Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Melbourne Bush-O at Eltham Lower Park. If I'd wanted to post a fast time in this I wouldn't have run for two hours yesterday, but still perhaps a little further off the pace than I might have expected, despite feeling at least half-decent. Slowish early on (when Alex Ikin, who was later to do his ankle coming into 7, blew past me), then started to get into it more as we got into the bush proper on the other side of the river (not sure what, if anything, to read into my best split of the day being the control that wasn't quite in the right place - saw it from 100 metres away and didn't ask any more questions).

Very impressed by Aston's time, only 13 seconds behind Bruce - in Sweden he looked as if he'd taken a big step up and today's result is further evidence of that. He's still eligible for juniors at the Schools and will take some beating.

I'm gradually making my way through a book about VFL premiership teams from 1939 to 1978. The Essendon team of the late 1940s/early 1950s (in which two of my great-uncles played) should really have won five consecutive premierships - they got three out of five, the two they missed out on were by a point (1947) and on a replay after a draw (1948), and their combined score in the 1947 and 1948 grand finals was 18.46 to 23.17. (Not too hard to see why their number one recruiting priority after 1948 was finding a key forward who could kick straight - a quest which ended well). You could argue that they should have won 1951 too, losing by 11 points without John Coleman, who'd been suspended for retaliating against a Carlton defender who'd been squirrel-gripping him.

C • Aston 4

Longest run for a while, starting out by heading for my old home turf, then along the far side of the Yarra for a while, out to the Bulleen freeway footbridge and back via Hays Paddock. A bit creaky in the first half-hour but not too bad on the whole. Felt like I was struggling a bit with the distance and I was definitely feeling as if I'd had enough for the day when this run came to an end - and that I'd made the right decision by not signing up for a probable 3 1/2 hours next weekend - but I can't have been fading too much because the 20th kilometre was my fastest non-downhill one of the day.

It was the warmest day since late May, and a lot of people were out and about. The man who was standing on a balcony in North Balwyn in only his underwear was clearly taking advantage of the early spring-like conditions.

First of these sessions since my return. Felt tight early on but loosened up as it went on - exactly what I expect from this as a recovery session. Not sure what (if anything) has happened to the other regulars. Warmest morning in Melbourne for a while, not that I noticed as much as some people will have done given the similarity of today's temperatures (night and day) with Scottish summer.

While on the subject of temperature, I noticed on the regular 'customer feedback' forms they post at Fitzroy that someone wanted the pool temperature to be posted on the website 'to save them a phone call'. The mind boggles at who would find it necessary to ring up to find out the water temperature before making a decision whether to swim or not, bearing in mind that only once (during the middle of the January 2014 heatwave) have I see a water temperature there anywhere outside the range from the mid 26s to upper 27s.

When I've been away for a while, it's sometimes interesting to note what construction has happened in my absence. This time round it's been de-construction - quite a few buildings have become holes in the ground over the last few weeks.

Saw a very un-News Limited story on climate matters today. Two hours later, I heard that the journalist who wrote it was leaving News Limited and had a new job at the Huffington Post.

A long(ish) run from Fishermans Bend as a precursor to dropping my car off for a service. It turned out to be one of my better runs of its type for a while once some initial tightness was shaken out over the first few minutes, although the degree of difficulty wasn't especially high with most of the run dead flat (and a tail wind for most of the first half) - definitely faster than most of the runs I've been doing (this seems typical of just-returned-home days). Got down as far south as the Elwood canal. Achilles starting to become a bit sore over the last 10-15 minutes.

The usual All Nations Park speed session. Didn't feel like there was terribly much speed there, but did pick up a bit in the later reps. Nice morning for it (and no dogs getting in the way this time).

Warm-up and down going to/from the park. Hamstring felt a bit tight before I started running but a non-issue on the run itself.

Industrial action is ongoing in a lot of federal government agencies, including ours. Our unions haven't yet managed to come up with anything as inspired as the ATO staff providing "enhanced customer service" as a form of industrial action, but ours at least improved productivity - a 48-hour ban on replying to e-mails, answering phone calls or attending meetings. (Productivity may have been improved further by the fact that the three people above me in the management hierarchy were all elsewhere today).

And the media fail of the week so far goes to the Herald-Sun, who in a piece yesterday about the Bangkok bombing managed to confuse an IED with an IUD (as a letter-writer put it, if IUDs contain TNT these days then they're glad their child-bearing days are over). Perhaps we'd better not talk to them about the Indian Ocean Dipole.

(Media Watch might have some fun with this, but have a bit of egg on their face themselves after running a piece a couple of weeks about various media outlets portraying a 50-centimetre hole 100 metres from the fence at Goulburn Jail as an 'escape tunnel'. Turned out the person suspected of digging it escaped by other means a few days later, although he's since been recaptured).

Down to the Gipps Street bridge and then back along the east side of the river, including some of the rougher tracks (not as slippery as I had expected after early morning rain). Quite lively in the first half, although somewhat slower once I hit the single tracks and a bit of a grind later on; nevertheless, felt better than I did on the runs in Scotland last week (though not really tested on hills).

Clearly I'm not suffering too much from jet lag - something went wrong with my alarm this morning and I slept through until almost 7, an hour later than I'd intended. This made things a little more rushed than I'd planned on but still hit the pool before 8, in occasional light showers. A better swim than I'd expected, although drifted out of it a bit in the last couple of laps.

Lunchtime around the Tan. Felt lively at times but rather slow (a bit of traffic contributed to that, but then this route almost always has traffic).

Fairly predictably, a large part of my first day back involved sorting through e-mails. Also lobbing in on my first day back was another missive (based on a false claim) from one of our usual correspondents - enough to have me muttering about what time the next plane back to Scotland leaves.