Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Extending the boundaries a bit further; I wanted to have the confidence boost that getting past the 2-hour mark at least once before Easter will (hopefully) provide, even if I would have preferred it to happen a few weeks earlier than it actually did. Never as smooth as the first half of last Sunday was, but also not as easy - didn't go out of my way for hills but plenty of the consistent rolling ups and downs that come with a run in the eastern suburbs (East Camberwell being as far south as I got). Tired somewhat in the last half-hour, and spent rather too much of this run thinking about what might happen after September 14 when there's an Institute of Public Affairs hit list out there with your name (in effect) on it.

Injury report: back OK, achilles occasionally troublesome in the later stages, calf a couple of sharp twinges in mid-run (sharp enough that I started to do the mental calculations 'if I have to bail, who do I know who lives closest to here and is likely to be at home') but no issues after that.

One of the things for which today was a test was whether I felt I was up to coping with the M21E ultra-long in two weeks' time. I'm still not sure about this but I've entered it anyway.

C • Enter M35? 1

Headed out earlier than I would have liked thanks to another engagement at 8. Also a bit tired after yesterday (and a bit out of sorts after a somewhat over-indulgent day in the eating department yesterday - 3 different functions). All of this combined to a pretty ordinary run on a fairly hilly course, although at least not hurting too much.

(The other engagement was a trip to Ararat for the Ivanhoe ALP's annual meeting with the locals; as you can imagine we had quite a bit to talk about. There may exist party members who consider Martin Ferguson to be a loss, but I'm yet to find any).

Up well before dawn (not as hard now as it is at most times of the year), switching a longish run to Friday, heading out across Preston and back through Darebin Parklands. As with last Sunday, not a particularly hilly run and struggled somewhat on the hills that did exist (particularly the climb out of Darebin), but decent elsewhere. Started to fade a bit in the last 20 minutes.

In the pool today - tomorrow suited my schedule better for a long run (and at this point in time it's probably better to have the chance to recover after a couple of faster sessions). A fairly routine session - winds not too wild and woolly while I was out there (although some aspects of the ride in were interesting).

A long-standing sight of my trip in has been the block in between Heidelberg Road and the Fairfield Boathouse. It's a rather ill-fated block - the factory which was there was gutted by fire about 10 years ago, then a few months later a squatter/homeless person was killed there in a wall collapse. The signs then went up for a new apartment development: 'Construction Commences Q1 2007'. The bulldozers finally moved in this week.

Street-O final event at Maroondah Triangle. In recent years this event has been a novelty event of some kind rather than the final scoring event, so no longer does it host sprint finishes with a series result at stake (I've been in a couple of these, the most memorable being a 2004 one to decide whether I took the title outright or had to share it with Tony Bird - those were the days). Tonight there were two maps back-to-back with 10 controls on each and you had to mentally put the maps together - I think for a lot of people 30 seconds to a minute marking all the controls on the same side of the map would have been time well spent.

I split from the pack immediately after deciding that the two western controls which most went for first were droppable (and that even if they weren't droppable I could get them at the end), which meant the unusual experience for a street-O of being alone; it was seven controls in before I saw a soul. Usually this means you've either got it very right or very wrong. (As it turned out I'd got it moderately wrong - instead of going 4-18-15 and dropping 11 and 20, I would have been better off going 4-20-11-15 and dropping 18 - not much longer and it would have let me drop something fiddly, probably 16, later on). Running the best I have in a street-O this year - still not much uphill strength but no pain, and flowing quite well at times on flats and downhills. Unfortunately I don't know exactly what the pace was because the Garmin looks like it's had it - will need to get a new one (although not one so flashy that I might get mugged for it in South Africa next month).

I've been looking at news from 100 years ago (in the process of writing up southeast Australia's most notable March cold outbreak, a 1913 event which brought snow down to 700 metres in southern and central NSW). The Hume was a more challenging trip then than it is now, as accounts of the Sydney-Melbourne "overland car contest" (http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/10774545) made clear - the fastest on the day managed to cover the 121 miles from Gundagai to Albury in the unimaginable time of 3 hours 54 minutes. To give a sample of what they had to deal with:

"Numberless watercourses, well filled with water, had to be forded on the long morning run of 121 miles to Albury. One in particular, between Upper Tarcutta and Kyamba, tried the springs of the cars severely. It contained about 2ft of water, had precipitous sides, and on the further ledge was protected by a large log of wood. Some of the competitors did not see the log in time. They rushed the creek to ascend the opposite bank, and struck the beam with terrific force, the shock throwing the occupants of the car a foot or more into the air".

Sitting on cruise control for a couple of hours isn't quite the same - these days you have to go to Kalumburu to find roads like that :-).

There was also evidence that there was plenty of muck around in NSW politics in those days too; a Royal Commission had just been called into alleged irregularities in the supply of sewer pipes to the Water Board. (And a parliamentary committee had recommended that the "North Shore Bridge" should be built pronto - it took another 19 years, which I guess isn't too bad).

C • South Africa 4

10x1 minute with 1 minute recovery on the south bank of the Yarra. First time I've done a session with this sort of intensity this year, and surprised myself a bit with how it went - starting to go a bit lactic on the later ones but held it together. No back issues either (and it seems a bit less touchy sitting than it has for the last few days).

First of the crisp autumn mornings, which might have added to the good mood.

Warm-up and down from the intervals.

Retro crime of the day: a marijuana plantation was found in between the vines in a northern Victorian vineyard (and for bonus retro points, one of the two people arrested was from Griffith). This sort of thing used to be a regular feature of the news about 30 years ago.

Entered the pool somewhat fired-up by the injustices inflicted upon Norwich City by the referee in their overnight match against Sunderland - particularly frustrating as a win would probably have just about guaranteed staying up. Don't know if that flowed on into the swim but it was a reasonable session, even if back felt less than brilliant. Had to content with occasional aerial moisture, a rarity in recent weeks (Saturday's showers were mostly late afternoon and evening).

Lunchtime around the Tan for the first time in a while, although a little bit later than the peak of the lunchtime crowds. Felt a bit sluggish but not actually hurting that much (and managed to cope with Anderson Street reasonably). Quite a few traffic hold-ups, an occupational hazard of the inner-city run.