Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Morning run didn't work out so I went out on the bike to make sure I at least got something on the board today. Back felt pretty stiff in the first few minutes of the ride too, but loosened up quite quickly and felt pretty good through the second half (a tail wind in the later stages helped). A reasonable number of people out on the paths (although nothing like it would have been at the equivalent point last year), and - definitely not like this time last year - lots of junior football being played (more girls than boys in the places where I was).

Yesterday may have given me some confidence about my ability to get through one of the longer days at Easter but today knocked it around as to my ability to back up and do it again the next day. Back was pretty stiff in the morning, but thought I'd give it another go in the afternoon in the hope that a day's activities would have loosened it up a bit. It had, a bit, but this was still pretty marginal and I cut it off as soon as I respectably could.

Did explore a bit of new ground (at least since I started tracking my exploration of ground - I suspect I've covered a reasonable amount of it in my Heidelberg days) - covered the west side of Bellfield, on the way home from a haircut. In terms of collecting streets this is a target-rich environments (lots of small streets and cul-de-sacs).

Kooyoora North, including the (in)famous Bermuda Triangle section but also slightly easier terrain to the southeast - excellent preparation for Easter. I spent the first half of the course struggling badly with the body and thinking there wasn't going to be a second half, not running much except in the more open bits, but freed up from about 30 minutes onwards and was enjoying myself quite a bit in the later stages. Only small misses, although drifted on the second-last, which can be very bad news here but I picked myself up in time and probably got away with 30-60 seconds lost (it was actually one of my better splits). Almost nailed the very tricky downhill last but just overshot a little in the circle. Pleased to get through - definitely had the "tired but happy" feeling on the way out (until an hour passed and I was just tired) - which will give me some confidence about doing likewise at Easter, but Pat and Aston (and to a lesser extent Bruce) showed up just how far I am from being competitive at the moment.

Getting something to eat in Bridgewater on the way home (inevitably I was not the only orienteer at the bakery) I came across some of the Loddon Shire'stourist literature. Some creativity is required to promote the difficult-to-promote (a classic of the genre was something I once saw about how to spend six days in Merredin), but I'm still unconvinced that anyone actually does refer to Boort as the "Kakadu of the South".

Was still feeling tight in the morning but better for another attempt at lunchtime, and headed north and east for the first time in a while. Felt somewhat better (a relative term) running for much of the first 25 minutes than I have for a while, but back started to give a bit of trouble after that and I was definitely hanging on at the end.

Felt tight enough this morning that I didn't waste time attempting to run but instead headed for the water, where things went OK once I was in. This session was most notable for a heavy line of showers which went through halfway through the session, not that much of an issue in the water but did mean trying to find the non-soaked 20% of my towel to dry myself afterwards.

One of the things about looking at an Easter start list is to see the start list and spot a name which makes you think 'is he/she really in that age group these days'? (In this case it was Rob Walter, part of what looks a very strong M45 field - M50 is running the same course as M45, which suggests either their course will be too short or ours will be too long, or perhaps both).

C • Easter start lists 16

A somewhat unusual session today; was going into the office but also needed to run a software update that was going to take 90 minutes or thereabouts, so went in early, got the update running and then went out. This session was a step forward in two senses; it's the first time in a while that I've done an intervals session, or managed to come up for a session of any kind in the morning after an evening event. I can't say that I was especially convincing in either respect (back not brilliant in the warm-up, and tightening a bit in the later part of the last couple of reps), but it was something.

Warm-up and down, the latter slightly foreshortened. The GPS track shows me running through a building. I didn't. (In the context of current fair play discussions, I don't think anyone here will need convincing that GPS tracks are of limited value in detecting OOB violations at sprint events in high-density urban areas).

Street-O at Yarraville, a somewhat unusual destination for me (I'm otherwise engaged tomorrow evening and the Thursday events have stopped). Didn't go far enough north on my course to experience such local icons as the Franco Cozzo store or the Napier Street bridge (almost as notorious as Montague Street, and currently the subject of a petition to paint it with scary shark teeth).

The run itself was a fairly typical evening street-O this season, with the back a challenge, although improved in the second half. It was a 45-minute score event; my original plan was to pull up at around 35, similar to other evening events this season, but I was tempted by the cluster of controls in the southwest and pushed on to 40 to get myself close enough to the finish to walk the rest and still make it inside the time limit. (By then I was within 500 metres of the finish, but I want to maximise my chance of doing something tomorrow).

Flood updates in places which aren't in the headlines but may be of interest to readers of this log: (a) the Naas bridge, the main access to Namadgi, has washed away and (b) Storm King Dam near Stanthorpe (which was effectively dry in the 2019 drought, requiring town water to be trucked in) is expected to fill tonight.

C • Water trucks 1

It was pretty much pitch dark when I started this, which may have been why I felt even less awake at the start than is often the case for this. Worked out OK once I got started though (and not as stiff as last week).

One of yesterday's discoveries, thanks to opening my account for the City of Casey (by virtue of two of the tracks on Police Paddocks being classified as "streets"), is that the City of Casey has nearly 6000 streets (by way of comparison, 1000-1500 is typical for inner and middle suburban councils, and Yarra and Port Phillip are under 1000). This owes something to a much higher proportion of Casey being urban than was the case when the boundaries were drawn up, and rather more to changes in urban planning - my part of town has plenty of straight streets which are 1-2km long but you won't find too many of those in the outer suburbs apart from the main roads. (It's actually something of an anomaly that Police Paddocks is in Casey, as it is that Emerald and Gembrook - both visited on some post-event exploration - are in Cardinia and not Yarra Ranges).

Didn't feel very awake at the start in the pool either. Eventually got going about halfway through but drifted off the pace again in the last couple of laps; still not quite as slow as last week. (You'd probably be hard-pressed to fall asleep while swimming, but one of my colleagues appears to have managed it while riding a couple of months back - fortunately with no traffic around but still did himself quite a bit of damage).