Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

In Hobart, staying with Kirsten, Keith and family in their new place near the Cascade Brewery (where Keith is working) - about 3km from the city centre (but still sufficiently close to the bush that I encountered a couple of bits of roadkill walking up last night). From here there are undoubtedly plenty of good runs to be had if you feel in the mood for some vertical, and hopefully I will by later in the week. For today, it was just a short one, climbing most of the way up Old Farm Road (a steady but not overly steep climb with which my back coped sort of OK), before coming back and doing a loop down to the Female Factory. (Before you get any ideas, this was a facility designed to keep women convicts away from the unladylike activities taking place in central Hobart).

It hasn't got a lot of attention so far in the mainstream media (perhaps it will now that the Tahune Airwalk has been burnt out), but Tasmania has large and ongoing fires. For most of the day it wasn't too bad, but in the late afternoon a seabreeze brought the smoke plume from the Central Plateau (which had been tracking east of here) back into town and the PM10 pollution index jumped to bad-day-in-Delhi levels. I think it will clear out to some extent overnight, but if it doesn't I'll need to give some thought as to whether it's runnable in the morning.

C • You call that vertical 4

Last stage of Sprint Adelaide at Mount Barker - a couple of blocks of schools/TAFE campus with some parkland in between, but in general the challenges were more those of route choice than fine navigation - plenty of fences. Didn't feel too brilliant in the first few controls, but gradually got into it and not as bad on the climb on the long leg as I though I might be. Only navigational wobble was starting down the ramp instead of the stairs at 14. Was chasing Tyson (1 minute) most of the way; gradually pulling him in but didn't quite catch him, while Warren was doing the same to me. (Other reports from weekend rivals watch: Leith dropped a minute on #2, was pulling me in most of the rest of the way but ended up 21 seconds short).

Thought I might have got within 50% of the lead (a rarity for me these days in good sprint fields) when Simon came in, but Martin dropped the benchmark a bit further. (I suspect a few competitors, although not Martin or Simon, would have been a bit below par whilst recovering from last night's beer-O). Still probably my least worst run of the weekend, even if Jenny did claim my scalp; showing our consistency, the only splits where we were separated by more than 5 seconds or so were #1 (where she didn't realise the straight line was legal) and #14 where I wobbled at the ramp.

So ends a well-run series of events, although it's a pity there wasn't a bit more local attendance. Onwards (for me at least) to Hobart for the next few days, where the land environment is good for running but the atmospheric environment probably won't be.

Qualifier for the knockout sprint at Flinders Uni. I obviously wasn't going to qualify (although I thought that last time I was here, too) and was happy to settle for just getting round a course feeling reasonably OK after last night's debacle. That more or less happened, although I was blown away for speed by the people I expected to be blown away by. Got the key routes right, I think.

Apparently a sign on the way in (I didn't see it) said Flinders was a 'top 2%' university, on unspecified criteria. Not sure if it's in the top 2% of Australian campus sprint venues but it's still well above the median.

Usually on these weekends you end up finding someone who's running on the same level as you. This time it seems to be the South Australian junior Leith Soden, who beat me today by the narrowest possible margin after being 15 seconds or so ahead of me in the night event. Comparing splits, he blew me away on the downhill legs at the end, confirming what I already knew - I'm not much good at stairs (in either direction) at the moment.

Mass start for those who weren't in a semi-final. To my less than overwhelming surprise, I was dropped immediately from a mostly junior lead pack, did the unconventional mass start thing of doing a different route on #1 to everyone else (seemed to come out fairly even), then settled into things. Once we were through the butterflies, got into a bit of a scrap with Tyson; another split separated us but we came through my second-last (his split meant he had an extra control to get) and I thought we were still pretty close. I hit the last control a few metres ahead, which I didn't think would be enough, and it wasn't. Don't think either of our finish splits would stand up against the sprint finishes in the actual semi-finals.

Another mass start on the final course. I wasn't sure how I'd come up after the break (which I spent doing not much; Dante found other ways to keep himself occupied between races), but it turned out more or less OK (probably a bit worse than the morning). Once again, fell off the main pack immediately and found myself in a three-way battle with my two main competitors from the two morning races. For the most part I was at the back of this group and I doubt I would have been able to win a running race, but I didn't need to because it was decided by the two route-choice legs at 13 and 14; Tyson took the sub-optimal option at 13, then Leith followed up at 14. (Martin Dent lost the A final on the same leg).

A good event, and good to be able to give people exposure to this format, before it starts getting run regularly at international level.

Really hoped for better today, but the back wasn't cooperating - I knew it would be trouble from very early on, and confirmed it when it refused to respond to a suggestions that it might wish to help me run up a two-contour hill on the long leg from 8 to 9. At this point I decided that tomorrow looked more interesting, although not before I had the chance to get as confused by the map around 10 as everyone else was.

A late afternoon start meant a fairly free rest of the day. There were some flags out although not as many as I've seen on some previous occasions (two was the most I saw on any one vehicle this year, whereas I've seen up to five in the past). None of the flag-adorned vehicles this year had stickers saying "F**k Off We're Full" or similar sentiments.

First day of Sprint Adelaide, a night event at the (defunct) Belair golf course - first time I've done a night event (other than on streets) for years. Main concern for me was how my body would function late in the day and coming off a plane. The answer for the first 15 minutes was ugly and had to walk up a couple of the hills, but then loosened up reasonably well and not too bad for the second half. Never really much beyond a shuffle though. Navigation reasonably good, although with the 30-second start intervals there were enough people around to show one into a lot of the controls (most of which were in the strips of forest between the fairways). Took a while to work out how the tees and greens were mapped.

Leith claimed my scalp, and Jenny almost did (from memory I think she's done it once, when I came horrendously unstuck at a post-OA Conference street-O a few years back).

Definitely glad I wasn't trying to run in Melbourne this morning. It hit 35 degrees in Melbourne (a temperature of some significance to tradies who get to knock off for the day when this happens) at 7.36am, beating the previous record of 8.26am set on 29 January 2009. I tried to do a long run on 29 January 2009. It didn't end well.

C • Jenny 4

Woke up with a stiff back this morning so thought the water was a better option (had I been in Adelaide, on its way to 47 degrees or thereabouts, I would have considered the water a better option for other reasons; our turn comes tomorrow). Ended up a fairly routine session, even though I didn't feel much looser at the end than I did at the start (I eventually felt somewhat better after getting the train to work).

Lots of records-tracking once in the office, as you might expect.

C • Records... 6

The objective tonight was to see if I could get through an evening run; it being the first one back, I decided to go for C rather than A. Calf and Achilles were OK, and back was only troublesome on the steep climb through 11, but this was still a real struggle - don't think my quads enjoyed their first steep downhill in months. Will get better from here (I hope!). At least I think I got something close to the optimal route - it was 800m shorter than the setter's projection so it can't have been too bad.