Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Mount Tarrengower. Didn't feel great warming up and knew in the first couple of minutes that my back wasn't playing ball today, but there was an opening loop of five controls and I thought I'd at least try to push through that and see if it improved. It didn't. Frustrating that I haven't left this completely behind, progress that it's only happening a couple of times a month and not a couple of times a week.

Sounds like I picked quite a good day not to be doing the rest of the course.

Down into Kew on a day which filled up a lot for a Saturday without any orienteering events. Steady run for the first half but quads again suffered after a hilly stretch. However, unlike Thursday, a traffic stop settled them down and I was able to manage the last 10 minutes home without too many dramas.

Coldest morning of the year to date (still not quite enough for me to turn the heating on, but it made its debut for the year later in the day when my parents were here). Still a bit of frost around in the shaded parts of the Darebin Creek valley.

C • Heating 1

The first proper "it's nice once you're in" morning of the year. Also the first proper fog of the year, which made me wonder if the pool would be open (it's sometimes closed in fog if the lifeguards can't see), but this time they only closed the middle lanes. Quite a solid session.

The fog was breaking up on the ride in, which made for some spectacular viewing as the last fragments wrapped around city skyscrapers in the developing sunlight. I stopped to get a picture of one particularly good example from the corner of La Trobe and Exhibition, and I wasn't the only one doing so.

C • Tash sent me photos 3

Switching to Thursday this week. Still getting the feel of the new program but going OK for the most part (and feeling a bit more awake than I sometimes do for this session; I think I'm slowly adapting to shifting my body clock a little earlier as commuting becomes more common, although I was working from home today).

Lunchtime run while I was getting my roof rack installed at a place in Bell Street. I'd hoped for an hour, but trying to do a few firsts-for-a-while at the same time (after Pilates, lunchtime, and running with a pack) proved to be a bit too much; my quads started to struggle from about 25 minutes (although the back was OK). The pack, at least, worked well - now to see if I can get the necessary equipment for a rogaine into it. Also took advantage of the location to add another completed suburb to my list; Bellfield is a good deal easier in this respect than Northcote (although working out the precise sequencing of streets took a bit of doing).

According to the signs, a large Bunnings was under construction on the other side of the road. I'm not quite sure why when there is already a large Bunnings a kilometre or so away at Northland, unless there are other plans for that site?

C • I was under the impression ... 6

Another one at the better end of my 2021 form, which is to say it would have been a perfectly normal run, say, five years ago. Still happy to have it on the board. Also completed another geographical milestone - one of the local cafes has the local street map as its wallpaper and one of my missions has been to cover every street in it (completing it means I'll no longer be able to plan future missions while waiting for coffee). This past bit was a strip of North Fitzroy and the northern corner of Clifton Hill, taking advantage of positioning myself over there at the start of the day to simplify evening logistics. It featured a lap of the Clifton Hill Maccas, an unusual McDonald's on two counts: (a) it is in an architecturally interesting building (an Art Deco structure which used to be a pub) and (b) there is a brothel next door.

C • Evening logistics 6

Intervals on the waterfront at Lakes Entrance. Didn't feel super-sharp on the warm-up but was OK during the session, good enough to take it out to 8 reps for the first time in a while - wasn't really going lactic, nor did my back arc up, and at times I was actually going faster than my 2008 marathon pace.

Spotted a familiar face at the end of this: David Brownridge was also in town and pointing his run in the general direction of the beach. (I've tried running the beach here before and found it unpleasantly steep, so didn't try this time).

Back home at lunchtime.

Warm-up and down, along the waterfront on the way there (seeing in the process that Lakes Entrance is still a working port with a significant fishing fleet), on the back side returning, and discovering the place we were staying at has its own jetty for guests to moor at. We didn't appear to fit into either of its major demographics, fishermen and Chinese - the latter being in very short supply in the last 15 months or so - but it was a perfectly OK place to stay.

(I knew that Chinese travellers were a familiar sight pre-2020 on the Great Ocean Road - to say nothing of Sea Lake - but they apparently came out this way in significant numbers too. Hopefully Chinese guidebooks advise their readers to steer well clear of any establishment advertising "Chinese and Australian meals").

Morning session at the indoor pool at Pambula. Seemed to drag on for a while (and it's the first time for a while I've done a session in an indoor 25-metre pool), but went OK, and I seem to have pulled up OK from yesterday. The locals were friendly (not always a given - at some pools you definitely get the sense you're treading on someone else's turf), and I definitely lowered the average age of those present.

A possibly unfortunate piece of street naming near the pool was that Dingo Street is where the pre-school is. (At least it wasn't the baby health centre).

Spent the rest of the day making our way down the coast as far as Lakes Entrance, via lunch in Mallacoota, seeing some long-unseen friends there and lots of post-bushfire forest in between - as expected, there are only small patches of unburnt forest between about 20km south of Eden and 10km east of Orbost. Unlike the areas further north which have regrown surprisingly strongly, these looked a bit more like I expected them to, although still doing OK in the circumstances. (As noted in November, I think the higher-elevation forests are the ones which will take longer to recover).

C • Dingo St 1