Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Didn't feel especially energetic, but at least got through a set without too many dramas, other than with dogs (clearly the other users of the park were under the assumption that the City of Darebin's partial shutdown extended to the enforcement of on-leash areas).

Numbers of people in the city seem to be gradually dwindling, although there's still a fair bit of traffic - I suspect some train users are swapping to cars (and some to bikes, still to be found in some abundance).

Don't intend to try to brave any food shops until the weekend - hopefully by then the craziness will have settled down a bit (and the local shops seem to have held up better so far than the big supermarkets). My version of panic buying is that I've bought five new books since the weekend.

Warm-up and down. Neither of these were especially convincing but at least my back was functioning, and will hopefully be functioning better now that the physio (still working, at least for now) has had another go at it.

An updated statement has come out from the Government on the current situation. Working through recommendations now but looks like local events should be able to continue for now in some form (of course what's current on Wednesday may not necessarily be current on Friday).

C • Guidelines 9

Things didn't work out today, although I spent long enough out at lunchtime to discover that the City of Melbourne's parking inspectors are definitely not working at home at present.

The roads didn't seem much quieter than usual when I was riding - I'm guessing that the number of people working from home is offset by people who are driving in rather than using public transport - but I didn't have to take the usual 17 March diversion around the Dan O'Connell.

It's difficult to plan anything too far ahead at the moment. I started today not knowing which city I'd finish the day in (just as well I don't have to do drug-testing whereabouts forms) - I was supposed to be going to a meeting in Canberra but thought there was a good chance either the Bureau would stop interstate travel or the meeting would be called off. The former hasn't happened (yet) but the latter did, so I'm still in Melbourne.

Sessions which rely on public facilities also can't be planned too far ahead at the moment, and I suspect the pools won't be open for much longer (the City of Melbourne ones are already closed). Until it gets too cold the river might be an option (especially for water running which don't require putting one's head under the water), although I don't know how strong the current is.

The swim was pretty ordinary at best, and featured the return of a long-lost friend, the foot cramp (on two separate occasions, one for each foot).

As someone who's read a lot of cricket history, one of the more surreal bits I've encountered was reading of the final round of the 1939 English County Championships, which took place as war was declared (and was, I think, played to its completion).

Hopefully we'll be back to doing things normally within seven months rather than seven years (seven weeks is a bit too much to ask, I suspect), but after today's event I've got a bit more of an idea about how this must have felt; doing an event with no idea about when we'll be doing this again (which could still be Kooyoora next Saturday) or when we'll see everyone again.

Would have liked to sign off, if this is a temporary sign-off, with a decent run, but this was a struggle until my body started functioning properly about 20 minutes again (on another day I might have come back after the first few controls, but I wasn't going to do that today even if I had to walk around). Probably at my best in the section from 9-15. A tough course, with most of it in the low-visibility area (Borhoney Ghurk has a lot of post-fire regrowth) and quite a bit of mining detail, but the only major time loss was 30 seconds or so on the vague knoll at 16.

Course 1 had a relatively faster course (essentially they had all our slow bits plus 3km of fast open stuff), but Aston's time was still spectacular and does nothing to disabuse us of the idea that he might add to his tally of JWOC gold medals, if he gets the chance to do so (not something I'd be especially confident about).

Second successive 5-hour week (and third in four). Baby steps...

The first cool day of the autumn always has a sense of renewal about it, and my body was co-operating today to take advantage, in what was probably the best I've felt on a run this year (even if the pace was a bit slower than some). The sorts of modest hills that have triggered problems a lot of the time did nothing of the sort today.

This all made the overwhelming sense of foreboding about everything today seem all the more jarring. At least I found one of the benefits of shopping local - apart from you-know-what (which I shouldn't need to resupply on for another couple of months, and perhaps indefinitely if News Limited publications are still being produced), everything I was looking for was on the shelves, if not always in vast quantities, and the queue was at normal levels.

One of those weeks when I've been struggling to come up in the mornings (it doesn't help that a busy week has meant having to try to get out a bit earlier than usual). Plan B was the evening but that didn't work out either. Probably would have liked to have been able to get out and do something, if only for mental health reasons.

For those of you who haven't already read it on the US thread, various decisions are in the process of being made and I expect there will be an announcement in the next day or so.

Had planned for a run but didn't work out, so took to the water instead. Ended up as a reasonably straightforward session, and even felt reasonably awake by the end of it.