Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Autumn Series at Sailors Creek. This has a long history of not being one of my favourite areas and about the best that could be said for today is that I got further than I did last time. That doesn't mean I got round a course, but not for the usual reason - felt a sharp twinge in my knee going into #1, decided to press on to see if I would run it out, and when it still wasn't feeling right after another 20 minutes decided it probably didn't need to stay out for 90. By that stage I had already made a couple of 1-minute mistakes (convincing myself I'd made a parallel error at #1 when I hadn't, and then actually making one at #4) and had discovered bits of what the Scots call "windblow" - the forest here didn't suffer as badly from last June's storm as did those east of Daylesford, but there were still plenty of big fallen trees.

The knee didn't feel quite right walking later in the day (mostly walking down hills, or rather down stadium ramps after an afternoon which left me with one main question, namely "when do we play the Eagles?"). Don't think there's anything structurally wrong and it's probably a less severe version of my right knee issue from last September, but I'll still give it a couple of days. First injury DNF for more than a year, so I'll take that as progress.

There are plenty of historical Australian placenames which bear no resemblance to their equivalents back in Europe (St. Kilda - the Melbourne one - being perhaps the most striking example). This tradition is clearly being continued as a development on the dusty plains east of Melton is called "Key West". I saw rather more Florida-themed development and business names last week in the Gold Coast suburb of Miami, the best of them being the local Chinese restaurant, Miami Rice.

1 - Splits

Back to doing the random-piece-of-Melbourne thing, although today's number of 59 didn't send me too far afield. Having seen a letter-writer to the Age during the week note that Kooyong (the suburb) is not in Kooyong (the federal electorate), and being aware that it is a very small suburb, I thought I'd have a crack at clearing it in a single session (minus the bits of two streets visited at the Smiths Dell Summer Series event).

(Just to add to the confusion, the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club and Kooyong Road are not in either the suburb or the electorate).

This run definitely wasn't as good as yesterday's second half, but after an iffy first 10 minutes with some discomfort in both hamstrings, I got into it reasonably well. Plenty of hills which I was reasonably happy with my handling of, particularly going from Kooyong station to Toorak Road. The election campaigning's a lot less visible on the south side of Gardiners Creek, although Higgins is a seat that both Labor and the Greens fancy their chances in (don't think either will be getting many votes in this corner of it, but mansion country doesn't have that many voters per hectare compared with, say, the area around Chapel Street).

Today's number has advanced to 1919, the last time there was a major pandemic. Hopefully we'll have to wait as long for the next one (although I wouldn't bet on it).

For the first five minutes this looked like being a struggle similar to other runs this week. From there it morphed into one of my better runs of the year, even if the degree of difficulty was low on a generally flat route north (clearing the remainder of the industrial area between Northland and Bell Street in the process). Particularly steady over the second half with a string of kilometres in the mid-5.30s, although the back was starting to feel a little tight in the last 10 minutes. Probably the last warm morning of the season (and the tailwind later on didn't hurt).

The yellow peril had taken over all available railing real estate on the Bell Street pedestrian overpass. Haven't seen any Liberal signs in this area (they often have trouble finding candidates here but seem to have failed to clear the fairly low "not a known fascist" bar this time), but I did see one for an obscure independent Senate candidate (possibly indicating where said candidate lives).

The tally advanced only slightly today to 1904 (although it's the first time for a while the Darebin total has been added to). The early years of Federation were ones of political instability as a party system sorted itself out, and in 1904 Australia got through three Prime Ministers, and NSW three Premiers (one of whom got the job because the Governor thought the first option put forward got drunk too often in Executive Council meetings, although it appears that they might also have been an early example of a "colourful Sydney racing identity").

Original plan was to go out for something longish this morning but back was very tight when I got up, so quickly decided to switch to the water instead and see how that went. The session went OK for what it was, but didn't seem to loosen me up that much, at least at the time. Warm morning for this time of year, but quite quiet.

Nice not to have to take my phone in any more (to do check-ins) - not sure if Melbourne's thieves have taken advantage of the situation over the last 18 months or so.

Plan B was to go out for a bit after the pool session but that wasn't happening either, so I made a plan C more in hope than expectation of going out at the end of the day at work. It actually ended up better than I expected, not sparkling by any means but better than either of my other two runs this week.

Did some exploring of the northwest end of Docklands, getting out as far as Ron Barassi Sr Park, which rather sacreligiously is a rugby ground. (I'm guessing the 'Sr' will be dropped when Ron Jr, who's well into his 80s, passes on and it can be named after both of them). Did quite a few small streets (and unusually for the inner city, the GPS picked all of them up), so I've skipped right over the 1890s and ended up in 1902, a year with rainfall numbers in many parts of Australia (especially Queensland) which seemed unimaginably low until 2019 happened - although nowhere in 2019 managed a sub-100 12-month total at a place with a 1000+ average, as St. Lawrence (between Mackay and Rockhampton) managed for the 12 months ending November 1902 (90mm, average 1019).

Lunchtime run because I had a workshop (being run out of Hawaii) in the morning which I thought started at 7 but actually started at 8 (I think this was a late schedule change, not a time-zone mix-up). Didn't have high expectations given I'd been sitting all morning, and the run generally lived down to expectations, although occasionally threatened to become decent. Was quite happy to get through to what I regarded as the baseline expectation of 40 minutes. Think I'm still getting over the carnival a bit, so perhaps will scale back my ambition in the next couple of days.

Cleared a few more bits of the east side of Coburg, completing the map 30 strip north of Moreland Road. This advanced the number to 1889, well known to me as the year when it did not (in any scientifically meaningful sense) reach 53.1 degrees at Cloncurry.

I'm also starting to make plans for the northern summer, discovering in the process that it is 2022 and WMOC still does not take online payment by credit cards.

Tuesday was the new Monday but in reverse order. On the first official "it's nice once you're in" morning of the season, it was a bit of an unusual swim - very slow early but considerably quicker as it went on, over 4 minutes for some early 100s but sub-3.30 for the later ones. (I usually become a bit less slow as it goes on, but not that much). A bit of right shoulder soreness on the last lap, hopefully nothing significant.

And on to Pilates, which was fairly routine (without too much trouble from the aforementioned shoulder). Lovely morning for the ride into work, too.

One thing I forgot to mention last week was the number of well-executed Scandi flops at the finish line of the Broadbeach State School cross-country, which was taking place on Thursday in the parklands between the street and the beach. (The school sits on some potentially very valuable real estate and I'm a little surprised a government hasn't found a pretext to close it).

Early morning session before leaving Brisbane (not quite as early as it might have been, as I got a message late yesterday to the effect that Qantas were generously giving me 30 minutes' extra sleep). Wouldn't normally have tried to do a run the day after the end of a race week but my schedule at the Melbourne end didn't allow for alternative options (and there aren't any pools open early on Anzac Day), so a run was it, from where I was staying in Ascot.

The run was predictably poor, though started to pick up a little in the last 10 minutes. Hamstring not quite right but better than the weekend. Explored a part of Brisbane which I don't have much previous experience of (and is a lot flatter than most of the parts of Brisbane that I do have previous experience of), discovering in the process that Racecourse Road is a bit of a cafe strip and had a surprisingly large number of establishments open at 7am on a public holiday (and the clientele didn't look like jockeys who had just finished trackwork, either).

Brisbane is a very large local council, so I wasn't too surprised that the problem of not getting credit for streets whose name is replicated elsewhere in the area is more acute here than elsewhere; only two of the seven streets I completed on the ground registered. Perhaps appropriately in the light of recent events, 1885 was when the South Australian cabinet discussed what to do about the alleged threat of Russian warships attacking the South Australian coast (presumably telling said warships to "go f**k themselves" would have been a bit crude for Victorian-era sensibilities, even if radio had existed to do it over). Later in 1885 came the first, but definitely not the last, time that a Downer was in a prominent position in South Australian politics (one of them became Premier), although Georgina finally seems to have got the message that people don't want to vote for her and, as far as I know, is not a candidate anywhere in this election.

The logistics of the rest of the day worked more smoothly than I expected (apart from the aforementioned flight delay) and I made to the MCG in plenty of time to watch my team lose. Also an indicator of a return to normal service was two separate meetings tonight (one IOF, one WMO).

C • Ascot 1

C • Watching team lose 3

At one point on this morning's run I ran past someone standing outside a building smoking. He actually apologised for his smoke cloud.