Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

First attempt to head out for a couple of weeks (1 on/1 off). Can't say I was terribly happy with the results - I can run (at least on the flat - didn't try anything more ambitious), but it didn't feel a great deal better than it did a couple of weeks ago. Looking increasingly like it will be a slow road back.

I took the opportunity to check out the assembly area for the Victorian Relays at Darebin Parklands to see how it coped with the heavy overnight rain, the answer being well. (I'm controller for these, with Aston Key and Max Dalheim as setters).

Now up in Canberra for a conference for the rest of the week. Any Canberra readers (especially nearby ones) have a bike I could borrow for a couple of sessions later in the week? (Dad's old one is in the cellar, but from past experience it struggles to cope with Black Mountain Peninsula, let alone Black Mountain).

C • What sort... 5

Figuring this would be my last opportunity for such a session for a while, I headed to Northcote as soon as possible after opening time this morning. (I'm certainly hoping that restarting running works out - the logistics of doing anything else whilst away will be fairly challenging). Fairly reasonable as a session if not terribly exciting.

What's becoming a bit of a standard Saturday session before what's also becoming a standard Saturday of crunching numbers. A bit better than last week for the most part. Definitely appreciated having had a proper night's sleep. Hamstring a little sore afterwards, which is a bit of a step back from yesterday.

Even by my standards of this week today was particularly epic (although not in a training sense). Started the day, so to speak, with a teleconference from 2-3am (one upside of this timing was that I was then able to call Max for his 6th birthday while he was still up). I didn't really get back to sleep properly, and in any case needed to be at work earlier than usual because I had an interview booked in for 9am and you don't really want to give the media a chance to attach your name to a "lazy public servant" story.

I felt half-asleep for the first hour after getting out of bed and suspect a run wouldn't have been pretty in such circumstances, but getting into the pool was exactly the right thing to do (some coffee afterwards helped, too - I'd asked all the new parents out there, who have to do for months on end what I was doing for one day, for advice on how to cope and coffee featured prominently). Certainly felt better for this session.

And then I kept going, and going, and going, and didn't eventually pull up stumps until close to 10pm, feeling better than I was expecting to except at the very end and during a flat spot around 2.30. As the tangible outcome for this day's work I now have updated and cleaned-up data sets for New England, the NSW North Coast and the Hunter (Bathurst and Dubbo come tomorrow).

One positive from today - my hamstring seems to have improved significantly over the last 24 hours. Given the injury's history I'll be cautious with it, but if it continues to improve I'll probably try starting to run on it on Sunday or Monday.

Training fail today - plan was to ride to work via the Yarra Boulevard and Capital City Trail (and it would have been a nice morning for such activities), but struck trouble with a loose brake shoe and didn't have anything with me to fix it with, so returned home in a somewhat impeded manner. Didn't have enough time once I returned home to try anything else.

Main (non-work) activity today was organising the street-O, on a map which straddled the Eastern Freeway at Doncaster/Mont Albert North. The course design seemed to be well-received but I'm really annoyed with myself for putting a control in the wrong spot - two identically configured track junctions 40 metres apart with seats in the same position (and even with the same plaque). That will teach me to put controls out from a different direction to that from which I originally checked the sites. Didn't seem to upset too many people, perhaps because most approached it from the direction where they came to the control on the way to where it was supposed to be.

There are a lot of power poles in this part of the world which are showing their age - almost every one seemed to have some extra supporting structures (which in turn makes it harder to get a cable around them for the controls). Perhaps it was appropriate that in between putting out controls my ABC listening consisted of people talking about allegedly inadequate electricity infrastructure in South Australia. I guess once Hazelwood closes Victorians, too, can look forward to a conga line of conservatives blaming renewable energy for the blackout every time someone prangs a car into a power pole.

At North Melbourne in the name of logistics later in the day - first time I've been there a while (it hasn't changed much). Felt pretty good in the pool and seemed as if I was working OK, sometimes a challenge for me for a session in the water.

Spotted a place during the day by the name of the Melbourne Sports Medicine and Anti-Aging Clinic; amongst the services they advertised were "sports pharmacology" and "sports performance peptides". I suspect that ASADA might have a certain amount of interest in their client list should the opportunity arise.