Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

A pretty ordinary run on the whole, finding the dunes hard work, especially the bigger ones in the second half of the run. (The sand is mostly fairly firm on the tracks, but there are still numerous sharp ups and downs). Achilles did settle after early soreness.

This run combined the very familiar (the back beach track which features almost every time I come here - now better maintained, and better signposted, than it once was) with the new (cutting across through the housing estate which has been built on a former golf course). Didn't check out the dead whale that has caused the closure of Diamond Bay beach for the last week or so - not so much because of the whale itself but because the powers-that-be think that a dead whale has the potential to attract sharks.

The post-Christmas season has started: the queue for coffee was stretching out the door at the local shops at 8.15.

C • Coffee! 2

Definitely a much quieter Christmas morning this year compared with last year (which probably has something to do with the youngest person in the house being 46, compared with three under 6 last year). Didn't get up particularly early and didn't rush to get out, then headed for a recovery run out to the back beach. Stiff early and hard work on the sandy bits (and slow there too), with Achilles iffy without ever being quite as bad as yesterday's worst, but improved in the second half. Came back by a route I haven't used before, taking in a Bell Street which is definitely not the same as the one I'm more familiar with, both in a traffic sense and as a socio-political boundary.

Somewhat to my surprise, I didn't see any kids on bikes (new or otherwise). Perhaps they knew about the presence of the driver with a large anti-coal mining sticker who seemed much more enthusiastic about stopping Adani than about stopping at intersections.

Took advantage of the lap pool to do something I don't think I've done before on Christmas Day - a second session, which cleared some of the evidence of a day of overindulgence. A bit ho-hum early on but felt as if I was doing some pretty solid work by the end of it.

Had a proper crack at a long run this morning. Was hoping for 2 hours but didn't quite get there, mainly because my Achilles flared up about 35 minutes in, on the downhill past my old place, and was intermittently troublesome thereafter. Felt like a decent run from a running perspective, though - seemed to have a bit left in the endurance department when I called it a day. Still not totally confident that I'll be up to something which will probably be close to an hour longer (and have some steep downhills, although not on concrete) in three weeks' time, but I guess we'll find out in due course. Conditions excellent for summer, cool and cloudy.

There's quite a bit happening in my old street; in addition to the railway works which I've mentioned previously, quite a few of the old houses towards the top end of the street are in the process of being replaced by more intensive developments. (I think this is a good thing in general - if you're going to have more intensive development, it makes sense for it to be happening somewhere within easy walking distance of a station and a major employment centre, the Austin hospital).

You often underestimate how much fluid you lose on a cool day, which may be why I felt a bit wiped out later in the afternoon.

I managed to largely avoid shopping malls (and their car parks) in the couple of weeks before Christmas this year (although Northland didn't seem too crazy from what I could see across the creek at 9.15 this morning). The Age ran a piece today which was vox-pops with various people who had been shopping in the city, finishing off with "Alex, 14, had been in the city with his mother since lunchtime. "It's so dumb", he said, "Why didn't she just buy it all online like a normal person?"".

C • Normal 7

A much more enjoyable session down in the Yarra Bend parklands, including a fair quota on the tracks on the far side of the river - actually felt like I had some energy and even handled the hills with some vestige of comfort. Still not quite sure if I'm up to doing twice this amount tomorrow, but at least have some element of hope that it might be a possibility.

Finished across the Chandler Highway bridge, where construction of the new bridge is well advanced (they've done a better job of maintaining pedestrian access through the site than I thought they might). It might be a bit of an optical illusion, but the bridge supports did give a sense of not being quite straight.

I'm making a bit of a habit of seeing Peter whilst he's running - today it was with Pat, heading in the opposite direction, on Thursday I was in the car.

The good news from this run is that I didn't feel any significant impact from injuries. The bad news is that I felt terrible for most of it - one of those days where you feel as if you're running up a big hill the whole way even though it's mostly flat (the few actual hills were even more challenging). Hopefully that's just a passing phase. Started with vague thoughts of trying to stretch it out to 90 if it went well (and sufficient time to do so), but that didn't happen.

Might not be doing this route again for a while: there was a sign saying that the Darebin Creek footbridge between Thornbury and Bellfield is being replaced from February and will be closed for four months. (By way of comparison, a few years back, the Burgundy Street rail bridge was replaced in a single weekend - a seriously impressive bit of engineering and construction).

Think I've done all my necessary shopping now (it helps that others are handling the food side), without venturing into a single shopping mall (or, perhaps worse, its car park) in the last couple of weeks.

There are often sightings at this time of year of the political-correctness-gone-mad crowd jumping at shadows - a highlight this year has been Senator Eric Abetz demanding to see all end-of-year messages sent within government departments, presumably to check that they've made sufficient reference to Christmas with none of this happy-holidays stuff. Today's feature was a news story about "controversial calls" to call "Father Christmas" "Person Christmas". In such stories it's usually worthwhile to try to trace where the "controversial calls" are coming from, and in this case it appears to have been one person (who may well have been taking the piss) tweeting.

C • I’m not a smart person 4

At Fitzroy. Didn't feel that slow but was, for no obvious reason.

I rarely use Flinders Street in the afternoons (it's a decent riding route from east to west in the mornings, but shocking from west to east in the evenings). The northern alternative around the CBD was definitely a good option today.

I might be old and slow, but surely I can still consider myself young if there's still someone playing in the Big Bash who's older than me?

Another Wednesday night of frustration, despite doing a lot of getting up and walking around during the afternoon (perhaps not so much of a surprise because I wasn't feeling great during the morning). Missed a decent running night too - certainly much better running conditions than either last week or last night.