Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

First full day of the road trip, mostly in familiar territory (although the climb to the summit of Mount Zero was something I'd only previously done in 2003, and it's probably almost as long since I diverted into the centre of Stawell - deserted at 8.45 on a Saturday morning, which it won't be next weekend - in search of a coffee).

The run was one excursion into unfamiliar territory - my first foray into the Little Desert National Park, in its extreme eastern tip near Dimboola - an out-and-back from the Horseshoe Bend campground along a riverside track. Quite a pleasing run once it was going - no back issues (clearly a couple of hours driving doesn't trigger it) and moving quite well in the second half with my first sub-5.30 kilometres for a whole. The Little Desert was actually the scene of one of the first major public environmental campaigns in Australia, being saved from clearing in the late 1960s by a Liberal environment minister - those were the days. (Admittedly he was "encouraged" by their losing a safe seat in a by-election fought largely over the issue).

After that it was onwards, to a day which ended in Adelaide. I would say that the drive was made to go quickly by listening in to my football team's glorious victory, but the ABC were broadcasting the Geelong-GWS game instead.

And there's definitely an election on - Boothby is the one genuinely marginal seat in SA and has accordingly been carpet-bombed with that distinctly SA form of campaigning, posters stuck to power poles. (It's not too hard to tell that Cross Road is a boundary, because all the posters on the left hand side are for someone and all the posters on the right hand side are for someone else - with the identity of the "someone else" changing part way as it becomes the Boothby-Adelaide boundary instead of the Boothby-Sturt one).

C • We use to be in Boothby whi... 6

Got the car loaded (there's a lot in it for a trip like this, starting with the second spare wheel) and got on the way in time to get a reasonable session in, on the first proper "nice once you're in" morning. Arrived at Fitzroy to find someone talking about the "f***ing machines". I know Fitzroy's a fairly liberal suburb but wouldn't have thought a f***ing machine was entirely appropriate for a public pool; perhaps it's discreetly hidden on the top floor.

("liberal suburb" not to be confused with "Liberal" - this is the place where some graffiti appeared a couple of elections ago "a fairy dies every time someone votes for Tony Abbott").

Under way in the evening, getting as far as Ararat tonight. Keeping a watchful eye on the Monday forecast, which is currently not especially promising.

Knew it couldn't last for ever - pretty tight this morning and didn't loosen up in the first few minutes. Felt confident enough to make a second attempt at lunchtime but it didn't work out then either.

Still feel as if I'm some way from getting myself properly organised for the trip which starts tomorrow, but I'll have to be organised whether I'm ready to be or not. At least the two key new items have turned up (the satellite phone and the second spare wheel).

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.