Sunday Feb 17 |
 | Run 2:03:00 [3] 26.4 km (4:40 / km) | |
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| An excellent run to my considerable surprise, for the first day after a long trip (the lack of a time change obviously helped). Felt good from the start and flowing well through the first half - a bit tougher in the second half but also a bit faster, helped by running with a Russian for several kilometres later on. Tired at the very end.
The run itself was an out-and-back along the Han River bike track (which would be an inline skater`s heaven, 38km of flat traffic-free path). Not a bad place to run although it will be a bit boring by the end of the week if I don`t find other options, and I haven`t seen too many in the immediate vicinity. Cold (-5) but sunny and calm and not unpleasant, and the air quality was better than I was expecting - could see the mountains 20-30km away, which you certainly wouldn`t be able to do in Beijing or Hanoi. The main river wasn`t frozen but some of the areas of slacker water (in bays, near bridge pillars etc.) were.
There was a marathon on today - saw the distance markers for it and then the crowds gathering around the start-finish area (also saw my first Korean traffic jam, consisting of people trying to get into the car park - on the evidence I`ve seen Korean parking is almost as anarchic as Rome`s).
Spent most of the rest of the day doing some pretty heavy-duty sightseeing once we`d got an initial meeting with the local workshop organiser out of the way. |
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| C • Or in LA 1 |
Saturday Feb 16 |
| Note | |
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| Made it to Seoul - not the most comfortable of flights (I think the legroom was Korean-sized) but got us there. Looks like a bit of a concrete jungle where we're staying so I'm glad the river is only a couple of hundred metres away. |
Friday Feb 15 |
| Run ((terrain)) 1:00:00 [3] 11 km (5:27 / km) | |
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| A bit of reshuffling of the usual program because I'll be spending tomorrow in the air. Was having a massage in Richmond at 7.30 so decided it was a good opportunity to get out onto the Studley Park terrain loop, although the available time window between first light and appointment time was only just long enough; I wouldn't have wanted to be out (without a light) in the terrain even five minutes earlier. Dark morning runs will become somewhat more familiar over the next few weeks.
I felt indifferent, as expected after a tough day yesterday (I wouldn't normally run on a Friday), although it could have been a lot worse, and the hills were pretty good. Lacked fluency in the terrain early (the poor light probably contributed) but improved considerably later on. It's the first time for a few months that I've done the loop, and there have been enough changes to leave me a little confused in places as to exactly where the loop goes. Did 47 minutes which was a little slower than expected for the level of effort.
I leave for Seoul tomorrow morning for a week. Finding somewhere to run won't be a huge problem as we're staying close to the river and its 40km-long bike path, but finding places which are (a) original and (b) not totally overrun by traffic may be harder. -8 or thereabouts on Sunday morning will be a bit of a shock to the system too.
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| Swimming 32:00 [2] 1 km (32:00 / km) | |
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| A final session at Richmond after work before going away tomorrow. Felt reasonable for most of it but rather slow. Again troubled by a foot cramp at one stage, which isn't the easiest thing to get rid of when horizontal in the pool - anyone else have problems with this? |
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| C • olympic park 2 |
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| C • Foot cramp 5 |
Thursday Feb 14 |
| Run 1:58:00 [3] 25 km (4:43 / km) | |
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| A promising first 30 minutes but rather faded away through the rest of the run, particularly on the uphill stretches (and there were plenty, especially around Greensborough and Montmorency). Nowhere near as bad as this time last week though. |
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| C • jwoc nominations 4 |
Wednesday Feb 13 |
| Run 1:04:00 [3] 14 km (4:34 / km) | |
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| A pretty routine Wednesday morning, which is another sign of a gradual return to normality. Did this run from Canterbury Gardens where tonight's street-O is, north through the hillier parts of Balwyn. Quite a hilly course and handled the hills reasonably well, although still seemed to be lacking a little bit on the flats.
Saw a headline yesterday, "Nine Fights The Law". They could have added a postscript today: "Nine Fights The Law, And The Law Wins". |
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| C • Different result 1 |
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| C • Different message 1 |
| Run race ((street-O)) 46:00 [4] 11.3 km (4:04 / km) vdot: 51.3 | |
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| Street-O at Canterbury. In the past this was a rather eccentric map but this time the N-S and E-W scales were the same. Score event, which for us means getting all 20 controls as quickly as possible, but still quite a bit of route choice. Felt reasonable on a lovely running night, but Adam was still quite a bit faster than me - something I got a good look at on several occasions because his route choice meant he was running quite a bit further than me. Happiest with the final section where I was more or less holding ground with Adam, but I had one more control to get (not much extra distance, and my way of getting it was certainly much more efficient than his was earlier, but it put paid to any chance of a sprint finish at the end and he got me by 40 seconds). I'd still like to be faster than this but it was a positive sign.
I missed the apology speech this morning - had hoped to catch it at work but was in too late - but heard it replayed on the radio as I was going home (passing in the process a Bulleen nursery with a sign outside 'SORRY'). It's taken a long time but it is good to see that it has finally happened, and some of the things detailed in Kevin Rudd's speech were eye-opening as to exactly what was going on - which was worse than I'd imagined, having only paid passing attention to the original Stolen Generations report.
One unmentioned positive of the recent events is that Andrew Bolt has been far too distracted by the Big Sorry to notice that January was the world's coolest month for 13 years (although still just above the long-term average). |
Tuesday Feb 12 |
| Run intervals ((fartlek)) 38:00 [4] 9 km (4:13 / km) | |
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| A fartlek session on the usual loop. Normally I wouldn't be getting excited about a 9.28 loop but today's run did have the feel of having turned the corner after a difficult week. Lacking zip, but feeling reasonably strong, and particularly pleased with the way that I was able to attack the steeply uphill second-last sprint (in marked contrast to the last few days when I've gone lactic at the first hint of a contour). |
Monday Feb 11 |
| Swimming 31:00 [2] 1 km (31:00 / km) | |
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| Fitzroy on a gorgeous crisp, cool morning which seemed more Canberra than Melbourne. A similar session to last Friday, taking a long time to get going but better once I found a rhythm. |
| Run 45:00 [2] 9 km (5:00 / km) | |
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| Monday night from my place. As usual for the outer suburbs the turnout was reasonably small, but a faster-moving group than is the norm for Monday night. Headed for the Banyule flats and didn't see any snakes, which didn't disappoint the group. (I've never seen a snake in the area but it has the feel of an area where one might).
Felt more or less as per normal for a Monday night, which means it was an improvement on the last few days. |