Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Last day of Easter. Didn't put a foot wrong technically in fairly simple terrain (also very fast except for a few hills at the southern end), but not fast enough or strong enough for this terrain - it says something for my consistency that my placing was between 26th and 29th on 11 of the first 14 splits. Continuing to struggle even on fairly gentle hills, such as the longish leg to 6.

Started the day thinking a good battle was in prospect with 18th to 24th separated by about four minutes. It wasn't a huge surprise, though, that my lack of running speed would work against me in this terrain. Patrik had almost caught me by 3 and was through me by 4, but had enough wobbles that I was able to stay just about in touch for the remainder of the course. Geoff Stacey also went through us at the end; the only person I caught was Andre Morkel, who was with me for most of the second half. Ended up dropping one place to 21st overall, a long way from being competitive.

(Craig must be going backwards at a similar rate to me - although he has a better excuse. In the last six years our Easter battled have included margins of one second (to me) and two seconds (to him); it wasn't quite that close this time, but he closed to just under a minute behind me).

With my work done for the day (and, for the first time in 17 years, without a JWOC selection meeting to go to), it was time to relax - and the organisers were even starting to seem a bit more relaxed (they've well and truly earned it). Not terribly confident that I'm up to 26km next Saturday, but I guess we'll find that out in five days' time.

Andrew Barnett's selection for JWOC means that my secondary school now has 4 JWOC representatives to its name, leading my primary school with 3. I expect Aranda Primary to add substantially to its total during the course of the 2020s.

C • School representatives and WOC 4

Day 3 M21E - Splits

Once again didn't have the speed or strength to be competitive - in particular through being unable to run up steep hills. It was evident early on that I was going to have to nurse my back if I was going to get through the race, but it helped that some of the steepest climbs were over by 7, and I felt better after that (although the splits suggested I wasn't getting any faster). Didn't feel as smashed as I sometimes have after the long day of Easter (although tomorrow morning will be more of a test on that score) - no lantana and cool weather helps - but not remotely competitive in this field. Technically decent with only one navigation error of any size, a 30-seconder on 11 where I made the mistake of taking too much notice of where Tricky was going, but I suspect going down to the road on 20-21 was a suboptimal option.

I'm beginning to think that I may be getting close to the end of the road at elite level (and the strong competition that's been happening this weekend in M40 means that there is a realistic alternative). I'll give it six more months and if I haven't made some progress by Australian Championships time, next year may end up being the year to make the move.

C • M40 5

Day 2 M21E - Splits

Easter middle distance day. Drifted a bit on the first leg - had a bit of trouble picking the course up on the map initially - but settled down after that and was running OK, so was a little surprised that Eric caught me 2 minutes by 8. Was sort of holding on to him for a while after that but dropping a few seconds per control; got that back when he lost time at 17, but then we diverged on route choice at 20 (I went to the left side of the creek for clearer running) and then I missed the control a bit, losing 30 seconds or so. Hit the scary 22 OK, but seemed to run out of pace over the last few controls (something borne out in the splits) - possibly not a great sign for tomorrow, although it will be a different sort of race.

Once again failed to trouble the National League scorers; it's a deep field and I ended up 27th, a bit below halfway, and 10 minutes down was a couple more than I would have been satisfied with. 12 people within three minutes of the lead.

We're staying very close to the action in the centre of town - perhaps a bit too close, because the street in front was blocked off this afternoon (and will be again tomorrow) and the closest parking spot I could get was the best part of a kilometre away.

Day 1 Course 1 - Splits

Event: Easter 2013
 

Easter prologue at La Trobe Uni campus in Bendigo, with more bush than I think most people expected - I knew there was a bit around the student residences but didn't really think there would be full frontal assaults on areas of light green.

Started with Hanny. I expected to be 20 metres down by the start triangle but in fact we were pretty close through the first few controls (the women had an extra first control, which I went close to, then had our next four). Settled pretty well in the running department and had almost got onto the back of Geoff Stacey and Rob Jessop by the time we got back into the buildings at 10, but Warren was about to go through me at about the same stage (and Geoff ran away). Looks like I drifted a little off the pace in the second half, and had a brief few-steps-up-a-dead-end wobble on the route choice leg back out of the spectator control, but on the whole this was a decent run at the better end of expectations.

Prologue Course 1 - Splits

Morning session at Ivanhoe, on a morning with steady rain at the start which cleared out later. A fairly standard session. Decided to come home after work before heading to Bendigo - not a good route choice because it took more than an hour just to get to the other end of Bell Street.

I'm obviously not in the shape I'd like to be for Easter, but am hoping for the best. It would be a major surprise if I were able to repeat last year's top-10 result (if only because the long day doesn't look as carnage-inducing as last year's was). One thing this year will definitely have fewer of - grass seeds.

Starting to wind back for Easter; this will be the last run I do before then. It wasn't exactly a stellar effort, always feeling a bit sluggish. Hopefully the last 20+ degree night of the season (although there were some notably distinct cool air pockets in a couple of the valleys); had today happened five days later it would have set April records for five different states.

There was a rather amusing incident on the ride in: two drivers next to each other at a set of traffic lights were so busy abusing each other that they didn't notice that the lights had turned green. I couldn't tell what the basis of the grievance was because at least half the words in the conversation on both sides started with F.

I made one of my occasional visits to a quiz night last night (our team won for the first time in a while). The answer to one question revealed that the Gaelic word for November literally means "end of summer". As someone who has been to Ireland in the last week of October (during which I discovered that, no, it is not possible to run into a 140 km/h wind), this seems rather optimistic.

The longest run I'll do in the pre-Easter week, done from Richmond before a massage (itself not at the usual stage of the week). Felt rather flat through the early stages but picked up, as I often do while there, on the section of path hanging under the freeway opposite Scotch (great surface), and hit a good patch whilst going past the expensive real estate in Toorak. (One of the more expensive bits had a Japanese flag and is, I presume, the residence of the Japanese consul, but that real estate wasn't as expensive as the former Australian embassy in Tokyo, which was sold at the top of the 1980s Japanese property boom for something like $650 million). Tailed off a bit at the end.