Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Suspected I wouldn't be up to it but there was only one way to find out. Learned pretty quickly that I wasn't up to it - weak as expected, but also rather light-headed and finding it very hard to focus. Wasn't going to do myself any favours slogging it out for a couple of hours in foul weather (although it turned out not to get quite as foul quite as quickly as originally anticipated). Haven't seen any times as yet - will be interested to see what people did, and the routes on some of the key legs.

In anticipation of some really foul weather, I think this is the first time I've ever worn thermals to race (or even to train) in Australia. Less favourable in the gear department were the shoes - by mistake I picked up the retired about-to-fall-apart pair. Not sure whether they would have got through a full race but I didn't find out. The shoes went into the bin as soon as I got home....

Will take things fairly carefully this week until I get a better sense of running normally.

First crack at running. After a little initial uncertainty, the shin (whose swelling, already limited, had gone down since yesterday) felt fine to run on, but my body did feel a bit like it was in post-cold recovery, struggling a bit on the (small) climbs. Not sure how this is going to set me up for 100 minutes on steep Daylesford hills in foul weather tomorrow, but there's only one way to find out....

No-one seems to be in a hurry to pull their election signs or billboards down - perhaps they're anticipating having to re-use them in the not-overly-distant future. For the same reason, I didn't despatch all my leftover election stuff to the recycling on Sunday like I usually do (although in practice, I think we're now at the stage where the only real scenario for an election within 12 months is a Liberal split - something which is not inconceivable - or a Turnbull overthrow (possibly followed by a by-election loss) and the crossbench deciding their commitments don't apply to a new leader).

The Alphington wetlands path, where I went today, is in an area where out-of-date signs have previously been noted (there's one on the bridge advising that there will be a cycling event on Yarra Boulevard in October 2006), and I saw one today which said that environmental works in the area are due to start later in 2003 and will continue in 2004. Later climbing back into the suburbs, it was into a JWOC theme because the streets in that area are named after places in or near Switzerland (although a non-trivial proportion are spelt incorrectly).

Woke up this morning to good news and bad news. The good news was that I felt much better (in fact pretty much back to normal). The bad news was that overnight I'd developed a severe rash on my left shin (sufficiently severe that I wasn't entirely convinced at first it wasn't internal bleeding). I had no idea what this was or how serious it might be on the spectrum from nothing-to-worry-about through to go-directly-to-emergency-do-not-pass-Go.

The second bit of good news (and it's my birthday, so the good news should outnumber the bad news, shouldn't it?) came from the doctor whom I hot-footed it to as quickly as humanly possible, as he thinks it's much closer to the former part of the spectrum than the latter - he thinks it's a skin condition which will resolve itself over a few weeks with no long-term implications (and the symptoms of the last couple of days are not inconsistent with the early stages of its development), although there's a blood test to confirm. (I was rather amused to see on the documentation that said condition typically develops in people between 20 and 45 years of age - made it by a few hours...).

The third bit of good news was that when I asked him about exercise, expecting to be told not to do anything until the test results come back next week, he said it should be fine within reason. I'm still a little wary about running because there's a bit of swelling there and I'm not sure how that will respond (will try it out tomorrow, though), but the pool was fine.

C • Happy birthday and I hope i... 5

Was on the couch within a few minutes of getting home and asleep a few minutes later. Ended up feeling somewhat less awful on waking up this morning, but still some way short of feeling in the mood of getting any sort of exercise - conserved my energy for getting through a reasonably full work day.

We're getting an indication of some of the talent that may be finding its way into the new Senate; suffice it to say that Pauline Hanson looks to be the least out-there of the potential new One Nation senators. Today's instalment is their WA possible senator-to-be. He may not be a senator-to-be for much longer, because he's being sentenced next month after being convicted in absentia in NSW for stealing the car keys of a tow truck driver who'd come to repossess his car (since the maximum sentence for theft is more than 12 months, I think that disqualifies him regardless of the actual sentence), and for good measure also faces court on his home turf next month for dumping hay bales on the vehicle of receivers who'd come to foreclose on a neighbour's farm. (Don't think it's too hard to see where he stands on a royal commission into the banks). Should he be disqualified, he stands to be replaced by the number 2 or 3 on the ticket, respectively his brother-in-law and his wife.

C • Possible senators 6

All Nations intervals. Not a sparkling run, but not too bad considering my stiffness on the warm-up. Not as muddy as I was expecting given the amount of overnight rain.

Warm-up and down. Eventually settled down OK.

And then things went pear-shaped - by 10am I was feeling as I'd been hit by a truck. Obviously winter illnesses haven't passed me by this year - managed to hold out at work until about 4, then headed home and flaked out on the couch straight away. Seems similar to February last year; if that's the case it's going to be a tough week (and Sailors Falls on the weekend might be falling off the agenda).

C • Awww 1

A somewhat uninspired morning run before the rain started in earnest. Got out to the hills on the Kew side; handled the hills vaguely respectably (at least the back was OK).

Got the train into work this morning and was standing on the platform next to a family heading into town during school holidays, with a boy and girl of about 11 and 8 respectively. My first hint that they might be somewhat atypical of their demographic came by virtue of the fact that his book was 'The Legal System in Australia' and hers was one I didn't see the title of but was a couple of centimetres thick with reasonably small print, then he was joined at the next stop by a friend of around the same age and they started talking - the finer points of the election results. I was only too happy to join this conversation and spent the rest of the trip discussing the finer points of the geography of Batman booth results and expected trends in late counting in Flynn and Capricornia with a couple of specimens of my 1983 self. You don't really expect to encounter election nerds on the train, and you certainly don't expect to encounter a pair of 11-year-old election nerds (although I wasn't sure how useful it would be to bring up analogues from past campaigns with people whose only potential involvement in the Kevin '07 campaign might have been as potentially kissable babies).

A somewhat so-so run after not being inspired by seeing Iceland's elimination. A bit of a struggle early on despite not having done much yesterday, and still tight enough to reinforce that doing not much yesterday was a good option, but got into some sort of reasonable shape later on.

Unsurprisingly, I spent as much time at the office today explaining political scenarios as I did actually working. (The work part was mostly going through various bits of data from Queensland, which occasionally drew my mind to which still-in-doubt seats some of the sites were in - just in case you were in any doubt as to my nerdiness status). Potential Royal Commissions were also the subject of a certain amount of conversation.