Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

One of my colleagues was supposed to be getting a new house today. Things didn't quite go to plan....

C • One for the lawyers? 3

Another one for the "go figure" file - slept badly (not helped by a stray 12.30 alarm) and still feeling less than 100%, but running was fine once warmed up - certainly didn't hurt that this was a very nice Canberra autumn morning. I'm slowly rebuilding confidence and was prepared to commit myself to something longer, and something which explored new ground - I've never done the loop around the east of the lake before (when I was living in Canberra it wouldn't have been possible without a detour through Fyshwick). Once on the north side of the river it was ground untrodden for a long time rather than ground untrodden full stop, but a lot has changed there since I took advantage of a Woden Zone mudbath 35 years ago to qualify for an ACT cross-country championships I hadn't expected to. Started to fade out a bit in the last 10 minutes, but when it's your longest run for a couple of months that isn't so surprising.

C • Very nice 2

Continued to show hints of a cold during a somewhat rough night and was in two minds as to whether I should go out at all. I was glad that I did, because after an uncertain first 15 minutes it settled down pretty well, and in fact probably the last 10-15 minutes were as good as I've felt on a run this year - definitely one of those mornings where I felt as if I could have kept going (even if my Garmin thinks it will take me three days to recover). Hope this keeps up.

There has been a lot of infighting amongst the local Greens of late and it seems to be spilling over into their campaign, or absence thereof - up until today I hadn't seen any of their posters. Today I did; unfortunately it was for someone who is not a candidate (Lidia Thorpe, their former State member who was defeated in November).

And I'll give the Spanish points for creativity in curses, including one I read of today which translates approximately as "I s**t on your prostitute mother". However, if you say it to a referee you stand an excellent chance of landing yourself a tarjeta roja, as an Atletico Madrid player found out on the weekend.

Off to Canberra tonight (just for the day).

C • tarjeta roja 1

Back into starting this in daylight (and the last session of its type for a while). Seemed to go OK; shifting to a partially new set of exercises.

At the point the submission deadline expired for the latest IPCC draft I was doing my opening lap of the Fitzroy pool, thinking at the time that it was appropriate that it bears the name of a meteorological pioneer (although the Melbourne suburb is actually named after his brother, a mid-19th century NSW governor). My own work was done yesterday evening but one still feels more relaxed once there's officially no more to be done (at least until you start wading into the pile of all the other things which have accumulated in the interim).

The swim was the first I've done for a while, and felt like I'd forgotten how to do it (to the extent that I've ever known). Hint of a sore throat later in the day; hope this doesn't develop into anything.

And is the Government really going to start running a culture-war campaign against electric cars?

C • Is the Government... 6

Victorian Relays at Mount Lofty - a moderately steep gully-spur area, most of it open but with an area of regrowth we went into on the last few controls.

I was running first in a team with Glen White and Ted - not usually my favoured position but worked OK in this team. Felt a bit more energetic than usual in the warm-up so had a certain level of optimism. As expected I got burnt off pretty early, but then settled into reasonable running form, which continued through most of the rest of the course. Not quite so happy with my navigation - went offline a bit on 4 and 9 (neither costing me much time), then dropped 45 seconds or so on 13 in the low-vis - but it was good to get a bit of rust out. Was in a good scrap with Clare for much of the course; she was starting to get the better of me for speed, but then lost time in the final control-picking section. As a team we were outgunned, and ended up last of the finishing teams on course 1, I think. Fastest leg times were around 30.

Main thing I was pleased with here was that I managed to run pretty much all of it, including some reasonably solid hills - certainly a step up from where I've been for much of the last few months. Not very fast but you've got to start somewhere. Stringing together a few days in a row is also encouraging.

Spotted on the way out of Kyneton was a sign "WE'LL BE FIXING THIS ROAD SOON". There was obviously a certain amount of local scepticism about this as graffitists had amended both signs (by adding quotation marks to the "SOON" on the northbound sign and the letters "ish" to the southbound one), but it does look like the relevant work has been done.

Wouldn't normally go to a Saturday park event but the attraction of an event within walking distance of home (Darebin Parklands) was too much to pass up - it was also about time for me to test out whether I can run three days in a row (this being the second of the plan). Plan was 30-35 minutes.

Not an especially convincing start and found the climb out of the parklands hard going, but not too bad after that, albeit a bit slow. Happy with the route within the parameters I had in mind (Bruce, Mason and Torren all got the 17 controls north of the river inside 45 minutes, which doesn't surprise me). Even got a stroke of luck with the misplaced control, 6 - came across it 100 metres earlier than I was expecting to, which then opened up a route choice option which gave me an extra control.

Having managed to get one run done without any significant back soreness on Wednesday, I managed another one today. I've had far too much experience with this issue to get excited yet, but it's at least vaguely positive to string a couple together. The run itself was pretty similar to Wednesday night - not fast, but reasonably steady. A bit of traffic around, which I guess I couldn't be too surprised by at this time of the morning (but as always the bit on the far side of Darebin Creek was nice).

A good solid session on a day when I was more awake than I sometimes have been in the mornings of late (notwithstanding that it was still semi-dark). Felt a little bit of stiffness in the quads early, but the post-fall bruising I was worried about after last night's fall failed to materialise.

A poll by the Australia Institute today addressed the burning question: Greens are no more or less likely to drink lattes than anyone else (contrary to the impression you may have been given by various media commentators). However, One Nation voters are somewhat over-represented amongst drinkers of spirits.