Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

A slightly oddball idea for a run course: there's a 5k in Asheville, North Carolina (at least vaguely familiar territory for me) this weekend, whose purpose is to draw attention to a particularly egregious Congressional gerrymander. The run follows one of the more convoluted sections of the electoral boundary which splits Asheville in half.

If you're wondering why the boundary-drawers might want to do such a thing, Asheville is, I believe, the only place in the entire Appalachian region which voted for Clinton over Trump, and the idea is to split it into two so the two halves are each swamped by Republican votes in the boondocks.

(Quite a few of my runs follow electoral boundaries, but that's because the Yarra River and Merri and Darebin Creeks have both good places to run and form boundaries of electoral districts).

C • Electoral boundaries 4

Street-O at Blackburn North. After last week's encouraging outing I decided to give it more of a crack tonight, with a view to hopefully getting under 5 min/km. Started well but in the end couldn't quite sustain the pace, and struggled a little on the (modest) hills - given this is the first time for two seasons I've tried to run hard through a 10km course, it's not surprising that I didn't get my pacing quite right. Still managed to finish it off, more or less - definitely something to build on (although probably not next week, at least in terms of numbers - it's pretty hilly).

Back wasn't feeling brilliant through the working day but ended up all right on the run, just a couple of brief slight twinges.

Some interesting route choice tonight created by some nasty-to-get controls. Could realistically have left out any two of 1, 2, 6 and 14 - for me it was 1 and 2 - and there were different ways to start and finish the main loop (and a few interesting route choices on individual legs, too). Definitely a more competitive crowd this week - you certainly wouldn't have got fourth with 5.3 min/km here.