Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Run from my (parents') place with Rob and Andy before the OA board workshop - Grant sent his apologies because he was on nightshift, but noted he had successfully achieved a chase and arrest. No such excitement on our run, which went OK for the first 50 minutes or so (including a climb of Black Mountain, considerably more ambitious than anything else I've attempted in the last couple of weeks). After that, though, my back started playing up on the hills, which put paid to plans to come back over Little Black as well, but it was more or less OK on the flat and we finished off reasonably round the northern side of Aranda, then doing the seriously daring thing of crossing Bandjalong Crescent without using the underpass (this will make sense to Aranda Primary parents or former students). Not as cold as I thought it might have been, and definitely no snow in Canberra, although it was visible to around 900 metres on the ranges.

Late morning terrain run from Aranda once I'd made it to the house - good to get into the bush again, in old haunts on Aranda Hill and Black Mountain (though didn't go as high on the mountain as I sometimes do). Enough tightness to remind me that I'm not quite 100% without being a significant impediment.

My parents are still somewhere in the outback so I had the rare experience of making my way from the airport by public transport (I could have got a taxi, which would have saved an hour but I wasn't in any particular hurry). It's the first time I've been into the Civic Interchange for quite a few years (when I'm working in Canberra I pick up buses on the west side of the centre) so I hadn't noticed how much redevelopment is happening, not least the disappearance of Canberra House which I traversed on many a day in between buses. (Also noticed that Action seem to have acquired the Swiss on-bus displays which tell you what the next few stops are and how long it's going to take to get there). The most notable disappeared childhood landmark was still to come though - the treehouse out the back of our place, which had been around for more than 40 years and perhaps a dozen generations (of which we were the third) of local kids, is no more, apart from one lonely plank which survived the fall of the branch the main platform was on. (I'd occasionally mused about nominating it for a heritage listing).

And I got the chance for the first time to check out the new cafe at the Aranda shops, which lived up to its reputation (OK, so places like this can be found on every second street corner in Fitzroy, but it's a novelty for suburban Canberra). Good to see something useful done with the Aranda shops, which have been more or less derelict for the last 25 years (I believe the owners were holding out in the rather forlorn hope of getting planning permission for a mega-apartment complex).

And headlines which wouldn't make much sense to speakers of varieties of English other than Australian English: "Extent of ice usage revealed in water" (Weekend Australian).

C • Night terrain run 1

Nothing terribly exciting, but another step up in distance. Not feeling quite 100% but nothing that would get too much in my way. Did tail off a little towards the end so the capacity of the injury to last a long distance may still be questionable - will find out a bit more this weekend.

There's much excitement afoot about the prospects of snow in various parts of the country this weekend. I'll have a better chance than some, because we're heading to Canberra this weekend for an OA Board workshop (among other things, working out how we go about spending the participation funding and paying for the things that participation funding can't be spent on). At this point I think it's most likely that it will be the usual story in Canberra, running out of moisture by the time it's cold enough, but I'm prepared to be proven wrong (I think there's maybe a 20-30% chance of getting something). The most unusual aspect of this event is how far north it will get, with good prospects for snow in New England (and perhaps even in Stanthorpe).

Another step up in distance, if not intensity, with 2015's version of the old MFR Monday nights, with the two CBs from the Studley footbridge. Pretty slow (a bit less so in the second half), but happy to get through with no real issues on a course with more hills than yesterday.

Had a bit of a "you know you're getting older" moment when I noticed that at least seven of the competitors in the women's A final at the JWOC middle are daughters of people I used to run against. In the 1990s when WOC was run only in odd years, a lot of pregnancies were timed for even years - 1998 was a particularly large crop and I recall wondering at the time how many of them would turn up at JWOCs of the mid- to late 2010s.

Celebrated my birthday (a rare one in Melbourne) by getting out for my first training run in a bit, on a crisp morning. Not entirely convincing but no real dramas on the flat; felt slightly awkward on the couple of small inclines but I'll take that as a starting point.

One occasionally sees names pop up from one's past in unexpected places, so I was interested to see this over-the-top claim this morning. Assuming it's the same person, I have a certain amount of history with her in her incarnation as a first-year geography tutor at ANU with whom I had a less-than-stellar working relationship (the highlight of which was being penalised for using both sides of the paper in an essay on forest conservation). Let's just say that producing substantive data in support of assertions wasn't one of her stronger points 25 years ago either.

Had originally had thoughts of a short test-things-out run when I got home from work, but was feeling a bit tight when I got off the bike so figured there wasn't anything to lose from letting a return wait another 12 hours or so.

To the pool on a morning for the hardcore (although tame compared with next week if some forecast projections are to be believed - and going to Queensland will be only a partial escape). Felt a bit of tightness beforehand and early on (partly in the groin this time), and never entirely convincing but managed to get through OK. Then followed a rather unpleasant ride in sleety rain (which included my closest dooring near-miss for a while).

Stirred up my WA colleagues by telling them I'd just come across a newspaper story which reported a shooting in a cafe in Hay Street (around the corner from our Perth office) and that the shooter was still on the run - then told them that the story in question was from 1929. It was one of several 1929 stories which could have appeared in today's paper - in particular, the paragraph "Efforts to induce Germany to share the sacrifice necessary to meet Britain's demands were unsuccessful" could just have easily appeared today, with "Greece" and "Germany" substituted for "Germany" and "Britain" respectively. (As someone pointed out last week, the Germans should remember that trying to force countries to repay unrepayable debts can lead to economic collapse and the election of radical governments).

Other stories which could well have appeared in modern times included a taxi driver being robbed at gunpoint in Sydney's inner west, civil war in Afghanistan, the SA government being upset at the failure of the Feds to come through with a promised grant for disability services, and "Officials of the Australian Labour (sic) Party declare that the Federal Government, with its budget, has written its epitath". They were right - Labor would take power a couple of months later, but it was the ultimate hospital handpass, as they were hit almost immediately by the Great Depression. (Labor wouldn't have had the numbers to force an election except that they'd won Indi by default in 1928 after their opponents forgot to nominate; one wonders how history might have been different otherwise).

I doubt very much, however, that anyone has appeared today in Muswellbrook Local Court for the alleged possession of 25 possum skins.