Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Shaking out some New Year cobwebs (having made it to midnight - just) by being taken into some bits of near-suburban hills which will be very well known to Adelaide readers but were hitherto unknown to me - on this occasion Brown Hill being the venue, up via Yurebilla and back more directly. Initial sharp climb was a bit of a shock to the system but then the climb was more gradual, but my trail-running legs were clearly not at their best because I managed one face-plant and two other near-misses. Jenny did promise good views, and good views there were.

We were out quite early given the heat, although as it turned out an early seabreeze meant the temperature didn't shift much all day on the coast. Even at 8.30 the sun was reasonably fierce. Heading down we saw a family heading in the opposite direction, in which the kids looked much more energetic than the parents (probably having made less of a mess of themselves the night before). Adjourned afterwards to the water, a pleasant temperature and enough waves to make it interesting, although it was a bit disconcerting to look up and see a low-flying plane marked 'SHARK PATROL'. (As it happened, the water on its own was quite enough to cause trouble without needing assistance from any of its inhabitants - two kids drowned later in the day a few hundred metres up the beach).

As for goals this year, they're a bit fuzzier than in some previous years. I'm now officially older, but am not yet sure whether or not I'll get to WMOC; one clear goal is to win the Australian M45 Long. (Not sure what sort of field I'll face - Eric is the standout of those who are actually between 45 and 49, but there are also those who are older but still more than capable of being competitive at this level, and who may well run up one or more age groups - Warren seems happy now to be an M55, but Jock and Greg have both been known to run up). On the organisational front, what I'd most like to see is to begin to see some serious flowthrough into the younger age groups at 'normal' events from our schools programs, something which has already happened in Victoria in the form of the 30-odd 10s and 12s at the Victorian Sprint Championships who came via the Primary Schools Championships.

Those who went on the 2004 APOC trip (or were there a couple of years ago for ski-O) may be interested to know that one of the items listed in a round-up in the Guardian of obscure laws in various parts of the world which come into effect on 1 January was that in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan, drivers will no longer be legally required to give way to unaccompanied dogs on pedestrian crossings.

After a run as bad as last night's I'd normally defer the Thursday long run to Friday, but that wasn't really an option this time (with plans associated with spending the new year in Adelaide), so I headed out to see how I felt, with no great expectations and happy enough to settle for 90 minutes. Turned out to be not as bad as last night, but still not great (especially on hills), and I wouldn't have wanted to stay out for much longer - especially since, as it turned out, it rose from 27 to 33 in the half-hour after I finished (on its way to just short of 40).

I didn't lose as much time to injury in 2015 as in the previous two years and therefore got a few more hours under my belt, but injury did flare at inopportune times, and I also had an unwanted tendency this year to make a mess of the navigation on days when I was feeling reasonable (with the WOC long trial at the Sandhills as exhibit A), so there weren't a lot of good results on the board this year - perhaps the NSW Long Championships were the pick of the bunch (given that Easter was against very limited opposition). As for the event I enjoyed the most, I think that the Port Lincoln events (especially the middle in the limestone) were at the top of the list, although the Swiss WRE sprint in April would be up there too, despite my coming a long last.

Perhaps Metro was trying to send me a message. I was 20 minutes later than I'd planned on after falling victim to their occasional practice of station-skipping - the performance indicators in their contract are the percentage of late trains and the percentage of cancelled trains, but they're not penalised for missing stations so they sometimes do it to make up time. I think you can reasonably call this a rort.

I eventually did get to the venue around 6.45, to be greeted by the news that the ABC had apparently given me a gender reassignment. Perhaps they added 30 years to my age while they were at it, because that's the way I ran tonight - and I can't even blame the heat (which was significant, around 34) because I felt terrible inside the first 200 metres, and within a few hundred more concluded that I would be doing well just to jog around the course. No idea what went wrong given that I've been running well the last few days, and not sure what it means for subsequent training.

One novelty tonight was the first colour map I've seen in Melbourne street-O for about 20 years. Hopefully it starts a trend. I think I got the route choice pretty right, although I forgot to take my watch out so it's hard to be sure.

Other news of the day was an entry into the ranks of the World's Dumbest (would-be) Terrorists, in the form of a man who faced a British court yesterday, having come to the attention of security services when he posted on Twitter seeking advice from readers on what he should bomb.

And I thought I might be able to put my knowledge of potential lack of cricket next week to profitable use, but an inspection of the odds suggests that the TAB can read a weather forecast too.

All Nations intervals. Going pretty well by the second half - certainly significantly faster on the last three or four reps than I've previously managed with this session (which may or may not have something to do with being somewhat later in the morning than would normally be the case). Seem to be in a reasonable patch at the moment; will be good to put it to the test tomorrow night, although conditions don't look like they will be especially kind.

Warm-up and down. Went the right way this time.

The position of minister (or parliamentary secretary) responsible for the Bureau of Meteorology tends to have a fairly high turnover (normally as a consequence of more general reshuffles rather than anything specific to the organisation). However, I'm pretty sure this is the first time we've lost a minister to a nightclub incident.

A bit of a session swap because I don't want to take my belt to Adelaide (where I'll be later in the week). Also a bit later in the morning than usual, under a pleasant (if cool) summer sun. Seemed to be working pretty well, especially later on.

Must have been slightly absent-minded this morning as I left my phone behind in a cafe (and then almost did it again a couple of hours later).

A somewhat unusual late afternoon run after a day watching the cricket, reviewing papers and sorting out eight months' worth of orienteering maps for filing (among other things). As is sometimes the way for a run at this time of day, felt a bit blobby at the start but settled reasonably quickly, and flowing nicely by the last 20 minutes. Noticeably quicker than most recent non-speedwork runs.

Shortly before heading out on this I read the latest piece of conspiracy-mongering by Maurice Newman (or, to be more precise, the Guardian's report of his conspiracy-mongering in the Australian). This contained the line "The media, in step with the Green Machine, will bombard us with climate alarmism", which of course meant that this was running through my head for most of this run. (Do I qualify as a "fearsome man from the ACT"? Probably not).

Event: Christmas 5 Days
 

Sunday isn't normally the day for a recovery run. At least this one was less abortive than last week's equivalent; in fact it was a fairly reasonable run, apart from a nuisance-level problem with a toe (the nail of one dug into the side of its neighbour in the later stages of yesterday).

Someone clearly forgot to tell Metro that there was a game of cricket on: they were operating on their usual assumption that no-one goes anywhere before 11 on Sunday, so the train I got to the MCG was the first for 50 minutes (and was predictably packed to bursting point).

Radically different conditions this morning - heavy rain through the early hours, which had eased off a bit by the time I set out but continued to fall at times for the first hour of the run, and rather cool.

Plan was two hours minimum, and hoping for more, starting with my classic Peninsula route to London Bridge and then back along the back beaches for as long as I felt like. Had the sense this was going to be a pretty good one as early as the second kilometre, despite Achilles still having some residual soreness at that stage, and that was how it went. A good climb up the Sorrento hill gave me further confidence for when I hit the sand. Initially, this involves going along the beach for about 3km (wild and stormy, but the wind was more tail than head and the waves were avoidable), then a steep climb out of the beach, then a track through the dunes - lots of up and down, generally reasonably firm underfoot but with a few soft sections. Continuing to handle this reasonably solidly, and decided that on a day when I was feeling good and the conditions were good I wanted to make the most of it. Finished off solidly too. I've got a couple of long trail runs ahead in the coming weeks, and this one should give me a fair bit of confidence for the Two Bays (which doesn't have soft sand, although it has a much bigger hill), although I probably won't get conditions as kind as this for the Two Bays.

Running for this long in wet gear has consequences - chafing in quite a few places (including reasonably spectacular red streaks originating from both nipples, which somewhat perturbed various assembled relatives when I finished).