Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

The long day of the 3-Day. In the middle of last week I didn't think that I'd be running at all this weekend, so to get through yesterday was a positive in that sense, but it felt iffy warming up this morning, not something you want to have happen before a long race. Sometimes things warm up so I was happy enough to start and see how it went, but it wasn't good right from the beginning. Managed to get through the technical first five on the mountain more or less OK, then 6 was a long, mostly downhill, leg - I thought if I was going to get going then that was where it was going to happen. It didn't, at which point I decided to do the small set of technical controls from 6-11 (Simon and Shep went through me here) and then call it a day unless things felt better. They didn't, and that was that.

Assuming that I can run tomorrow, 2 1/4 days is still better than I thought I'd do a few days ago, but it's disappointing not to take this opportunity. The most technical parts of the course were mostly behind me by then, although there were some physically tough areas ahead.

That wasn't the end of the day's work - the OA meetings were still to come, although we got most of what we wanted (necessary to plug the remaining holes in the OA finances) through despite some initially discouraging feedback.

Spotted so far in Wagga: the Geoff Lawson and Michael Slater Ovals, and the Steve Mortimer Field. I assume Mark Taylor's got something somewhere but haven't seen it yet. As far as I know no civic facilities have (yet) been named in honour of Georgina Macken or Allison or Shannon Jones.

C • Shannon 3

Day 2 Course 1 - Splits

Event: 2017 Australian 3 Days
 

1st day of the 3-day, at Connorton south of Wagga - a nice area with patches of intense granite and (mostly) open forest between them. The first time I was here I ran 5.2 minutes/km, and also have a bit of a history of claiming scalps here (Jules the first time, Shep the second), but didn't expect any similar miracles this time and was hoping, after the last week, just to get round without things hurting too much.

The running part went OK - slow but steady for the most part, and only minor niggles. Lost about a minute in the heavy rock at 4, where I couldn't work out which big rock was which or how they related to the contours; also a bit wide on 13 (which should have been a gimmy) and 19, but maybe only 20 seconds apiece on those. Had to concentrate all the way to the end; even the last control wasn't a giveaway.

Not competitive on pace though; second from the bottom (which was enough to give me a National League point), and more than 50% behind Craney and Simon who both did 38-39. I'm definitely staggering towards the 300 events mark. Tomorrow will be a challenge, although today gives me more confidence that I might be up to it (at least in the endurance sense).

Day1 Course 1 - Splits

Out earlyish in the morning before heading back to Melbourne, mainly in the name of seeing if things still worked. Hip was mostly at niggle stage and didn't get much better during the run, but didn't get any worse either, so should be up for at least the shorter events tomorrow (especially as it seems to have pulled up OK this afternoon). Went down to and along the river as far as the island at Lock 11 (providing a small taste of the Murray River forests, which I've never orienteered in), taking in on the way an impressively-sculpted flood marker and the Mildura Lawn Tennis Club, which is one of relatively few which is still lawn. (It occasionally hosts Davis Cup fixtures when we decide that we're better on grass than our opponents will be).

One feature I haven't seen at an airport before was the Mildura airport book swap, a nice idea, although the cynic in me thinks that it was only possible because (a) Mildura airport is owned by the council and not private enterprise and (b) no-one is trying to sell reading matter at Mildura airport (whose only business is a coffee shop).

Being in the office for only half the day meant that I only spent half the day interpreting the latest numbers coming out of the UK.

Headed up to Mildura today to deliver a series of talks to the Council and the community. In doing the preparation, it was clear that in this part of the world, as in much of southeastern Australia, 1997 is a major breakpoint (after then, maximum temperatures take off and rainfall drops away in the cooler months). I've long thought there was a certain symbolism in my first trip on the Melbourne-Mildura route, on 27 March 1997, on the way to Easter at Broken Hill - with the company of a massive duststorm for most of the last 300km into Mildura, which I sometimes think of as the symbolic start of the long drought (much as I think of the floods of 1996 Tasmanian Championships weekend as the symbolic end of the previous wet epoch). I'm sure many other Victorians who did the trip will remember the dust, too. I had a picture of it as my opening slide.

(In another nod to personal history in this part of the world, the shirt I wore for the talks today was the one I bought in the local menswear shop in St. Arnaud on the way to Warren and Tash's wedding, after realising on the way out of Melbourne that I'd forgotten to pack one).

The flight up was early enough in the day that trying to squeeze in something beforehand would definitely have tested my early-morning capabilities, and I knew I had some time to spare before my first engagement at 12.30, so my plans were to do something once I arrived. That part did go more or less to plan despite the shortcomings of airport transport - there is no public transport to Mildura Airport, and apparently the town only has 14 taxis which isn't really enough to cope when three flights arrive near-simultaneously (I eventually shared a ride in and hope that Australia's taxpayers appreciate the $25 I've saved them) - and I also remembered my swimming gear this time, unlike the last time I was here.

The mid-morning pool crowd is a bit different to the early-morning one - in between swimming lessons and aqua aerobics, I suspect I was the only person in the water (other than instructors) between the ages of 8 and 60. Started slowly but gradually built into it. Noticed three-quarters of the way through that my towel had been moved, and thought I'd better get out to check that the locker key wrapped in it was still there before resuming - in the process of which I got a massive cramp in my right thigh, something I've never had happen to me before while swimming (foot cramps are quite regular, but not there), and bad enough to make me grateful that it happened at the shallow end and not in the middle of a large body of water. Quickly decided not to go back in once I got out (which I eventually did via the ramp); the affected area didn't feel right even several hours later. Presumably this all has something to do with my lingering something-like-a-cold; it certainly isn't because of excessive exercise or excessive heat this week (and I don't think there's been anything particularly unusual about my diet lately either).

On the positive side, the talks went well (and the Council itself was a less challenging audience than I'd expected, given what I'd heard of the mayor's climate scepticism), my throat more or less held out through three one-hour presentations, my hip seems to have improved enough today that I'm willing to try it out on a bit of a run tomorrow, and I indulged in a sporting feast this evening, taking in the soccer, the AFL and the NRL on side-by-side screens at the Mildura Working Man's Club (yes, it's still called that). This establishment used to be in the Guinness Book of Records for possessing the world's longest bar, but sadly said bar, like (probably) some of its patrons, fell victim to the pokies.

C • Council 3

Back to the pool, still not feeling that brilliant (either in terms of soreness or health, with a cold still lingering in its later stages). Nice enough in the water and felt as if I was at least achieving something.

Don't feel as if I've made a lot of progress in the last 48 hours. At least this meant that I could sleep a bit more than I normally would on a weekday morning....

Melbourne seemed notably unrattled by yesterday's events, and I think it would be fair to say that IS's claim of "responsibility" was greeted with considerable scorn.

Early morning session at CISAC; have decided to give my hip a rest until it improves or next weekend comes, whichever happens first. Not a lot of space to work in because it was divided into two 25-metre sections and the deep half was for squad training, but found enough to manage OK. Not too upset on a morning like this that it's an indoor pool.

Left the Aranda house behind for (presumably) the last time this morning, which had a certain set of emotions associated with it. I left with a carload of goods being moved, many of them plants (fortunately this was more successful than last time I did it in the early 2000s, when I was pulled up by the police somewhere out the back of Cabramurra on suspicion of illegally harvesting flora from the national park), as well as a couple of boxes of climate records that CSIRO didn't want but we were potentially interested in.

Took a slightly different route choice home, through Uriarra, Wee Jasper and Adjungbilly, coming out on the highway just north of Gundagai (this is about the same distance as the freeway, but has about 30km of dirt and took 45 minutes longer). Haven't been this way since a couple of 1980s school camps (and hadn't been past Wee Jasper at all). Big sheep station country before you get to Wee Jasper (the biggest is, I believe, owned by Rupert Murdoch); a few once-grand homesteads near the road which have seen better days (as indicated by a couple of overgrown tennis courts), and placenames once familiar from the front of the Canberra phone book like The Mullion. (Some of the small rural settlements around Canberra didn't get automatic telephone exchanges until the mid-late 1980s, so before then the front of the book had copious instructions about which places/phone numbers required you to contact an operator, and how to do it). After the initial climb out of Wee Jasper, there's a lot of pine forest and recently-flattened pine forest between there and Adjungbilly (and a few eucalypt patches), but as with the Brindabella route, a lot of it's blackberry-infested and I didn't see anything of sufficiently high orienteering potential to be worth mapping in such a remote spot.

Another later (slight) diversion to places familiar as signs off the Hume took me through Baddaginnie; Warrenbayne and Winton will have to wait for another day. Also spotted was the Yellow Brick Road. If you've always wondered what's at the end of the Yellow Brick Road, the answer is Benalla Electric Motor Rewinding, which I don't recall making an appearance in the Wizard of Oz.