Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

State Series/Eureka Challenge at Nerrina. Felt awful for the first half of this - no energy, plus back was playing up at times, and David Brownridge gave me a pretty good indication of just how slowly I was going when he went through me at 4 (although I did hold that gap for one control at least thanks to a route choice). Thought seriously about calling it a day but decided to press on, with a bit more misery when I had trouble finding the gap in the green on the way to 10, but eventually it did start to feel a bit better and at times on the final loop running did start to become enjoyable, and the hills a bit less of a burden (although still not easy). Time was far off the pace as I would have expected (interestingly, the splits don't suggest I was that much worse in the first half than the second). Will certainly need to advance considerably on this if I want to run a place next weekend. Didn't lose much time in circles - a bit hesitant on the approach to 12 and a few iffy lines in places, but the gully crossing at 10 was the main time loss.

If this was the Grand Prix and Leon was a Mercedes, Brodie a Ferrari and Bruce a Red Bull, I was definitely at the Datsun 120Y end of the spectrum, but at least I got around without crashing.

It was the coolest day we've had in a long time (the sun was something to seek out rather than shelter from), but the forest had dried out after Friday's rain, which I presume was the reason why the school sign read 'Cross Country Off'. They must be getting soft these days - in my view the only acceptable reasons for calling off a cross country race due to adverse conditions are if the course is on fire or requires swimming. (As someone who thought mud would be to his advantage, I was deeply unimpressed that the ACT Schools was called off due to rain when I was in Year 12; somewhat ironically, the selection race for the ACT team that had to be run instead a few weeks later was run in far worse conditions than the cancelled race would have been).

C • Grand Prix 3

C • Cross country 15

With no particular reason to be out early either ahead of doing something else or to beat hot weather, I was out a bit later than usual today. Loosened up OK after the first kilometre, but was feeling a bit sluggish for most of the run nevertheless - perhaps at its best down by the river (although I didn't get onto the more slippery bits). Felt rather autumnal.

Did my first bit of 2016 election campaigning this afternoon, finding a couple of new patches for distributing material into (the Hells Angels clubhouse was across the road so I didn't get the chance to find out whether anyone is enrolled to vote at that address). Somewhat ironically, the address I had the most trouble finding was an orienteering one. The one pile of letters I haven't yet dealt with - might leave those ones for the post - are the couple of dozen for those enrolled at 101 Yarra Bend Road, aka the Thomas Embling Hospital (which last attracted attention in a political context when one of its inmates - who has since gone on to bigger and badder things - punched Tony Abbott when he visited the facility as Health Minister).

Run from near work to suit plans for later in the day. There was a strong meteorological system making its way across Melbourne overnight. I thought it might be hard work on waking up to find a dewpoint starting with a 2, but the main front went through just before I started; the rain was not as heavy as I thought it might have been either.

This went southwards through St. Kilda to the Elwood canal, my options for routes without too many road crossing limited by the closure of Albert Park due to the Grand Prix. Had that not been a factor I probably wouldn't have chosen to come back along the waterfront, with a headwind at an angle of 45 degrees or so which felt every bit of its 35 knots, but in fact that section was the high point of this run with plenty of strength on display (after having taken the first half-hour or so to get going). It was a bit annoying that the wind dropped out just as I was turning around for it to become a tailwind, but as is sometimes the chance in challenging wet/windy conditions, I didn't feel as if I was tiring in the least. Pretty reasonable effort on the whole.

I did enough early-morning runs into St. Kilda (seedier then than it is now) when living in Albert Park in the mid-1990s to see some interesting sights; this morning's was someone walking (slightly unsteadily) in a bright green suit covered with shamrocks. I expect he was grateful that St. Patricks Day is followed by World Sleep Day. (It was also the National Day of Action Against Bullying, but someone forgot to tell George Christensen).

Was always going to shuffle my longer run for tomorrow given a middle-of-the-night teleconference, but yesterday's Achilles issues reinforced that view. Felt better this morning (although tight again during the day at work). A nice session once in the pool, on what might (or might not) be the last warm morning of the season.

Summer Series end-of-season novelty event at Maroondah Triangle - this year matching the name of the street sign at the control with one of 20 clues on the map. I twigged a bit too late that this meant that you could leave out a control (as long as you were confident you'd got the other 19 right, thus getting the 20th answer by process of elimination). If you chose your route carefully, you could also "get" a control from the other end of the street (as I did at 6 - not sure I can claim a "spike" for a control I didn't go within 200 metres of).

Achilles was playing up a bit tonight so took it easily, on what might (or might not) be the last warm-weather run of the season. Opened up a bit in the last couple of kilometres as it improved a bit, although it was never 100%. Felt quite strong apart from the Achilles (as with yesterday), particularly on the climb into 3, which is reasonably promising.

Good to see Mike Hubbert there after he departed Sunday afternoon's event in the back of an ambulance.

For some reason I've found myself on the mailing list for Australian Sex Party media releases, and was rather amused today to get one where the first few words visible were "Sex Party Calls For Stripping". You'd expect the Australian Sex Party to be in favour of stripping, but in fact the words to complete the sentence were "the Australian Christian Lobby of charitable status". (For those of you from elsewhere who are wondering about the Australian Sex Party, their 2013 election campaign commercial (language warning) may give you an idea).

Hadn't slept that well last night, but felt more or less OK once into the pool. A slightly better swim than in the last couple of weeks, although faded a little at the end.

It felt quite cool this morning, which is a slightly disconcerting sign of acclimatisation given that 15.1 is only a few tenths below the average for January. (The run of 15+ nights remains alive and will reach a record 26 days on Friday if the forecast is right, before stopping there; meanwhile, Sydney's record runs of 26+ days and 20+ nights both ended today).

South Wharf intervals. After a very unsettling morning at work I needed this session as much for my mental health as my physical - don't think I've had quite such a sense of taking my frustrations out on the pavement for a long time. Perhaps that helped the running side of things because this was actually a pretty decent session, on the first occasion for a while that I've been down here. Slightly harder work on the even reps into a fresh easterly wind (not often you see that in Melbourne).

(Things did improve considerably in the afternoon, and I don't think that the run was entirely responsible for that, although it helped).

Warm-up and down, including the rather amusing sight of a 'Cyclists Reduce Speed' sign about two metres from the end of a pier - must get out there with a camera sometime. (It's a leftover from when there was a temporary bridge off the end to get around a building site on the shoreline).

Had a bit of Attack of the Killer Physio tonight (she worked on my Achilles more than has previously been the case - although it's actually been a bit better in the last couple of days than it was for most of last week).

For those who've seen the exit sign to Little River on the Geelong freeway and wondered what's there, the answer is "not much" - perhaps a couple of hundred people, a pub (but no general store that I saw), some impressive 19th century bluestone public architecture (two bridges and a station), and a surprisingly large primary school for a town its size (wonder if they pick up any students from Werribee?). It has a remarkably country feel for somewhere only 45km from central Melbourne.

We were here because Jenny was keen to do a run in the You Yangs, and given that I wasn't running this afternoon I was OK to pass up the morning race too. I haven't been there since a stint of scrub-bashing with Bruce in about 2003 in the name of determining that it was too thick to contemplate using for Easter 2006 (a pity because there's some terrific rock there). We settled on the track that goes around the mid-upper slopes of Flinders Peak, the main mountain - a bit scrambly at times, but some excellent views, especially from the eastern side. Really a tourist run. The initial climb was a bit of a wake-up call, reminding me that I don't usually start runs uphill these days, but OK after that.

Before the post-fire thickening after 1985, it was a pretty nice area, most memorably at the 1985 Victorian relays, held on the first weekend of the WOC 1985 carnival, with almost nothing on the ground and a mass start of 300 teams, including many of the top international elites (who were doing not much over 4 minutes/km). In one of my occasional outbreaks of teenage craziness, I ended up running all three legs after my two teammates didn't turn up. (Also in my list of craziness for that fortnight was running the women's WOC course the day after the event after first crossing the mountain because I hadn't heard that the start was near Melville Caves; perhaps it's not that surprising that in amongst that, actual M14 courses on competition days seemed pretty tame).

C • no mention of the boat? htt... 3

Last-minute control checking/turning-on run for the Parade event, which I was controller for - they were all in the right place (although one unit wasn't working) and all the gates were in the state the map said they should be. A little closer to the first start time than I'd originally planned on (which meant a bit of a last-minute dash for food in between this and the first start, meaning the last-resort option of the Hungry Jack's drive-thru).

The event seemed to go well - Ralph's courses were well-received and as far as I could tell the only thing that went wrong was that it took a while to get the results screens working. The overall results were also calculated within a few minutes of the last finisher thanks to the series scores option in Eventor (must remember that one the next time I'm responding to a letter from someone complaining about it).

C • Food 4