Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Event: Vic Bush State Series 6 - Chewton
 

State Series at Chewton. At least I stayed on the map this week, but this was not a good race - obviously people like Bryan are always going to blow me away these days, but benchmarking against people I'm normally close to, something in the lower 50s would have been a par result. Perhaps three minutes went to getting caught in a fair bit of nasty green trying to exit 7, and another minute to wobbles on 1 and 9, but I'm not sure where the rest went - presumably through lacking confidence and aggression running in the terrain. No noticeable injury issues today but perhaps it was lurking in the subconscious.

The numbers today were again pleasing (after nearly 200 at the Melbourne Bush-O last weekend, easily a record); I think we ended up with 180-odd. You probably have to go back to the 1990s for the last time we reached 200 in a State Series event without significant interstate participation.

C • I think Jymbo was pretty pleased as well. 18

A run with some ups and downs in its course profile, and also some ups and downs in how it felt (the former didn't necessarily coincide with the latter). Probably a bit of an improvement on most other runs this week. Achilles a bit sore today, but no real foot issues.

I guess it was inevitable that once I so much as hinted that I might be considering moving, Mum (who's down here for a few weeks) would start looking for real estate that she thought might suit me. First one she identified was a location which would suit me (close to the Arthurs and Dalheims), but too big in both size and likely price, and I'm not ready to take the plunge yet anyway. Whether I am depends a fair bit on how the auction next door goes next weekend - not so much in terms of the price, but more in terms of who buys it (latest news is that a former work colleague is among those interested), and whether the other neighbours cause trouble at the auction and/or do something to indicate that things won't settle down post-auction.

Fairly standard session at Fitzroy. Was raining quite a bit when I started out but that cleared within the first 15 minutes. Felt much as usual for a Friday; no foot issues.

Ryanair and some of their fellow European budget airlines have committed some atrocities against geography in their time, but I'm not sure even they would have been shameless enough to refer to something out the back of Toowoomba as Brisbane West, as the owners of an under-construction airport there apparently intend to do.

Slowly rebuilding distance while I'm not entirely confident of my injury status. Today was slow, especially as it was a relatively flat route (Yarra Flats and Darebin Creek), and only got going very gradually, but not the worst of runs, with soreness at the 'minor niggle' stage and not getting any worse.

I'm starting to make more detailed plans for the South American trip, having spent a bit of time over the last few days checking out things like which countries require visas (only Brazil and Paraguay of the ones I'm considering going to), and whether the routes I want to do are feasible by public transport (mostly yes). I have also noticed that the rough dates I was looking at arriving in Rio are a day or two before the scheduled runoff in the Brazilian presidential election, which may or may not be a good idea - I imagine Brazilian elections are accompanied by a certain amount of loud merriment and horn-blowing by supporters of the winning candidate, and possibly some freelance rioting by supporters of the losing one.

Easing my way back into this - I'm pretty sure this is the slowest I've ever done this session, but it's the first time for a while I've got through it and you have to start somewhere. Again a bit of foot soreness (bottom this time), though better than yesterday and not enough to be a real issue. Lacking any meaningful pace.

Dad Joke of the day goes to the NT police, who (amongst a few other excruciating puns) reported that a cow was loose on a street in Palmerston and that drivers were advised to take care in order not to T-bone it.

Original plan was to do something fairly long early in the morning. That was scuttled when we were told we were wanted at the venue at 8 (getting up at 5.15 was more than I could handle this morning), so instead I decided to do something shorter between the workshop and the flight - especially once I knew I had a partner in crime for the exercise (Lucy McGarva, who's recently joined the Bureau, was at the workshop too and on the same flight out as me).

Settled on something on the eastern shore on the way out to the airport - knew we were going to run out of light so didn't want anything too adventurous, instead doing an out-and-back along the waterfront (more or less) east from Bellerive. Foot wasn't great today (though more the bottom than the top) and was glad I wasn't going that much further. Nice night for it, with decent views of the mountain at sunset in clear skies.

Even by my usual standards this was a bit of an epic day - start the day in Adelaide, work most of it in Melbourne (albeit not as much as planned, as the flight from Adelaide was delayed) and finish it in Hobart, where I'm presenting at a drought workshop tomorrow. The only realistic time to fit a run into this was lunchtime, and I duly went out for a session which was somewhat mundane but not too bad by the standards of recent lunchtimes. A little bit of a foot niggle at times, something absent on the weekend. Again very warm for this time of year.

Throat feels a bit sore tonight; hope it's not turning into anything significant.