Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

I guess it counts as progress that I managed to get through this without anything more serious than modest niggles. In terms of how the run actually felt as a performance it felt like a Monday after a big Sunday, not a Sunday after a modest Saturday, but we need to take progress where we can find it.

Not often that I have a free Sunday in Melbourne (or indeed a Sunday at all without leaving metropolitan Melbourne - last one was in June).

Sprint Into Spring at Cornish College, a place in the outer south which is definitely part of the "orienteering takes you places you'd never go otherwise" file. I got around this course, but that's about all that can be said for it - continue to be well short of 100% and depressingly slow. As on Wednesday, hamstring tightened up around 5 minutes in but loosened again, but back continued to be a problem (and probably would have been more of one had this area had any hills higher than a couple of metres). Went briefly into a dead end at 13, but otherwise no technical issues (at my speed there would want to have been no technical issues).

Took a short-cut through an industrial estate on the way home to get to Eastlink, from which it was abundantly obvious from the amount of shredded rubber on the road that said industrial estate has alternative nocturnal uses. (There's also still quite a bit of semi-rural land in this area, some of which is purportedly owned by various colourful identities who may or may not have seen having lobster with potential future premiers as a possible route to getting said land rezoned). Also visited the Doncaster shopping centre on the way home, which would be an interesting place for an indoor-O if they ever let us, with floors sloping at odd angles and stairs/escalators between levels not necessarily in particularly logical places.

Still not feeling particularly right, although you get the sense that there's only one way to find out whether I can handle running.

Went to a quiz night tonight in the support of the Labor candidate for Box Hill (an old friend from Ivanhoe days) - he probably won't win but is giving it a good crack. Interesting insight from the campaign trail is that the local Liberal State MP is reasonably well-received, but Michael Sukkar is widely despised - it seems his prominent role in Malcolm Turnbull's overthrow as a right-wing factional warrior has not gone down too well with his local constituents. Watch this one on election night.

Wasn't planning to run this morning but woke up pretty sore so might have struggled to do it whether I'd wanted to or not. Took a while to get started in the water, but reasonable after the first 15 minutes or so. Water in the pool was a bit cooler than usual, and the pool is one place where you do notice half a degree (not that it was a problem).

Running after work was beyond my capabilities for most of last season so I wasn't too confident about tonight, at the unusually southern (for a Wednesday night) venue of Jordanville. Tossing up beforehand whether I'd enter A or C but decided to enter A and see how it went. The answer was not great - although a hamstring twinge a few minutes in went away - and I decided that 12 controls (a bit more than C) was enough for me for the night. Good to get something done, although would have preferred to have completed the full mission.

To mark Ride to Work day, the ABS published various statistics about riding to work in Australia. You won't be surprised to know that the top 9 suburbs for percentage of people riding to work in Australia are either in the inner north of Melbourne or the inner north of Canberra.

Didn't work out today - various twinges in the first few minutes and then started to feel the right hamstring. Obviously haven't settled things down properly yet.

Was anyone else following Australian politics today and having expressions relating to piss-ups and breweries come to mind?

C • Piss up in a brewery 5

Always a good thing to have something to get me out the door early on a Monday morning. Winter is definitely gone; we almost reached the point this morning of having a 6am temperature which started with a 2 (not that it matters indoors). Felt reasonably good during the session despite my stiff back last night, although I'm never quite sure whether feeling reasonably good during this session is because I'm doing well or because I'm not doing the exercises properly.

Evening session at Northcote (plenty of squads there on a Monday night, but I only needed one lane). Started out as a so-so session at the end of a reasonably tiring day, but got going nicely in the second half and actually felt like I was pushing it hard and making progress; it's also amazing how much less boring swimming a lap seems when it's taking you 1.40 instead of 1.55 to do it.