Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Was hoping to round out 2023 with something long but held myself back a bit given that my knee still isn't 100% (as with the last two days, it was fine on the run, but there's something about sitting at particular angles that sets it off - it was pretty tight after both the cricket on Friday night and a restaurant today). Headed out towards Abbotsford (the run I was planning to do last week) - had its moments in the middle but much of it was fairly hard work, and back tight in the later stages. Filled in a few more spaces in the southwest corner of Abbotsford, which I should only need one more go to finish off now.

Out quite early for a Sunday, as I needed to get to the airport to farewell the Norwegian part of the family. Definitely a nice morning for running for summer.

I was a bit disappointed to see that one marker of Melbourne multiculturalism seems to be no more - the Collingwood Masonic Temple is no longer sharing its premises with the Buddhists (the really radical thing would have been if they'd been sharing with the Catholics).

And so for 2023. I ran slightly more than last year (overtaking my 2022 tally yesterday), making it my biggest year since 2017 (6km more and it would have been since 2016). Overall training hours are slightly down on last year, mainly because I was travelling so much and didn't have as many options for alternative training.

Best race was the pair of races for the WMOC sprint (the qualifier was more on the ragged edge, the final smoother, but both involved a level of intensity I haven't reached for years). Best in the forest probably the last day of Easter or the SA Long Championships at Wilpena in June. Best training runs in terms of how I felt were probably a late August pair just after getting back from Europe, but also well up on the list were two May ones on my road trip, one near Forbes and one at Mataranka.

And it's probably an indicator both of my itinerant nature this year and the way the Victorian program has changed that I didn't run a single 'normal' Sunday bush event in Victoria this year (my tally of bush events in Victoria - Brimbank doesn't really count - was the Bendigo ToDay weekend, the May NOL weekend, the Victorian Middle and Long Championships, the Victorian Relays, two Bendigo Saturday events and the AWOC club championships). Did events in every Australian state and territory except Queensland and the NT, and in five other countries if you count the sprint event at the Prague IOF Council meeting.

Back in Melbourne today, and relatively close to home - today's number was 46 which covers the suburbs around Balwyn and Canterbury (I'm running out of numbers close to home, only 2 of the 9 in the 3x3 square centred on my house haven't come up yet). This is familiar street-O territory for me, but my plan was to do what you don't do on street-Os - go between the suburban blocks (i.e. crossing major roads).

A bit of a later start than usual, thanks to a day with nothing much planned (might have been different if the Pakistan tail hadn't folded last night) and cool temperatures so no reason to avoid being out late morning. My right knee was stiff again walking and I wasn't sure how it would respond on running, but it was fine after the first few hundred metres. Pretty steady climbing through the first 2km which I handled more or less OK, and a reasonable session from there.

In the absence of the Test, the only cricket on TV during the day was a NZ T20 match from Pukekura Park in New Plymouth (I'm assuming it is not an Oceania Championships embargo breach to watch a telecast of a sporting event taking place within an embargoed area). This was an unusual match for this venue (a batsman said it was somewhere where you 'get full value for your shots', which is another way of saying that the boundaries are not that far outside the fielding circle) in that (a) the team batting first didn't get to 200 and (b) they successfully defended it. Quite a few balls disappeared into places which will presumably be mapped as green but they did manage to find all of them.

C • Pukekura Park 7

Shorter session this morning, filling in a few gaps to the east. Not unusually for a Friday session, hard going in the early stages, but from about 10 minutes onwards decent for such an outing. A few bumps but not as many ups and downs as other runs down here. Noticeably less humid today.

I've got some cracked skin in the soles of both feet which is an unusual summer problem for me (it's more common in cold winter conditions), which is annoying but didn't affect my running. Some stiffness on the inside of my right knee also warmed up fine, but did resurface later in the day, especially after some time sitting down in a stadium while introducing my nephews to some Australian culture. (They may well have already absorbed it, because on the beach during the morning Max executed a classic Glenn Maxwell switch-hit as demonstrated on TV the previous evening).

C • Classic Aussie perspective... 5

Onwards to the water. Lots of going round and round, but at least the view's nice while doing it.

Longer run today, which felt like hard work for most of it although an improvement on Sunday - once again, the large number of small ups and downs was draining for various muscles (good training though), although there were also more flat stretches than on my other runs here. Headed northwest today with the main objective being to clear some areas on the far side of Koonya that I hadn't been to in the street event earlier this year. Good to get this on the board though.

I passed the Koonya store twice about 30 minutes apart. The first time was just after it opened and most of those there seemed to be in the company of babies, which probably means they'd been up half the night and were in desperate need of coffee. It was a more demographically diverse crowd second time round.

Have now cleared everything on the northwest side of map 167 (discounting the Point Nepean inset); still a bit to go on the east side (and for a 2km radius on that side, another target).

Early start this morning in the name of trying to get to the MCG for the start (fell a couple of balls short) - it was foggy, a rarity for summer, which was an indication of how humid it was (for Melbourne). Run was reasonable without reaching great heights, a bit faster along the back beach track than Sunday (probably because the rain has made the sand firmer), then inland, crossing the bit of bush that's a reservation for a freeway which will surely never be built in full. (The 1969 map of planned freeways in Melbourne makes, shall we say, interesting reading). Quads not as troubled by the ups and downs as on Sunday but still found them a bit draining.

Went down with Jim to run a street event course from earlier this year at St. Andrews Beach - a reasonably narrow strip of suburb on sand dunes with a few coastal paths as well. Not a huge number of route choice options, but did go south early to give myself more options later (ending up dropping a couple of in-and-outs to get in under my target of 45 minutes, although it was set up as a 60). Quads a bit iffy to start with, hard work into the wind (a stiff southeasterly) but much more comfortable with it. Had trouble finding the finish (or at least Maprun's interpretation of it).

Lots of surface water around after about 40mm in the last 24 hours, but the rain stopped just as we were starting (this was planned, at least to some extent).

Spent most of the rest of the day in front of the cricket (to the extent that the weather further north allowed).

A relatively quiet Christmas Day in the training department (after the rarity of my being the last person to get up who everyone had to wait for before opening presents), taking advantage of the lap pool at the house and a drier morning than I had been expecting. Pleasant enough once I got used to the coolish temperature of the water, which only took a couple of minutes.

The weather made up for lost time in the afternoon with 28mm of rain in a couple of hours. One might have thought that that would have meant that the pool went unused in the gap between Christmas lunch and dinner, but Norwegians are not so easily deterred.