Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Post-Schools sprint. Felt OK on the warm-up and good in the first couple of controls. This was good while it lasted but it didn't last long - this race was Gone in 60 Seconds, because that's about how long it took for a back spasm to occur (unusual for a flat race). This one was at the nasty end of usual experience and slowed me right down - was very tempted to stop but thought failing to finish a sprint at a national carnival would be somewhat humiliating - perhaps best indicated by the leg where I was having trouble getting away from John Robinson (an outstanding runner in his day, but closer to 80 than 70). Did start to ease up a bit towards the end which is vaguely encouraging, but the time was suitably humiliating - barely beat any of the kids other than the reserves.

Maybe on the weekend all parts of my body will finally cooperate simultaneously. (The throat infection that's plagued me for the last week finally seems to be easing properly now).

A great day for South Australia, with three wins out of four. Angus Haines was particularly surprising - he's certainly fast and I thought he might be a top-six shot with a good run, but I definitely didn't see him as a potential winner.

I'm now spending the time between now and the end of tomorrow exploring the northernmost corner of NSW, having this afternoon managed to find a beach and associated settlement which the property developers haven't managed to get their hands on yet (Fingal Head).

C • Angus 1

Australian Relays at Mundoolun, running third for the second Victorian M21E team. I didn't have good memories of this part of the world, having had something of a nightmare run across the road at Collins Creek on the tail end of the Easter 2012 carnival.

Before the event I thought we would do well to stay out of the mass start, but my teammates did an excellent job, and at one stage it was even looking possible that I would take over in the lead. That didn't happen but six teams (in fact, all six of the teams that finished) were covered by about 3 minutes after two legs. Felt reasonable at the start on the climb to #1 and settled OK, missed #3 a little (and Bruce, who'd started a bit behind me, missed it a little more), and we were then together running up the long gully to #4. My plan was to turn off before what seemed on the map to be a leftward kink in the gully, but it must have been a non-obvious kink because both of us missed it and went in to search for the control on a slope which turned out to be 200-300 metres too far along (and at least partially off the map). This is the sort of mistake which is not usually noted for fast recovery and neither of us produced one. Eventually picked it up from above with about 4-5 minutes blown apiece.

Bruce ran away from me after that. Feeling somewhat disgruntled, I missed 5 a bit too (maybe 30 seconds) but then settled down through the erosion section. Up until then I was running OK but hit the wall at about 40 minutes; probably shouldn't have been too surprised by that after being sick to a greater or lesser extent all week. At least by then most of the climbing was done, but I had one more misadventurous leg to come - on #16, I (a) altercated with some lantana to reasonably spectacular visual effect, (b) took a route choice out to the road but then had a lot of trouble finding a place where I could come back across the fences (two parallel fences, one rickety, one new), and (c) while I was looking for a place to cross the fences lost track of where I was on the map and proceeded to head briefly up the wrong gully. Brain was definitely fading at this stage, and any sprint finish would have been a no-contest. (As most of you know, there were two great sprint finished, ACT-NSW for 1st and Vic-SA for 3rd).

Felt very washed-out after getting back (as evidenced by time spent sleeping in the late afternoon).

Event: Australian Orienteering Championships 2016
 

The traditional sprint controller's run around all the controls to (a) wake up such SI units as had not already been woken up and (b) check they were all in the right place and correctly numbered. This was slightly later than originally planned, (a) because I wanted to check that the new construction had been added to all the maps and (b) because there was a bit of a logistical mix-up with the arrival flags, but all worked OK in the end. A brief interruption to call back to base and advise that the boundaries of the new construction weren't quite as extensive as the map said they were and we needed some extra tape.

I think the event went well - it's a very challenging area and Anna made good use of it. As often seems to be the case on a technical sprint, there were some bits of the mapping which were at the borderline of legibility (most notably the small track around the pillar at #6 on the men's course, which I think with hindsight we probably should have stayed away from), but I don't think that took much away from the event.

Must have had a better run in July than I thought I had, because based on that run I was expecting a winning time of 14.30-15.00, and it ended up being just under 16.

Morning swim at Northcote after finishing the packing for Queensland (always something of a last-minute job). Took a bit of time to adjust the new goggles - getting their first use - to below skull-crushing tightness, but they worked well once that was done. Not a bad session once under way - fairly relaxed.

If there have been any more construction-related dramas for tomorrow's event I haven't heard about them.

We've got local council elections coming up and I was doing a letterbox drop last night for a friend who's running. Although they were on my 'patch', I didn't drop one in the Hells Angels mailbox - you never know how upset they might get about junk mail. Name recognition counts for a lot in local government elections and some candidates take the view that any publicity is good publicity, but on balance I think that getting shot would probably be a net negative for David's campaign.

Still taking it easy but not feeling as if I have a great deal more in me - will want to improve somewhat by Sunday (where my role is to run third for the second Victorian M21E team - a position which may have important NOL responsibilities if the first team encounters misadventure, which has been known to happen).

Headed out in between work and a dinner on a slightly augmented Tan loop. A struggle for the first 5-10 minutes but not too bad after that, although Achilles a bit sore at times (clearly the massage wasn't a miracle cure). Health continuing to improve but still not quite 100%.

The joys of sprint organisation: found out this afternoon that a new construction site has appeared on a key route choice, 2 hours after the maps went to the printer. Anna's red pen is going to be busy.

Had a pretty rough night (was at the stage where the throat infection of the last couple of days was clearing and I was coughing up the leftovers from it), so didn't expect a lot of this one. Didn't get an awful lot from it either, but it was at least a fairly standard run of its type after the first couple of kilometres.

Carelessly worded tweet of the day, from Channel 9 Brisbane reporting on an attempted robbery:

"Police say they went to a tavern in North Lakes and kicked a female staff member before demanding money".

The QPS quite reasonably responded that it was actually the crims which did that and not the police. (I suspect that in the pre-Fitzgerald days, it was probably reasonably common for police to go to taverns and demand money - perhaps more often in Fortitude Valley than North Lakes - although kicking female staff members probably wasn't part of the deal).