Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Headed out on a humid morning, a little later than might have been optimal in order to reacclimatise myself to warm weather ahead of forthcoming races because I couldn't be bothered getting out of bed early. Started out doing yet another mail drop-off because the local postie can't tell the difference between Rushall and Hall, then east into Ivanhoe.

The good news was that nothing hurt in any meaningful sense, the bad news was that this was a classic post-injury lack-of-energy run. Stopped a couple of times for water and was definitely hanging on at the end. Can only go up from here, and should do so - the first 2-3 weeks of a return are always hard.

C • Rushall 3

First time back at Fitzroy for a month - the changeroom renovations are now happening, and while the temporary facilities are a step up on what was on offer at Ivanhoe while their works were going on, they're still not great (was glad I arrived after the crowd). A fairly standard session with a bit of drizzle from time to time. Sitting felt a bit better than it did yesterday.

A see-if-things-still-work run after the disappointment of yesterday. They did still work, more or less. Only mild twinges on the run but quite sore after sitting down during the day - it wasn't like this in Geneva so think I might need to organise myself a new chair.

Had a crack at street-O on my first day back but wasn't ready for it - had thought the heat would be the problem but it was more a body that refused to move. Probably should have gone home to bed ASAP afterwards but found myself in a conversation with Asha (who just lost a sprint finish to her sister) about Aboriginal communities and didn't realise how much time had passed until it was getting dark...

Looked like a good course. My planned route differed significantly from others I've seen but I think it would have been decent - don't have GPS numbers to put that to the test though.

All in all it wasn't the brightest of first days back (arriving to the news of a hammering by Malcolm Roberts in Senate Estimates wasn't really the news I wanted to come back to).

Had 3 1/4 hours between flights in Dubai, everything went smoothly with the transfer and I didn't feel too sleepy (I'd got a couple of hours sleep on the previous leg, after getting a row to myself), so I decided to head for the airport gym. This was a bonus session in a lot of ways and I think it did me some good in the getting-through-the-flight department (although that will be fully tested tomorrow). Felt better than the corresponding session in Oslo although not much more interesting; the televisual backdrop this time was a movie of the sort where it was rare for 60 consecutive seconds to pass without someone shooting at someone (except during the ads) and there was one scene which contained five different items of total implausibility in the space of about 15 seconds.

Unusual route choice from Geneva to Dubai - southeast across the eastern Mediterranean and then east across the north of Saudi Arabia. I assume this is because of winds and not because of an issue with Turkish or Iranian airspace. (Iraq, Syria and Israel are all no-go zones, so you have to pass either north or south). Highlight was a spectacular view of Mount Olympus.

C • Movie 1

Sometimes I need reminding that I can't do everything, and that trying to do an earlyish run before breakfast following a long race, a four-hour drive, a flight and a late night arrival in Geneva probably wasn't going to work out too well. This was indeed the case. Best that can be said for this one is that it was better than the last one I did in the same general area (the one I attempted to do between flights from Geneva Airport in August). Did find some new pockets of the Geneva suburbs.

Just about to head home now, after paying a morning visit to CERN (nerd alert!). Don't feel super-energetic at the moment so will have to see how things work out at the other end.

C • CERN 7

Not sure how climb is calculated in Portugal, but I got my climb at roughly double the advertised on both days. That involved plenty of one and two-contour up and downs (and it didn't really feel like a 6-6.5% course), but I had a go at producing a climb-minimising route on Sunday, including some wildly outlandish deviations, some crashing of dark green and contouring along the side of a gorge which I suspect would have been impassable in practice, and could still only get down to 330 - 270 was advertised.

POM long distance. A significantly better run today - still couldn't run up the big hills, but otherwise felt fairly reasonable - certainly a major step up from today. Not as much dark green or as many difficult walls as yesterday, either, and a pretty smooth run technically. Most significant time loss was at 5, once again a route one rather than a navigation one - this was one of the ones in "tiger country" and I planned a route which contoured into the control, but the slope was impassable (not sure how much help the map was with that) and I had to do a bit of rockclimbing to get up to somewhere I could get across. Maybe lost a minute there. Still got blown away on the run-in but various young kids but I'm used to that. This will give me a bit more confidence - it's actually the longest course I've done for a while (since the middle of last year, I think).

This felt like a run several minutes better than yesterday, and the results bore that out - about a third of the way down this time, and about 10 percentage points closer to the winner (Eric Perrin again, in 55).

Headed off straight after the event, wanting to leave enough time for contingencies on the way back to Porto, and got some. First I found myself on Coimbra's bridge to nowhere - a very impressive structure, but the motorway then abruptly ends at the base of a cliff a few hundred metres later (probably to be a tunnel entrance eventually) with a small road off to the side continuing on. Then had a half-hour traffic jam at roadworks going into Porto - trying to squeeze four lanes into one on a major motorway was always going to be challenging. Still made the flight back to Geneva comfortably.