Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Event: Oceania Championships 2017
 

Oceania Sprint at Unitec Carrington. This is an area which I don't have good memories of - it was here that my 2005 Oceania campaign came to a spectacular end on day 1 as an elbow-versus-pavement contest ended up in an emphatic win to the pavement (although I did finish the course). I suspected that this experience would probably make me pretty tentative here, although I tried to convince myself that cyclists and racing drivers must have to go back all the time to places where they've had bad crashes and they seem to cope.

At least I knew before I started that we wouldn't be going back to the exact scene (it's now underneath a building site), but it was unhelpful to have a heavy shower about 30 minutes before the start, and probably also to have a string of ambulances heading down past the start to what I presume was a road accident. (Also slightly distracting pre-start was the Finn with bells on his shoes - I was wondering if someone had forgotten to tell him that there are no bears in New Zealand, but in fact he was aiming to avert head-on collisions with other competitors after a bad experience at WMOC in Tallinn last year).

Felt reasonable warming up and on the first couple of controls, but tight on the first climb and from there I knew it was going to be a struggle - never really able to speed up. Was reasonably happy with my navigation through the first section, then lost 15 seconds or so on the first control into the gardens through not seeing the first path in. Had a good section through the complex bit in the later part of the course, but blown away for speed at the end. Well off the pace and will, I think, need to find at least a minute, perhaps two, to make the WMOC sprint final, but I guess not finishing the day in hospital makes it a step up from last time.

The presentations (running late) were an "interesting" experience. I was delegated to do the honours because the Orienteering NZ President was otherwise engaged, but what I hadn't realised was that this was going to mean 30 minutes squelching through the mudbath in front of the podium - spent some of this trying, and failing, to imagine various Olympic honchos doing something similar. A further downpour unloaded when we'd got up to the 70s and in the end we left the elites for tomorrow.

Before the start of proceedings, I caught up with an NZ forecaster friend for coffee. She's had what could politely be described as a busy fortnight (most of it outposted with Civil Defence, the NZ equivalent of the SES) and was, I think, grateful for the opportunity to unload - could barely get a word in edgeways :-). Having a Civil Defence sticker which in effect means "park where you like" is definitely an asset when it comes to getting to inner-city coffee locations...

Sprint - Course - 3 - Splits

Headed out in the late afternoon in central Auckland, once it had become apparent that the cyclone was tracking a little further east than expected and was going to largely miss the city.

First challenge was finding somewhere to go - staying in the central city the first instinct is to head for the parks (not least to minimise road crossings), but it turns out we're staying 50 metres outside the embargoed area for the WMOC sprint final (with views over perhaps half the area) so I had to steer clear of that, meaning a fairly interrupted early part with a few major road crossings.

There was a wake-up call in the first kilometre. I'd forgotten how much of a struggle uphill starts can be for me these days, now that I so rarely do them (there are no climbs within 2km of my place). Improved considerably once up on top and got better through the Domain, though still not good enough to make me want to do another lap of the block to get the time up to the originally planned 40.

Same session as last week. Didn't feel too crash-hot on the way there or through the first couple of reps, but settled into a reasonable session after that. Again mild discomfort in the hamstring but nothing overly concerning.

Today's dog on leash compliance rate: 1 from 3. (I understand that these days Evan Barr works for the council, so perhaps I should be making my complaints to him).

Heading over to New Zealand this evening, assuming it hasn't been washed or blown away first. Still looks reasonable for the Easter weekend and the days after, but a fair bit of carnage will be inflicted between now and then (probably more so south and east of Auckland than on Auckland itself).

The first few minutes of this made me wonder if I should have stayed in bed, but it did get better. Eventually.

That's more like it - left the struggles of last week behind for a run which became quite pleasant in its second half. The route was chosen to investigate what difference it made on the ground between Fairfield (rainfall last night: 4.8mm) and Northcote (rainfall last night: 15mm), but it wasn't immediately obvious, and Merri Creek wasn't as high as I thought it might have been. A nice confidence-booster ahead of the weekend, although all things are relative.

It was reported today that "The girlfriend of the 16-year-old boy accused of stabbing a Queanbeyan service station attendant to death pulled a knife on her family after being told not to eat ice cream, a court has heard". It's probably fortunate for Australia's gene pool that this particular couple is unlikely to get the opportunity to reproduce.

It was a pretty wild night in Melbourne (if not quite as wild, wind-wise, as some of the forecasts had suggested - peak winds were around 80-90 km/h and not 100+), and I was awake early. Thought it might be a pretty unpleasant morning in the pool but took the plunge anyway. By then the rain had more or less stopped and it felt pleasantly warm in the water (which says a bit about how cold it's been outside over the preceding 18 hours or so), and it was a nice session in an unsurprisingly sparsely populated facility.

The ride into work had to contend with a pretty solid headwind for most of it (I suspect some southern suburbs commuters set PBs this morning), although not as fierce as the Hay Plains last October, probably because there's a bit more to get in the way than there is on the Hay Plains.

One positive of the last few days is that, for the first time since the end of last year, I don't seem to be getting hamstring soreness after sitting down at work.

Local event at Macedon, sidestepping most of the rain (the really significant stuff was never expected until afternoon/evening anyway), but back wasn't playing ball today. Might have tried to push through it had I not had a championship race a few days away.

The forest was still wet. I'd forgotten how much fallen timber there is in parts of this area - potentially lethal in the wet - and some of the tracks were also almost unrunnably slippery.

Definitely in a flat spot at the moment. The best that can be said for this run is that it wasn't as bad as Thursday's, but hills (and there were a few on the Kew side) were a struggle, and again inordinately slow, even on the flat bits. Probably the last warm-weather run I'll do for a while (it was 24 at 9am), although Auckland can be humid.

One positive from this week: I no longer seem to be getting significant hamstring soreness from sitting down at work. (Hopefully that wasn't just the adrenalin from having the finish line in sight).

The Yarra Valley AGM was this afternoon. There was some discussion about the club history which Peter Black's working on, which in turn got me thinking about how it's probably about time we got working on a national one in time for the "50th anniversary" (with apologies to earlier events in SA) in August 2019. It's also realistically the last opportunity to do it whilst most of the key players from the early days are still alive.