Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

NOL sprint final at UNSW. I'd been looking forward to this one, having visited the campus a few times and noted its complexity, and was not disappointed - this was a full-on technical sprint most of the way with only a few opportunities to relax.

Ended up having a decent run by my current standards - running better than yesterday afternoon, and only one very slight wobble on the last and one slightly iffy route choice. Spent much of the course in a contest with James McQuillan, who started a minute ahead of me and lost time early. He is very fast, but is not yet able to navigate at speed, stopping at least once on most legs - once he is able to flow better he's fast enough to be a national-class sprint orienteer. Peter Hobbs was a minute behind me, and it was evident that he was gradually running me down, but he didn't quite catch me.

Only one slight advantage from my visit last week - control 14 was right outside the front of the Climate Change Research Centre. Don't think I gained that much out of that...

At least today the 16s that claimed my scalp were boys :-).

Good weekend, with some good competition and interesting areas. There are perhaps some tweaks which could be made to the format but the general concept of a sprint weekend looks to be working very well.

And we were only the second most-obscure sport taking place on the UNSW campus today - there was reportedly a Quidditch contest in progress as well (those more familiar with Harry Potter may be able to elucidate further).

C • Yes but 2 7

As noted on Friday, the last time I'd been to Sydney Uni was on a 1987 Maths Olympiad training camp (for that year's team and those, of which I was one, who were considered likely prospects for the next year - for which I was eventually reserve).

This makes it an interesting coincidence that the cover story of the Saturday magazine in the Age/SMH (which I didn't see until tonight) was a feature on Terry Tao, whom I first crossed paths with at that camp - he's since become one of the world's leading mathematicians (and is the one to whom I'm alluding when I refer to a certain New Haven-based APer as being the second-smartest person I've ever met). In 1987 he was 11, and apart from his stunning mathematical ability - he was already better than all but one of the Year 12s in that year's team - the thing which struck me most was how easily he seemed to fit into an (admittedly somewhat atypical) group mostly several years older.

Race 3 Hard1 - Splits

Sprint relay at Sydney Uni - as noted, not a familiar area. Thanks to Victoria's bloke surplus I wasn't in an official team (maybe I could have gone back to my Cockatoos roots - at least I visited all of the correct controls), but instead ran the public relay, a two-person event on the women's NOL course, with Peter Hobbs.

Peter handed over in 6th. Ollie Mill went through me pretty quickly but otherwise it was reasonable; a decent technical run although the right route to 8 might not have been optimal. Thought I was in danger of being run down by Simon George towards the end but he made a small error on 14. Running speed wasn't great, though.

There was quite a big difference between the splits (thanks in part to building work) and our split was probably a minute or so longer than the other one. I thought that might have been the partial explanation for some of those who claimed my scalp, but certainly not all of them - Tara Melhuish, for one, had the long split too.

NOL sprint qualifer at Sir Joseph Banks Park in Botany, a narrow sliver of land with green, sand dunes and parkland at the end. Couldn't really make myself run today, something best indicated by Jock running through me with ease from a minute back - especially challenged by the softer sand areas. I was never going to qualify with only 5 going through, but would have hoped for something more competitive than this. Small miss on 16 and a slight route error to 14.

A start area on the edge of the suburb meant some features we don't normally get: a couple of Mormons turned up as we were warming up. They sensibly concluded there were no potential converts amongst our crowd and went knocking on local doors instead. (The inner southern suburbs of Sydney are more salubrious than they once were; the biggest landmark of the once-dodgy area of Zetland was a Ferrari and Maserati dealership).

Open Relay - Leg 2 - Splits

Race 2 NOL Mens Heat B - Splits

Headed to my soon-to-be-local, Northcote, on the way to dropping my car off at Bruce's (part of this weekend's complicated logistics). Wasn't quite sure if I'd be able to keep full track of what I was doing as the poolside clock was originally behaving somewhat erratically, but such glitches were soon behind me (in any case we would have been kicked out at 8 because of an upcoming swimming carnival). Reasonably standard as a session, as these things go.

Off to Sydney tonight for the NOL openers. I don't expect to trouble the scorers (let alone make a final), but I'm definitely looking forward to running on Sydney and NSW Unis. I've been on the NSW campus a few times for work - most recently last week - and found it complicated to navigate even when walking; don't think I've ventured into Sydney Uni since a 1987 Maths Olympiad training camp. I won't run as much of the NOL season this year as in the past - am doing M40 at Easter, and probably the Australian Long as well (and I'm controlling the sprint) - but should still clock a few races up.

Got the photos done for my house ad last night, after great efforts from my mother and slightly less great efforts from myself to get it into a fit state for such things.

An unusual reason for an interrupted night's sleep last night - my Garmin spontaneously turned itself on about 2am and started noisily looking for satellites in my bedroom.

I'd already decided on a significantly shortened run after yesterday's travails. Today was a bit better, especially uphill (which wouldn't be hard), but still very slow and not feeling particularly strong. Still hoping to be in somewhat better shape by the weekend.

C • Yes but 8

Had a feeling this wasn't going to work too well when I was sufficiently tight getting up this morning not to be able to go forward downstairs first thing, something which was reinforced when my Achilles was in just-got-off-a-long-flight mode every time I got up from the desk during the day. That side of things, at least, sorted itself out during the warm-up (a slightly foreshortened one thanks to Metro), but it was apparent fairly quickly on the run that it wasn't going to happen tonight - no uphill power was the main issue.

Only picked up in the last 2km - I came into 5 20 metres or so behind Lanita, who I assumed was also on A if she was out that far at that time, and was chasing her for the rest of the course, not losing much ground but not gaining any either. I suspected I wasn't going to get her unless she made a mistake and the same 20 metres separated us at the finish - although it was of no relevance because it turned out she was on B (and had had a route-choice nightmare earlier on).

Maybe the distance is doing myself a bit of a disservice - as far as I can tell, Patrick ran an identical route to me but recorded 200 metres further.

Clearly something's not quite right. I had originally had something long in mind tomorrow but think I'll pass that up in the name of getting myself in the best shape possible for the weekend (of course I'll still be blown away, but I want to be as competitive as I can).

Strange sort of run - felt OK (if a little sleepy early on), but one of the slowest I've done in recent memory without hills playing a significant role (Macleod has a few, but certainly not that many). Can't think of any obvious explanation so won't go looking for one.

Fairly early session as I had painters coming around at 7.30 (first stage in getting things ready to sell the house, having concluded that attempting to do it myself was likely to be value-subtracting rather than value-adding). As expected for a Monday run after a long Sunday, pretty slow in the first half but didn't feel too horrible, and better in the second half (which did have more downhills). Nice morning for it - coolest for a while.

Second stage of the morning, a little later than usual. Took a long time to get going but going along more or less OK by the end, and it seemed to pass more quickly than usual (even if I was thinking about some of the unpleasantness that I might have to deal with at work as a result of the weekend's press shenanigans - not as bad as I thought it might have been, as it turned out).

Was somewhat amused by George Brandis's statement that "there have been no malicious attacks on Professor Triggs". Clearly he is auditioning for a new role as Minister for Information in Iraq.