Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Given that I'd been struggling to be competitive with decent runs, I was never going to be anywhere near the hunt with a poor one like today's. The most fundamental problem was that I simply don't have the strength at the moment to be able to run properly in this stuff - probably at least 50% of it was in marshes today, and while they're mostly not particularly deep marshes, I find it very draining. Some solid training in this terrain would definitely make a big difference. (I think JWOC 2015 is going to be at least broadly similar, so anyone who's serious about that should think seriously about coming over as early as they can and getting some experience in this stuff).

This wasn't a particularly good run technically, either. The main issue was 5, a long leg near the treeline; I couldn't make any sense of what had been mapped as yellow and white and lost track of my height - as it turned out I hadn't dropped anywhere near enough (which is at least better than the alternative). Hard to gauge exactly how much I lost but I'd guess a couple of minutes. Smaller misses on 8, 9 and 14 (where a wide track route didn't pay off as well as a similar one did yesterday).

Had to take off pretty quickly afterwards so I don't know what my placing was but it won't be flattering. 58 was leading when I left. Now heading to the airport - next stop Heidelberg, Germany (after a night in Stuttgart if the flight connection works, or Berlin if it doesn't), where I have a conference next week - not one I would have gone to on its own but fitted nicely into the schedule between O-festival and WOC.

There are a lot of good M40s in Norway. I certainly felt better running today than yesterday, only made one small error (a 20-30 seconder on the first, having been rather taken aback to be last of the 13.33 bunch to the start triangle), and was closer in percentage terms than yesterday (9 1/2 minutes down on the winner, former Norwegian national team member Bernt Bjornsgaard), but still finished in the bottom half of the field.

By Norwegian standards it was reasonably technically easy - lots of open marshes which were good attack points for many controls, and in the more forested section around the southern hill from 10-14 there was heavy tracking (a lot of courses seemed to have the same legs here). Still, there were some tricky legs and I was happy to nail those. Struggled again going uphill in soft ground - couldn't run much of the big climb out of the spectator control to 10, and on 17, where the straight line was 500 metres uphill through marshes, I went wide for a track option (it was one of my better splits so that was probably a good idea).

O-festival sprint, not really an urban one except for a couple of legs late in the course - it was at the Norefjell ski resort (where the downhill was for the 1952 Oslo Winter Olympics) and was focused on a couple of the ski runs and nearby terrain. Not really anything in the forest except for a few thickets to go around, but plenty of soft springy vegetation which I found it very hard work to run uphill through. (Fortunately, the fact that the start was 150 metres above the finish meant there wasn't a lot of uphill running to be done). Not as rough underfoot as in Oslo, as I'd anticipated. Only one mistake of any consequence - a 20-seconder or so at 3, climbing too high around a spur again (my 1-minute man went through me there). Ended up about halfway down the field in M40.

The Nordic summer has been missing in action over the last couple of weeks, and being at an altitude of 900 metres or thereabouts added an extra bite to it - it was only about 8-9 degrees with a chilly breeze, although at least the rain had cleared out before we started.

It's always a bit of a shock to the system when I venture onto Nordic terrain for the first time in a trip and today was no exception - and the hill behind Cassie and Jim's place abounds with challenges for the unfamiliar (particularly the roughness, and the hiding-lots-of-pesky-holes low vegetation). Started by running to the top of the ski run (where the start was) to warm up then did a couple of short courses left over from club training last week. Making mistakes is a good way to learn, and I made a couple of significant ones in the first five controls (both times climbing too much while contouring on shortish legs), but was navigating considerably better in the second half - though without much fluency either in terrain running or navigation. Also struggling climbing in soft ground, as was the case last year. It's been quite a dry spring (although as I write the conditions are doing their best to address this) and the marshes were more runnable than can sometimes be the case here.

I'm expecting the O-festival terrain (which is near the treeline at about 800 metres elevation) to be less rough and more runnable than this, but it's no bad thing to jump in at the deep end. Definitely felt better physically today after a decent night's sleep (slept through until about 6, which I consider to be mission-more-or-less-accomplished). One thing I certainly won't have to worry about at O-festival is heat - it's not expected to reach double figures all weekend.

Made it to Oslo more or less as planned and got a reasonable amount of sleep on the Hong Kong-Helsinki leg, then had the rest of the day to see out in that not-quite-normal mode when you've landed from a long international flight. Originally had some thoughts of going out into the terrain but decided to leave that for tomorrow (encouraged somewhat by the mid-afternoon line of thunderstorms, as well as Jim being sick and abandoning thoughts of going out himself).

The run itself was a bit of a token effort; felt very ordinary indeed, and rather clogged up as I sometimes do after a long-haul flight. Eventually hit the wall while watching the soccer and was in bed not long after 8.

The trip certainly got off to a good start - I arrived at the airport to be handed a boarding pass with 1A on it. I've had upgrades before but never to there (to be fair, on a lot of international flights 1A is first class, which Qantas to Hong Kong doesn't have any more, but I'll definitely settle for business).

With 7 hours between flights in Hong Kong I decided to link up with Troy (who's not there for much longer - he has a new job in Phuket). It would be fair to say that this run was considerably more ambitious than anything I'd have attempted on my own - I'd suggested that I was looking for 30 minutes or so to turn the legs over, and he said this was a bit longer, 35-40, and not too steep. Somewhere on the 1.5km climb at 13% early on, with calves screaming, I realised that the Hong Kong definition of "not too steep" is not quite what we're used to. We ended up climbing as high as the top station of the Peak tram; the views, as you would expect, were spectacular.

Stopping for water has a different meaning in Hong Kong - here it means dropping into a convenience store and swiping your Octopus card (like Myki but much more useful) to buy a bottle of water. I coped with the humidity better than I thought I might (30 degrees, dewpoint 25); a marked contrast with the wild and woolly conditions around Melbourne this morning (although I got out before the worst of it).

A reasonable run, all things considered, although only occasionally got into much flow - the terrain wasn't really suited for flow. Not sure if the GPS gave me quite full value in amongst the towering skyscrapers and (on the top parts) lush forest, although it certainly wasn't a fast run.

Now about to do the next leg to Helsinki and Oslo.

Threatening to be fairly wild and woolly this morning, and definitely hard work going into the headwind in the first half (even once the usual early creakiness was out of the way). The rain held off, though (and riding across the Docklands bridge later on wasn't the nightmare I expected it to be). Starting to flow much better in the last couple of kilometres, just when it was time to stop.

Tomorrow will be a marked contrast. I'm off to Europe in the morning (O-festival in Norway and WOC in Italy, with a meeting in Germany in between). If things go to plan, tomorrow's run will be done in Hong Kong (where I have 7 hours and plan to catch up with Troy) - very different conditions. (That's if I make it out - not 100% certain with the high winds forecast, although I think the worst of them will be after my scheduled departure).

Was tossing up whether to do this post-work swim at Fitzroy or Ivanhoe, but a look at the colourful line advancing on the radar when I left work was enough to convince me of the merits of Ivanhoe. A somewhat messy swim in a crowded lane.

Spent a bit of time wondering whether it would be a waste of virtual ink complaining to the Press Council about Maurice Newman's factually reckless piece in today's Australian. One of these days people might stop spreading falsehoods about our work but it probably won't be soon. (Among other highlights, he makes a big deal about us having 1962 data from Cobar Airport whose site opened in 1993, when the documentation says explicitly that the Cobar data is from a different site and doesn't use the airport). You'd think someone who is presumably making good money chairing the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council had better things to do.

Needless to say, I haven't really started packing yet.