Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

From Nesslau in northeast Switzerland. Took a while to find a good way to do this but good once I did. Started out up the river valley, which for the first bit had a nice track along a flat bottom next to the water, but I know enough about pre-alpine Switzerland to know that that was unlikely to last for long, and indeed around the next corner was a (nice) waterfall with a bit of stair work. Ended up back up at the main road, and as the alternative for continuing was an unrunnable gorge crossing I decided to stick with the main road up to the next village - a bit too much traffic for comfort. Was settling nicely in a physical sense by then, though, and once in that village, found a good side track for an out-and-back, then came back on a similarly quiet path/road on the other side of the valley. Not a bad run in the end.

The main target of the day was the Santis, the highest peak in this part of Switzerland and also location of a weather station with 150 years or so of history. If you're really keen you can walk or run up this (as Lachy did last weekend), although you'd want to be better with heights than I am in the upper sections of the tracks. We were well and truly above the low cloud/fog line here, and the views were as spectacular as you would expect ('gute Fernsicht', as per the forecast, turned out to mean everything as far as the Black Forest and French Jura), though it was sobering to see that summer 2015 looks to have just about finished off the two summit glaciers. (Vanessa tells me there's still a fragment in a sheltered spot not visible from the summit).

It may be low season but there were still lots of people out, many of them walking in the foothills. The road up to the pass at the cable car base was also much used by motorcyclists (as I suspect many Swiss mountain passes are in good weather).

A couple of my long-term Australian sites (Snowtown and Palmerville) are in places better known for murder than they are for meteorology, but the Santis can go one better than this, thanks to the 1922 murder of the weather observer and his wife on the summit. The case was never solved although a prime suspect committed suicide a few weeks later.

Finished the day by joining up with Vanessa, Tobias and a few friends, and after one false start, finding a pub to watch the rugby in (I'd almost got the date of this wrong by a day).

Felt pretty flat this morning, and slow even on the downhill bits - perhaps a reaction to some of the long downhills yesterday even though there was no obvious muscle soreness. Led into a good final day of the workshop, though.

We finished up at lunchtime. From there, it was into Zurich to catch up with a former Bureau colleague (now working in the reinsurance industry here) for coffee, then onwards to the base of some mountains (with a couple of split-second rail connections part of the mix). I haven't actually seen said mountains yet because I arrived in the dark, but tomorrow will be my chance.

Decided to be the most ambitious I've been for a while - Switzerland encourages you to be ambitious. The map had a nice-looking ridge to the south of town and that was my target. To get there involved a fairly serious climb - the first 30 minutes of this run was almost continuously uphill, climbing about 350 metres in the process, before a long stretch along the ridgeline (which was quite attractive enough as it was, but would have been better still had there not been low clouds and rain to get in the way of the views of the mountains beyond). A steep initial drop off the ridge then back into town, before a final 25-minute loop in town - during which at times I hit "float mode" for the first time in months.

This would definitely rate up there amongst my best runs of 2015 (especially its latter months) - feels good to stress my body and have it respond positively.

C • St Gallen 9

C • Talking point 2

First fast session since the nationals, a 10x1 minute set in a St. Gallen park near the museum. Not too bad, gradually picking up pace as it went on, though the (uphill) finishes of the odd-numbered reps were a little challenging.

I expected this to be a good workshop and so far it is - almost every talk was engaging, although, as is often the way, I'll probably emerge with about 10 times the number of ideas that I'll actually have time to implement.

Warm-up and down, taking in St. Gallen's small corner of sleaze (one "Sex-Kino" and a couple of nightclubs) en route.

I suspect your average European hasn't paid a great deal of attention to the political demise of Tony Abbott, but the crowd you get at climate science conferences certainly knew about it...

The flight went reasonably smoothly - as I expected, I'd got myself into such a state of exhaustion that I had no difficulty falling asleep for an extended period on the Melbourne-Dubai leg. On boarding in Dubai, the boarding pass machine made strange noises and I was sort of hoping that the new pass I was handed would have a somewhat smaller number on it; that didn't happen, but I got the "poor man's upgrade" (a row to myself) instead - Dubai to Zurich is a route much travelled by money of dubious provenance, but on today's evidence not so well travelled by people.

I arrived in St. Gallen in early afternoon - the forecast was for persistent fog and low cloud but in fact it was sunny and felt a fair bit warmer than the 8.7 the Meteoswiss website said it was. Took off from where I'm staying in the old town and headed northeast, up one of those deceptive hills which keeps going, and going, and going - almost unbroken for 3km. Coped with this better than I would have expected to, albeit slowly. Towards the top of this I got out of town into patches of forest and farmland, the latter reintroducing me to Swiss cowbells. Returned via the university, then spent the last 15 minutes exploring the old town in depth (I presume this has been used for a sprint at some point in time) and feeling increasingly good about things. There look to be some good runs to be had from here, although most will involve some solid early climbing (and I'm not sure what the light will be like for the early ones).

Perhaps appropriately in the light of what I was doing today, one of my items of in-flight reading was an article in R4YL, which quoted a scientific study which found that sleep-deprived athletes thought their performance was being more adversely affected than it actually was.

Dropped Jenny off to the airport for an early flight and then went to Northcote for a swim on the way home (noticing how much harder it is to get a park at 6.30 than 7.30). Knee tightness still an issue this morning. Main purpose of this session was to loosen myself up (the warm water, normally one of the less desirable features of Northcote, was helpful in this regard).

Essentially a fitness-test run, to see what my knee would cope with. The tightness still didn't feel quite right but it improved a bit on the run and didn't cause me any pain, so I think I can assume it to be a minor issue which should be a non-issue in the next few days. (It's at its worst after sitting for long periods, so it might be a bit ugly when I get off the plane). The run itself was a bit of a nothing run, although felt better than I thought I might after not much sleep (and the post-rogaine part seems to be behind me). Rather windy at times, and quite a few building sites to find a way around.

Today was definitely a day when a lot was fitted in: after the 5.10 start and the aforementioned trip to the pool, among today's items at work were giving a talk, doing an interview with Swedish TV, setting up the first draft of a statement on all the records that October is going to break, and publishing a (long-overdue) issue of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal (and this run came in the middle). Then came a Labor policy committee meeting. All that done, I finally stepped on the bus to the airport; I'm on my way out of the country again, mostly to Switzerland (first a workshop in St. Gallen, then another stint at WMO in Zurich), though with a week in Oslo at the end where I will hopefully have the chance to introduce myself to an impending new relative.

Pulled up a bit stiff, which was predictable, and with tightness on the outside of my left knee, which was somewhat less predictable. Wouldn't have minded getting into the water today, but that wasn't really an option as the OA controllers' workshop more or less occupied the same timeslot as the Sunday opening hours of most swimming pools.

The Otway Coast 6-hour with Jenny, the first proper rogaine I've done for about 15 years (there are a couple since which I've used as the basis for 3-hour-ish training runs with the likes of Bruce and Liggo, but with no intention of going the full distance).

The Otways are not noted for their runnable forest so I had no expectations as to being able to get through the bush quickly; we initially plotted a route of around 32km but expected we would probably have to cut it off (a job made easier when the northeast part of the course was declared OOB at short notice because of access issues associated with some emergency water pipeline works). As it turned out, we ran the tracks (except up the steeper hills) but barely ran in the terrain at all - there were a few sections where I could have, but that might have led to blowing up earlier.

The steepest bit was right at the start, dropping into 61, our second control - definitely as steep as some of the hairier stuff I've had in Swiss O. It got better from there - the forest almost invariably had a thick understory, but because there was little fallen timber you could usually push through it. Did a section out to the west around 83, then a faster bit, mostly on tracks, through 63, 62 and 81, before taking on a northern loop up to 60, 65 and 90. We decided not to be more ambitious at this stage; I think Jenny would have liked to try for one more control in this area, but I was worried about the 91-74 leg - given that it involved an unavoidable creek crossing downstream of something called Melaleuca Swamp - and wanted to have enough time in reserve to get home if we needed 40 minutes for that 1km leg.

91-74 did indeed have some nastiness - the creek crossing was indeed dark green, and it probably took us 10 minutes to go 100 metres there, throwing ourselves at the vegetation and progressing a metre or two at a time. (No rogaine would be complete without at least a bit of gnarliness). Got through, though (29 minutes for the leg), which set us up OK for the rest. The next control, 54, wasn't in quite the right place (no rogaine's complete without at least one dodgy control site, either), but we only dropped a couple of minutes there, came through 70 (where I cut my knee without noticing it, and almost brought a small tree down on myself for good measure), and got to 66 with 35 minutes to go. We thought we could get two more controls from there, and did; finished with 7 minutes to spare but I don't think we could have done anything productive with them.

The relatively limited amount of running meant I felt better than I expected to, although I was threatening to cramp at various times in the second half (and did, in some style, while driving through Torquay on the way home, leaving me with little option but to coast to a stop while sorting it out).

I thought our planning and execution was pretty good and that anyone who was going to beat us was going to have to cover more distance than us, and that proved to be the case - in fact we won easily, by something like 240 points.

And if you're heading to the Surf Coast this summer, make sure your fire plan is in order. The forest is already bone dry and even the larger creeks are also dry (we saw a few pools in one creek and no water anywhere else), astonishing for October in one of the wettest parts of Victoria.

C • Small tree 2

At Northcote today because it better suited the day's logistics - was feeling a bit tight this morning and would have been a little doubtful about running. In the water, though, it was fine - I haven't been in Northcote's outdoor pool much. Its deep end isn't quite as long as Fitzroy's but still plenty for this type of session (and it's good to be able to use a poolside tree as your turnaround benchmark, even if it is surrounded by artificial turf).

A certain amount of excitement in the 'hood last night - Station Street was blocked off and it turned out a dead body (and a damaged one) were involved. News reports said that it involved 26- and 66-year-old men known to each other (I'm guessing father and son) and didn't say anything about looking for suspects, so I'm assuming that it was an attempted murder and suicide (or possibly murder and attempted suicide).

My trip home after work took me past the State Library, with the requisite Friday evening demo, this time in the name of freeing Palestine. Seeing banner saying 'Free (insert something here)' takes me back to the times of Norm Gallagher, of the Builders Labourers Federation (long since absorbed into the CFMEU), who was (deservedly) jailed for receiving corrupt payments in the mid-1980s - for a while thereafter, every building site in Australia seemed to sport 'Free Norm' sprayed on its fence, but its impact was reduced somewhat in Canberra when someone started writing 'with every Big Mac purchase' underneath. (The only injustice in this affair is that a bribe requires both a payer and a recipient, and no-one seemed too interested in pursuing the other half of the transaction - rather like the current Trade Union Royal Commission, actually).

Doing my first rogaine for many years tomorrow (with Jenny, who's across for the OA controllers' workshop). Apart from using a 6-hour as the basis for a 3-hour training run with Bruce and Liggo in about 2007, I think the last time I did one (also a 6-hour) was 2001.

Not the most sparkling run I'll ever have, but for the most part put the kilometres under the belt in a reasonably consistent manner after the first kilometre. Mostly based on the Maribyrnong River (after starting from North Melbourne), so pretty flat. Hamstring not quite right on the downhills but not too bad.

It's slightly left-field, but if we could get permission (probably unlikely), the Wingate Avenue Housing Commission estate in Ascot Vale looks like a potentially interesting sprint area - lots of long buildings at irregular angles.

And an area well-known to the orienteering community was in the news again today. If we wanted to test the proposition that any publicity was good publicity, we could always organise a night event at Belanglo on Halloween, though that might be considered in questionable taste. The 1980s Big Foot would have done it.

First night of the Summer Series. Passed a late fitness test on the hamstring so was ready to go, with the plan being faster than a jog but not at full race pace. A bit tight early on (especially on the first climb) - hips mostly this time - but gradually settled down. No route choice for the first 8, and found myself in a bunch with Warwick Davis and Bruce Paterson until Bruce peeled off (he was running B), whereupon Warwick was joined by someone else I don't know. The three of us stuck more or less together for most of it; Warwick pulled out a 20-metre gap on the long downhill towards 20, which proved to be decisive because he made the gap in the Tooronga Road traffic and I didn't (although I think he would have beaten me in a dash for the line anyway if it had come to that). Oddly enough, after barely diverging all night, the three of us found three different ways from the last control to the finish....

Hamstring was good for most of it but a little iffy on later downhills.

Tonight was considerably cooler than it's been for a while (i.e. it was actually a couple of degrees below average for October - and it even rained this morning), something which prompted me to field a lot of comments about how cool it was. (Chris Godfred-Spenning doesn't seem to get anywhere near as many of these, even though he's a forecaster - and has started to do the odd ABC Melbourne radio spot - and I'm not).

From the event, it was straight home for an OA Board meeting which started a few minutes after I got in the door. I eventually had dinner at something like 10.45.

Hamstring still a bit dicey - don't think it's as bad as it was when it gave trouble mid-year but thought it best to rest it for a day (and made the decision too late to head for the water instead). It's improved in the afternoon and I think I'll be OK to go out tomorrow, although not necessarily fast.

Apparently I'm now one of the perpetrators of "what appears to be the greatest crime ever attempted against humanity". Personally, I would have thought that having responsibility for an alleged discrepancy between two temperature analyses in the vicinity of Eucla in 1920 ranked somewhere a bit below sending 6 million Jews to the gas chambers, but I guess everyone's entitled to their opinion.

Obnoxious climate sceptics will have one less place to find official support as of today, thanks to the demise of the Harper government in the Canadian elections. I can think of quite a lot of people I know in Canada who will be very pleased indeed by this (and I'm not exactly upset myself, either).

C • So relieved 1

Headed into the water somewhat relieved by the result at Twickenham and somewhat unsettled by some issues to be dealt with in my orienteering administrative life, but had a fairly decent swim, though tailed off a bit towards the end.

Lunchtime around the Tan for the first time in a while (extended slightly by some building work en route). Thought it might have been fairly warm but it took its time warming up today, making for pleasant conditions while I was out. The hamstring sore spot which appeared a bit towards the end today was more evident today; still not really enough to get in the way of running, but I'd want it to improve a bit in the next 48 hours if I'm going to try to go hard on it on Wednesday night.

In Ararat for a Labor gathering, and headed out in the morning beforehand. It was my longest run since the Australian Championships, and turned out to be my best for a long time - probably since returning from Europe. Thought the signs were promising in the first 4km, mostly uphill into Ararat Hills Park, when none of the bits which have caused me trouble going up hills caused me trouble, but the run really got going on the next 5km - mostly gently downhill on meandering fire trails through the forest. Reached the end of the park, crossed the highway (on a road considerably less significant than the map suggested it was), and then came back along the railway line, only hitting the bitumen on the edge of town. This section was a bit hillier than I expected for a railway section, but coped with it well. Slight hamstring tightness later but that was only a small negative. Lovely morning to be out.

I think it reasonable to assume that the "Prescribed Burning Operations: Sep 2015 to Nov 2015" will not be happening.

Ararat acquired a certain notoriety a year or two back for having one of Australia's highest obesity rates (something I must say I've never really seen much evidence of on my visits here - and I don't think it can all be blamed on the excellence of the hot chocolates at the Vines cafe). This may have been a bit of a wake-up call to the council as I spotted quite a few bike lanes and signs for walking routes. Also spotted a couple of people engaging in healthy exercise, although in general there weren't a lot of people out and about early on a Sunday morning (the only vehicle I saw, other than in the first and last kilometre, was a campervan which was using the forest as an overnight stop).

First event in the Melbourne Sprint Series at St. Albans (and the last for me, because I'll be rogaining next Saturday and overseas thereafter). Felt generally fairly smooth and running more comfortably than I have at my last couple of outings (not that hills were exactly tested here, although the up-the-stairs leg was OK), but as usual somewhat lacking in speed and finished about where I thought I might. Got a bit confused on the longish 14 and ended up not with my planned route; didn't think I'd lost much but the splits suggest that I might have dropped 15 seconds or so. A decent area (although a bit macro in the second half); not always easy to determine on the ground what was and wasn't olive green.

A fairly relaxed session at Fitzroy. Got so absorbed in a conversation in the changerooms afterwards on the machinations of AFL trade week that I forgot to have a shower. (We're obviously running low on trade news because this afternoon's highlight was someone who played one game this year for GWS being swapped for pick 70). Also found out in this process why I haven't recently seen the woman with whom I used to overlap for about the last 10 minutes of the session - apparently her partner died and she's moved elsewhere. I'll miss discussing the latest outrage of the Abbott government. (Actually, no, on second thoughts, while I miss her, I certainly don't miss having an Abbott government to be outraged about).

Noodle awards in orienteering are given for the most convoluted, circuitous and time-consuming route to reach the control point. Normally they are reserved for performances on the course but I think the discussion on State Series fees and start time windows at tonight's Orienteering Victoria Council meeting is worthy of consideration, too. If the discussion had a GPS it would have looked like Minna Kauppi's at the first control of the 2011 WOC distance (although I guess that, unlike Minna, we did get to the control eventually - I think).

(I did accomplish one mission post-Council meeting - getting tickets to see Norwich at Carrow Road for the first time. I'm going to go across for a weekend while I'm in Geneva next month).

And we got an interview request on El Nino today from SVT Swedish Television. You won't be surprised to hear that I was quick to put my hand up for that one.

Thought this might not have been pretty when my back was a bit tight getting up this morning, but knew from past experience that the way it feels before a run doesn't necessarily have any connection to how it will behave during a run. I did give it an easy time, picking a course that didn't have any meaningful climbing in the first 5km (down to the Gipps Street bridge, then back along the singletrack and through Yarra Bend Park). Not the most inspired of runs, though got a bit of a second wind in the last 10 minutes or so.

Spotted in the ABC report on the United Patriots Front earlier this week was the former Fuhrer of the National Socialist Party of Australia. This outfit ran in 1970s elections, campaigning in Nazi regalia and running on a full-blown Nazi platform (up to and including the exterminating-the-Jews bit). They actually got 1.5% in a Senate election in Queensland, although this probably says more about the number of donkeys amongst Queensland voters (they were drawn first on the ballot paper) than it does about the number of Queenslanders who were in favour of exterminating Jews.

Once upon a time we got excited about 34-degree days in the first half of October. (Before this year, this was something which had only happened in 1940 and 2006, but we've had three of them this year).

Went out to street-O for a jog around; it will be on in earnest next week. This one was at Canterbury Trails, a regular haunt for such things, and I knew it would be a fairly short course when there were no controls on the west side of the Alamein line, and nothing in the far southeast corner. The middle of the map also wasn't as convoluted as it sometimes is here, but I made a big mistake early by not getting 18 and 1 and the start, and found myself going to them late and then having to go back to 7 and 13.

I woke up with soreness in the left hip for no obvious reason. It disappeared after lunch, but my back wasn't at all good in the first 10 minutes - definitely the worst it's been since mid-September - and I was thinking about pulling the pin. It settled reasonably well after that but I never felt especially comfortable. A warm evening - 27 or so - which didn't feel too bad while on the run itself, but certainly knew I'd been sweating after I'd finished.

The laneway between 7 and 18 featured three young lads who I suspect either had just done, or were just about to do, some freelance decorating.

C • Laneway decorating 2

I'm used to doing some interesting things with runs to fit best in the day's logistics but this was one of the better examples. I was dropping Mum off to the airport for a 7.15 flight, didn't fancy battling back through back-end-of-peak-hour traffic to get home, and thought this would be an excellent opportunity to get out for a terrain run in Woodlands Park.

It turned out to be one of the nicest runs I've done in ages, on a cool, sunny evening, at Skippy time with Skippies out in abundance. Thought it might not go so well when my back arced up on the first erosion gully exit, but it quickly settled and from there the run went smoothly. It says everything that needs to be said for this run (and perhaps one of three months ago) that, re-running my course from an event in early July, I was only 10 seconds slower despite not trying particularly hard. (Of course, not having to punch controls counts for a little, and I think I got better lines across the main erosion gully this time).

I needed a nice run, because it was a somewhat disturbing day at work. Sometimes in this game one has the sense that one is documenting an unfolding catastrophe, and if that sense wasn't already there over the last week at home, it certainly was today when the monthly numbers came in from Brazil, and revealed that Manaus, at the core of the Amazon basin was running 4 degrees above normal for September, and 80% below normal rainfall for August/September. (A single day 4 degrees above normal is rare in equatorial regions; Darwin's record is something like 5.5). Drying out of the Amazon is one of the big "tipping points" we worry about (in that, once it starts happening it is probably irreversible - and that's even without encouragement from people clearing it or setting it on fire, something the Brazilian authorities have got a lot better at stopping in the last couple of decades). I hope that what we're seeing now isn't the beginning of that process, but those are not numbers I like the look of.

(I had been thinking of posting online the Brazilian temperatures map for September alongside another image that's been seen a bit this year, and labelling it something to the effect of "one of these images strikes fear into the heart of anyone who understands its significance, the other is an ISIS flag", but on the day that the new metadata laws came into effect, searching for websites where one might find an image of an ISIS flag might be asking for trouble).

Swim at Fitzroy on the way into work; already damp when I got into the pool thanks to drizzle on the first stage of the ride. Only marginally quicker than last week, although a little bit of that was a goggles adjustment stop.

Thought I would have some impressive numbers to look at when I got into work. Ararat (where, by coincidence, I'm discussing climate change at a meeting this weekend) is currently running 10.7 degrees above average for maximum temperatures for the month, and has already had five 30-degree days (the previous record for October was three).

As foreshadowed in yesterday's entry, last night was a very late night which converted into a later-than-usual morning. A weak seabreeze front was over the central city which meant that it was 17 degrees there and 24 degrees further north, but I was definitely on the warm side of the line.

A decent run for the most part although the first half was better than the second, perhaps surprisingly as the second half (mostly along the north side of the Yarra from Ivanhoe and through Darebin Parklands) was more scenic than the first. Lots of big and small people in costumes in Darebin Parklands for reasons which were not immediately obvious (although there's a certain poignancy these days about seeing a small boy in a Spiderman outfit).

Spent some of the afternoon on a traditional first-weekend-after-nationals activity - doing my tax with Bathurst (where the weather was as interesting as the racing) in the background.

Continuing something of a return of normality on a warm February October morning. Flowing quite nicely at times through the middle. Spotted the early signs of the cricket season in progress; often the first week or two of the season is washed out but that certainly isn't the case this year.

A long evening in prospect tonight - IOF Foot Commission meeting. It runs until 4am our time but I don't expect to last that long.

Perhaps the first run in several weeks that felt reasonably normal - still not stellar, but actually felt like I was flowing OK through the middle sections (despite being reasonably clogged up this morning). Hopefully this is an indicator of having turned the corner after a rather frustrating period.

Noticed some interesting results in the World Military Championships in Korea (which, as usual, attracted a very strong field at the top end; the steepness and greenness of the terrain can be inferred from the fact that Matthias Kyburz won in 83 for 9k), in particular from the South Americans. There were two Brazilian women in the top 20, while in the men's, there were competitors from Ecuador and Chile about 20 minutes down, more competitive than any South Americans I can recall at WOC level. The best of the United Arab Emirates competitors wasn't disgraced either. (There were also four Indonesians, all well down the list).

First run since the weekend. A very nice crisp morning for it (it will be getting more humid from tomorrow onwards), and nice down by the river, perhaps at its most tranquil in the stretch with the lone kayaker. A rather slow run at times - certainly taking three days off hasn't worked any instant miracles - but not too bad on the whole.

Thought it might have been a busy media day with our report coming out on the recent heat, but in the end the report didn't make it out until late afternoon so I suspect the busy day will be tomorrow instead. Current forecasts suggest there's a reasonable chance that the end of next week could be just as hot as the start of this week was; Victoria's average temperature for the first half of October is going to be roughly that of an normal January.

Whilst on the subject of matters climate, there's a nice article by Heather Smith (who some of you will remember, and some of you won't, as a member of a couple of late 80s/early 90s WOC teams), on the subject of Port Augusta and surrounds, and its (considerable) potential to be a centre of clean energy now that dirty energy's on its way out of town.

C • And the town of Leigh Creek's on the way out? 5

Continuing my week of relative slackness at Fitzroy this morning, after a slightly circuitous route there because a train broke down at Fairfield station and caused the level crossing to be stuck down. Definitely a cooler morning today, but still sunny - a sunny southwesterly is a sure sign of approaching summer.

My slightly oddball discovery of the day was that the town of Keith was originally known as Mount Monster (after the nearby hill which still bears that name). I don't know about you but I think it's a terrible shame that they changed - imagine the tourist potential? (the Big Monster?). The Wikipedia entry also slightly strangely says "the CSIRO found prosperity in the 1940s", as if Prosperity was hiding behind the tractor in somebody's shed. (What the CSIRO actually found was that the local soil was much more productive if various trace elements were added to it).

It was also reported today that the federal director of the Liberal Party is likely to resign and that the most likely replacement is one Tony Nutt. As someone pointed out, should he be appointed this would mean that the Liberal ads at next year's election will all finish "authorised by A.Nutt, Liberal Party, Canberra".

Took advantage of an evening engagement in Albert Park (which involved giving my cousin, who's about to follow a lot of my Patagonian footsteps from last year, as much information as possible about what she's in for) to do a morning ride through Fishermans Bend and then along the foreshore about St. Kilda - a flat route but one which is almost completely devoid of traffic lights, a big plus in the inner city. (The only negative is that, if you're going against the peak flow on the bike path, people overtaking seem to expect you to get out of their way). Thought it might be hard work with today's wind, but (a) the wind didn't really get going until after I was finished and (b) it was mostly a crosswind anyway.

We dodged a bit of a meteorological bullet with the Australian Championships - fire danger was something I hadn't even contemplated in the planning (and I doubt anyone else had either), but if today had happened a couple of days earlier we would have lost at least one event, perhaps two. There was actually a fire not too far away from the Long Championships area (if I read the maps correctly, just on the other side of the Creswick road); it didn't end up getting very big and doesn't appear to have crossed the road, but it would certainly have given us some very anxious moments had it happened on Saturday.

And I sometimes get sent some weird and wonderful papers in my capacity as editor of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal, but I'm still rather puzzled as to why I was considered a suitable destination for a US Navy media release about the progress of the F-35C Joint Strike Fighter. (In case you're wondering, they claim to "remain on track to achieve initial operational capability by late 2018", but I'll believe that when I see it; I would also speculate that the cost overrun of the project will exceed the total budget for all climate research worldwide by a couple of orders of magnitude).

C • Bullet 7

I'll be taking things very easy this week, and have no plans to even think about running until mid-week (an early-spring heatwave of historic proportions is encouraging me in this respect). This morning was in the pool, predictably slowly - it's actually the first time I've swum for a month or so for various reasons.

Busiest media day for a while, and tomorrow will probably be busier.

Australian Relays M35A, with Dion and Jim. Dropped down yesterday (as did Jim) after dropouts elsewhere would have left us with an incomplete 21E team and no 35A team, and because after yesterday I didn't exactly feel in the mood for taking on 21E. As it happened, I didn't feel as bad today as yesterday, although still definitely fading in the last 15 minutes.

There were only two official teams in the race but they were pretty good, the other one being a NSW team of Jock, Fedor Iskhakov and Ecmo. (The ACT team was rendered unofficial after Andy Hogg got called up to 21E to replace Matt Crane, who was injured and cruised round ours - he's still a year away from being eligible). The main question was going to be whether Dion could get closer to Jock than Fedor could get to me.

The answer to this turned out to be no. I went out 12 minutes down on Fedor but just ahead of Matt, who caught me at 2; we were within sight of each other for much of the first two-thirds of the course, and although I knew that he was going a long way short of flat-out it was still nice to have him around. Fairly smooth technically through the first few, a slight wobble at 7 through trying to pinpoint which bit of rock was the mapped cliff, then got through the complex mining section OK. Came a bit unstuck on 13 though - first took what was probably an over-conservative track route round to the north, then missed the control anyway, dropping perhaps a minute. Steady if slow for the remainder, with the lightning-fast 18-19 reminding us of what this area used to be like (most of it was burnt in the early 2000s and the regrowth made it a rather slower, more challenging area). Wasn't able to pull in all the gap on Fedor, and catching four minutes on Ecmo was always going to be too much to ask of Jim.

So ends the week, and for all practical purposes my season (apart from a sprint race in a couple of weeks and maybe something while I'm in Switzerland). I certainly wasn't happy with the way this week went competitively - am planning to take it pretty easy for a couple of weeks and then try to build back into things. Very happy with how the carnival went, though - today was a bit rough around the edges at times but in general almost everything went smoothly, and everyone seemed to enjoy it (the sunshine probably didn't hurt).

Australian Long Distance Championships. 4th in M40A (the ninth time I've come fourth or fifth in this event), which was all that this run deserved - in fact I would have been behind Dion, too, but for his losing time at 10. Running continues to be out of sorts and this was a battle from first step to last - probably not a lot better downhill than uphill. Andy caught me 2 minutes by 2 (the splits suggest that this might have been a bit too much too soon for him, but he soon burnt away). Held up reasonably well technically for the most part, but by the final loop I was tiring, and made my one mistake, a 30-seconder on 14, at the start of the final loop.

I was never going to get anywhere near Bruce, but in better running shape - say, where I was in May/June - I would have expected to be somewhere around where Jock and Andy were. Not quite sure what's gone so wrong since then, although I continue to suspect that I may not be 100% well (post-event tiredness - and, very unusually for me, not really feeling like eating that much tonight - are also indicative of that).

Final jog around all the controls at the Australian Sprint Championships, to turn them on and check that everything was in order (finding one missing flag, and a couple of gates that were open when they were supposed to be closed, but as going through them would offer no advantage I wasn't too concerned about those). Was a bit concerned early on to see a cherry-picker parked in a crucial gap but it was gone well before the event. The other pre-event issue (odd things happen on sprint areas) came from the automatic sprinklers, which came on near the finish tent, fortunately before there were any electronics there. (This reminded me of our being saved by the sprinklers in a junior cricket game once; seven wickets down with 90 minutes still to play, we weren't exactly going out of our way to work out how to turn them off).

The event itself seemed to be reasonably well-received. The area was a bit too small (we had originally planned to use the school next door as well, but couldn't get access) and I knew the M21E course would be a bit too short - although I'd expected the winning time to be around 11.30 (it was for the best Australian!) rather than just under 11 - but thought it better to be a bit short than have meaningless legs around the oval just to add to the distance. Only significant negative, apart from the usual punching issues, was that the configuration of the finish streamers obviously confused some people and they came up on the wrong side (the map clearly showed the finish as being well away from the oval fence, but a lot of people aren't reading the map at that stage).

C • Finish 1

Back in Melbourne for a day's work (the first day of the month is always pretty busy for us, plus there was the first phase, in WA, of what is going to become a very significant early-season heatwave to keep track of). Headed for the pool before the day's work started; not the most sparkling of sessions, but reasonable enough.

Latest on the ongoing saga of the Bendigo mosque is that some of the campaigners against it were in court again yesterday trying to stop it, but the judge described their application as being "innocent of any specificity whatsoever" and suggested they submit a fresh application which set out what the grounds for appeal actually were. Sounds like they've been getting their legal advice from Darryl Kerrigan's lawyer.

C • Heatwave 4

C • Daryl Kerrigans Lawyer 1