Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Feeling slightly better than yesterday, I started out mostly downhill in the hope that the climbing might be doable once I was warmed up. That didn't quite work out, but at least I got a nice section on the Godthab ridge before things turned slightly pear-shaped.

Good to catch up with the Oslo end of the family as always, although I had to leave earlier than I would have liked because it was the only option with a reasonable connection and a not-totally-ridiculous price on the opening weekend of summer holidays (the evening Oslo-Zurich-Geneva route I've sometimes used was $3000!). Turned out I could have got the one with the not-so-reasonable connection because that Oslo-Copenhagen flight was the same plane as the one which did our Copenhagen-Geneva one. This being the most time for a while I've spent in Copenhagen Airport, it was clearly evident that it's run by the same people who run Sydney (this is not a compliment, unless you like your airports to be shopping malls that planes incidentally take off and land at).

Newbie traveller of the day was the person who tried to get a six-pack of Carlsberg through security at Oslo - a particularly expensive mistake in Norway. They were clearly a newbie because (a) they didn't know about the rules about taking liquids on planes and (b) they didn't know that beer was almost certainly cheaper in whichever place they were going (or, for that matter, in the airport duty-free) than it was in Norway.

C • Beer 8

No good today either. I suspect that doing it in the afternoon (after spending quite a bit of the day either watching the boys train football or fielding shots at goal) didn't help.

Football was to feature later in the day as well, in the form of the Australia-Norway match, which had a result somewhat more to the liking of the Norwegian members of the household than it did to mine (Max and Esten both said beforehand that they were going to support both teams, but I think their leaning was towards the red rather than the gold). I'll now be hoping for the best for Norway, if only in the hope that their quarter-final against (probably) England prompts a commentator to say "Can you hear me Boris Johnson? Your girls took a hell of a beating".

Enjoying a cool and bright weekend before the week to come.

Woke up with a stiff back this morning - I'm blaming a hard hotel bed. Would have been nice to know in advance then I wouldn't have had to get up at 5.30 (this morning's proceedings started at 8). Did manage to get a reasonable amount of walking done during the course of the day (seeing in the process that the Rhine has considerably more water now than it did at the time of the late 2018 picture which appeared on my meeting poster).

Next stop: Oslo, via Dusseldorf, an airport with which I was previously unacquainted (it seems to be functioning efficiently at the time of writing, though I'm not actually on the plane yet).

A classic run in a lot of German towns and cities is to run uphill from the centre; many have hills or escarpments quite close to the centre, often with a fair bit of forest (and quite often topped by a TV tower, sometimes bearing some resemblance to Black Mountain Tower, although Bonn's is just a mast).

The way I've been going the last week I wasn't sure that I would handle this, but decided to give it a go anyway, and it worked out OK. Almost continuously uphill for the first 4km, and handled the grind reasonably. Went up the road on the way out whilst I got my bearings, but on forest tracks for some of the way coming back - as I sort of expected, these stayed on a flattish ridgeline for a while and then dropped off steeply, something I'm not sure I would have managed in the reverse direction. Quads, which haven't done anything like this for months, were starting to feel it in the later stages of the downhill, but overall this was a pretty good one to chalk up. Also decent running conditions, which I'm appreciating while they last - this time next week looks like being well into the 30s (on some of the more extreme forecast scenarios I might even be on the scene for Geneva's first 40).

Something I wasn't expecting was that today is a public holiday locally (though the meeting I'm at went ahead regardless) - put a bit of a spanner in the works of a few plans I had, but definitely good for traffic.

C • Rain 4

Not much chance for anything today, with the late night last night, a lunchtime meeting and travelling from mid-afternoon onwards - I'm on the way to Bonn for a couple of days to present at a UNFCCC meeting. This being Europe, I'm doing it on the train (flying wouldn't have been much faster in any case, because the closest place with a direct flight from Geneva is Frankfurt).

I did wonder when I saw the information beforehand for yesterday's car rental whether they actually wanted any customers - I quote:

"For this rental you will also need two original forms of proof of address. These must be original documents issued to you by post and feature the same address as on your driver’s licence.

The following rules apply:

a) One must be a credit card or bank statement for the credit card presented at the desk.

b) The other must be a utility bill (gas, electric, water use bill etc.).

Please note that mobile phone bills, council tax bills, electronic bills (such as emails and online statements) or their printouts will not be accepted.

Both documents must be dated within 8 weeks of date of hire."

Precisely none of this was actually asked for, saving me from having to tell any fibs about my bank statement not being a PDF printout (the water bill was original).

C • Harsh 5

Somewhat improved today on a warmer morning, particularly in the second half. Started out northeast along the lake with a bit of a false start because the underpass I remembered is only open during botanical gardens opening hours, then climbed to the UN complex and through Servette. A bit interrupted with traffic at times but not too bad.

There was a smoke plume on the other side of the lake (can't have been too significant a fire because there was nothing I could see on the local newspaper website), so inevitably this was the earworm of the morning. The fire brigade were on the scene for a while on Sunday afternoon of the building next door to where I've been staying , but there was no sign of fire (or any great concern for the surrounds) so I'm not sure what they were doing; perhaps someone sent the Greek consulate (contained therein) some white powder?

The evening's activity was going down to Grenoble (about as far from Geneva as Melbourne is from Bendigo) to watch the Matildas play Jamaica. Definitely a worthwhile occasion (and the Stade des Alpes has a very impressive backdrop), though Australia's defence will need to improve if they want to get past Norway on Saturday. (I'll be in Oslo on the weekend, which could make for some interesting uncle/nephew interaction when the game is on). Didn't get back until after 1am, not helped by a long (and unsignposted, but I didn't get too lost) detour for motorway roadworks around Annecy, and a somewhat suboptimal route choice through downtown Geneva - not having driven in Geneva before, I was familiar with the roads but not which ones you're allowed to drive down/turn into.

Stayed up until a reasonable hour last night and then didn't sleep too badly (awake for a bit in the middle of the night - and it's definitely middle of the night here at this time of year if it's dark outside - but otherwise slept until my alarm), so hopefully through the worst of the jetlag. Still struggled with the run, though - as sluggish as I was in Darwin, although without fading as alarmingly as I did then. Possibly I'm not 100% well as the recovery time on the watch (which I assume is picking up on heart rates) is still unusually high.

The redevelopment of the public beach on the other side of the lakefront is approaching completion after a couple of years of work (there are signs which variously say it will be open next week or in July). A project which has been even longer in its gestation (160 years or so in the thinking, and probably close to a decade in the building) is also not too far away, the new rail link to France - there's even a countdown clock in the station so they must be reasonably confident that the scheduled opening on 15 December is actually going to happen.