Training Log: blairtrewin

Run race ((orienteering)) 59:51 [4] *** 9 km (6:39 / km) +340m 5:36 / km
spiked:18/20c

ACT League event at Glendale. An interesting start draw - sandwiched between Ollie and Eon. Miss Jones thought that starting six minutes behind her was an interesting draw too, but I wasn't convinced (with good reason as it turned out).

Mostly a steady run, without a lot of energy up the hills - not that there were too many of them compared to what it can be like here (we didn't go up the escarpment). Took a while to adjust to the idea that white is normally green; the map is showing its age a bit. I then turned an OK run into a poor one by making a mess of 17, in low-vis scrubby stuff near the river; I'm not totally convinced by the control location (one of those where there were about eight similar features on the ground and only one was mapped), but everyone else got out of it with less time lost than my three minutes or so.

Ollie and Eon both beat me - Eon almost caught me at the end - and are in impressive form; I doubt I'd have been able to get within six minutes of, say, Rob Vincent at 15/16. (I thought I'd gone through Ollie at 7, but the person overshooting several contours too high was someone else). A few others did too, with Rob and Shep both close to 50 (although I did manage to edge Miss Jones out by 20 seconds). I guess I can hope that it's a repeat of last year where I got a better placing at Easter than I did in any local event in the lead-up (and the 57 that I should have done would have been a bit more competitive than my runs two weeks ago, so something's been achieved in that time).

Run race ((orienteering)) 17:54 [4] *** 2.9 km (6:10 / km) +85m 5:23 / km
spiked:17/18c

First stage of the Canberra weekend, a sprint at Bruce. The start draw provided considerable humiliation potential - I was starting a minute in front of Belinda. It turned out to be a decent run; didn't see the slightly better left route on the first leg but didn't miss anything, and felt like I had a bit more pace than in the last couple of weeks, although tailed off a little at the end (or at least felt like I did, although it doesn't really show in the splits). Achilles tight this morning for the first time in a couple of weeks, but fine once warmed up.

The result was back to my traditional sprint result, between 2.45 and 3.00 down on Rob and Shep, although Jules would probably have added another minute to that had he been here. Ended up 6th behind three of the juniors. (I thought about telling Lachlan, a very late starter, that if he didn't beat my time he was out of JWOC, but held back). Still not a bad hitout and feeling a bit less underdone than I did two weeks ago.

Good to see Hugh Moore there; he's not up to running in terrain yet, but considering that three or four months back it was looking doubtful as to whether he would recover at all (as many of you will know, he got tick-borne encephalitis in Europe), he's come a long way.

Run warm up/down 15:00 [2] 3 km (5:00 / km)

Warm-down jog with Shep around Bruce Ridge. This enabled me to point out the scene of some cross-country biffo next to the reservoir, where one of the Charnwood High bogans slugged me one in the 1985 ACT Schools Championships - not that the word "bogan" had reached Canberra in 1985 but you get the idea. (Must be something about Bruce - the same thing happened to Grant in a track race here a few years later). Gratuitous (or even non-gratuitous) violence wasn't my style then any more than it is now, so I passed up the opportunity to resume hostilities at the finish (we finished one place apart, having dropped about fifteen places each after the incident).

He probably became a local legend for laying one on one of the Grammar poofters. Class warfare wasn't completely unheard of at the time, most memorably when the Transport Workers Union black-banned our school bus and their leader said something about no-one being inconvenienced too much because they all had chauffeurs anyway. This provided the basis for a good mutual laugh a few years later when he was chasing my vote in an ACT Assembly preselection ballot.

Pool running 46:00 [3] 0.7 km (1:05:43 / km)

Pool running session at CISAC. Nothing to get too excited about but nothing to get too upset about either, and a session in the water will do me good, I think. It's not a bad pool for this, but it does have the most annoying showers in the known universe.

Worked out of the Canberra office today. It's amazing how much you can get done when there aren't (many) distractions. Also watched my first game of rugby on TV for a while (the Brumbies narrow loss). Not a lot of rugby news makes it as far south as Melbourne, so can someone better-informed advise me whether forward passes have been legalised during the off-season?

Run 1:29:00 [3] 18 km (4:57 / km)

An unusual one for me - a long(ish) run in the evening in Canberra, starting from the National Library where I'd been working through the afternoon. Started out along the lake, then up through Manuka and Red Hill, along the ridgeline to the Deakin end, then back through Forrest and the Parliamentary triangle. Never felt stellar and the climb up Red Hill was pretty hard work (and the quads didn't really like the long descent), but started to improve over the last 20 minutes; I've had some great runs through Forrest as the sun starts to set (although June and 6 degrees is probably an advance on March and 26).

The morning's gathering seemed to go pretty well, even if not many of the crowd were members - we might have got a better turnout in the afternoon as it turned out because so many got sin-binned during Question Time (then again, this may not have been a good thing as Wilson Tuckey was one of the ones who got the red card - something which apparently happens on the last day of most sessions so he can get an early plane back to WA). Most excitement of the day was almost having a head-on with the PM in a corridor while he was in the process of making his escape from some enthusiastic supporters (http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/rudd...).

For those who haven't seen it, there's a discussion going on on Big D's log about what people want to see in the Australian Orienteer - worth a look.

Run race 14:45 [4] 3.83 km (3:51 / km) vdot: 51.1

Running the Tan - in advance of a scheduled Corporate Cup tomorrow. I didn't expect a lot from today (and expected even less when it was 32 degrees), and went in thinking that anything under 14.30 was a bonus. One positive was that one of my colleagues came to pace me.

The start was promising and I thought on the basis of my 500m split that low 14s might be a possibility, but those thoughts disappeared as soon as I hit Anderson Street; I've done virtually no hill running during the summer and it shows in a lack of strength. Nor was I able to get back on the pace once over the top of the hill. Still, you have to start somewhere and it will be easier next time.

Km splits: 3.44, 4.00 (uphill), 3.55, 3.53.

Run 31:00 [3] 6.5 km (4:46 / km)

Going to/from the Tan. Coming back was pretty hard work in the heat. Quads were fine going there (and during the Tan loop) but tightened a bit coming back.

I got back to discover I was doing a TV interview on 10 minutes' notice; I don't think the moisture on my shirt had dried totally, so hopefully only my head was visible. Fortunately it was SBS so nobody will see it.

I'm now up in Canberra for a science briefing at Parliament tomorrow (and am staying on for the weekend). Talking to politicians doesn't scare me in the slightest - I spend enough time around them to know that they're (mostly) human beings - but the idea of my talking to politicians seems to scare a few other people in the organisation.

C • We all saw it 3

Run intervals ((fartlek)) 40:00 [4] 9 km (4:27 / km)

Fartlek session from home. Much the same as the last two times I did it, which suggests that I haven't damaged myself horribly from my Friday exploits; feeling somewhat better today although still not exactly 100%. Did tail off a bit towards the end. I'm reminded that last time I felt like this, post-Canberra Marathon in 2008, my endurance a month down the track was probably as good as it's been at any time in the last five years, so hopefully history will repeat itself there (not that I'm expecting Easter to be especially physical by its usual standards).