Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

A slightly longer session of the 4 on/1 off flavour, around the bottom of the Aranda Bushland (where there are lots of flowers in the paddocks, although I think most of them are being produced by weeds) and then onto the lower part of Black Mountain. Not a hilly route compared to a lot of what's on offer here but still less flat than what I've been doing, and felt a bit of a struggle at times. Calf also fatigued a bit in the last few minutes (whether it was the extra distance or hitting the steepest hill it's dealt with so far, I'm not sure), for the first time since this return. My plan was to do a proper (if short) run tomorrow if I came through this one OK, but I think I'll make sure it feels fine in the morning before committing myself to that.

Saw a piece in the Guardian yesterday about various bizarre F1 cars. One of these was a car which upset the prudes at the BBC and various other broadcasters (the mid-1970s being a somewhat more prudish time in such quarters) because its major sponsor was Durex (for the youngsters out there, a well-known condom brand of the era). Somewhat unfortunately, the car in question suffered punctures in two of its first three races.

C • F1 1

Went out after Katinka's party for a circuit of the lake. This was harder than it sounds because Dad's bike (which I borrowed) is a pretty heavy MTB and had low tyres, which made climbing up any sort of hill hard work - in particular the climb up from the lake back to Aranda. Perhaps also a certain amount of party over-eating syndrome; the offerings included waffles (partaken of enthusiastically) and brown cheese (not so much).

On a pleasant evening there were plenty of picnics out, including someone wandering across the path at Acton holding half a bottle of wine. This made me think of the glory days of the Canberra Food and Wine Frolic (aka the Alcoholic Frolic, although I didn't fully appreciate this as an innocent child), although that took place across the road in Commonwealth Park.

Poll finding of the day: had the vote in the British EU referendum been restricted to people who change their underwear every day, Remain would have won.

Stretching it out a bit more (4 on/1 off). As with the the last couple of runs, didn't feel as if I was running that well but no real issues (and calf was OK). A little bit of groin tightness, which is fairly standard for me coming back after a substantial layoff (and should sort itself out within a few days).

Heading up to Canberra this weekend (the first of three trips up there in rapid succession) - this one's for a family gathering to mark Katinka's first birthday. I've got the train to Albury to link up with an uncle and aunt who are also going up, and spent the time doing some work on the all-years Australian Championships results file - now basically updated to 2016, but I'm sorting out a few issues (mostly people who've run under different names in different years - trying to link the results of people who've run under different last names if something I've put in the too-hard basket for now, but I'm trying to make the Bob/Roberts of this world consistent across years). Should hopefully get it up on the OA website sometime next week.

Made a last-minute decision to take to the pool this morning rather than the bike, mainly because I thought I'd have more opportunities for the bike than the water in Canberra this weekend. This could have turned out to be a very bad move, because it meant that on the commute ride in from Fitzroy, I was in the spot which somebody changed lanes into without looking. Getting hit by a car isn't the greatest way to start a day, but it appears that no significant damage has been done to myself or bike (and the words exchanged post-incident were moderately civil and none of them began with F).

The session in the pool itself was fairly standard - I don't mind this as a recovery session but would prefer it not to be the core of my training. Hopefully this won't be the case for much longer.

Legal argument of the day goes to someone in Queensland (you won't be surprised to hear that he's a mate of Senator Culleton's) who's arguing that all Australian laws since 1966 are invalid because they were signed by a Governor-General who is paid in dollars rather than pounds.

Still 3 on/1 off but over a somewhat longer distance, doing course C at Summer Series at Gardiners Bend. It was a somewhat longer distance than it needed to be because I suspect my route was distinctly non-optimal; it's a different sort of skill to pick a good option for 11 out of 20 than what it is for 17 or 18, and I saw good options for 10 and 12 but not for 11. (Overran 19 in a moment of absent-mindedness, too).

As usual in the early stages of a comeback, didn't feel too crash-hot running, and had tightness in a few areas, but not the one that's been injured so I'm happy with that.

According to WMO's figures, the media coverage of last week's statement had a "reach" of 1.4 billion people. Part of me thinks that those figures have a similar level of rubberiness to the claims you used to see that the AFL Grand Final was being watched by tens of millions of people internationally, but it's clear that it did get very widely reported (unless you rely on News Limited for your information - the only one of their Australian outlets who bothered to mention it was the NT News, despite my failure to make any reference to crocodiles anywhere in the statement).

Swim at Northcote on a morning when yesterday's heat had turned to today's steady light rain. Didn't feel completely sparkling - getting back after 11 last night might have had a bit to do with that - but ended up as a reasonable session.

It always feels good to resolve a data issue, and today's was one of the better ones. I'd worked out that the minimum temperatures for Canberra in November and December 1913 had been transposed, found the scans of the original forms, and it turned out that both forms had split in two and been taped back together (not unusual for records that old), but the left side of November had been taped to the right side of December and vice versa.

A further slight extension in both distance and proportion of running (3 on, 1 off). Was reminded of pre-injury running issues like taking a while to get going when starting early in the morning, but that settled down. Once again no calf issues. A few small bumps on the route, whilst still being just about dead flat by Lorne standards. I don't think I'd cope well these days with starting out straight up the hill the town's on, which is how some runs started last time I was here - but then Hoggster was leading the way and this time he's injured too. (We do have one top-notch runner in our midst at this workshop - Nick Earl, who I think I've mentioned here before, came down yesterday after winning the City2Sea race).

As expected, this was a really good workshop - pity I could only stay for one of the three days. Inevitably I've come out of it with about ten times as many ideas for things to do as I'll have time to actually implement. There was also a big thunderstorm through this afternoon, which provided lots of interest for both the Extremes group and the Convection group.