Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Mostly down along the river. Longer than I'd originally planned on, on a day when I felt like this was something that I wanted to be doing (which is more than can be said of most of the last week). Pretty slow, although many of the tracks were muddy (several of the ones closer to the river had clearly been under water on Thursday night) which would have slowed things down.

Not for the first time in recent years, 2016 was a year with a certain amount of frustration on the competition side (not least at the Ultra-Long, which was going so well until a hamstring let me down), and various interruptions were reflected in a tally of 345 hours (scraping in 31 minutes above 2013 to avoid being my shortest full year on AP). Still had some good moments, and ticked off an orienteering bucket-list item in the London City Race.

Best race (personally) of the year was probably the Australian Long Championships. Most enjoyable run of the year was a no-contest - the Abel Tasman coastal track run in NZ in June (stunning scenery, a stunning day, and a pretty good run too).

Quite a lot to look forward to in 2017 (including a more extended excursion to NZ), although I'll need to get a couple of solid months under my belt before I can feel as if I'll be remotely competitive there.

Spent some of the morning (after a somewhat sleepless night) sorting out exactly what the water had done to my place and why (looks like the damage is ultimately minor, although some of the carpet is still drying out).

Eventually took to the pool in the afternoon on the way back from seeing Cassie and family off at the airport. Northcote pool in the middle of a 30-degree school holiday afternoon is a rather different proposition to a midwinter morning (and walking across the concrete to the pool edge was something my feet are still telling me about), but managed to find a reasonable amount of space, even if it was going round and round in circles.

Then it was home to see the end of one of the more bizarre cricket matches in recent memory.

Started out with Jim on an expedition to Point Nepean, but suspected before I started that I probably wouldn't be up to it, and so it proved. First time since returning that my back has been a significant enough issue to cut a session short.

Today went on to have some of the highest humidity levels ever recorded in Victoria (the dewpoint at Geelong reached 27 in the aftermath of a storm, with Melbourne peaking at 25). Unsurprisingly it also featured some spectacular downpours. We missed most of these but saw the aftermath coming back to Melbourne. Round 1 didn't cause too many issues at the house but round 2 late at night did, so I suspect I'll be spending at least some of tomorrow dealing with the consequences of water leakage in a few spots.

Decided to have a crack at doing something faster today but immediately discovered that I wasn't ready for it - the soreness in the right buttock which I've been noticing sitting but not in low-speed running made its presence felt once I started going faster. Thought it best not to push it at this stage. Might not have chosen the best of venues either - the Stringer Road reserve is a leash-free dog exercise area and several were arriving to use it for that purpose as I was beating my retreat.

Out to the back beach, heading southeast. Slow in the sand and even out of the sand, but felt somewhat better than I have the last few days. Continuing to be humid (although it's going to get worse before it gets better).

Pretty poor night's sleep with the heat, but the change went through at Blairgowrie around 7am which made for somewhat more favourable running conditions (19 degrees rather than 29). Did this one on the front beach towards Rye - outward on the beach (disappearing beneath an incoming tide), and back mostly on a small track between the bathing boxes and the highway whose existence I had been previously unaware of despite the fact that I've been running here for more than 30 years. Continuing to find it fairly hard going.

After a very unenergetic day in front of such cricket as there was, took to the pool (a bit cooler than I'm used to). Struggled a bit in the first few minutes but OK after that.

I'm not too upset not to be at the 5-days, and not just because I'm not running very well at the moment - a forecast update means that it will now only be 42 degrees on days 3 and 4 and not on day 5 as well.

C • That's a relief! 2

Not as long as many recent Christmas sessions, partly because the logistics of Christmas change when you wake up in a house with a number of small people, and partly because today's conditions weren't going to be especially long-run friendly.

Headed out with Jim towards Eaglemont Flats as far as the tennis courts. Still pretty hard work - this is more than I'd usually do coming off a long(ish) run and the weather was reasonably hard going (26/17).

One of the beauties of being out at 8am on Christmas morning is that it's the one time of the year when you'll see more bikes and runners out than cars - my Facebook feed in the morning was a mixture of present-opening and Christmas morning exercise. Didn't see any new bikes or cricket bats in use yet in the neighbourhood.

Started today with the intent of going for two hours if I could, but it quickly became apparent that this wasn't going to be a day for pushing boundaries - possibly my tiredness yesterday (also evident this afternoon) was an indication that I'm not 100% well. Certainly every hint of a hill was hard going. Felt a bit better in the last 20 minutes (after a stop to talk to a friend I saw on the Darebin bike path), but was slowing by that stage (and Achilles was a bit sore) and thought 90 minutes would be enough for today.

Will have another go at going longer next week, hopefully once the change has gone through. (It wasn't particularly hot when I was out there - thanks to a thunderstorm which was enough to get parkrun called off but didn't produce more than a few spots of rain - but fairly humid).

C • parkrun called off? 2

At Northcote. A fairly reasonable morning's work - felt OK during this session, although then felt as if I'd hit the wall at the end of the working day this evening - not a lot of energy for the ride home. (I'd got myself into "get this finished before going home" mode, and was just about the last person left in the building other than the forecasters - and it's been a fairly draining three weeks, with not much time off and three interstate trips, which I try to pretend don't tire me out but I'm in denial).

Part of the workday was spent trying to hose down, without much success, the claim in certain parts of the media that Adelaide's going to be the world's hottest "capital city" on Christmas Day. (If you're counting state and provincial capitals, the current forecast for La Rioja, Argentina is 44).

Not quite a Proper Thursday Long Run yet, but getting closer to one, taking advantage of the last cool day for a while. Started out going up Darebin Creek (using the tracks rather than the bike path where I could), as far north as the north end of West Heidelberg, before coming back through Heidelberg Heights and past the Repat. (A sign that Heidelberg Heights is moving up in the world - there's now a cafe in the shopping strip where for many years the only functioning business appeared to be Vinnies). Still on the slow side, but felt like I had a bit in hand today - the flatter course probably helped there - and was still feeling reasonably comfortable at the end, which augurs well for trying to go longer on the weekend (probably on Saturday).

We're in the sprint to the finish line at work; I had a fairly long to-do list of my own which was supplemented by contributing to other people trying to clear their own to-do lists (and the variety of interesting weather expected in the next few days adds to the information we need to have in hand). Not expecting an early finish tomorrow. A few other government agencies have also been busy, as identified by those journalists who are in the business of keeping an eye out for reports which the government would prefer people not to notice hitting the streets this week (for the second year in a row, the annual report of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions fell into this category).

Event: Sydney Summer Series #12 - The Spit
 

Up in Sydney for the day for work, and organised a lat(ish) flight back in the hope of getting out for my first taste of a Sydney Summer Series event. This mission was accomplished - the transport logistics meant that I had about a 1 1/4 hour window to fit in a 45-minute score event, on the southern side of The Spit.

This was my first attempt at any serious hills since the injury and it was certainly a bit of a wake-up call - some very steep hills and plenty of stairs, which were pretty hard work. The scenery's a bit better than it is at Melbourne street-Os, though, and there were some (on-track) sections in Sydney bush which was a nice touch.

My route wasn't optimal for point-scoring, mainly because I went to the stranded-at-the-bottom-of-a-cliff 21 (thought there might have been a gap on the map near 23, but there wasn't), but nice for scenery, with the controls I dropped being mostly suburban ones at the south end. Found a bit at the end to get in in time, but it meant I couldn't get two controls on the oval.

Major differences from Melbourne: full SI, colour maps, and you can plan your route beforehand (some spend a lot of time doing so).

The reason I was in Sydney: to be involved in selecting a new observing site (the current site is going to be unacceptably compromised by planned building nearby). Looks like we've found a good one on the grounds of the old Observatory itself, about 100 metres away, so a good result.

Showing Jim the Yarra paths on a run centred on the two bridges and the tracks on the far side of the river. Started in a thunderstorm (albeit not a very menacing thunderstorm) but the rain quickly eased. Felt better than on some recent runs - the company probably helps. Not too much noise coming from the Batcave.

A bit up and down (in the metaphorical sense - Fitzroy Pool doesn't have any hills), but fairly reasonable in the end, once again under a brilliant sun.

As part of its modernisation program, the Saudi government has decided to adopt the Western calendar for administrative purposes. However, the judiciary, dominated by conservatives, has decided to retain the Islamic calendar. Since lunar months are a couple of days shorter than solar ones, this presumably means that local crims (at least those ones who aren't dealt with by means for which calendars are irrelevant) get slightly shorter sentences than might otherwise have been the case.

Going out on a Monday is another step up, but planned to be pretty conservative at a first attempt and was glad that I'd done so, as I felt pretty ordinary throughout - heading out along the south bank of the Yarra, with construction allowing me a bit further along than had previously been the case. Needed to get out, though, if only to collect my thoughts after a somewhat turbulent morning in the office.

It was quite warm by lunchtime (26-27), but it's going to be a lot warmer soon - it's looking increasingly like we're going to see a major heatwave at and after Christmas in lots of southeast Australia. Seabreezes might see Melbourne miss the worst of it (although that's looking less likely than it was this time yesterday), but further north it would be a surprise not to see at least a couple of 40s. I was rather surprised that the December record for consecutive 40-degree days in Mildura is only three, but some closer inspection uncovered a six-day event in 2002 with five 40s and a 39.9 in the middle.

Another step up in the distance, which gets me back out to some of my semi-regular haunts for the first time in a few months, including the small track above the river east of the Gipps Street bridge, and coming back down through Kew past Warren and Tash's to join the bike path on the other side of the freeway (where work is starting on the long-promised Darebin Bridge).

Felt like a bit of a battle throughout, more so on the climbs - not a lot of spring in the step climbing the stairs onto the Chandler Bridge. Held up OK in an injury sense, though - have some random soreness in my right buttock after sitting for extended periods at the moment, but it doesn't seem to bother me running. The thought did occur to me that I've got a lot of fitness to regain to successfully run nearly double this on a tougher course in (probably) tougher conditions in four weeks' time.

C • You'll be right. 1

Felt a bit flat this morning (possibly watching Norwich lose again before I went out had something to do with this), although managed to grind OK up the one hill of consequence. Lots of action around the farmers' market at Fairfield Primary (an opportunity later for ticking off a couple of remaining items of Christmas shopping, not quite completed but close to it).

Back at Fitzroy, in a reasonably standard sort of way. Seemed pretty quiet in the pool this morning - more so than in other places I went to (although it doesn't seem to have achieved full pre-Christmas frenzy mode yet).

It was reported on the news on my way there that police were looking for someone over a sexual assault on a bus. Presumably they meant they were looking for someone over a sexual assault on someone who was on a bus. It would be fairly difficult to engage a bus itself in such an act, although I do recall someone once appearing before an Edinburgh court for committing a lewd act against a traffic cone.

And my favourite site name of the day is Rabbit Kettle, in the Northwest Territories of Canada. It looks, from the pictures I saw, to be a worthwhile place to go, but perhaps not at this time of year - the reason I became aware of its existence is that it was, at the time, the coldest place in Canada. (-43.7, in case you're wondering).

C • Rabbit Kettle 4

Another small step forward in terms of distance, on a route round the back of Hawker past the Pinnacle. Felt more comfortable running than I did at times in the last week (and no issue with the back or associated body parts), but no faster - have certainly lost a bit of my pace (such as it was) during the layoff, as evidenced also by last night's performance. (Saw the results today - my scalp was claimed by a couple of people I haven't heard of, and Ella Cuthbert got close).

Today's news of the well-deserved fate of Eddie Obeid brought to mind a story I heard at a Labor function a few months back, dating back to the early 1990s when Daryl Melham (who went on to be a long-serving federal backbencher, and like Obeid of Lebanese background) was first running for Parliament. The story goes that Obeid, at the time a publisher of a Lebanese community newspaper, tried to call Daryl Melham but got his mother, who shortly afterwards pronounced to her son "don't you ever speak to that man again - he's a bad man". I think we can now say that Daryl Melham's mum was a much better judge of character than plenty of other people in NSW politics.

Summer twilight at Mount Ainslie North. Not as full-on as last week but still a few hills around, and some nice contouring through the casuarina bits of the forest (I really enjoy being in those even though it's not always the fastest option). Still feeling my way in the terrain, but stronger than last week - running up hills that I wouldn't have last week. Somewhat wide on the vague #1 (ended up using the last control as an attack point) but not sure how much time I lost, probably not all that much. Also a bit wobbly from the last control to the finish. Quite damp and humid, a marked contrast to conditions earlier in the day.

I expected plenty of seeds and came prepared, with a pair of socks which I didn't particularly care about hanging onto. I was not disappointed.

A fairly similar run to the two over the weekend - felt like it was a struggle most of the way, just picking up a bit at the end. Slight calf twinge on the climb out of the river into Kew but no further problems. Had a few unsettling thoughts (of the hopefully-implausible-outside-an-airport-thriller variety) of possible fates of people in possession of information that the incoming US government would rather people didn't know. First warm morning run of the year (26 at 7.30), although outside of Sydney and surrounds, this is a not-particularly-significant heatwave, notwithstanding what you may have seen in the media. (Special brickbats to the Daily Fail Mail for claiming that it was going to be Australia's hottest December day in 44 years when it won't even be Australia's hottest December day in the last week).

Compliance rate in the dog-on-leash area at the back of Willsmere: 0 out of 6.

The Australian Sports Commission released a set of survey results from a survey on national sports participation. This had some interesting results at the national level, but once you drill down to individual sports (except for the largest) the sample size was clearly too small to give reliable results, because if you believe the raw numbers, Australia has 3,700 female rogainers and no male ones. (I couldn't find the actual sample size, but 3,700 would equate to about 4 people out of a sample of 20,000). The same survey found that 19,000 people had participated in orienteering (which sounds plausible, if perhaps a little on the high side), but nearly 90% of them were men (which definitely isn't plausible). Hopefully no-one gives us a hard time about gender balance on the basis of these figures.

My nomadic existence continues - back up to Canberra tonight for a couple of days (mostly for a talk on Thursday, although I'm also doing a briefing to DFAT on drought in Africa).

C • Don't forget the 6,600 adventure racers 4

A fairly standard session in the Fitzroy pool, on one of those mornings that's made for swimming - bright sunshine on an outdoor pool (the only thing which could make the scene purer was if the pool was the War Memorial Pool of a small country town). My swimming ego is long past being bruised so I wasn't too concerned by the news that a friend's seven-year-old son can swim 100 metres in much the same time as it takes me to do 50.

Feeling rather tight and sore in randomly varying spots at the moment, but at least the calf isn't one of them. Suspect the amount of time I'm spending at my desk at the moment isn't doing me too many favours.

Set myself today to do the longest run since September and succeeded. Felt a bit tight all over beforehand and wasn't sure how I'd react once running. It wasn't the most comfortable runs, especially uphill, but lasted the distance and again had no issues with the calf. Will hope to ramp the distance up progressively further over the next couple of weeks - the aim is to be back up into the two-hour range on Christmas morning (or maybe Christmas Eve if it's looking like it will be too hard for find a two-hour window on Christmas Day - given that I'll have small people in the house this year).

Good to get out into the Yarra parklands again, but otherwise there wasn't a lot to be said for this run (other than remaining uninjured) - felt rather sleepy and sluggish throughout. Out a bit earlier than is sometimes the case on a Saturday thanks to other plans for the day.

At Northcote in amongst the showers (including a spectacular double rainbow to start with) - the car park suggested that there were lots of people there but almost all of them were presumably indoors. A decent enough session before a somewhat overindulgent day incorporating the work Christmas party among other things.

The aforementioned party was accompanied (as you'd expect) by lots of warnings from the work health and safety people about responsible consumption of alcohol and the like. Obviously not every organisation holding a party today was so diligent, as walking back to the office I found myself in the midst of a group from somewhere else who had clearly been engaged in the irresponsible consumption of alcohol. One of their number, a loud and aggressive drunk with a sideline in making sexually suggestive comments to passing female pedestrians, has an excellent chance of going home in the back of a divvy van.

The annual soccer tournament after returning from Canberra. We definitely missed our usual goalkeeper (who was at the same conference as me but stayed on the for the last day) - last year we didn't concede a goal, this year we let in 13 in three games (including the first game against Monash, where we led 3-1, trailed 3-4, equalised at 4-4 and lost 5-4). We were also weakened a bit by lending a few players to CSIRO, after Larry Marshall had given out a few too many free transfers to interstate and overseas during the off-season. Melbourne won.

As for my own performance: didn't get on the scoresheet this year (at either end), with a tally of one assist and a couple of goalline clearances. Calf started to feel a bit iffy after sprinting in the last game so dropped back to full-back, which included trying to defend a 3-on-1 (you won't be surprised to hear that I didn't manage it, although at least they had to use all three of their attackers before scoring the goal).

Summer twilight at Red Hill, rather more epic than I was expecting. I knew when the assembly area was at the place I think of as the Carousel (although it probably hasn't had that name for 20+ years) that there were going to be some steep bits, and that there would be a reasonable number of thistles and grass seeds. This one had a lot in the steep stuff - more often across than up and down, but still slow - and several scary downhill legs to small point features in nothing much.

A lot of people struck a lot of trouble (some of the controls were hung very low). I didn't fare too badly by those standards, probably 45 seconds at 11 and smaller misses at 7, 10 and drifting wide on 18. Unsurprisingly, I didn't have my terrain legs (it was my first time running in the terrain for a couple of months) and lacked confidence in the rougher ground underfoot, and also didn't have much for the hills, although the final climb was a bit better. 28 years is definitely more than enough to lose a home-ground advantage (not that home-ground advantage would ever have helped much with the hills).

Today's bit of celebrity-spotting was when I arrived at the conference today and just about the first person I saw was Dave Warner, someone whose only discernible connection with the Australian Statistical Conference is that he generates lots of statistics. (The team were staying in the hotel where the conference was). I congratulated him on the result last night but didn't get round to asking him whether he had any good deals on OLED TVs.

C • Warner 8

Another step up, earlier in the day than I've been used to venturing out of late because that suited my companions for the day (Grant and Jim). Headed down to Gossan Hill - seemed to pass pretty quickly. We weren't moving all that fast although there were enough hills to make a bit of a difference. Again responding pretty well on the injury front (and when you're in good company it's easy to forget about imagining bits of soreness which aren't quite there in reality).

That set the scene for a long but enjoyable day - the statistics conference all day, followed by the cricket 10 minutes' walk away at Manuka (first time I've been to a game there since about 1992). The traditional rain on an international cricket day in Canberra was present again this time, but it cleared out soon enough that the start was only delayed by 15 minutes.

At CISAC, heading out during the changeover between Cassie getting back from her run (don't think you'd have anticipated 25 years ago that there would be a time that she was heading out for runs before I'd even got up, but I've become a less extreme morning person and she's become more of one) and Jim heading out.

The pool was in 25-metre mode this morning (first time I've seen it like that). Felt like I was floundering for a lot of it and kept misjudging the turns, but sort of got into it a bit later on. I was being outpaced by a 60-something woman in the next lane, carrying a fair bit of weight and doing breaststroke, but I'm long since past being embarrassed by comparing myself with other people swimming. (Cassie tells me that swimming in Norway is good for one's ego in this respect).

CISAC has replaced its digital clock, so you no longer have to guess which parts of the numbers aren't working this week.

Went out with Jenny - a smaller contingent than the old-style Conference long run, and also a good deal less long (although she'd run to my place from the AIS so it was longer for her). Pretty happy with this one - it actually felt like a reasonably normal run, the first time since I started running again. None of the back issues on the hills from yesterday and handled the Painter climb more or less OK - think it's the first time I've actually been to the summit in many years. (There's a semi-paved path up now - it used to be a footpad across the paddock).

I was also reasonably happy with the Conference. In the lead-up I was concerned that most states were going to come in with entrenched positions on some of the key issues (especially around governance), but in fact we had two days of worthwhile engagement and I think we're moving forward. Fundamentally, all of us are in the business of trying to get more people orienteering and, whilst the connection of this to whether OA's legal structure is an incorporated association or a company limited by guarantee may seem tenuous, having sound governance structures is an important part of convincing the Sports Commission that we're worth investing in, and it's in our own interests too.

One challenge we do have is bridging a significant funding gap from the loss of ASC high-performance funding - we made some progress with this but still need to plug a shortfall of around $40K from 2018 onwards. Whilst we're looking at numerous options to contribute towards this, we're also on the lookout for creative fundraisers (and I've been keeping an eye on some of what's done in the US, which is much more dependent on fundraising than we are), so if you have any ideas, go for it.

My own crazy fundraising idea, providing that (a) I don't get injured (b) I don't have any immovable work commitments on the day and (c) can convince the relevant states to organise suitably timed and located events (ACT and Victoria will already have something suitable scheduled), is to attempt to do events in four different states on the same day on World Orienteering Day next year, and get people to sponsor me to do it. The flight schedules are such that it should be possible to do something in Brisbane first thing in the morning, go on to Canberra with a window of 6-7 hours there to do things on either side of the ACT/NSW border, and finish up at the Wednesday night event in Melbourne.

Easy to underestimate how much chairing a meeting for two days takes out of you - got back to home base and promptly almost fell asleep in front of the cricket.

Post-Conference park/street O, with just a bit of long grass, and the inevitable locked gate which wasn't supposed to be locked on the AIS campus. Felt awful initially and back troublesome in the first few minutes; loosened up a bit after the first downhill (after the control between the curved car parks which seems to be a compulsory feature of any event around Bruce CIT), and while I always felt like I was struggling, once again it was OK on the injury front once warmed up, and I didn't fall apart in the heat (29, hottest I've run in since last summer) like I thought I might have.

In the outdoor pool at Northcote, where I think I've now established that the clock shows an over-reading of the (air) temperature by a couple of degrees. Always seemed to be floundering a bit today but felt better for having done a session.

Up in Canberra now, for the OA Conference this weekend, followed by a work conference on Tuesday and Wednesday. I'll be up again the week after, too. The flight up might have been more productive had it happened a year ago, as I was in the same row as now-no-longer ASC head Simon Hollingsworth (and the CEO of Netball Australia for good measure), although it was still a worthwhile conversation regardless.

Another small step of progress - heading out on two successive days. Felt pretty ordinary as a straight run (the first couple of kilometres particularly so), but the calf was fine which is the main thing I'm worried about it at the moment.

This one took me to the southeast corner of Alphington, the section that's got the alpine-inspired street names, although some of the spelling is a bit dubious (I assume "Chamouni" is supposed to be Chamonix). There's a bit of progress on the bike path but only a bit.