Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Pilates session. Back quite stiff this morning; I think I would have struggled to run today, but eventually loosened up through this workout.

Found myself today looking through data sets to examine the frequency of days with average temperatures below -10 in Tabriz, Iran. (In case you're wondering, the context was reports of extreme cold and snow in refugee camps in places like northern Iraq and Syria, and Iran has decent data, which the aforementioned countries don't, so I thought Tabriz would be a good place to use to assess how unusual the last week has been - the answer being that it's probably an event you'd expect to see once every 2-3 years on average).

Moved on to the Fitzroy pool. Didn't expect a lot of this session but it actually turned out to be reasonably good. Would have been a bit more crowded in the afternoon.

The speed limit on part of La Trobe Street has been lowered to 30 km/h. I wonder if cyclists will have to watch their speed? (it's downhill going west, although anyone going flat out in that section is asking for trouble - it's prone to pedestrians paying more attention to their phones than to their surroundings).

C • 30kph 5

Not quite as abortive as my last attempt at Banyule Flats but still not what I would have hoped for today - back not too bad, but quad not at its best and was getting a bit worse as I run. Took a brief pause to admire the sign with the Walter Withers painting in the hope that that might settle it down, but it did so briefly and I thus settled for minimum-viable-session territory.

Doing some reading on my recent destination was a reminder that not all those honoured by having things named after them in Australia were especially honourable; Fremantle, like Wakefield, headed for the colonies leaving behind him scandal involving (allegedly) doing things he shouldn't have (even by 19th century standards) with underage girls.

C • Naming rights 13

On a somewhat later timetable this morning - still readjusting to eastern states time - and learned in the process that crossing roads in the inner north is more awkward on a late Saturday morning than it is at 7-something on a weekday morning (there aren't as many cars but they're usually moving faster and with fewer gaps). This made for a somewhat interrupted run, but otherwise not too bad, with the body functioning more or less as it was supposed to.

Orienteering-related science news - a series of studies have looked at navigational capacities across large populations (using a computer game designed for the purpose). Navigational ability tended to be correlated with country income (which surprises me a little bit, given the skills that I would have thought would develop in the rabbit-warren slums of many developing-world cities), and gender differences (or lack thereof) in navigation skills tended to mirror gender differences in society as a whole. Also interesting is that those who grew up in rural areas tended to have better navigational skills and that this gap was greatest in countries (like the US) where urban street patterns tend to be simple grids, and somewhat to my surprise, that skills peak in one's early 20s and decline progressively thereafter, although I do wonder whether the use of a computer game as the platform might have something to do with that.

Still not quite right to run (I won't blame the message that came through before I started that my 2pm flight was cancelled and to await further developments), but with no conference sessions I had time to head to the pool instead. Not as energetic as Monday but still not a bad place to be on a day which eventually surpassed 40.

The timing of the swim might not have been ideal as I got out of the water to see a "call us to confirm time of your new flight" text from 30 minutes earlier, and by the time I called the 3.15 flight was full, so the 4.55 it was, which meant getting home after midnight (and a lot of time hanging out in the lounge at the airport). Unsurprisingly there were a few familiar faces on the plane, although not as many as the equivalent flight out of Darwin last year.

Amidst various weighty orienteering issues we're currently resolving (most of them to do with getting a draft new OA constitution finalised in time to get it out to the states with the required notice before the AGM), a smaller one being sorted out is that there is only one Toby Cooper in IOF Eventor (no doubt those of you familiar with British football are singing something to yourself at this point) but two of them in Victoria in reality (one in BK, one in Eureka). I've had this issue a few times with the consolidated Australian Championships results; normally age class and club is enough to distinguish people with identical names, the greatest challenge probably being the two Richard Morrises (of broadly similar age and both having run for multiple NSW clubs).

Had a go but didn't last long - OK for the opening minutes but going down a flight of stairs was enough to set me off, and battled through another few minutes before pulling the pin. Somewhat frustrating (although I suspect it's partly through trying to do things sooner after getting up than I normally would).

Today's talk went better than the run (at least if Twitter was anything to go by). I thought Vanessa's went pretty well too, even if to my knowledge nobody tweeted about it. (I suspect our current fields are too far apart for a Round and Trewin paper to be likely in the near future, but I'm prepared to be proven wrong). Nice to have some people willing to come to my support in the outside world, too.

C • It must be hard 2

Back no good this morning. Had to happen sometime. Felt like it had loosened up by lunchtime but doing a lunchtime run from the conference wasn't really an option (even Nick Earl, an outside chance for the British marathon team for Tokyo when he's not doing climate science, hasn't been doing that).

Again a bit of a nothing run - back OK but various other bits tight or creaky, and was happy to get it over with. Headed out from where I'm staying in East Fremantle roughly along the south bank of the Swan (discovering in the process that part of this is occupied by a military base that doesn't show up on Google Maps), far enough to see that there's some fairly extravagant real estate on both sides of the river if you go a bit further up. I'll try to explore further on Thursday.

It's been a fairly exhausting couple of days - there's something I want to go to in almost every timeslot (the one vacant timeslot was occupied with a chat with Kate Doyle, coming soon to your local ABC), and a lunchtime workshop too so we were going almost continuously from 8.45 until after 6.

C • Leeuwin 5