Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

A recovery session at the Tooms pool on the way out of town northwards, a little bit later than I'd planned on because the hire car company took 45 minutes to get round to finding a car for me after I turned up.

There's something very pleasant about swimming in an outdoor pool on a warm sunny day (even if sunglare was a minor nuisance - I tried switching sides for breathing but very quickly learned something about the weakness of my left arm and its unsuitability for a leadoff stroke). Not many people there which surprised me a bit for a holiday Tuesday - perhaps late April is too late for people to be in swimming mode. The swim itself was fairly relaxed which was the idea. Achilles quite tight today.

In my early years of elites I used to have a reputation for coming through the field on the last day of Easter (most notably in 1991, when I gained ten places as the field crumbled around me). In recent years I've gained an appreciation of why it was that the opposition found it hard to come up on the last day (although some of the 1991 opposition were fairly enthusiastic day 2.5 participants too).

Warming up was hard initially but in the end this wasn't a bad run physically. Technically, though, was a different story. The first part of the course was in a green area made greener by lots of fallen timber from a January thunderstorm. I was very hesitant on 1 and then missed 2 badly, overestimating how far it was from the gully and wasting a couple of minutes in heavy rock to the south. Didn't quite nail 3 either, and by then I was three or four minutes down and behind the eight-ball. It got better from there with only a couple of very minor technical wobbles; probably at its best through the second green section from 7 to 10, around the time that Simon was going through me. Had to battle a bit through the final uphill sector but I've had worse.

13th was a bit disappointing in the end; I'd hoped for top-10, and might have got close to it without Sunday's no-race, but the first couple of days have given me something to build on. Perhaps I'm turning into a middle-distance specialist in my old age? We'll find out more about that on Sunday.

C • Middle Distance training regime as well? 1

C1 Day 4 - Splits

Yesterday was encouraging but today was back to the grind that I might have expected after the last few weeks - similar heat and humidity to the Canberra NOL and a fairly similar sort of run, except that it was for no result. The third control was misplaced; I didn't lose a lot of time there (mainly because John Toomey was sitting there), just checking out a couple of likely potential misplacing locations, but from that point a no-race was more or less inevitable.

I was struggling for concentration for a while after that (most notably at 7, where I lost a minute through coming in high and not being able to get down through the rocks to the control), and subconsciously for motivation too, knowing that the result would almost certainly not count. It ended up being a bit of a slog but never really fell apart. Lachlan went through me on a route choice at 16, and we were in sight from there until we both missed 20 a little; he gradually eased away after that.

I'm a little surprised that no-one saved themselves explicitly for the last day, either by bailing or by jogging the remainder (except for Ecmo, who had a good excuse for his DNS - having to take a sick child to hospital in Perth - and was as surprised as anyone to find out he was still in the race). Thumbs up for the field.

Tracy's recovery from the run was to hold the attention of an impressively large group of youngsters through storytime in the tent. I didn't think they'd be terribly excited by the reading matter I had on hand, the Orienteering Australia 2011-14 budget and forward estimates or the February issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (although Anne suggested the increasingly-numerically-inclined Mason might be interested in the former). The latter did have one of the quirkier titles I've seen, 'What Comes Down Might Go Up' (about the potential impact of climate change on landslide risk in coastal California).

C1 Day 3 - Splits

First full day of Easter, the middle distance. Got into a nice flow early on hitting the first few pretty well, a bit of a wobble on 5 but nothing of any significance, and picking up the yellow/bare rock lines (important for speed in this terrain) well. Speed was still a bit down, but I was a little surprised to see Jimbo coming into 6 as I was going out, having caught 1.30 of a two-minute gap. I got a good route choice on 7 which broke that gap open again, then made an annoying 20-seconder on 10 (seeing the feature but not the flag) and thought he might be on me again, but he wasn't. Reasonably solid finish, and reasonably happy with the run - I don't get a lot of single-digit placings these days so this was a pretty good start.

C1 Day 2 - Splits

Event: Frazzle Rock Easter 2011
 

Easter prologue, on a bush map rather than an urban one. A little slow to start and missed 15 seconds on 3 (misread which side of the boulder it would be on), but then settled down OK. Robbie caught me before 6, but missed it (of which more below) - through me again a couple of controls later. Not great uphill but moving OK otherwise. Fallen timber not as bad as feared. Good Friday for me is about damage-limitation, so I was reasonably happy to be under three minutes down, and to score a National League point, a rarity for me in sprints these days. Glad it wasn't a longer race, on a 33-degree day.

Highlight of the day was the drop manouevre executed on Robbie at 6 - he was running alongside me and I noticed that he wasn't looking up where I thought we should be looking up, so I dropped back a stride or two and then turned once he couldn't see me. Only held him off for a couple of controls but it's fun to do. (Since it's pretty rare that I can burn people off with speed, I've had a lot of practice at finding other means to break packs up).

Day 1 (Prologue) Long - Splits

Did what I imagine is the Classic Central Perth Run - up from the central city to Kings Park, along the track on the upper part of the escarpment, back along the Swan River. Thought I might struggle through not eating anything beforehand but seemed to be OK. Knee not too bad.

I'm used to having random encounters with orienteers in the streets of small country towns at this time of year, but thought Perth might have been a bit big for that before coming across Tracy and Sticky (and kids) on the way to work (I'm working out of the Perth office today).

C • Weather Forecast 2

Rest day. Just about to head to Perth.