Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Originally planned a terrain run at Macedon before the VOA meeting, but neither of my companions, Bruce (who turned back early after a twinge) and Jim, brought gear for this, so we hit the tracks instead. A not-particularly-brilliant run, especially on the hills - not surprising after a hard day yesterday. Only minor traces on steep downhills of the hamstring soreness from yesterday.

Heard an ad on the radio advertising a business at Cranbourne as '30 minutes from the CBD'. Cranbourne is 48 kilometres from the CBD. They must drive faster than I do.

C • Yeah.. doesn't help that th... 1

Went long this morning because of the VOA meeting tomorrow. Doing a long run on Saturday is a bit like seeing your football team win on Friday night (which also happened) - you feel as if you've got something good under your belt before the weekend has really started.

This run was flowing well at times but patchy at others, and the last third wasn't that brilliant, although the hills went OK. Some hamstring tightness in the last half-hour but it doesn't seem to have persisted after cooling down, which suggests that nothing is badly wrong.

The smoke in Melbourne is the heaviest it's been so far since the fires, although not yet as bad (at least in my area) as it got at times in December 2006. We might as well get used to it because it's probably not going anywhere until late next week.

Took a slightly roundabout route to the pool this morning after being diverted by the remnants of our very own bushfire - a not-terribly-significant five-hectare grass fire on the Yarra Flats at Ivanhoe yesterday afternoon. (My place must have been directly downwind of it because it was full of smoke when I got home last night).

Swim had a very ordinary start; after the first couple of laps, still felt as if I was flailing around a bit (to a greater extent than usual) but settled into a reasonable pace.

Our conference finished today - it's always awkward having a conference on home ground because you feel as if you should be doing your normal job as well. Found myself in one session sitting next to Stacey Dravitzki - I didn't think there could be too many Dravitzkis in NZ so I wasn't too surprised to find out she's Karl's sister. This in turn meant I could use 'I've been zapped by one of your electric fences' as a line in introductory conversation (my altercation with said fence taking place during the 1995 Turkey Traverse, which was partly on their property).

C • smooth 4

As an experiment, for the next few weeks in the sharpening period I intend to replace my midweek long run with a long speed session. This was the first of its type and was a bit of an experiment to see what I could handle, based on the Tan.

I had Hoggster for company which was good - wouldn't have been able to push so hard on my own. Original plan was for 8-9 1km reps at about 4.00 pace with 250 recovery in between, but it ended up being a good deal faster than that - averaging about 3.46 which is close to my 10k race pace. Was certainly starting to tire in the later reps, but not losing any pace which is encouraging. Definitely my best session in a couple of weeks and will give me a bit of confidence which has been sorely lacking of late.

Going to/from the Tan, via a more roundabout route than usual to meet Hoggster. Felt very tired coming home - the last surge may not have felt too bad but it was quickly apparent that I'd left everything on the course, which was part of the objective of the exercise.

Sights of an early Thursday morning in the big city: two well-proportioned (and probably well-lubricated) women, wearing high-visibility vests and not a great deal else, gradually disrobing on a Flinders Street tram stop in front of an appreciative audience of construction workers on the building site opposite.

C • I didn't need the mental image! 5

From Clifton Hill up the Yarra and back through Northcote. Rather tight and slow through the first half, loosened up after that. Quite good in the last 20 minutes, although the picking up of pace might have had something to do with the realisation that I was running a bit late for a conference session I was hoping to get to. (One of the drawbacks of a conference on home ground - especially one that's only 10 minutes' walk from the office - is that you find yourself still doing at least some of yuor normal job).

Passed a car late in the piece which sported a sticker advertising a probably non-existent business in a non-existent town.

Street-O at Kew East. 15 degrees cooler than last week (and 25 cooler than two weeks ago). I thought the field would be stronger than usual given the location, and it was, a bit.

Everyone went the same way at the start and we settled into a nice pace before most of us bungled our route to 11. The field gradually split up on route choices after that and I eventually found myself on my own around halfway. With four controls to go I saw Adam and Bryan - too far away to catch but the possibility existed that I was a control ahead of them. I wasn't. I then proceeded to lose another place by overrunning the last control and then being confused by the description 'power pole #3' when I was standing outside number 14 (it turned out that number 14 got its number from the side street).

This was a disappointing result (which is the flipside of somehow getting 199 points from two shockers). Still not as fast as I'd like but a much better run physically than the last couple.

It is still taking time for the scale of what has happened to sink in, slowly. There is a sign at the bottom of my street, 'Yarra Glen 37'. It is impossible at the moment to see that and not think about what has unfolded within those thirty-seven kilometres. (There are still few visible signs of the events in inner Melbourne - some hints of smoke on the horizon - but that will change when the winds go around to the northeast at the end of the week).

The run wasn't very good, again rather slow and sluggish (fastest loop 9.40). Leg muscles feeling a bit stiff.

Lunchtime run in the middle of a conference. Pretty tired today after working until 11 last night putting together a report on all the records broken during the weekend (although nowhere near as tired as those people will be who've spent twice as long at firefronts). A pretty sluggish run throughout.

The conference I'm at is an international conference on Southern Hemisphere meteorology and oceanography (Hoggster's here as well). I had the bright idea yesterday of organising a special session on meteorological aspects of Saturday's events. The conference organisers were very enthusiastic about it and you might think that it was an initiative that might be greeted positively by our superiors, but you'd be wrong - instead it's become another chapter in my intermittently considerable talent for upsetting senior management (or at least the don't-say-anything-to-anyone-about-anything-until-the-coroner-reports-in-10-years-time faction of it). Seem to have found a way around it by getting non-Bureau speakers for the fire weather parts.

C • Are they the same ones 3

At Fitzroy. Forgot to add this the first time.