Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

About the only positive from today is that at least I now know why I ran badly yesterday; I was feeling unwell and lethargic this morning, but thought I'd warm up and at least give it a go. It was soon apparent that this wasn't going to work as I struggled even with two-contour hills; if it had been a national championship, or if the Nuggets had needed the points, I probably would have tried to push on but as neither of those applied I didn't think a 13km slog would do myself any favours, and came in from 6. (Being blown away by Ecmo between 4 and 5 assisted me a bit in this decision).

This is getting a bit frustrating - it's the fourth time in 18 months that a big race weekend has been illness-affected, and I can't even blame it on bugs recirculated from childcare like most of my contemporaries. (It's not as if I'm a particularly sickly person, either - it's nearly 30 years since I've had a day off work/uni/school due to illness).

An early finish did at least give me the chance to get on the mike (doing it mostly the old-fashioned way with a start list and mental arithmetic). I'm guessing most of the Schools teams didn't know what I was talking about when I described what was left of Mel Fuller's shoe as being the most shredded piece of tread I'd seen since Nigel Mansell at the 1986 Grand Prix in Adelaide (I'm sure footage of the latter can be found on YouTube if you look hard enough).

C • Murray Walker 1

Event: Australian Championships 2012
 

My sequence of middle championships top-10s ended after a disappointing day in some of the more challenging terrain the St. Helens mining has to offer. Too many mistakes but the biggest problem was the running - couldn't get into any sort of a rhythm in the rough stuff, and then had no speed or strength once it opened up at the end.

Missed about 2 minutes on 10, just not seeing it in the circle; also 30 seconds or so at 16, and horrible routes on 18 and (especially) 19, trying too hard to stay out of heavy erosion.

Had a day of frustration in dicing with Ecmo, someone I've been dicing with for over 20 years. He started two minutes ahead of me and I was almost onto him at 9, but Craney went through us and pulled him clear; then at 16, I'd almost caught him again and this time it was Bryan who did the honours. He eventually beat me by one second.

The kilometre rates today make me a little worried about the winning times for next Saturday, although it's not as continuously intense as today was, and I have test-run the women's course so it shouldn't be horribly wrong.

Middle Course 1 - Splits

A pool session at the new(ish) Launceston aquatic centre (sufficiently new that it was a building site the last time I tried to swim here, in late 2008). Thought it might have been an interrupted session when what could best be described as an inflatable obstacle course was lowered into the pool (for the benefit of the Launceston school holiday crowd) but there was still enough space left for me to do my thing.

This was part of a reasonably relaxed trip across from Devonport to St. Helens in generally miserable weather (even some sea fog on the coast around Scamander), employing a slightly unusual route choice through the middle (via Mathinna) and taking a side trip up Ben Lomond, which was above the first layer of cloud but was wet enough and windy enough to give a taste of what might be in store on a bad day on the Overland Track. My car has plenty of mud to show for this excursion.

In Port Melbourne/Albert Park as pre-positioning for catching the boat to Tasmania tonight. Very creaky indeed in the first few minutes, loosened up somewhat after that; never a brilliant run but became more or less respectable in the second half.

Seemed to be packing an awful lot - an indicator of the theory that luggage expands to fill the space available to carry it (and also that this trip combines orienteering, highland bushwalking, and work, the latter coming in the form of a meeting in Hobart midweek next week).

Fairly similar to yesterday, nothing really going wrong but not feeling particularly lively. Will want to be sharper than this on Saturday if I want to be competitive, in what has been my best distance at national level in recent years (I've got five straight top-tens in the middle, whereas you have to go back to 2007 for my last top-10 in the long).

Running totally counter to my normal practice, I actually started packing for Tasmania more than 24 hours ahead of time. In case you're wondering what's come over me, this occurred only because the paper was late in coming this morning and I had 15 minutes to fill which I wasn't expecting.

In the news yesterday was a proposal to build separated bike lanes on Wellington Street in Collingwood, a regular commuting route of mine. This featured the requisite whinge from the owner of a business on the street who claimed that his business would be sent into ruin because there would be nowhere for the "60 to 80 trucks per day" to park outside and do deliveries (strangely I don't ever recall seeing a truck outside that business - and in any case they have a loading bay). Anyway, there was a demonstration of the case for separated bike lanes this morning when the person riding in front of me was sideswiped by a van which had gone into the bike lane to go past a car waiting to turn right (no real damage done).

It's also been a good week on the political front, and the exit of Cory Bernardi (to "spend more time with his pets" as someone on Twitter put it) has made it a better one. Should he ever become our responsible minister the Oslo/Utrecht/Asheville option would be starting to look very attractive; the probability of such a thing is still not zero, but it's a lot lower than it was this time last week.

Difficult to have a bad run on a misty morning along the Yarra Flats. This wasn't a bad run, although I don't exactly feel as if I'm reaching a peak of sharpness ahead of a national championships week. At least all body parts were functioning more or less as they should today (and in particular there was no recurrence of the knee issues from last week).

I'm currently doing some trawling of the lists of rainfall sites looking for good long-term locations (and have located some names which will be familiar to orienteers, such as Burra (Worlds End) and Bungonia (Inverary Park)). One of the more unfortunate names I've come across was a short-lived 1930s site at a place in northern NSW by the name of Dum Dum Public School.

C • School names 1

The best that could be said for this session was that it was a good way to get rid of various sore spots from the weekend. Very slow even by my usual standards.

My argument with the blackberries on Saturday left some impressive bodyart on my right arm (you could describe it as orienteering tattoos), which I was quite happy to show off today.

Monday night from Jasmine's new place in Northcote, although unsurprisingly minus the on-run presence of our host (the crutches outside the front door were a giveaway). With everyone coming off a big day yesterday it was a pretty easy run, and again a short one. Not exactly energetic but not really hurting.