Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

A more ambitious route than my previous rides; a loop with Ringwood and Warrandyte at its far end. No really big hills but plenty of small ones which provided a solid workout. Didn't feel especially energetic for much of the first hour, but functioning better after that - several downhill kilometres coming down into Warrandyte will do that to you.

As with several other long rides, my quads tired significantly, but are hopefully being done some good by this; given my previous history in marathons they could do with some strengthening. I had wondered, seeing the length of time that people stay on their bikes for (especially Ezy's epic last weekend), whether there was something magical about bikes that made them more amenable to very long sessions than running is, but whatever the magic is it doesn't apply to me because I'm not finding 2 1/2 hours on a bike any easier than 2 1/2 hours on the run.

In the absence of any cricket, I then proceeded to spend the rest of the day crunching out 5500 words on how hot it's been this year. In the process of getting to and from the city to do this I caught my last Connex train (at least in Melbourne), and bought probably my last paper ticket. (Connex's contract ends tonight, and the new smartcard ticketing system is expected to be launched sometime in the next few weeks).

Standard Saturday morning loop. Pretty strong on the uphill first half but not quite so good finishing off. A bit later in the morning than the last couple of weeks and hence more traffic to contend with, but nothing too serious. Had been expecting a bit of rain for this but it had all moved through well before dawn.

Got to see some of the remnants of Thursday afternoon's storm; there were a lot of trees down and assorted debris in the Box Hill North area.

Had a 6.30 session with the doctor this morning (I told you she was a morning person!) and then went to work after that. The plan was to swim in the evening, at Fitzroy if the weather was still holding out, otherwise at Ivanhoe. The weather was still holding out but I left work too late to get to Fitzroy before their closing time (or more accurately, to finish my session before their closing time), so Ivanhoe it was. Again didn't have a lot of energy for this but not as desperate as I thought it might have been at 8 in the evening without having eaten anything meaningful for seven hours beforehand.

I'm not quite as close to running as I thought I might have been, but not doing disastrously badly either; plan is to reassess at the next visit in a bit under two weeks. She says I can start pool running next week, which will be interesting given that I've never tried it before; any tips?

Finally got a significant piece of computer code working at 5.45, which isn't a bad way to finish a (regular) working week. (Hopefully I'll never have to suffer having my computer code picked apart by self-appointed experts, which has been one of the lesser fates of the victims of the great email heist). Like last weekend, I'll be doing a fair bit of work this weekend (although this time most of it will be writing things in front of the cricket, assuming it lasts all weekend), but unlike last weekend I don't have any 2am media sessions (or at least none that I know about yet).

Random fact of the day: 84% of American lightning strike deaths are men.

C • Pool Running 5

Was planning to start out reasonably early this morning but was deterred from doing so when the thunder started a few minutes before I was going to head out. It passed through reasonably quickly but left a few legacies, not least some flashing traffic lights. I didn't like my chances of getting across Manningham Road without the assistance of lights (such situations require brute force and you can't apply much brute force on a bicycle), so a detour was called for. After then it was along the Yarra in some form or other pretty well all the way; not bad for the first two-thirds but ran out of energy after that. Splattered myself liberally with muck in the few hundred metres of gravel across Birrarung Marr; there was no significant rain after the first few minutes but plenty of water on the ground.

Spotted the results of the Melbourne Half Marathon in the latest R4YL. Hanny's stalking my PBs - after being two seconds outside my 10k one in May she's now four seconds outside my half-marathon one. Hopefully this means she's going to run a 2.37.07 marathon in the not-too-distant future.

To work via the Ring Road path; a bit longer than last time because I turned west one road too early and ended up doing a bonus lap of the Moonee Valley racecourse. A pretty smooth ride with none of the muscle soreness that has afflicted some of my other longer rides, and the time seemed to go very quickly.

Saw a pickup truck with Alaska plates in Macleod, although that probably wasn't as strange as seeing a campervan with Austrian plates in Kalumburu.

This was another intense day - they're all intense at the moment (even if the best show in town, happening in Canberra, was a bit of a distraction). Our own scandal doesn't seem to be getting a lot of traction in the media here outside the Australian and Andrew Bolt's column (and the Australian's editor must have had the day off because there were three decent articles on the same page today - and I'm not just saying that because one of them quoted me extensively), and no-one local has been named as far as I know. It's a different story elsewhere, especially in the U.S., where the right-wing echo chamber is in full swing and generating some attacks in its wake which can only be described as vile; it's certainly a shock to the system to see an animation on YouTube which depicts somebody you know having unspeakable things done to him in prison. Hopefully this doesn't end in somebody getting shot.

Riding into work via the Yarra Boulevard, which seemed to have a bit more traffic than usual. A solid ride and handling the rolling hills a bit better than I did last time.

Starting to clear a few decks in the office (even if the dramas in Canberra meant our statement sank more or less without trace).

Very sluggish indeed early on but got going a bit better after the first couple of laps, and managed to find something for the finish. Noticeably smaller crowds with the noticeably cooler day. This was the opening part of a rather frustrating day, even if the "scandal" I've been referring to hasn't quite caught alight in the mainstream Australian media, yet (apart from a predictable page one appearance in the 'Australian').

C • Scandal 1