Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

One for the iconic runs department - a circuit of the base of Uluru after a sunrise viewing (in the company of several hundred others, although we got away from the heaviest of the crowds). Plenty of photo stops. Plenty of interesting micrometeorology as well - some strong winds around the ends of the rock as the southeast flow split around it, even though there was a light breeze at most once you were more than a few hundred metres away. A bit patchy as a run, although at its best later on. The advertised distance of 10.6k must include the side trips up the gorges as it was only 9.2 on my GPS (did a bit extra to get it up to the hour).

Walking Kata Tjuta in the early afternoon wasn't bad, either.

C • Envious... 4

From Warburton. Was originally thinking of something longer this morning (as well that I didn't as it turned out), but back wasn't great and quickly settled on "minimum viable session". Normally with these runs I like to do some exploration, but this being Aboriginal land, I wasn't sure where I could and couldn't go (the fact that the turnoff to the community is unsignposted gives you an indication that casual visitors aren't appreciated), so just went down the road to the creek and back, only swallowing one dust cloud in the process.

This was a prelude to a longer day on the road than planned. Original plan for the day was to camp at Docker River, just on the NT side of the border, tonight (before then doing the Olgas tomorrow on the way to Uluru), but we got numerous negative reports about the condition, and possibly the safety, of the campground, as well as positive reports about the state of the road beyond (previous online searching had led me to believe that the NT side was pretty ordinary, but in fact it was probably in better condition than the WA side: lesson - don't pay much attention to old social media posts about road conditions in the outback). This made us think that reaching Yulara tonight was feasible, and we did so, with the bonus of seeing the Olgas near sunset from the west (setting up camp at Yulara in the dark was a minor negative).

This was the day which provided the reward for the effort of the last three: the site visit at Giles, of course, but also some terrific scenery, particularly in the hour either side of the WA/NT border, in amongst ranges whose existence I had been unaware of until doing some background reading for this trip a few weeks ago. Have also made it to the other end of 1100km of (mostly) dirt road without incident; apart from one section on the way out of Kings Canyon, that's the dirt mostly done with for this trip.

Another morning session before hitting the road, this time in Laverton, a small town with quite a bit of mining around (and quite a few other deposits which proved to be less lucrative than their promoters hoped - this was the scene of the infamous Poseidon bubble). Not too much sign of the mining activity apart from an area of housing, but a few bits of evidence of the last outposts of farming - cattle were grazing right into town. This prompted a change to my initial route, which was occupied by a somewhat intimidating bull, but I eventually settled on a route west from town which worked out OK. A cool and windy morning; sluggish for the first 15 minutes but settled into a reasonable rhythm after that.

The rest of the day was spent on the Great Central Road; 560 kilometres of mostly dirt (although there were two bitumen sections, adding up to 70km or so, that we weren't expecting). As might be expected in the outback, the scenery changes were subtle but real, and evidence of fires was abundant (including a couple of new ones). The road was in pretty good condition which meant a faster trip than planned (could do 80 on most of it), which meant we got to our overnight stop in Warburton in time to visit the art centre before it closed. (I haven't made any new acquisitions, but I imagine my mother would have done had she been here).

Early-morning session in Cue, to the top of the hill which hosted the lookout and back. A very sluggish session where I was grateful for the opportunity of various photo stops, although improved a bit once going downhill. Also grateful I wasn't attempting to orienteer on the hill where the lookout was - the ground surface was almost 100% small loose rocks. A nice backdrop later with the green local oval and the red hills in the background (although I'm not sure who actually uses the oval since Cue's population, which if you take out FIFO miners would barely reach triple figures, is surely not capable of supporting a football team).

The day was to some extent a warm-up before the interesting stuff starts tomorrow: Cue-Meekatharra-Wiluna-Leinster-Leonora-Laverton. Meekatharra in daylight was nowhere near as dire as we'd been led to believe (although I suspect it's one of those places that turn into a werewolf after sunset), and I ticked off another site visit too. Wiluna, once home of WA's most productive police (it emerged at the time of the early 1990s Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody that the average annual number of arrests in the town was four times its population), was eerily quiet, as was Leinster, probably because the miners were on shift (or off shift and asleep) in the latter case. Saw lots of big mines (or at least the tailings piles thereof), not as many trucks as I expected, and managed the first section of dirt road on this trip, the Meekatharra-Wiluna section which was mostly comfortable at 80; I'll be pleased if tomorrow is similar.

Early session in the hotel pool before starting the trip northeast. The pool was of the sort that could be described as refreshing or even invigorating, and it took me a while to get used to it (I'd guess the water temperature was probably around 20), but settled down OK eventually. Longer than most hotel pools (20 metres) and even had a lane stripe, so not as disorienting as it sometimes can be. A bit slow but reasonable for a recovery session.

That was the prelude to the start of the next phase. My aunt's joined me for this (she flew in last night). Today was mostly covering ground I've been on before (in 2005), up as far as Cue, a destination chosen mainly because it has a good place to stay - an old gold-rush pub restored as a guesthouse - and other places in the vicinity don't. (Meekatharra, in particular, has got less than rave reviews). A fairly smooth drive with the main break being wandering around New Norcia, and only encountered one convoy of monstrous mining equipment, which isn't too bad by Great Northern Highway standards.

Australian Middle Championships. 5th, probably about a par performance for me at my current level of fitness - a bit disappointing to have Graham run over the top of me in the finish, but 4th would have been my upper limit today. A scrappy start with perhaps 30-45 seconds lost on 1 and 15 on 2, but settled well into the map after that (there wasn't actually that much rock on the map, a smallish patch of bush on the edge of Narrogin, but what there was was used well). Through mid-course my major function seemed to be to distract elites (Jarrah and Tash were both somewhat erratic in my presence), then I became erratic myself with a 1-minute miss on 14 - clearly a control which troubled others because it was one of my best split placings of the day. So-so physically but probably a bit better than yesterday. Bruce did 27.

I went into this week badly underdone and it showed in the results. The positive is that I've now been able to string together three weeks or so without much injury trouble; turn that into three months and I might be getting somewhere when it comes to getting results in September.

Back in Perth tonight, getting a last glimpse of the Indian Ocean before heading back inland tomorrow. Destination: the Alice.

C5 - Splits

Australian Sprint Championships at Narrogin, 7th. Didn't really have it together on the running side today (even by recent standards) and started to feel some left quad tightness later on which slowed me a bit, although nothing's come of it post-run. Reasonably clean technically; 5 (the first bush one) wasn't quite where I expected it to be but I think that's because the goalpost which was my attack point wasn't quite in the place the map said it was. Didn't lose any meaningful time there. Target for the day was to defend 4 minutes on Bruce but I didn't really expect to; he ended up blasting through on the way to 17. Teemu wasn't much slower but missed a control. Splits suggest I slowed a bit through the run, which is consistent with how I felt.

The event went well, but one disappointment was seeing quite a few people who are old enough to know better going through olive green and over forbidden walls. Perhaps there could have been more taping on the ground, but really it's up to the participants to do the right thing. Decided not to name names officially this time, but I may do in future.

C4 - Splits