Training Log Archive: blairtrewinIn the 1 days ending Dec 2, 2014:
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Tuesday Dec 2, 2014 #
7 AM
Run 1:27:00 [3] 15.3 km (5:41 / km) +390m 5:03 / km
This morning's plan was to head up into a valley which goes north into the hills behind Ushuaia (eventually curving west to form the other side of the range immediately behind the city).
The plan was duly executed but the setting wasn't quite what I thought it would be (I'd had some forewarning of this from some reading yesterday). The city's very rapid employment growth in the 1980s and 1990s wasn't matched by the (official) release of new land for housing, which meant that people built anywhere they could (which here, means anything that isn't vertical or a bog) - most of which doesn't appear on maps. The Valle Andorra, with its relatively level base, was a prime example of this. It's not really a shantytown in the normal sense because many of the people who built there would have been people with decent jobs who simply couldn't get formal housing at any price, and many of the houses are substantial real estate (though it gets more rough and ready out the back). At least they have electricity these days.
The city government is now embarking on a 'Plan de Urbanizacion' (i.e. turning these areas into proper suburbs) and, if you believe the signs, putting several tens of millions of pesos into it, but for now, the combination of peak-hour traffic and dirt roads didn't make for a running environment as pleasant as I'd originally anticipated. Further on, the road traffic thinned out but the number of dogs increased to compensate (though all but a couple were well-behaved). Reached the spot where the road ends and the walking track starts to be greeted by a sign which said the track was closed, but by then I was only a couple of minutes short of my planned turnaround time so was happy to turn around, especially as my Achilles was struggling.
Most of the rest of a day of the if-you-don't-like-the-weather-wait-5-minutes variety was spent exploring the national park, the accessible bits of which are focused on the coast west of town (though just because a track is coastal doesn't mean it's flat) - the coastal scenery (still very nice) being a bit of a change in pace from the big glaciated mountains. Some of the trees seemed to be creaking alarmingly but they're regularly exposed to much bigger storms than this so I wasn't too worried about being squashed. Didn't get into the right bits of the park to see the havoc wrought by beavers, introduced mid-century in a seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time scheme to develop a fur industry and now a major pest.
Spotted a remark today from someone to the effect that he wouldn't want his teenage daughter anywhere near legislation proposed by the Sex Party (who may or may not have the balance of power in the Victorian Upper House). Teenage daughters have a long and honourable history in Victorian political discourse and it's probably about time they made a return appearance (although the previous example turned out to be well into her 20s).
The plan was duly executed but the setting wasn't quite what I thought it would be (I'd had some forewarning of this from some reading yesterday). The city's very rapid employment growth in the 1980s and 1990s wasn't matched by the (official) release of new land for housing, which meant that people built anywhere they could (which here, means anything that isn't vertical or a bog) - most of which doesn't appear on maps. The Valle Andorra, with its relatively level base, was a prime example of this. It's not really a shantytown in the normal sense because many of the people who built there would have been people with decent jobs who simply couldn't get formal housing at any price, and many of the houses are substantial real estate (though it gets more rough and ready out the back). At least they have electricity these days.
The city government is now embarking on a 'Plan de Urbanizacion' (i.e. turning these areas into proper suburbs) and, if you believe the signs, putting several tens of millions of pesos into it, but for now, the combination of peak-hour traffic and dirt roads didn't make for a running environment as pleasant as I'd originally anticipated. Further on, the road traffic thinned out but the number of dogs increased to compensate (though all but a couple were well-behaved). Reached the spot where the road ends and the walking track starts to be greeted by a sign which said the track was closed, but by then I was only a couple of minutes short of my planned turnaround time so was happy to turn around, especially as my Achilles was struggling.
Most of the rest of a day of the if-you-don't-like-the-weather-wait-5-minutes variety was spent exploring the national park, the accessible bits of which are focused on the coast west of town (though just because a track is coastal doesn't mean it's flat) - the coastal scenery (still very nice) being a bit of a change in pace from the big glaciated mountains. Some of the trees seemed to be creaking alarmingly but they're regularly exposed to much bigger storms than this so I wasn't too worried about being squashed. Didn't get into the right bits of the park to see the havoc wrought by beavers, introduced mid-century in a seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time scheme to develop a fur industry and now a major pest.
Spotted a remark today from someone to the effect that he wouldn't want his teenage daughter anywhere near legislation proposed by the Sex Party (who may or may not have the balance of power in the Victorian Upper House). Teenage daughters have a long and honourable history in Victorian political discourse and it's probably about time they made a return appearance (although the previous example turned out to be well into her 20s).