brian Wilshire et al.) or straight-down-the-line. Fortunately he was the latter and the interview was fairly routine.

Puffing Billy Great Train Race. First time I've done this and I picked the wrong year - last year the train did 66, this year it did 51, apparently its fastest time for many years.

The course runs from Belgrave to Emerald. It's never especially steep, but almost never flat, and there are three long climbs (probably about a 5% grade each) - one from 1.5 to 2.5, one from 5 to 7, and one from 9 to 10. The crowds were a bit awkward in the first kilometre but early pace was OK and felt pretty good through the first 5k. The middle long hill was much more of a struggle, though, with kilometre splits blowing out beyond 4.40 - although others were struggling more because I was passing more people than I was getting passed by. We then had a 40-second stop at the 8k level crossing (an occupational hazard of this race), and I found it hard to get going again after that, although improved somewhat in the last 4k, and finished decently. By then I knew I wasn't going to beat the train. Two points of race folklore were rather astray this year - one that if you beat the train to the third crossing you would beat it to the finish (even if I'd been the 20 seconds or so faster I'd needed to be to do that I wouldn't have made it), and the second that if you had the train in sight at the final crossing you had a chance.

On an unfamiliar and hilly course it's hard to know what to make of this run. It's probably hillier than the City to Surf but 800 metres shorter, and I think par would be 1.5-2 minutes shorter - so something near or slightly under 52, about 90 seconds faster than I actually did once you take out the railway crossing. That's closer to the pace than I've been so far this year, but still somewhat short of it.

Aislinn was in the high 52s, and was third woman, a very solid effort.

C • I've often wondered what that run would be like 1

Bendigo Ironman at Fiddlers Green. This is the first time I've done this. It involves four courses of ~2km run as handicaps, 30 minutes apart; the first is easy, the third is moderate, the second and fourth are hard. I had what looked on the surface to have a reasonably generous handicap, but it did mean I was being chased by the pack every time - good for training intensity.

The first race was reasonable but I then felt rather out of sorts for the middle two. (I may have invented the one-hour stomach bug as trips to the bushes were required before both the second and third races - no trace of it thereafter though). Also took a poor route choice on both courses and the pack went through me quickly. The last one, the most technical, was much better, feeling stronger and smoother and hitting five technical controls right on under serious pressure. I headed for the last control wondering whether or not I could defend a 10-metre break on Toph - and failed to notice that Neil had switched the last control (which had been the same for the first three courses). This was seriously annoying. (It's also my first wrong-control mispunch for a decade). Nevertheless, it was good fun and a great training session.

Getting to the event was a bit more of an adventure than usual; today is supposed to be a day of rest and recreation for the international proletariat but someone forgot to tell Victoria's roadworkers (or their employers). We then reached Bendigo to be greeted by what must have been one of the more spectacular traffic jams in that city's history (thanks to a combination of a music festival and more roadworks), which required some exploration of the back streets around western Bendigo.

C • third race 4