Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Perhaps it's an indication of how far I've fallen that a slow, flat 40 minutes feels like a minor triumph but that's the way it was this morning. A bit tight in the first 10 minutes, better after that but not quite as smooth as Sunday. Headed west along the road at the base of the mountain today; there seem to be two basic options here if you don't want some serious stair-climbing, turn left out of the hotel or turn right.

The humidity in the mornings isn't too bad - probably comparable to Melbourne the few days before I left - though today was the murkiest day I've seen in my recent visits to Guangzhou. Yesterday it only got to the low 20s with occasional light rain and the locals, in true Darwin style, seemed very concerned that I was underdressed for the conditions. One wonders how the city coped when it snowed a few years ago. (In this part of the world, even though it's in the tropics, very cold air of modestly-modified Siberian origin finds its way a long way south every now and again - Guangzhou and nearby Hong Kong have a couple of single-digit days in a normal winter - but usually the air which comes with this is very dry so snow is extremely rare in Guangzhou, and I don't think has ever fallen at city level in Hong Kong).

Lots of fieldwork today in the sprint and sprint relay areas; generally looking pretty good although the last part of the sprint course may need some reworking. I haven't been used to being on my feet most of the day of late, and was pretty tired by the end of it.

C • Underdressed? 10

Didn't end up getting into the hotel until 1am (4am Melbourne time) so was keen to get as much sleep as I could in the morning (not that I slept that well anyway, perhaps because Chinese beds are often pretty hard and this was no exception). I was never planning to run today but that removed temptation to get out in the morning. Instead I ended up on a stationary bike in the hotel gym in the late afternoon - not a particularly strenuous session because I couldn't work out how to change the resistance on the bike, but did turn the legs over.

Today was mostly about logistics - things like places and concepts for event centres and ceremony locations (the latter will be spectacular if their plans come to fruition). I'll be getting out onto maps tomorrow.

I've been slightly annoyed over the last couple of weeks by the difficulty of finding things on the new IOF website. I was more annoyed about it today - they put most of the documents linked from the website in the cloud (OneDrive to be precise) and not on the website itself, which is all very well except that you can't access OneDrive from China. Words will be had.

And apparently our hotel is also playing host tonight to a Chinese movie star, which may explain the presence of a few people whom I presumed to be either fans or paparazzi, and a few more whose job seemed to be to try to keep those people away.

C • IOF website 5

On the road again, for another event advising trip to China. Having not managed to run yesterday, I thought I'd try doing one on the way out to the airport and it went surprisingly well - slow (probably at least in part because of darkness) but no real signs of injury problems. It was early enough that for some it was still part of Saturday night, which meant there was one of a group of revellers to high-five on the way through. For the first time in a long time, felt like I would have liked to have kept going for longer, but there was a plane to catch.

My hamstring didn't enjoy the flight too much, although walking through the corridors of Hong Kong airport made it a bit less painful, eventually. Took a somewhat unusual route - due north to Charleville, then northwest over Cloncurry and Groote Eylandt - which probably had something to do with avoiding a certain weather system to the west. (Speaking of weather, it was the clearest I can remember the transit of the Indonesian and Philippine islands being).

Had hoped for better this morning but was out of sorts (hamstring more than elsewhere, but it's the same underlying problem) and had to settle for the pool. Not quite as slow a session as it felt; a bit of rain kept the outdoor pool at Northcote less crowded than it can be on a Saturday morning (meanwhile inside the median age was about 6).

Not a terribly demanding session, which is just as well as I wasn't terribly awake after a meeting which ran from 3-4.30am (after which I predictably struggled to get back to sleep). Running about 30 minutes later than usual so a slightly different crowd (aqua aerobics has got going in earnest here in the last few weeks).

Definitely not at my most productive at work until coffee had kicked in.

Cleared a couple of recent hurdles - ran two days in a row and got through an evening event (only course C, but you have to start somewhere). Felt pretty bad in the second kilometre but better after that - seems to be a recurring pattern. Helped that Westgarth doesn't have as many hills as Templestowe. Think I got the route pretty close to right (a bit of local knowledge helps).

In other news of the day, a recall has been launched for a certain brand of eggs after some were believed to be contaminated with salmonella. Those with the eggs in question are asked to crack them over the head of the nearest racist return them to the place of purchase for a refund.

C • Phil Torode managed 4.5k. ... 5

Last night's session must have done me some good because this was the least worst run I've done for a while (in the suburbs at least) - a bit of back stiffness around 5-10 minutes but otherwise the issue was just one of being badly unfit. Headed across the Darebin bike bridge for the first time in a while (and perhaps the last in a while because the route under the Chandler is blocked until the end of June, which probably means the end of December). The newly expanded road bridge is clearly doing its job because the traffic jams which gave me so much joy a few weeks back have disappeared.