Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

40 minutes seems to be the magic number for me at the moment. Today that was towards the far end of a longer run, and while things were never bad enough in the second half for me to think seriously about bailing out (I had taken my Myki with me in case I'd had to, this being my first long run post-injury), it wasn't entirely comfortable. As always, the question will be what it's like tomorrow. Felt OK climbing hills, of which there were a reasonable number, and briefly interrupted towards the end for some political discussion (thanks to an encounter with local state MP Anthony Carbines).

Restarted the alphabetical list through Allens Road, Montmorency and Allima Avenue, Yallambie (before taking on the Yallambie rollercoaster). This quest might not last for too much longer if I do indeed end up living somewhere else in the moderately near future (if I do look elsewhere, my leanings would probably be towards somewhere closer in, which would put the St. Helena end out of range on anything except the longest of runs).

Also on my list for today was checking control sites for the street-O I'm setting on Wednesday at Templestowe Heights. Not a night that you want to be ignoring the contours. I also dropped into the Doncaster mall on this trip, not a place I'm especially familiar with (if I do have cause to go to a suburban shopping mall it's more often Northland). Much to my annoyance, all of the maps have been replaced by touchscreens where you have to scroll through 200 items to find what you want (either that or download an app).

Bendigo event at Crusoe. Mostly fairly open forest, as most of you saw at Easter last year (we weren't starting at the reservoir so there was, I presume, none of the grief over access that we had last year), though quite hilly early on. Ran decently, though lacked a bit of confidence in my footing on the steeper downhills (it had rained through the morning and the ground was wet and sometimes slippery) - not happy with my pace, though - I know it's Bendigo, but I should still be closer than 5.40 to David Brownridge on a course of this length (especially as I think he made more mistakes than I did). Took the high road on the route choice which may not have been the best option. The good news, though, was that the foot gave only the slightest of twinges (and that late).

This was the muddiest assembly area I've come across in Australia for a while; driving out was slightly adventurous (and it would have been worse for 2WDs).

There was a bit of thinking to be done on the way up. As some of you will know, relations between myself and one of my neighbours, number 3, have often been tense for almost as long as I've been here, and relations between numbers 1 and 3 have become downright poisonous. Number 1 is now on the market (they were looking to move to the country at some point, but I suspect the events of the last year have accelerated things), and the first open for inspection was today - the start of which mysteriously coincided with number 3 dumping a substantial quantity of rubbish on the nature strip. (When I asked him about it he said it was being collected "by a mate", but it's still there eight hours later). I await with some apprehension what might happen on the auction day itself (for which I'll be elsewhere, which may not be such a bad thing). All this has led me to conclude that I need to think seriously about looking elsewhere myself, although I'll wait and see how the auction goes (in both financial and other terms) and whether there's any major fallout for me from the Budget before making any commitments.

Fairly standard session at Fitzroy although not feeling super-awake. Foot seemed OK.

It was the annual Ivanhoe Labor quiz night tonight. As usual, I had some fun coming up with the questions, starting with number 1 - who out of Troy Buswell or Lance Franklin crashed into the greater number of parked cars, or were they both the same?

Good, if rather slow, for the first 45 minutes on a very nice morning (on a day which was channelling Canberra in early May). I was thinking that maybe all my injury issues were behind me and then things started hurting a bit from that point onwards, although it doesn't seem to have come up post-run which is a better sign.

I'm currently writing questions for tomorrow night's annual Ivanhoe Labor quiz night, which has involved a certain amount of research - including finding out a bit about the somewhat colourful private life of Lord Melbourne (after whom the city is named).

Continuing to build slowly back into things - managed to string two days together, and I think there was also further improvement on the injury front with no issues except on one downhill (and even that was minor - though that might be because today's downhills were pretty tame compared with yesterday's). A modest run but at the moment I'll take that - there will be time for more serious training in the weeks ahead.

It was a fairly eventful ride into work after that - today's scoreboard was having to take evasive action three times as a result of people's failures to give way (one turning right, one changing lanes, one entering from a side street), one L-plate motorcyclist who still has a bit to learn about the road rules riding illegally in a bicycle lane, and someone driving illegally in another bicycle lane.

Big positive from today: the foot has eased to nuisance-level twinge (and has got through to late evening, the time of writing, without flaring again) - best it's been since before Easter. Not prepared to call this one over yet but I'm a good deal more positive about it than I was a few days ago.

The run itself was scenic - the classic eastern beaches run, down to Bronte then along the coastal walkway to Bondi - but wasn't that brilliant as a run; back a bit tight at times. There are plenty of hills (and steps) on this route, not somewhere you go to run particularly fast. Perhaps should have got out earlier too - the traffic was pretty nasty coming back with holdups at several road crossings.

Didn't see anyone engaging in the latest Bondi sport of Packer-whacking. The question has been posed of whether an assault conviction would damage his prospects of being considered a "fit and proper" person to run a casino, an expression which reminds me of Queensland prostitution reform laws in the early 1990s under which one had to be a "person of good repute" in order to legally run a house of ill repute.

Truth in advertising department: the sign on the Tamarama Life Saving Club which is in the paint commercials is actually on the sheltered side of the building.

Spoke a bit soon on yesterday's post - it became painful last night and this morning, enough to make me think a rest day was a good idea. Much better this evening though. I've realised that one of the things which stresses it is holding it up in the air without support, and have changed my workshop sitting position accordingly....

The workshop I'm at is about heatwaves in general and promoting cross-disciplinary research in particular. One of the speakers was Liz Hanna, from the population health group at ANU, who was looking at various human physiological impacts of extreme heat (including something which tallies with my own experience of running Summer Series on days near or above 40, that if the body can't regulate its temperature effectively through evaporation or conduction then its upper limit of exercise before core temperature starts rising rapidly is 20 to 30 minutes). Something they mentioned in passing was evidence of a decline in cognitive performance with dehydration - which immediately suggested to me the potential for a study looking at how error rates varied between early and late in orienteering courses on hot days. The WMOC 2011 long final would seem to me to be a particularly suitable basis for a study for a number of reasons - it was a hot day (34), the sample size is very large and can be well-stratified by age and ability, and the 2010 and 2012 events (both run in mild weather with a substantial overlap in fields) could serve as control studies (in the science sense of the word).