Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

You don't see political ads like this any more:

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/1221267?zoomL...

(from the 1925 NSW state election campaign, discovered while I was doing research into a flood)

C • Much in common with CEC 2

A recovery run in Canberra, on a fairly classic circuit for such things, round the outside of Aranda and Cook. By no means the worst Monday run that I've had, although still found such climbing as there was challenging at times.

Random encounters of the day in Canberra; Jose at ANU at lunch, and Dave Searle on the bus back to Aranda.

Joined the Cockatoos long run which had a decent crowd today, with several groups going in different directions; ours was Frogga, Lachlan, Josh, Ian and Geoff Lawford, Hoggster and Jim. It wasn't really the sort of run I've been used to - big hills don't usually form part of training in Melbourne (where the hills are sometimes steep and never long), so a route which involved going up Majura once and Ainslie 1 2/3 times was a fairly serious challenge. I was worried my quads were going to fall apart about 40 minutes in; that didn't happen, but running the steepest bit of the track up the east side of the Ainslie summit was still more than I could handle. Wouldn't have wanted the Majura climb to have been much longer, either (am guessing I would have struggled with Four Peaks this year), and got left behind by the leaders on both climbs. Still felt a fair bit better than yesterday on the non-vertical sections, no signs of Achilles soreness, and good to be taken out of my comfort zone - need to be doing more of this sort of thing.

Our resident constable does have a nomination for the best excuse ever for missing an OA Board meeting - he was in a brothel at the time (I'm assuming it was this raid). Perhaps the walker who asked for our help in doing something about a kangaroo in distress knew of his status, although, unlike a certain governor of Texas, our constable doesn't carry a gun with him on runs.

Didn't stay for the cafe afterwards - had to get to the christening. Was keeping an eye out for any two-year-olds throwing tantrums sufficiently loudly to indicate that they had what it took to be the next CEO of Qantas, but none were obliging.

(I've found a flight back tomorrow night with Virgin, for $159 which isn't too bad in the circumstances).

Up in Canberra for the weekend having flown up first thing; the pretext is the christening of a cousin's son but it's also a good excuse for a family get-together during the brief overlap when Cassie and family (who arrived yesterday and are out for two months, taking full advantage of the generous Scandinavian parental leave entitlements) are in Australia and I'm not in Europe.

It was nice to get out into the Canberra bush with Jim - mostly on Black Mountain - but the way I felt on this run was roughly how I expect to feel on next Saturday's run, despite having only spent 60 minutes on a plane and not 24 hours. This might have been in sympathy with Jim (who's just done the 24-hour thing) but it's more likely to be the result of sleeping very poorly last night even without the 5.30 start - thanks in turn to an apparent roof leak after last night's storms which was producing a very aggravating dripping noise on the ceiling not too far from my bed. (At least it's dripping on the ceiling and not inside the walls, which is what happened last time and ended up being very difficult to fix by the time we worked out what the problem was - apart from anything else it means a bucket in the roof space will be a workable temporary fix). Felt pretty weak on the hills and not great the rest of the time either. Very humid for this time of year, but no rain until after we finished.

One useful product of this run is that I'm now much more up to date with what Norwegian elites think of the WOC proposals (I already knew that they didn't like them but I've now got a better idea of what it is that they don't like).

Pool running at Fitzroy. Must have been working a bit harder than I usually do because I got one of the nastier cramps I've had a while late in the session - took a minute or so in the shallow end to get rid of it. As usual, this session was good for thinking of ideas (most of them to do with work, where another small milestone got ticked off this afternoon).

The ride home had its moments - was trying to thread my way through a dry slot on the radar on a stormy afternoon, which wasn't too bad for the most part but I fell a couple of minutes short of making it under cover before the next deluge. It was also once again proven that a 5pm thunderstorm is a good way to make central Melbourne's Friday night traffic even more chaotic than it usually is. There were probably a few more cars on the road than usual because of the public transport problems in the morning, too. (After a while you learn the euphemisms - if services are suspended because of a 'police request' it means someone is threatening to jump in front of a train, if it's because of a 'police operation' it means someone has jumped in front of a train and the emergency services are cleaning up the mess).

It's always a bit of a shock to the system the first time each summer I do the race Wednesday evening/long(ish) Thursday morning double, and this year was no exception. Never really got going properly and struggling a bit on hills, although I have had far worse. Hamstring a bit tight.

Making a lot out of not much department: a very ordinary 1950s brick veneer box in Bulleen was advertised as "effortless living and outstanding feng shui". (Bulleen has its share of Chinese, although not as many as the adjoining suburbs of Doncaster and Templestowe, where a lot of Hong Kong Chinese settled in the lead-up to the 1997 takeover).

In case you're wondering, I didn't go on strike today - there are three unions at the Bureau and the one I'm in is so dedicated to the cause of slacking that they didn't get around to organising their strike ballot in time to give the legally required notice to join in today's festivities. (We'll go out next week if the dispute isn't resolved by then, although there are some reasonable grounds for optimism that it will be).

Last week of Year 12s update for today: being passed by two stretch limos with rather young passengers while I was riding home. (I was also impressed by the story in today's paper about the school captain at Melbourne Grammar, who invoked a privilege of his position dating back to the 19th century by riding his horse to school and grazing it on the school oval).

Started the day by spotting two (presumably) departing Year 12s heading for Ivanhoe Girls Grammar sporting Indian headdresses which were far more impressive than those sported by any of the Village People last Saturday night.

This was opening night of the Summer Series, at Ruffeys Creek, and was an immediate advance on the last two years because I got to the start line without any significant injuries. (Two years ago I did get to the start line and sort of muddled through before breaking down properly on Cup Day; fortunately, if you're a runner, breaking down on Cup Day doesn't involve a screen, a vet or a gun).

It was also a night of historical commemoration, marking 20 years since the first night event (as opposed to evening event - those have been going for almost 30 years), so it was perhaps fitting that for much of the course I was battling head-to-head against someone who's been a Summer Series sparring partner for almost all my time in Melbourne, Tony Bird. It ended up as a head-to-head quite quickly; after three controls the pack split, with 50 going one way and two going the other. Tony and I were the two. (The two options proved to be 20 metres apart, at least according to Bruce's and my GPSs).

For the first two-thirds I was behind Tony (having lost 50 metres early on getting a stone out of my shoe), perhaps losing a little ground on speed but gaining it through a couple of minor wobbles. I always felt that I'd probably be suited better when we hit the rougher ground in Ruffeys Lake Park, but that wasn't to be put to the test because from 20 (where we were together) he took a highly sub-optimal route choice and that was that. Perhaps unsurprisingly, lost a little bit of intensity once he was gone - the climb out of 2 was hard going - but managed to finish it off OK. Probably a better run than anything I did last summer; still haven't cracked 4.30 but that should come on a flatter area. Bruce beat us easily (about 4 minutes); not sure who, if anyone, was between him and me but expect that Bryan, at least, would have been.

When you've been around for a while most of the regularly used areas will have their memories, and Ruffeys Creek has more than most, with three standouts in particular. One, the last time I was here, was the event on the first day of the 2009 heatwave which set a record for the hottest-ever street-O. Another was on the last day of the 1994-95 season when Jase needed to beat me by three places to catch me in the overall pointscore and was, I think, a little frustrated as I sat two strides behind him for the duration of the course. The last was some opportunistic course-setting in 1996. The news had recently been dominated by the exploits of a Coles-Myer executive who had just been jailed for embezzling $6 million from the company and spending it on house renovations. The house was on the map, so I stuck a control in front of it. (It must be said that it wasn't immediately obvious where the $6 million had gone).

Morning run from near work, up as far as Moonee Ponds (discovering a new way to get across the creek and the freeway in the process). Groin a bit tight early on but a non-issue once I'd warmed up. A decent run after the first 10 minutes.

Not sure if it was the breeze but quite a number of people in the changing rooms at work were remarking on how cold it was riding in. I guess they must have become conditioned quickly because 'cool' in this case meant that the overnight temperature was only a degree above normal.

Monday morning swim at Fitzroy. Not quite as slow as the last couple of weeks, and felt reasonably awake for most of it.

It occurred to me on the ride in that, at the present moment, Bangkok Rain is a rather unfortunate name for a Thai restaurant. (It's in Rathdowne Street in Carlton).

Lunchtime at the Tan. Did a reasonable job today of sidestepping most of the rain - was out and about at four stages during the day on a day when it was raining for most of the day but managed to avoid getting significantly wet (except from a bit of spray). Just a bit of drizzle towards the end of this one.

The run was reasonable, although with a few too many traffic interruptions. Felt a bit of groin tightness on the left side later on. Didn't find Anderson Street unduly taxing.

The walkway outside the establishment the ABC refers to as 'a Melbourne casino' is starting to attract some Melbourne Cup paraphenalia. Today this featured what was either the Melbourne Cup or a replica thereof (I suspect the latter because there were no obviously visible security guards). Also spotted en route was a large group of high-spirited people whom I took to be from Melbourne Girls Grammar, heading in the general direction of Melbourne Grammar. I'm guessing this was something to do with Year 12 closing festivities.

This felt like a summer training session, brilliant sunshine (first sign of summer: when the application of sunscreen is part of your pre-race preparations) and starting to feel warm - in part because it was a couple of hours later than is usual for a Sunday run. My expectations before the start were limited after a big night* last night but it turned into a decent run down to the Fairfield pipe bridge before coming back along the river. The run threatened to catch alight at times in the middle but didn't quite manage it; still flowing reasonably well on the flats, and OK on the rolling hills of the last 20 minutes too, except for the very last one which was still steep enough to be hard work. Perhaps the heat was starting to make its presence felt by then too; it had risen from 18 at the start to 26 at the finish.

(* - 'big night' doesn't mean a hangover like it will have for a lot of people, but does mean eating too much and not enough sleep).

The reason for the later-than-usual start was a later-than-usual wakeup (combined with watching the Norwich-Liverpool game I'd recorded last night), which in turn was due to going to Tash's 40th and not getting home until 1.45. This was a very celebratory night and much less low-key than my equivalent occasion a few weeks ago, and featured many people dressed for the occasion, including numerous Village People of various degrees of authenticity (although I thought the Village People's 15 minutes of fame had more or less expired by 1 January 1980?), at least half a dozen 'Choose Life' T-shirts, a couple of Freddie Mercurys, a Dermott Brereton and a Warwick Capper (although in the last case the borrowed-from-nine-year-old-son shorts weren't tight enough for true authenticity). As with the last orienteering 80s party I attended I settled for my 1987 Australia-New Zealand Challenge shirt.

Felt like it was going to be a good run at the start but ended up a little less than that, still OK on a damp morning. It's clearly a big day for local real estate - as well as the three houses in my street due for auction which I mentioned a couple of days ago, there was another one I hadn't previously seen, two more just around the corner and five others at various points on the run.

I've seen a couple of cyclists with a death wish this week starting with the one who was going up the Collins Street hill at lunchtime hanging onto the wheel arch of a passing taxi, but he was outdone by the one I saw coming home from the VOA council meeting last night, coming down the Hawdon Street hill on the wrong side of the road with the only discernable light coming from his cigarette. I'm guessing he might have been on a bike only by virtue of being temporarily sans licence.

Pool running at Fitzroy. In steady light rain, as with a few weeks ago, but this time remembered to bring a plastic bag for my towel so it was actually usable when I got out.

We awoke to the news of the demise of Colonel Gaddafi. There was also news of the demise of his son, but as he has already been killed five times this year according to various parts of the media (thanks to the Chaser team for pointing this out) I think I'll wait for confirmation on that one.

The annual Bureau-CSIRO-Melbourne Uni-Monash soccer tournament. It's the first time in three years I've been uninjured at this time of year but there was an abundance of players and a shortage of referees (and the last two years when I've been missing have been the only two years the Bureau has won), so I took up official duties again today. My absence wasn't a good-luck charm this year: we lost all three games and came last. Can't say I was that happy with my performance; not having a whistle didn't help.

Thought I might have been taking my chances by going home through the bottom end of the CBD, but by 6.30 the only riotous disorder on display was in the traffic (as per usual on a Friday evening). That took me on to the VOA Council meeting, which had an extremely young attendee this time - although not as young as Belinda Lawford, who was counted in the attendance for the 1991 Orienteering ACT AGM before she was actually born (we were otherwise one short of a quorum).

Took a few minutes to wake up but then gradually settled down, up past La Trobe and back through Springthorpe. A bit longer than last week. Finished off pretty well. This time in a couple of weeks I should be doing 2.10 on a Thursday morning instead of 1.10 on a Thursday morning (and this time in three weeks the only way it will be 23 degrees for my Thursday morning run will be if they're degrees Fahrenheit).

I like the shoes I currently use for road/path running but one annoyance of them is that they pick up stones in their tread easily. Today was particularly annoying - had to pull stones out three times.

Looks we might not have been the only people to pass comment about the amount of paddock running at our national long distance championships:

http://www.danielhubmann.ch/images/stories/maps/20...

C • paddocks 4

Street-O at Koonung Heights. As bad a run as yesterday was good, although there is an obvious explanation for that - it was our first hot run of the season, I left a water bottle at work, the one I'd left in the car was too hot to be drinkable, there was no tap at the assembly area and thanks to traffic jams I'd left it too late to go look for one. Glad I wasn't trying to race tonight, although did feel a bit better later on in the run.

It was a highly unusual course layout (thanks Katherine), with lots of controls clustered close to the finish and then a few remote ones a long way apart. There was one long leg (and it was a leg - there was basically no other logical order for A grade to take the controls) which was a good route-choice leg and would have been an even better one had the control placement been tweaked a bit.

And I thought my street might have playing host to an excess of real estate action on Saturday morning with three auctions scheduled for then within two blocks of me, but two of them have been cancelled.

One of those cool, clear mornings when it's a joy to be alive. My runs haven't always lived up to such conditions of late but they did today; the run felt faster than it actually was, but still happy with the way this one went - definitely the best I've had since the Oceania carnival. Actually felt as if I had a bit of strength going up hills in the second half and was in a good enough mood to take a detour up the steepish Waldemar to finish off. Carried the energy into the ride in too (and arrived at work to discover that the results my computer had been working hard to produce while I was asleep were ones that made sense, and for a good measure blow a nice big raspberry in the face of a certain individual for whom whole forests have been felled in the name of servicing his FOI applications).

Docklands was a bit devoid of eating places when we first arrived (especially after dark) but from what Vanessa was saying last night Maidstone sounds a lot worse, at least if you want anything remotely healthy. If you want multinational fast food you're in luck. (Bruce tells me that in Torren's circles one of these establishments is referred to as the 'Kids' Fattening Centre' - I'm impressed that a first-grader came up with that).

Swim at Fitzroy; the recovery swim you have when there isn't really anything to recover from. A nice morning when things went pretty smoothly, both in and out of the water.

A Monday night run from Ilka's where I was doing the cooking (on the basis that it had long since been my turn but no-one wants to come all the way out to the distant wilds of Heidelberg). A fairly casual trot around Royal Park; didn't ever feel that brilliant, which is not unusual for a Monday night, but this week there wasn't really a day before. Quite a small group for the run - just Ilka, Dion and myself - although others were present for the eating part of the proceedings.

Parkville is to have some rather grander visitors next week: Her Maj is putting in an appearance to officially open the new Royal Children's Hospital.

C • Invite her to the next run. 4

Took advantage of a long-run-free Sunday to go up with Bruce and have a look at an area I'd wanted to check out for a while - Granite Hills Park on the edge of South Morang (presumably once upon a time there was a Morang or a North Morang or both, but no trace of such can be found on maps now). The name implied the presence of some rock and I'd also seen some from the air (it's underneath a common approach path for Canberra-Melbourne flights).

The part of the area with rock is only small (probably about 600x600 metres) but could certainly support a sprint and has enough vegetation to keep the visibility down; there's also some small erosion features which would provide worthwhile sites at 1:5000. However, the numerous signs referring to conservation areas and the like don't fill me with confidence about getting permission to use it, which is a pity. A block to the east which I had expected to be private property looks like it's council land but the rock seems to disappear at that stage.

Once we finished with that park, we crossed to the other side of the valley and ran along a ridge - great views but nothing terribly exciting for orienteering. (The views also included a few building complexes at schools and similar that Bruce thought might have urban sprint potential, but all the ones we looked at afterwards had too many high fences - probably built in anticipation of outer suburbs with little public transport containing a lot of bored teenagers with nothing better to do than vandalise the local school). The climb onto that ridge was hard work today, an indication that this wasn't a brilliant run - wouldn't have fancied 2 hours+ today.

C • Bruce 2

A hillier course than others I've been doing this week, through Eaglemont. Muscles were finding hill-climbing pretty hard work (and left Achilles was a bit dicey too) but the performance itself was reasonable once warmed up. A warm morning, not the last one we're likely to see in the next week.

It feels strange to have a weekend in which I won't go outside the bounds of metropolitan Melbourne - I think my last one of these was in June. Have spent most of the afternoon on accounting (both OA's finances and doing my tax), unexciting but necessary.

Fairly relaxed session at Fitzroy, with sunglare an occasional nuisance. The sun was making its presence felt yesterday too, and with it being the first reasonably warm evening since daylight saving started, it seemed like half of Melbourne was taking advantage of the occasion for some al fresco eating and drinking (including my neighbours on either side, and numerous establishments along the main road at Ivanhoe).

Just when you thought the football season was over, we have trade week to keep the journalists happy. (This isn't something that orienteering features, although I've been heard to mutter sometimes that the Cockatoos must have got some awfully good draft picks for me in 1994 with all the recruiting they've done since). This week always features far more speculation than actual deals, which was highlighted last year when someone won a slab of beer from one of their mates by successfully getting a completely fictitious trade reported as a possibility in the 'Age' (there may have been bonus points because the story featured a quote from one of the players concerned saying he was surprised his manager hadn't told him anything about it). Still not quite on the scale of the effort of the Times a few years back when they wrote a story linking Liverpool to a player who did not exist.

And the latest magazine of Bicycle Victoria (or whatever it calls itself now) had a full page ad in it for cycling in Greater Shepparton, including reference to a Victorian downhill MTB round. I'd be interested to know where they have it - 100 times down the banks of the Goulburn River?

C • Victorian downhill MTB 7

Felt a fair bit better today (and also felt a bit strange to be getting up so late on a Thursday). A reasonably routine easy run through Macleod and back down through Rosanna Parklands. Achilles a bit sore on some of the climbs.

A lovely morning for running, and subsequently for riding into work.

Up the Maribyrnong River from near work. An awful, sleepy start for the first 10 minutes but gradually built into something remotely resembling a respectable run, though still hardly pleasant. Cold still at nuisance level. Glad this is a recovery week. Didn't even feel inspired by the knowledge that the carbon price almost certainly would (and did) pass the House later in the morning, despite spending 15 years waiting for it. (It does have to get through the Senate yet but that's largely a formality; there is some cause for relief that we've managed to get this far with a lot of threats of violence but no actual instances of it that I know of).

The odd spot of the run was having my first experience in my 40 years of having the lollipop man stop the traffic for me (at a school crossing in Ascot Vale). Lollipop men and women weren't a feature of my Canberra upbringing as our primary school had an underpass under the main road, which occasionally played host to scary big people (some of whom may have been as old as 14).

And Apostrophe Man strikes again: apparently Moonee Valley council are staging a "Teddy Bear's Picnic". I hope the teddy bear doesn't get too lonely.

C • Template 1

More of a struggle today. Cold does seem to be returning; a quietish week this week will be no bad thing.

I still haven't fully unpacked from last week....

Swim in Fitzroy after dropping Jenny off early at the airport. The main purpose of this session was to get as much stiffness out of my body as possible - there was a bit of it around (in particular my back stiffened up a lot on the last couple of hours of the drive home). This mission was largely accomplished, albeit slowly.

Headline fail of the day goes to the Sydney Morning Herald's poster: 'Brothels Linked to Sex Trade'. I'm sure a Walkley's on its way for that gob-smacking revelation. The story it linked to did actually contain some worthwhile journalism, involving allegations that a number of (legal) brothels were involved in trafficking of sex slaves. One of the alleged establishments was in Heidelberg but I've never seen or heard of it (if the allegations are true I'm not surprised they keep a low profile). The distinction between Heidelberg and West Heidelberg, which will be familiar to those who know the area (or have read Shane Maloney's books), may be relevant here.

Orienteers don't do Mad Monday like footballers do (don't expect to see any reports of us engaged in altercations on King Street, or in unnatural activities with small domestic animals). No-one put their hand up to host this week so the plan was to go to the Monday night event, but as it happened only Suse and I turned up.

The event was a longer run than I'd planned on. Felt pretty awful in the first 100 metres but a fair bit better after that, and actually started to flow decently at times later on, although the cold seems to be making a bit of a resurgence because I felt a bit clogged up. One silly mistake running in one street too early. The rain always looked it was about to clear but never quite did, which made for some soggy control cards.

I hadn't planned for quite such a long first day back after the championships season. Tomorrow will be shorter. (I don't intend to do anything fast, or significantly over an hour, this week, and not for most of next week either - things start again in earnest in the last week of October).

Oceania Relays, second leg in M40. Didn't feel that great warming up before the start - not sore, just flat - and went out some way behind our real opposition, the Australia and NZ M45 teams (we knew we didn't have much chance of beating the juniors, and that the NZ M40 team wouldn't be much of a threat - as it turned out they mispunched on the first leg).

An open, gently downhill first leg allowed me to get into a running rhythm and from there it settled pretty well - seemed to come round the wrong side of control features a few times but nothing that would be considered a mistake. Running smoothly if a little low on uphill strength. Went through Steve Doyle at the tricky 6, and caught Peter Swanson at 7 before going through him on a route choice on the long leg 9-10. Shep and Nick Hann went through me on that leg - I assumed they were both running M21 but Nick was in M20 and racing me (presumably he made a mistake early on and recaught me). Felt pretty good over the last part of the course, and even had some sub 5 min/km leg splits in the semi-open stuff at the end. We ended up just behind the NZ M45s after three legs; my leg time was the fastest of the veterans, and competitive with the juniors (Olle was the fastest with 32).

This was a good relay course; my only quibble was over the too-early mass start that's being discussed elsewhere.

So ends the season (apart from Venice). This was a pretty disappointing week for me although today was a good note to finish on. The one positive is that, unlike the last two years, I don't finish the season carrying a significant new injury, which means that I should, hopefully, be able to put in the big November/December/January which hasn't happened in the last two summers.

C • venice 2

Australian Long Distance Championships at Badja, 23rd. Felt fairly reasonable in the warm-up - certainly better than other days this week. Started OK but missed 4 a little; Josh, who started 2 minutes behind me, was almost onto me there and then went through me when he got a better line 5-6. Slogged through the next section of the course in heavy rock and fallen timber to 14, not missing much apart from a small wobble at 11, but not feeling as if I was running with much speed or fluency. It was, though, obvious from the map that 14 was just about the last control in rough stuff - it opened up considerably from there. Caught Reuben at 16 and Craig (whose heart wasn't playing ball today) at 17, then went through Reuben when he made a mistake at 19. Managed to avoid falling asleep on the paddock section (whilst realising that those who run faster than I do would have been taking chunks of time out of me there), then lost concentration a bit on the final loop, pulling up a bit short on 27 and then losing another 30 seconds or so in the circle at 29, the last technical control.

This was generally a rather plodding run; 2-3 minutes of errors all up in small increments but never felt all that fast. I finished tired but not excessively so, thinking that a more physical course would have found me out a bit, but perhaps it would have found others out more; I would have expected a place perhaps in the mid-teens with this run and was surprised just how far down I was. (Perhaps suggesting how much a more physical course can spread the field out, the same % behind the winner would have got me 10th last weekend).

I didn't think this was a great long distance championship course - quite apart from being too short (8 minutes under for winning time), the loop in the open paddocks from 21-24, which I assume was added purely for distance, was a waste of time from an orienteering point of view, and there was only one leg longer than 1k (and that was only 1.2). I appreciate the constraints that existed, in particular not being able to go far into the state forest because of recent logging, but do think this was a classic case of a course which would have been better with a map exchange. (I've just accepted the position of IOF Event Adviser for next year's event, so you can throw the brickbats at me if we don't get it right next time).

Event: Oceania Sprint, Aust Long & Oceania Relays
 

The news on the way down brought word that more animal heads had been found in public places in Queanbeyan. If the Queanbeyan police were looking for the remainder of the creatures concerned they could have done worse than to have come to Badja, as there were certainly numerous headless-chook impersonations being done today.

I was doing a reasonable one myself, never really getting into the flow of a 1:5000 granite map and making far too many 45-degree errors on 45-metre legs, most significantly losing close to a minute at 11. I was lucky to get out of this one as lightly as I did - twice I saw flags when I thought I was still well short of the control. The pity of it was that the opportunity was there for a good sprint result (for me) as plenty of others were struggling too.

The cold has improved a bit today (at last) so tomorrow may offer more. I'd certainly hope so.

A (reasonably) free day in Canberra and the only raceless day in six, so took the opportunity to do a fairly relaxed recovery session at CISAC (aka the Belconnen pool). Still don't feel as if I'm getting over my cold at any sort of pace which is a nuisance leading into the weekend.

Emerged to spot two young girls with matching Western Bulldogs towels. No prizes for guessing who they were.

A rare midweek carnival race which mattered, sort of - the Australian Relays, in this timeslot because something had to give with all the events that were being squeezed into this carnival. This meant, unsurprisingly, an embarrassingly small field - just two Victorian teams and New Zealand - which in turn means my fifth (and probably last) Australian elite relay title won't go down as quite the achievement the other four were.

It also won't go down as a great personal achievement because my own contribution to the performance was limited - it was a day when my legs didn't really want to move, especially uphill. This was obvious by halfway to the first control (although I was wondering if some of it was the letdown from seeing a two-minute lead at the first-leg spectator control become a four-minute deficit at the changeover), so I concentrated on trying to make sure it was a good technical run - starting with the first control which was the same first control I had (and stuffed up) yesterday. Got it right today and ran the first part of the course reasonably cleanly, although I think my route choice across the slope to 6 was suboptimal. Came unstuck, though, on the steep final loop, going too high on 13 (a major sin on a steep slope) and dropping a couple of minutes. (A large unmapped area of green in the yellow didn't help matters).

In the end the team finished my leg in about the same position we started it, and we were still five minutes down at the final spectator control. You wouldn't expect that to turn around in 15 minutes, but it did, with Warren holding steady and Brent Edwards not doing so.

C • relays 2

Post-Schools run at Burngoogee, as usual taking on the Schools course. I knew from past experience I didn't have much chance of beating all the Schools people - haven't managed that since 2001 - so decided my target was beating all the New Zealanders (their best were 4th and 5th).

Didn't make a good start to achieving that target when I blew a minute on the first control. After that it was a reasonably good run technically, but not feeling very strong up the hills - my cold is taking its time to disappear. (I'm often not at my best on the post-Schools runs because my mind has usually been on other things, but there was enough of a time window not to be able to use that as an excuse this time). Ended up falling a few seconds short of the target mentioned in the previous paragraph; 6 minutes down on Olle (in the Schools) and Matt Ogden (in the public race), and slower than I would have expected from past experience at Burngoogee.

Saw some of the South Australian juniors engaging in some post-event wrestling while I was on the way to the start, and thought I'd better tell them that arm-wrestling in the Wagga area has been known to be dangerous to orienteers' health...

Monday morning jaunt on the road down into the Beechworth gorge with Jenny. Didn't feel particularly well when I woke up but the run was better than I expected (particularly uphill), perhaps indicating that the effort yesterday was more mental than physical. The Achilles seems to have improved in the last few days too. Hopefully this is a sign that I'll be back, by the weekend, to somewhere around where I was three weeks ago.

At times yesterday I did think of what Orienteering Australia could do with the $600,000 the AFL reportedly wasted on hiring Meatloaf to "sing" at the Grand Final (the winning team does a better job in the rooms after the game).

Spent the rest of the day being a tourist, most significantly in going up onto the Mount Buffalo plateau, which I've previously only experienced at the end of the Four Peaks (and that only the Chalet). In Wagga now.

Oceania Middle Distance at Rowdy Flat. This was the most hyped event of the year; having been on the area last year in the initial planning stages I was confident the hype was well-deserved (in fact my main concern was scepticism as to whether the area could be legibly mapped at 1:10000, something that was managed, more or less).

In an area like this staying in contact throughout was critical; unlike most goldmining areas, there were very few bland areas between the detailed bits so you rarely got a chance to relax. I also decided on a strategy of minimising the number of major gully crossings, perhaps more so than I needed to as those who went straighter didn't seem to lose time doing so (then again, gully-scrambling isn't one of my stronger points). Did the first five well, went in a bit early to 6 and probably lost 30 seconds or so (not least through giving myself an extra gully crossing), but otherwise a decent technical race until 14 - which I blew to the tune of about 3 minutes, turning a decent race into a mediocre one. Finished off mostly in a bunch containing various combinations of Kerrin, Lachlan Dow and Rob Walter, doing OK without feeling special. (If I'd not made the mistake at 14, I'd most likely have ended up in the Carsten/Ecmo train and done 45, which I would have been happy with).

This area was a lot of fun and it will be good to get back here sometime, hopefully next year. Can't say I'm happy with a 24th place (a little above halfway in the big field). Great arena production as well - we won't get a lot of opportunities to do this in Australia, both because of the cost and because it depends on having good mobile coverage across the map which many areas don't have, but it's good to showcase it when we can.

Event: Oceania Long & Middle Distance Champs
 

Oceania Long at Warby North. I was an old man today in the name of trying to beat New Zealand, which also meant it was the first time for a long time that I've gone into a big race with a realistic chance of winning it (probably at least 10 years).

I was running a bit like an old man too, on an area that's greened up with the rains over the last couple of years - I almost never felt like I was running with any strength or speed. However, it was a fairly clean run, one 15-seconder in the circle at 5, and a couple of low visibility legs where I lost a bit of confidence* but hit the control OK. Probably couldn't have done a great deal more given my less than ideal lead-up week (although I was feeling a lot less sick today). A bit disappointing to be in third in a race where the top three were covered by less than a minute, but the mission of beating NZ was accomplished (and I'll be fresher for tomorrow's race than most of the opposition will).

(* - two successive ads on TV this morning claimed to "give you confidence". They were for very different products - sanitary pads and agricultural chemicals).

Course 5 - Splits