Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Eventually stopped floundering for long enough to get into some kind of swimming rhythm. I think this did me some good (the afternoon suggested that it did).

Comment of the day from one of my colleagues - to the effect that Ted Cruz might be more likely to use nukes than Donald Trump, but at least with Cruz you'd have a reasonable idea of who he was going to use them against.

First time in its four years of existence that I'd been in town for the park/street championships. As noted last week, qualifying wasn't quite a formality this year, but the deed was done and so I presented myself to the outer parts of Mulgrave in the highest temperatures on this date in Melbourne this century (don't get too excited - it was only mid-20s, the last three 29 Februarys having all been cool). This is unexplored street-O territory for me - apart from going through the middle of the map on Eastlink, the closest I've been to this area was football games at Waverley (a kilometre or so to the west).

12 was obviously a control you had to get first or last, which meant almost everyone went for it first to give themselves a bit of planning time, on a course which was a bit more straightforward than I'd expected (once you realised that minimising your number of trips up and down the escarpment was important) - in particular the section on the far side of Eastlink was a good deal less nasty than it could have been. Somewhat to my surprise, I settled down well and the second, third and fourth kilometres were easily the best I've done this season (and as good as I've felt on a run in 12 months), dicing initially with Rachel Johnson and then with Bryan Ackerly. Perhaps I'd overcooked it a little, and Bryan was starting to edge away when he overshot 14; he pulled me in a couple of controls later, before we split with four controls to go. I was starting to fade a bit by then and found the later climbs hard (especially the last control to the finish), but didn't fall completely apart and knocked another few seconds off my season benchmark. No sign of any of my various niggles (at least after warming up).

Ended up third in the 35s behind Simon Rouse and Bryan (whose closing section was slightly more efficient than mine). Bruce won outright; our routes were identical (apart from one minor split) so I'm not quite sure how it was that his GPS was 300m shorter than mine.

Somewhat abnormally, doing a recovery run on a Sunday after something (reasonably) long on Saturday. It felt much as I'd expect a recovery run to do, struggling in the first 10-15 minutes and gradually improving to something I'd describe as moderate. A bit of left foot soreness during the afternoon yesterday but didn't appear on the run. Posted a letter on the way (the first one I've posted this year).

Went out after that with Ralph to check things out at Parade for the sprint, encountering the occupational hazard of the sprint map - the unmapped construction site. The caretaker thinks the fence filling a key gap will be gone by the event, although I'd want to see that to be sure.

Down on the Mornington Peninsula today, and a new starting point for a run which will probably become a much more familiar starting point in a couple of years - the block of land at the back of Blairgowrie which my parents have bought with a view to building on and moving to next year.

My original thoughts today were somewhere in the 2 to 2 1/2 hour range, hopefully closer to the latter, but after a week when things hadn't always gone well I wasn't sure what to expect. With the new start point, I decided to try some unexplored territory, heading southeast along the back side of the peninsula, which after 3k took me beyond an occasional turnaround point, Number Sixteen, and towards Rye back beach. I soon learned that this is a route to take on only if you want a serious challenge; when the track is away from the beach, lots of ups and downs on soft sand, and the beach sections were also quite soft because there are rock shelves below the sand and the waves/high tide don't really reach the sand. I was also starting to wonder whether I'd overshot the target; I've never been to Rye back beach and didn't know whether it has any visible infrastructure. (It turned out I'd pulled up just short).

Eventually turned inland after about 8km (and 55 minutes), hoping I might feel a bit stronger once in easier terrain. It continued to be something of a struggle although the engine gradually started to function a bit better. Various bits were hurting at various times, although not particularly severely. Hit the sand again coming back from Rye - the front beach is much more runnable than the back, and certainly more appealing than the parallel highway. Achilles was starting to hurt a bit more on this section, and in the end I decided not to do an extra loop that might have taken me a bit closer to 2.30. Still happy to get this much on the board on a day when things weren't going especially smoothly.

A fairly standard session - not as heavy a week of running as usual (at least in terms of volume) and therefore didn't have as much stiffness to work out of the system as usual. Still not quite feeling 100%.

It would be hard to imagine a nicer setting for a track than Mowbray Park - a grass track, with Lane Cove River on one side, sandstone cliffs on the other, and bush all around. It was a pity that my performance didn't live up to the occasion; a rather listless set of 1-minute efforts. Perhaps I was trying to do this too early in the day and wasn't properly awake (we didn't get home excessively late last night so I can't blame that).

Part of the deal with yesterday's meeting was that we got two tickets to the AIS Sports Performance Awards (John Harding couldn't make it so I invited Tracy as my date for the night). Good night and flowed better than awards ceremonies often do - was even broadcast on ABC radio, although, to the relief of both of us, they don't go as far as the Brownlow and have the "Red Carpet Arrivals" televised live. We were on a table with hockey and yachting people, the best-known of whom was Adam Smith (Hockeyroos coach).

To/from the track. I think the first kilometre of this was probably just about the slowest non-uphill, non-rough ground kilometre I've ever run in my life.

Heading back to Melbourne tonight, after a day spent variously catching up with various UNSW people (they have Australia's most active university research group in my field) and keeping track of heat extremes back in the Bureau's Sydney office. Canberra's 38.0 (hottest ever so late in the season) was probably the most significant of these.

From Tracy and Paul's in Sydney. A bit time-constrained, at the start by the availability of sufficient light to be able to negotiate the rough track down from their place (having been unable to find my headlamp in the packing process). Not for the first time here, headed up the river, but further than I've previously gone in this direction - up as far as De Burgh's bridge. I expect it would have been a good loop to come back along the track on the northeast side of the river, but that side looked rougher and I was running a bit late, so returned more or less the way I came. Don't think I'm quite 100% at the moment (though this was definitely a better run than yesterday), and the conditions were slightly challenging although Melbourne would have been no easier.

Saw a bridge on the way with a plaque saying that it was built 1932-38 with "unskilled labour" (presumably a Depression-era relief project). Given that the bridge in question was about 10 metres long perhaps they'd have got the job done faster by bringing in a few more skills.

Today's meeting was interesting. Biggest take-home message was the need for a unified strategic direction and goals at national and state levels. My view is that our number 1 strategic goals is to increase the number of people who are orienteering - if we can achieve that, a lot of the other things we are hoping to achieve will follow on from that (whether it's a better base to draw our high performance programs from, more financial resources, or a new generation of volunteers to run events). Achieving that, though, is going to require moving out of our comfort zone, and recognising that what appeals most to those of us who have already been orienteering for 30 or more years might not be what appeals to those trying it out for the first time. (That's not to say that I see any diminished role for the more traditional forms of the sport - I don't think Test cricket in Australia is any worse off for the fact that 80,000 people turned up to a Big Bash match this year).

And, as a reflection on relative sizes, it occurred to me that the amount of money that the Football Federation of Australia has collected in the last fortnight in fines for setting off flares is not too far short of Orienteering Australia's annual high performance budget....

Couldn't hold it together for ever and today ended up being a lousy run - felt ordinary from the start and never really got better. Starting to get quite warm by the end. Felt very dry overnight and have some cracking skin issues on the sole of my feet (not a problem whilst running, but a bit of a problem if you have a Garmin that's suddenly come to life while charging at 3am and you need to relocate it to somewhere you can't hear it).

Off to Sydney this evening, primarily for a meeting of presidents/CEOs of national sporting organisations being run by the Australian Sports Commission. (Random airport encounter - John Whittington, who's now head of the Tasmanian state department that deals with parks, water, environment and probably a few other things. As you might expect, we talked about fires).

Somehow I've managed to get myself onto the mailing list for media releases by the Australian Sex Party, which means I now know what their position is on the sale of the Port of Melbourne (in case you were wondering, they support it). I can't imagine they've hitherto had a huge interest in ports, except possibly in respect of the long-standing status of ports (or the vicinity thereof) as a base for practitioners of the world's oldest profession.

C • Sex Party 3

Considerably earlier than usual after an early-morning trip to drop Jenny off at the airport (to experience the delights of the new T4 - reports from the scene suggest that the distance to gates may be recordable on AP as a session). In fact, it was so early that I was waiting (along with a dozen or so others) outside Fitzroy pool for its 6am opening time, and it only got light at the very end of the swim (always feels a bit strange swimming outside in the dark).

Fairly slow session, but nothing to be too upset about.

Random fact of the day: Mount Barker, SA and Mount Barker, WA are named after the same Barker (who was the commander of the settlement at what is now Albany, before moving on to do some exploring in SA and falling foul of the local indigenous population in the process).

Definitely a change to the usual - Monday night Southern Series at Knoxfield, a journey made in search of a qualifier for next week (given that I'll be away through the middle of this week). I've rarely run Monday events, and almost never hard (I do the odd winter one as a training run if it's very local). Knoxfield is actually not too far out of Eastern Series territory, although I don't think I've ever run there; it's an only gently rolling bit of suburbia with a couple of bits of bush in the middle.

Started with the herd (or at least those parts of it that didn't try for the not-worth-it 19), but the lake/bush section shuffled people a bit. Emerged from this about 100 metres down on Ian Dodd (not sure if he had the same number of controls at this point but I suspect he did), and stayed at about this range through the middle third of the course - was hopeful I'd be able to run him down climbing back towards the finish but it turned out he was running B anyway. Struggling a bit through the later sections but managed to hold it together.

Shaved another couple of seconds off the fastest-this-year benchmark, although given the more difficult terrain I think last Wednesday was a better run. I think I've done the necessary, although will need to wait for confirmation tomorrow (I think I was third across the line). Nice to be able to come up more or less OK three days in a row, at the end of a reasonably hard sequence.

Dropped into Knox City to get something to eat on the way home, a name which I always associate with "Knox: City of Fear". Those familiar with Frontline will understand.

Forest day of the Bendigo weekend, on the bush adjacent to Heathcote (including the creek bed and surrounds, which was the first and last part of both loops). There were definitely benefits to having experience of old-school orienteering here - it was a Lidar map with fairly minimal additional fieldwork (including almost no green, which made things a bit pot luck because the main slope had quite a bit of it).

A rather slow start, and by the time things sorted themselves out a bit halfway through the first group I was in a bunch, broadly speaking, with the three M60s (Chris, Ted and Geoff), along with Bridget and Belinda. That was still how things were at the first pivot control on the second loop, around 5k in, but the forking split us apart there to some extent, and I started to edge away from Ted on the climb into 15, reducing this group to Geoff and myself. Picked up Lanita, Lachlan Cherry and James Robertson at 16, a grouping which stayed more or less in contact until 20 through some solid climbs. 21 was the last climb and I thought there was a bit of an opportunity to break things open, but then let that slip a bit by unwisely going straight to 22, which meant Geoff was back on me. We were fairly close to each other much of the rest of the way; I went downhill a bit early on 25 and probably ended up losing 30 seconds or so, but he didn't take advantage, and in the ultimate sprint finish he didn't quite run me down. Lachlan and James had got ahead of us by then.

This was a nice scrap, even if it was a long way off the lead, and I felt myself getting more into the terrain the longer it went on - getting my terrain legs being one of the objectives of this weekend. At least I didn't get beaten by anyone older than me (or any of the women).

Reasonable morning hit-out along the Yarra (after the first kilometre), much of it on the singletrack. Suspect my Garmin (or rather the satellites which feed it) was playing up because a couple of sections were implausibly slow, although this run as a whole wasn't terribly quick.

Got out early in order to be back before the start of the cricket, which was worth it. Who said Test cricket was boring?

Sprint stage of the Bendigo weekend, in Heathcote town centre, using a couple of non-standard map scales (which will kill stone dead the chances of this being certified as a WRE :-). Felt pretty ordinary through the first third then gradually built into it, with only one trivial wobble. Chasing a few of the older brigade later on (Ted, Warwick Davis, Ian Davies), with a nice bonus for 26-27 when I got to see Ted and Ian go opposite sides of the uncrossable fence and could see how it worked out at the other end before doing the leg myself. A bit slower than I would have hoped, just under 6 minutes down on Ralph.

Swung past Dunga Mount on the way up to see what impact the October fire had on it (answer: some bits have burnt but the bracken is already coming back, so I don't think we'd be wanting to rush in to do a remap). Not too far along was the monument to the first powered flight by an Australian in an Australian-built plane, a somewhat underwhelming 23 feet in 1910 - our best long-jumpers can go further these days.

Usual Friday morning session which hasn't been quite so usual in recent weeks. Felt a bit stiff when I got up which is a sign that I've been working a bit harder in the last couple of days than has been the case recently, OK most of the time once in the water, but cramp again threatened at various times during the session without ever quite striking.

The lunchtime run that I'd more normally do on Mondays, a bit earlier in the day than usual because my computer was playing up - this time the reshuffling of the week to give myself a day to recover properly on Monday worked. Headed for the Tan for, I think, the first time this year. Stiff in the first few minutes, but got rolling along nicely after that.

Wondered why there was a bit of a media scrum on St. Kilda Road, but I think they were all trying to get pictures of people up the Arts Centre spire.

I also wonder how many decades will elapse before Melbourne Victory supporters no longer make reference to the 2007 Grand Final (a memorable night, to be sure) when Adelaide United come to town.

Amazing what a bit of confidence will do. Set out from south of the river (car service today) and headed south as far as Elsternwick. After the requisite slow first kilometre it settled down nicely, turning into a steady accumulation of kilometres at a consistent pace, particularly once hitting the beach and coming back along the waterfront. Didn't really feel as if I was tiring until the last 20 minutes, and then only slightly. A nice one to get on the board.

I felt like I had something left when I finished, which meant it was a bit of a surprise to get cramps while getting changed for the shower (I'd also had one during the night). I'm assuming this was a lack of salt as there wouldn't have been much in what I ate last night (grilled fish and vegetables); did a certain amount of remedying of this during the day. Still felt a bit washed out during the day but at least it was because of a morning's solid work well done.

C • Magnesium 1

My best street-O run of the season - which isn't saying an awful lot, but it was good to have some signs of progress, with clearly my fastest pace of the season on one of its hillier areas, at the west end of Bulleen (some familiar ground here - the climb through 10 took me on the rollercoaster which was a common route home on runs from Heidelberg). Didn't always feel entirely comfortable, especially on the steeper climbs - felt as if I was in some danger of throwing up after the last big one - but held it together OK. Got the critical route choice decision right - turning left out of the gates to head south through 9, and picking up the 13-18-11-6 loop late - but Bruce picked a slightly better option than me later on. Hamstring fine, and felt up for it generally to a greater extent than has normally been the case this season, perhaps because there was a bit more riding on it.

This was the first qualifier for the park/street championships. It's the first time in its four years that I'll be around on championships night, but getting there may not be easy - it doesn't help that I'm not as old as I thought I was (I'm 45 for bush purposes but still 44 on the streets). I don't think I'll have got through tonight (needed to either beat Bruce for a 35-44 spot, or be in the first four overall), and will be away midweek next week so will have to have another crack on Monday.

A bit of excitement at work this morning - someone somehow found themselves on the ledge of our building (seems to have been skylarking gone wrong rather than someone with suicide on their mind) and the fire brigade had to be called to get them down, closing down a main road in the process.

Headed out to test myself out after a pretty lousy night's sleep (it wasn't great anyway and then I got woken up by some insect bites in the middle of the night). Didn't expect a lot and set out on a non-challenging course, but ended up being not too awful. Hamstring not quite right but definitely better than it was on Sunday (and pulled up reasonably well post-run).

Sights of the inner north: a man with classic hipster beard riding a bicycle wearing a helmet with Viking horns.

First session tonight with a new masseur (the previous one moved to new premises in Hoppers Crossing). I have acquired a new instrument of (self) torture in the form of a spiky foam roller.

C • I did wonder in my massage ... 3

Swim at Northcote, which fitted in a bit better with logistics for the rest of the day. A fairly routine session without being anything to get too excited about. Hamstring seems a bit better today; assuming it doesn't feel worse when I get up I'll have a go at running on it tomorrow.

A morning of promise that turned into frustration. Set out with the intention of 2.30 or thereabouts and my body (or most of it) felt from early on that I was up for it, helped by conditions as good as you'll get in mid-February. The left hamstring issue was always lurking away, though, and it gradually got worse from about 30 minutes onwards - enough to make me think that I'd better not get too much further away from home. Eventually I decided that it wasn't worth pushing on further with it, particularly with three races on the program this week; the way I felt in the last 10 minutes definitely made me glad I wasn't an hour from home at that point. Hopefully will settle down in a day or two; it usually does.

One of the early sightings of the run was going past one of the cafes next to Fairfield station and seeing advertised their range of shakes, which was sufficiently tempting for me to test out afterwards. As it turned out it was so indulgent that I should probably only do it in future on occasions when I've covered the distance that I originally intended to today.

I want to get at least one more proper long run in in the next few weeks. The last weekend of February is the available window now, but I can't necessarily assume the weather will be as kind as it was today.

Out earlyish today for a Saturday, partly because it was going to be warm and partly because I didn't want to miss too much of the cricket in NZ (which started at 8.30). Somewhat hillier than most of my recent training runs, and felt better than some of them too (certainly better than yesterday), although a bit slow on the hills and on the rougher sections near the river. Hamstring a bit twingey at times in the later stages.

Intervals session. Like yesterday, felt rather sleepy at the start but unlike yesterday didn't really snap out of it; not disastrous while the sprints were actually happening but felt rather out of sorts on the way back. Feeling rather tired at the moment (it's been a long week with the conference), and perhaps a bit sick - something which showed up more during the day but improved again by evening.

Definitely not one of my more vigorous warm-ups or downs, despite getting an unusually good run with the traffic on the two major road crossings.

Have discovered that the number plate YVV001 can be found just around the corner from me. Unlike NEV001 (which is, or was, owned by one of the Johnson clan), I think this is a perfectly normal number plate and nothing to do with anyone in Yarra Valley.

Also spotted later in the day was a car with the number plate '8COUNT', driven by a well-built bloke with plenty of tatts - probably not someone to get into a road-rage incident with. While on the subject of boxing, the news came through today of the passing of Arthur Tunstall at the age of 93 - which means he would have only been in his early 70s at the time of the 1994 Commonwealth Games (younger than he came across as at the time). Definitely an old-school amateur sports administrator, who appears to have done a lot for his sport even if he didn't make quite the same contribution to race relations.

A reasonably convoluted route in Royal and Princes Park, including my first excursion into the development that was the 2006 Commonwealth Games village. Very sleepy through the first 10 minutes but settled into quite a decent run after that. Toe OK on the run although a little on the sore side afterwards.

The conference finished today, with a certain level of distraction during the afternoon - the live-streaming of the CSIRO CEO at Senate Estimates this afternoon drew a bigger crowd than any of the actual conference sessions.

A testing-things-out run to see if everything still worked. The toe was fine once warmed up a bit. The rest couldn't necessarily be said for the rest of my body - a couple of days' rest didn't seem to make me feel any more lively than I had on Saturday - but gradually got more into things as it went on.

Noticed for the first time a set of stepping stones across the creek just north of the Darebin Road bridge, which gives a few more options for runs on the (wilder) eastern side of the creek to check out later on.

Toe improved further overnight and I was just about ready to go out on it - would have given it a go if this had been a competition day, but there was just enough residual soreness that I thought it better to leave it one more day.

By the time I decided this, I'd left it too late to do something else in the morning and still get in in time to catch the 9am keynote talk by somebody called Andrew Hogg. (I had assumed that the last person to call him that was his mum when he was naughty, but in fact he does use that name on his papers). As is often the way with Andy's talks, I got lost in amongst some of the detail (no reflection on either of us - just that we operate at opposite ends of a broad scientific field), but it was well-received and drew a decent crowd.

Ended up going for a swim on my way home from work. It's definitely a different crowd at 7pm to what it is at 7am (although it would be a different crowd still had it been 10 or 15 degrees hotter). A slightly erratic session but not too bad; lots of people in my lane initially but thinned out as closing time got closer.

First part of a new injury is working out what you can and can't do. I knew I probably wouldn't be able to run today - in fact without shoes on I could barely walk this morning (which made getting to and from the pool edge a bit interesting) - but it was OK when not bearing weight (riding was OK too). A fairly decent session once in the pool.

The toe seemed to improve somewhat during the day, and I'm cautiously optimistic that I might be up to running again by Wednesday or so.

This week is the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society annual conference. As one might expect, most of the conversation today had very little to do with the science being presented during the sessions (interesting as much of it was).

Training at Hepburn organised by Peter and Ralph on a warm day - went out because I wanted to get out into the terrain, to meet a pleasing mix of people - quite a few less experienced people amongst the old hands.

Warmed up with a line course (not bad, if slow, and a bit fiddly in places where the green on the map didn't match what was on the ground - not surprising given the age of the map). Next embarked on a control picking exercise, mostly OK technically, but physically was another story, on a course which made ferocious use of the area's ferocious erosion gullies - discovered that my power and agility needs a fair bit of work, and found even the smaller hills challenging by the end.

The bigger problem, though, was that I took a big knock on my right big toe in mid-course, and while I was able to finish (though scrubbing thoughts of taking on any more exercises), it was pretty painful by the end, and more so afterwards, and is quite difficult to walk on this afternoon. Hopefully it's only badly bruised and not broken (I think there would have been more acute immediate pain if it was broken), and might settle down within a couple of days, but I suspect my training will be curtailed in at least the early part of next week.

Plan today was for something around 90 (some forest training is planned for tomorrow). A bit sneezy this morning, which makes sense given that for most of this week (especially since Wednesday) I've been running as if I was fighting off a bit of a cold. A fairly uninspiring run in terms of the way I felt but not actually moving too badly. Starting to get pretty warm by the end.

All Nations intervals. Didn't get home until after 11 last night and didn't get to sleep for another hour after that, so perhaps it wasn't that surprising that I was a bit washed out this morning. Never really got into it and not too upset to see it over; didn't pick up through the session as I often do.

Going to/from the park. Don't know if it just feels jarring because of coming back after the summer, but the traffic seems particularly heavy this week (since I wasn't trying to drive anywhere, this was only an issue in trying to get across roads).

Swim in the hotel pool in Brisbane. Not quite as ferociously humid as it was when I arrived last night, but still fairly sticky. Swim felt reasonably mundane; as usual in a smallish pool, the backwash was a bit annoying until I got used to it, but at least I didn't get dizzy this time.

The talk went reasonably well (it was on how climate factors would, or would not, affect scenarios for a Brisbane River flood in 2036). Quite a lot of the results I was presenting, especially the modelling of mean and extreme rainfall, were only possible due to CSIRO climate modelling work. I'm not quite sure exactly who's supposed to be updating this work in future in the light of today's news about CSIRO; the fact that climate change exists may indeed be a solved problem (except in the eyes of a rabid fringe), but one might imagine that it might still be useful to, for example, narrow the range of predicted change in 1-in-20-year rainfall for the Brisbane River catchment to a range a bit smaller than +40 to -20%. I suspect we haven't heard the last of this one (and would not be at all surprised if space is being cleared in the schedule of next week's conference of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society for us to go on a march somewhere).

C • CSIRO cuts/reorganisation/what have you 18

Had planned for two hours today, but this was a day when it wasn't really working out - got the message that things weren't going well on the first hint of a hill, and unlike last week didn't build into it. Thought that I'd be satisfied with 90 but ended up going a bit further than that; last 10 minutes were the best of it, but an Achilles twinge right at the end removed temptation to try to push it out a bit further.

Finishing earlier meant that I should have been able to get an earlier train, but there had been an earlier cancellation and consequently the trains looked like they were in need of those people who supposedly exist (although I've never seen one outside Richard Scarry books) to push people into packed carriages in Tokyo; I eventually squeezed myself into the second one to pass. (One of the more impressive travel feats I've been involved with was on the 2000 World Cup trip to Japan, where eight of us with full packs managed to get ourselves onto a peak-hour train in Tokyo - albeit split between about six carriages).

Headed up to Brisbane tonight. It's definitely steamy; just walking from the airport terminal to the station was enough to get a sweat up (I wasn't surprised to see that the dewpoint was 24.5).

Western Series at a venue referred to in last week's e-news as "Footscary Park". (We were across the road from the Mervyn G. Hughes Oval, which provided me with the opportunity to enlighten Fredrik as to who Mervyn G. Hughes was).

Thought it might be a bit on the short side given it was a 1:7500 A4 map. Once running it was a familiar story from the last few weeks - no higher gears and no speed. The 7th kilometre, up and across a steep slope, was slow, but I wasn't going to break 5s anyway. A fair bit of interesting route choice - mine was probably in the middle of the range.

Humidity (dewpoint 19) was on a par with a normal February week in Brisbane, which this isn't.

Predictably unpleasant after yesterday's hard work, but the incentive to get out this morning was the thought that if I was going to take one day off running this week, doing it today in a pleasant 14 degrees would mean heading out in 25 degrees and 90+% humidity on Thursday. Eventually got going, sort of.

This loosened me up a bit, which was the prime objective - did this one today because I don't want to take the flotation belt to Brisbane. Starting to get to the time of year when sunglare at this time of day is a bit of a nuisance.

The holidays are definitely over, as evidenced by an abundance of traffic - not helped by the exploits of this drongo. More pleasingly, there was also an abundance of bicycle traffic, to the point where there were actually bike traffic jams of sorts at a couple of spots.