Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

The day that disappeared (at least for me, although not for my luggage which is experiencing the 27th in Los Angeles without me - I just made the connection but my bags didn't).

This isn't my first time in Victoria. I came here in 1993 on the way to that year's WOC (having made my plans before narrowly missing the team): I was doing honours at ANU that year and that was the best way around the problem that the supervisor with whom I very much wanted to work (a feeling which was mutual) was on sabbatical in Canada for the second half of the year. It was a week which featured one of the epic runs of my life, a 3 1/4 hour effort - the first time I'd been so far - which started at the far end of a coastal walking track which was a good deal more rugged than I was expecting, in a year when the main significance of September 11 (for me, anyway) was that it would have been my brother's 21st birthday.

At the time, my supervisor's older son was also the subject of one of my occasional forays into talent-spotting. Simon Trevitt is now one of the more obscure figures of Australian orienteering history - one Easter, sixteenth in M12A (says he, looking back to the days when it was possible to come sixteenth in an M12A race in Australia). I'd first seen him as a six-year-old tagging along on a first-year field trip, going through Namadgi light green as if it wasn't there. Three years later, he was still a wonderfully fluent natural terrain runner - and fit enough that he joined me for the opening kilometres of several runs that week (although not the 3 1/4 hour one), not bad for someone who was still (just) in single figures - but never quite came to grips with the navigational side of it and disappeared from the scene a year or two later. These days he's living in Sweden.

(My other major piece of talent-spotting around that time can, I think, reasonably be counted as a success, even if he never quite made a WOC team and most of his championship wins have come in North America rather than Australia).

Today's run initially took me to what was temporary home ground in September 1993, the suburbs a few kilometres northwest of the city, before cutting east across to the university where our meeting has been this week. The aim was then to go down to and along the east coast but my map memory wasn't quite up to the job and I hit the coast at a dead-end, realising after that that this run was going to be a bit longer than I was planning on. Came back after that by the shortest feasible route.

This never sparkled as a run - and was a bit weak on the hills - but was a good honest effort, ending up as the longest run I've done in almost a year, and feeling as strong in the last quarter-hour as at the start. Again the surfaces were a real mixed bag with some good snow, some ice and some bare ground. Given that I was reasonably happy with the pace, particularly at the end when I started to get onto consistently cleared ground. It snowed for much of the last hour, although without any accumulation, and I did my first ice-induced face plant of the trip with about 30 minutes to go (fell into a snowbank with no lasting damage).

I'm now on the long trip home (which may be longer if the weather throws a spanner in the works at either Vancouver or LA).

Spotted on the way into the ferry terminal - a variation on a sign which I'm told provided much amusement to SA schools teams of 1990s vintage: 'Congestion Ahead When Amber Flashing'.

According to the front page of the local paper there is a $150 fine for residents who fail to clear snow and ice from footpaths in front of their property. If the Victoria city council cared to enforce this law they could make themselves a ready $10 million or so very quickly, as I saw very little evidence of any such action having been carried out. A couple of days after the big dump, surfaces vary from bare (mostly downtown and in places exposed to the wind) to compacted snow. Both of those are fine to run on; the compacted ice that covers many of the footpaths is rather more challenging.

Apart from the search for ground where I could be vaguely confident of staying upright, this was a fairly reasonable run, west from the city centre into Esquimalt as far as the military base. Not slowed down as much as I thought I might have been by the ground conditions, either.

Quite a nice morning although colder than it has been, enough for me to drag out a hat (which also gave me the opportunity to join those wearing red and black in solidarity with Christchurch, although this particular hat was that of a football team which is not the Crusaders).

C • In theory in New Haven it's... 1

Afternoon session as the sun was going down, round the point south of town with its great views across to the Olympic Mountains in Washington, and then around the east side of Beacon Hill, featuring a substantial proportion of Victoria's under-12 population on toboggans (an indication that snow is a bit of a novelty here). Also past the mile 0 marker for the Trans-Canada Highway, departure point for the debt truck on Tuesday (yes, Canada's got one too).

A bit slow at the start but worked into it quite nicely and moving well by the end. Footing still a bit uncertain in places. Still below freezing, but the wind had settled down making it quite pleasant.

C • Km 0 2

I rearranged my schedule for this week because of the early starts to the work day (which would have meant a 5.30 start for a long run if I'd done one in the Wednesday-Friday interval). When doing this I hadn't anticipated that the ground conditions for doing anything fast today would be challenging, at best. The outside conditions (lots of blowing snow) looked challenging too, but were easier than I thought they would be.

Headed for Beacon Hill park, and after a couple of false starts found a stretch (opposite South Park school, whose sign is, I suspect, much-photographed) where I could do a respectably-paced 1-minute rep without either going sideways on sheet ice or wading through shin-deep snow. Not too bad once going, and not quite as slow as I'd thought likely.

It's appropriate that a meeting on climate extremes has encountered a climate extreme. It's the second time in a row this has happened (last time it was a Dutch heatwave).

To/from Beacon Hill, feeling my way a bit on some of the icier footpaths.

This is a route which took me past the BC parliamentary buildings, whose occupants are in the news at the moment because the governing Liberals are in the midst of a leadership election, which here is voted on by all party members. (You will be shocked to learn that this election is featuring allegations of rampant branch-stacking on all sides). BC's often colourful politics can be entertaining as I first learned on my first visit, at which point a Premier who was a slightly-less-inarticulate version of Joh Bjelke-Petersen was opposed by an opposition of idealistic socialists who still appeared to be on their way home from Woodstock. (Continuing the parallels with the much-lamented former Queensland premier, said former BC premier was widely believed to have engaged in dodginess - in this case, being unable to explain to the satisfaction of the Mounties exactly what services, if any, were involved in $20,000 changing hands between a real estate developer and him - but nothing ever stuck in court).

I got a bit of a surprise when I woke up this morning to see snow on the ground and still falling steadily. (I wasn't the only person to be surprised - the forecast was for 2cm on higher ground and only flurries in the city).

This made for an more interesting run than expected - it was the heaviest falling snow that I think I've been out in. Still no great problem to be running in as there hadn't been time for any ice to form - slightly hard work going uphill but otherwise OK. (The most significant issue was that it was hard to tell in places what was road, what was footpath and what was park). As often on days like this, everybody who was actually out (and there were quite a few, either walking, running or cycling) was in a good mood and greeting everyone else who was out, and the traffic was eerily quiet. The snow was getting quite deep by the end - probably 5cm or so of additional accumulation in the hour I was out.

Quite a reasonable run as a run, too.

(And the forecast has been revised to 15-25cm, which I guess makes sense now that there's 10+ on the ground and it's still falling).

C • snow 5

Obviously I was tempting fate by talking about earthquakes a couple of days ago. Vancouver isn't immune itself - it's a region which gets them rarely, but has the potential to get really big ones (there's geological evidence of one of magnitude near 9.0 in 1700 - oddly enough, the exact date is known because of records of the associated tsunami in Japan), and a lot of the suburbs are on river delta sediments which are definitely not something you want to be on in a big earthquake, as Christchurch has found out.

(Another random coincidence in the disaster department is that my first two trips to Darwin both coincided with major terrorist attacks, which if nothing else proved that it is possible to get an international story on the front page of the NT News).

This run took in what I imagine is the classic Vancouver run - a loop of Stanley Park. I haven't run this before - in 2002 I was on one of that year's numerous abortive comebacks from compartment syndrome and hadn't yet started running again. That took in the first half - including a few photo stops on a clear chilly morning - before then heading out west for the second half as far as Jericho Beach. Hit some hills in the last quarter. Black ice a bit of a nuisance at times, along with some leftover sleet (as I was to find out on the way out of Vancouver, the snowline was about 50 metres).

The run had a very promising start which it didn't quite live up to, but still a solid long run, coming out of a flat patch in the middle - probably better than I was expecting after sleeping badly last night (and that hasn't even really caught up with me later today, which is surprising). A little left hip soreness in the middle but that disappeared by the end; Achilles also a little touchy but still much improved on last week.

A shortish run from central Vancouver which included doing a few controls on the False Creek sprint map (would have liked to have done a bit more but had a fairly narrow window between first light and bus departure time) - reasonably standard urban sprint but still good to get the practice of that. Felt reasonably good for the most part.

Spent the rest of the day on Cypress Mountain, just out the back of Vancouver. In marked contrast to my previous visit to the slopes, the snow was excellent, the weather was not warm and the slopes, being a weekday, were uncrowded (I imagine the place gets packed at weekends). This made for a generally enjoyable day; the more powdery snow was a bit more demanding on muscles than the equivalent in Switzerland, which may or may not make its presence felt tomorrow.

Covered almost all the green and blue runs, with just one run at the top end of the blue range stretching me beyond my capabilities (although a few others streched me close to my limits).