Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Melbourne Bush-O at Cardinia Reservoir. This area is a mainstay of schools events - the Primary Schools Championships are regularly here - but it's the first time I've been here for about 20 years. The map was very green (the terrain was also very green, although not necessarily in the same areas as the map was - the vegetation needs re-fieldworking) and a lot of this course was wide track or cleared-strip running. Not exactly fast but came up reasonably after yesterday and didn't handle the hills too badly.

My only technical issue was at 9, a clearing on a slope, where I dropped a couple of minutes. I don't think the clearing the control was on should have been mapped, nor do I think it was mapped in the right place (there was a thicket in about the right place for the mapped clearing which I suspect may have been a clearing 20 years ago), but that's a bit like saying that the second Sunderland goal should have been disallowed last night and that Norwich should have had a penalty - it may be true but it's not going to change the result.

We weren't the only ones here - there was a large group (mostly Muslim judging by dress) who had gathered to have a Sunday afternoon picnic (just as well some of the more hysterical elements of the media weren't present). Their chosen spot was the area between the last control and the finish, which may have led to some lengthy finish chute splits for the later starters.

C • Green 1

A run of ups and downs (in the figurative sense, although there were a few in the literal sense too). Hit a bad patch around 40 minutes - sufficiently bad that I changed course because I didn't want to be committed to two hours at that point - but picked up again later (the Yarra flats do have a bit of a revitalising influence). Then had another bad stretch around 90 minutes - including a sharp left foot twinge which would have been alarming had it persisted for more than 15 seconds - before finishing off reasonably well, though not as well as Thursday.

Part of the mission here is to make 2 hours+ routine again - not quite there yet but making progress. This was the end of a fairly tough stretch; I'll now have a fairly easy week in the lead-up to next weekend's events.

Think I might have struggled a bit with running this morning, but had a worthwhile session in the water - managed to get a reasonably solid morning's work done and loosened myself up a bit for good measure. A bit later than usual thanks to a (relative) post-teleconference sleep-in (i.e. 6.30 rather than 6), although I suspect the number of vehicles illegally parked in no-standing zones on the ride in would not have been significantly different at a more conventional transit time.

Back to business in a Proper Thursday Long Run - out the door on the stroke of 6 and going for something meaningfully more than two hours. Went north this time - reasonably flat and suburban for most of the first half, out as far as Edwardes Lake, but some better stuff in the second half in the Merri Creek valley (although path works further north made it too hard for me to get into my favourite Merri running kilometre).

A steady-without-sparkle first half, but got better in the second half and pretty happy with the way I was feeling in the last half-hour; tired, yes, but flowing pretty well (the last couple of kilometres were the fastest of the run). If I'm feeling like this 2.10 into next weekend I'll be reasonably confident about being able to find the next hour or so from somewhere. Would have liked to have taken it out to 2.10 but the 8.12 cutoff (to get back out of the house in time to make a train) was beckoning.

Back was starting to hint at trouble in the middle but settled again later.

Would probably have preferred not to have a 10pm teleconference tonight. (This evening's body corporate meeting, however, was a good deal less fraught than what I was used to at my former premises).

Fronted to Wednesday night street-O in Hawthorn to treat it purely as a training run (for added degree of difficulty did it without a torch - I can't find my smaller one, which I suspect may still be in Norway, and carrying the big one is a hassle). Knew from early on that I hadn't made a great job of the route choice, and compounded this by failing to notice that what I thought was a gap northeast from 14 didn't go through, costing me 300-400 metres. By then I knew that (a) I had little chance of getting them all and (b) there was no conceivable way getting #4 was worthwhile unless you thought you could get them all, but it's a nice bit of town to run in so I thought 'stuff it' and went there anyway. Ended up two controls short and 30 seconds late. Running was pretty ordinary early, but better in the second half.

All Nations intervals. Didn't really feel as if I was loosening up on the way there but OK once I was doing the faster stuff. A decent session, probably more so on the downhill reps but uphill ones weren't too bad either.

Warm-up and down. As noted elsewhere, certainly took me a while to get going today but worked out well once I did.

Morning swim at Fitzroy. Woke up fairly stiff, which wasn't terribly surprising. Arrived a week too late to sledge the Melbourne supporter who's usually in the changerooms at the same time as I am.

On the way in, the police had pulled someone over outside the Queen Victoria Market. The someone definitely looked like someone I wouldn't want to run into a dark alley - a very well-built bloke with full-face tatts in an expensive car.

Started this run knowing that I'd definitely done some work over the weekend (which is not surprising since it's the biggest weekend, volume-wise, that I've had for a while). Gradually loosened up and ended up in a decent run for the last two-thirds, around the Tan and back to the office. No sign of injury issues after the first few minutes.