Sunday Nov 26 |
 | Run 2:31:00 [3] 33 km (4:35 / km) | |
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| A pretty solid effort and the longest since May. Cruised through the flat first hour along the Yarra and Diamond Creek, then took on some tougher hilly stuff for the next 10k across St. Helena, Apollo Parkways and the top end of Watsonia. Was finding the going fairly tough at the end of that, but became increasingly good in the last half-hour - it's always nice at the end of a long run coming in from the north to have the long, gradual descent home, with the Rosanna Parklands stretch especially good - it's great to hit a few minutes of gently downhill parkland 3k from home on a run like this.
Thought this might be tough going after a long day yesterday (and less-than-ideal eating) but it went OK. Was originally planning to go out with Bruce but he couldn't make it (possibly baseless speculation on my part: keep your eyes open for a possible early finish to the sweep). |
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| C • sweep continutes 1 |
Saturday Nov 25 |
| Run 1:00:00 [3] 13 km (4:37 / km) | |
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| Went out during a short break in the middle of a long election day and felt about as good as I expected to feel after seven hours on my feet (i.e. not very). Eating patterns also rather screwed up as always on election days, which are not compatible with healthy nutrition (think lots of sausages, chicken and soft drink cans).
It looks like we might have an orienteer in Parliament - Nick Wakeling is currently leading (just) in Ferntree Gully. We haven't seen a lot of him in the last two or three years (presumably because he's been concentrating on his political activities) but he was a regular before that. I'll even forgive him for standing on behalf of the forces of darkness. We've had a few near-misses before, notably Julie Flynn (a.k.a. Jools on AP) in Bendigo East in 1996, but I think he's the first one to look like getting there.
The Liberals won the seat I was working in (Doncaster) pretty comfortably, but after throwing $400K at it (money they might have been better off spending in places that actually mattered) they'd want to have done. My own booth wasn't too bad (1.5% swing against) but across the seat it was more like 6%. |
Friday Nov 24 |
| Run 1:58:00 [3] 26 km (4:32 / km) | |
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| Feeling much better today so got out for the long run that I was planning to do yesterday. Faded a bit in the last 40 minutes but better than I thought it might have been - even though there's been no recurrence of Wednesday night's stomach upset these things can often take a bit out of you. Nice morning for it, particularly early on along Gardiners Creek (I started from Richmond because I was having a massage afterwards). Always feels virtuous when one starts a morning run at a time which has a 5 in front of it (although I know for the swimmers it's pretty tame). |
Thursday Nov 23 |
| Note | |
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| Bit of a stomach upset overnight, so decided to bring my weekly rest day forward and (hopefully) get out for something long tomorrow. Doesn't feel like anything too serious (and at least I was only going from one end, unlike AJ last week).
It was tempting to take a sickie today, but given it's the first day of the cricket questions might be asked (although I don't think I've had a day off work/school for illness since 1983 or thereabouts). |
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| C • getting old? 2 |
Wednesday Nov 22 |
| Run 1:09:00 [3] 15 km (4:36 / km) | |
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| A pretty nondescript run, especially in the first half, although good to get into some areas I haven't been into for a while - I drove to Surrey Hills station early to position myself for street-O tonight. (This proved to be an extremely good move, because my usual train line was shut down because - wait for it - somebody stole the overhead wiring, presumably for the copper). Particularly nice at the Blackburn end, and there was a new track around the back of the Box Hill golf course that wasn't there the last time I was in these parts, but my run didn't really do justice to the surroundings.
The change came through about midnight, and there was a definite smell of smoke in the air this morning from yesterday's fires to the west. Summer is definitely here. |
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| C • clever 3 |
| Run race ((street-O)) 44:00 [4]* 11.4 km (3:52 / km) vdot: 54.6 | |
| spiked:16/17c |
| Melbourne Street-O at Highbury Hill. Most of A course went the same way at the start this week, and the early jump Adam and I got on the field proved to be a disadvantage when we missed a hole in the traffic the people behind us got, which meant we had to pass them all again. I then put a bit of pressure on through the 5th and 6th controls and opened up a gap of about 50 metres on Adam, which was enough to convince him to look for other route choice options. Didn't feel quite so sharp or so motivated on my own, but certainly had the mind concentrated when I turned the corner into the third-last control and saw Adam coming in from the other direction with the same 50-metre gap. From there it was a head-to-head run home for the last 1.5k. I didn't like my chances - you don't come 7th in the Australian Sprint Champs without a certain amount of speed. He'd caught me by the last control, and while I was still within a stride or two of him as we hit the finish oval, he opened up a gap of 5-10 metres by the end. Great to have a head-to-head race (even if I lost it), and went sub-4s which is not bad for me these days. Also a good course on a relatively plain area, with ten minutes of post-race discussion failing to produce a consensus on the best option (we had to get 17 controls out of 20). |
Tuesday Nov 21 |
| Run tempo ((fartlek)) 37:00 [4] 9 km (4:07 / km) | |
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| First time out on the usual circuit since the operation, a chance to gauge my speed at the moment - the answer is OK but not spectacular (9.17 fastest loop), feeling OK but not really attacking the surges. Nice early on thanks to the not-uncommon cool surface layer on the river flats, but that had broken down by 7 so it was as warm there as it was everywhere else. |
Monday Nov 20 |
| Run 46:00 [2] 9 km (5:07 / km) | |
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| MFR Monday night run. New starting point (at least for me) from Torgeir's place near Swinburne Uni, but we headed east into what is fairly familiar long-run territory for me in Camberwell (particularly the outer circle track). Pretty slow which was no bad thing on the first day back; my body clock is better adjusted than I thought, but the 30-degree temperature jump (it was still 32 at 8.00) took a bit of getting used to. Didn't feel great on the run but handled heat better than I thought I might have. |