Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

After last night I decided to defer the long run to Friday (it fits a bit better with Friday's logistics in any case). The way I felt immediately before, and in the first 10 minutes of, this session did nothing to disabuse me of the thought that trying to go long today wouldn't have ended well. Got a bit better after that (and felt better during the rest of the day).

C • Run or crawl? 2

Street-O at "Blackburn North" (actually mostly on the north side of the freeway in south Doncaster). About the only thing that can be said for tonight is that it wasn't quite as much of a debacle as last week - felt reasonable for the first 20 minutes or so, which is 19 1/2 more than I lasted last Wednesday, but then my quads went (whether this is an after-effect of Sunday or not is unclear) and I couldn't do much up the hills, of which there were a few. Got the route right (I think) but that was only of limited relevance.

It was annual climate statement day: it's always a bit strange when you're listening to yourself on the radio on the way to the event. (If I'd chosen the right station I could have done it going home, too).

Will want to run myself back into some sort of form soon, though I'm not sure a 35-degree day at Croydon Hills is going to be the place to do it.

C • Radio National 3

All Nations intervals. Definitely not as sharp or strong as I was last week, especially on the uphill reps, but no niggles at least (once Achilles, always tight early, was warmed up).

Warm-up and down from the intervals session.

Took two mornings cycling in Melbourne in 2016 before being on the end of my first f-word for the year. (Oddly enough, it came from another cyclist who didn't seem to quite grasp the idea that if you want people to give way to you on a pedestrian crossing you need to be a pedestrian).

Had thoughts initially of doing both a run and swim early, but didn't sleep well and was too tempted by the snooze button when the alarm went off (first day back at work today), so the swim was the morning part of the operation. Felt somewhat flat and lacking in fluency, although a nice morning to be in the water.

Lunchtime around the Tan. Normally this wouldn't be the most challenging of sessions but today it was about as much as I could have managed, suggesting all may not be quite right. (Quads seem to suffered a bit from the descent yesterday, too, although other niggles were OK). Felt hot at the end; it was a bit warm (25) and a bit humid, but certainly nothing which should have caused too many dramas.

Bridgewater-Mount Lofty and returning via Aldgate, with a largish group of locals covering an impressively large age range (a couple of M14s included, although they only did half of it). Cool morning - foggy on the top. Had a reasonable idea of what to expect from doing the same climb in 2012 the day after Jenny's wedding, but that doesn't make the last bit of the climb any less ferocious....

Hips were tight when I started (and for much of the run, in fact). This concerned me since it's often a precursor to back trouble, but wasn't today - kept within myself though. Quads feeling it a bit coming down as well, but reasonably happy to get through on a day when the body didn't really want to play ball (think I would have struggled with one tentative plan of a couple of weeks ago, 32km worth of Summit to Sea) - had quite a few regathering stops which helped (all of which featured Simon coming back and forth for long distances - I wouldn't be surprised if he did 5km extra). Not quite as social a run as I thought it might have been (during the run - after was a different story) as I seemed to fall into the hole in the middle of the pack, especially coming down, but did still find time to engage in discussions on matters such as bushfire hazard assessment and the misadventures of the local MP.

Back in Melbourne tonight. Enjoyed the weekend, although perhaps not the flight back so much (thanks mostly to an obese neighbour).

Back to orienteering training for the first time for a while, in a place I haven't been before - Lucky Hit, venue for the 1986 Australian Relays. I haven't been here before, not having run the 1986 Australian Relays - back then the relays were a club affair and my then club, Northside Navigators, suffered from a severe shortage of juniors, or even elites. (Part of the impetus for the 1989 merger which formed Bushflyers was that Michael and James Derlacki wanted to run relays with me, a team which produced a second in M20 in 1990).

The section we were running on was about a 1 sq km section of mature pine forest, without a lot on the ground apart from some areas of pine regrowth (and, in a definite asset for a summer training venue, no grass seeds). We were running 12-year-old courses on a 30-year-old map, with a lot of small earthworks and rocks, many of which probably wouldn't be mapped today (and 30 years of erosion had put paid to some of the earthworks), but navigation was still perfectly feasible; the good visibility helped. (I don't think it was as good 30 years ago, and recall some suggestions at the time that the name of the map was apt).

Took a while to get myself back into the terrain, and my back was a bit iffy at times, but still nice to get out there. Quite a cool morning by recent standards. Did a certain amount of back-road exploring in the Adelaide Hills on the way home.

C • Runnability 10

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.