Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

A much nicer run today, although still a bit slow and somewhat disjointed at times by traffic. Was hoping to get out to a reasonably familiar haunt, the Bout-du-Monde riverbend, but ran out of time before I got that far out. Running reasonably smoothly, and for the first time in a while felt like I had plenty still left in me at the end.

It's the first time since 1989 that I've been in Europe at this time of year. It's the last couple of weeks of daylight saving with consequently late sunrises (at the moment it's getting light at about 7.15, which will probably be after 7.30 next week). My Geneva rain-repelling qualities are also again in evidence - none has fallen since I've been here and none is forecast in at least the next 8 days.

My walking route to the office takes me past the Icelandic UN mission's office. I suspect not a lot of productive work was done there this morning.

C • The Iceland team 6

Got back to Geneva last night and settled into my quarters for the two weeks, an apartment in the middle of the Paquis district (very close to where I stayed the first time I was here). By Geneva standards it's considered a bit seedy (it was a block away from here that I once saw a 'lady of the night' soliciting custom in clothing that was a long way short of being suitable for the -9 degrees it was at the time), but nothing too threatening.

The run, not to put too fine a point on it, was rubbish. Back was a bit iffy but the engine was worse, notwithstanding that this was about as undemanding as it gets (40 minutes along the Geneva lakeshore). Won't read too much into this in my early days here - took a bit of a backwards step today in the jet lag department, waking up not long after 4 and not really getting back to sleep.

The first day of the meeting went well (we've got a range of experts meeting for two days, then I spend the rest of the time distilling everything into a hopefully coherent report). There will be a lot of distilling to be done, because so far I've got 50+ pages of contributions for a statement which will be not much more than one-tenth that length (and I haven't even started my own bit yet). This time round we actually have somebody involved who knows properly what they're talking about when it comes to sea level, although she had to make an early exit this afternoon as the result of the third in the list of life's great certainties - death, taxes, and the French air traffic controllers going out on strike.

I spent the night at Gstaad, a place with a very posh reputation. From past experience of Swiss resort towns with posh reputations, I knew that whilst it would certainly be possible to burn through money like a celebrity there, it wasn't compulsory, especially out of season - I found a perfectly adequate place in the centre of town for about the same I paid for a nondescript motel room in Gundagai a couple of weeks ago.

My main hope was that the forecast change wouldn't bring too low a cloud base. By the time I started running the light rain had stopped (leaving a dusting of snow above 1500 metres or so, although that was gone by mid-morning) and the cloud was above all but the highest peaks, which made for a very scenic run (that was part of the idea of coming here). Of course, scenic views mean you have to do a fair bit of climbing to get them (220m in 2km early on), and I might have struggled to cope with that as a whole but with photo stops every couple of minutes it was more manageable. Didn't feel terribly strong but better than some recent runs; a bit of knee soreness towards the end of the long descent.

Took in some more of the mountains by taking a cable car up to 1900m and doing the first part of a walk from the summit, before heading back to Geneva. This proved to be a somewhat more drawn-out exercise than originally anticipated, thanks to the closure of Lausanne station due to an "intervention de police" (which turned out to be a bomb scare). A couple of trainloads of people had the pleasure of milling around Vevey station for a couple of hours waiting for it to be sorted out; there didn't seem to be any signs of alternative plans other than waiting for it to be sorted out.

Gstaad is the only place where I've seen a vending machine (at the station) which sells local cheese (definitely cowbells in abundance here...) and honey.

Travel day: Melbourne-Abu Dhabi-Geneva (with a bit added on at the end to get me into the mountains for tomorrow). Pretty empty flights on both legs, particularly the second one, which I think is the emptiest plane I've been on since the 2006 Australian Championships trip to WA (I flew the day before the Grand Final on one of the fifteen 747s which had been carrying Eagles supporters in the opposite direction). Got a row to myself on the Melbourne-Abu Dhabi leg; didn't think I'd slept that much but then remembered that I'd set my watch to Geneva time, not Abu Dhabi time, and it was two hours later than I thought it was.

Abu Dhabi's transfer system is not as efficient as Dubai's, but at least the highlights of last night's World Cup qualifiers were on screen while we were waiting for security. I was wondering what the Australian flag was doing on Sky News Arabia in what appeared to be the standings of one of the European groups, until I realised that Americans aren't the only people who can't tell the difference between Australia and Austria. Also noticed a duty-free shop offering tobacco at 120% below city prices - does that mean they'll pay you to take it off their hands?

Being overseas means I miss out on this week's shutdown of the Hurstbridge line (which, apart from the lack of trains, won't be good for local traffic). It turned out the Geneva Airport line was also shut down for the day, but you'd expect the Swiss to handle such things efficiently and they did; a bus left within a minute of my getting to the stop.

Thought my plans had gone slightly awry when I got to Northcote to find that the outdoor pool is closed for repairs for the next few weeks. I'd never tried to do this sort of session in the indoor pool before, thinking it wasn't deep enough, but I found a spot which had just enough depth and went round and round in circles. Got into enough of a train of thought that this was less boring than it sounds.

Now on my way out to Geneva - I'm getting used to this as a long haul by now, but it will still be a long haul.

Took a while to get going on this one and slow through the first half (though with a bit more climbing than I sometimes do early, heading toward the Ivanhoe side). Started to feel as if I was flowing quite well in the last couple of kilometres, although still not going all that fast. Also got to check out a couple of new bits of railway works (which among other things close off my shortest route to the river, although the detour isn't that long).

Arrived at work to the news that Tony Abbott had been laying into one of our ANU counterparts on 2GB last night. One of my colleagues listened to the recording so the rest of us didn't have to.

C • That's... 3

Taking it fairly easy this week - not such a bad thing today given a reasonably late return last night.

I'm not back in town for long - heading out again on Friday night for my latest Geneva stint (two weeks this time). Naturally a lot of my planning is centred around the middle weekend - the offerings in Switzerland didn't look too exciting (it looks like there's an alpine countries match in Austria), so at this stage I'm looking at Fontainebleau instead - an area close to Paris with some fairly legendary rock.