Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Continuing in small increments with Mont Albert street-O as the basis (my four events this season have been on four different courses, which will have confused the scorers no end). Didn't think I was quite ready for the 50-55 minutes that A would have entailed so went for B. Did a decent job of the route this time, but again lost concentration on one control, going in a street too early on 10.

The run was again a struggle much of the way (better in the second half), but after a little tightness early the calf behaved itself, which was the main object of the exercise.

I spent the afternoon checking our sites database for anything interesting coming out of the 2014-16 site inspection reports (as prelude to a new dataset version). Sometimes fieldwork has its adventures, as the November 2015 inspection report for Dubbo Airport shows:

"Inspection performed and insecticide applied. Most unpleasant site. Rumoured six foot brown snake lives under cement blocks next to the AWS base, swarming flying ants and a filthy screen. Thankfully, I was only bitten by ants on the leg."

Reasonably standard swim at Fitzroy after a false start because my goggles strap had loosened. Steady pace throughout. Felt a bit sleepy before the start but fine once going.

And then it was almost deja vu - a near-identical incident to last Thursday's (although at a different intersection, Rathdowne and Victoria this time), but this time ending in a near-miss with the car suddenly changing lanes to try to get around a blocked intersection. (Part of the reason for the gridlock, as it turned out, was that a few hundred metres away another cyclist had gone under a truck). It is illegal in Victoria (and probably all other states) to enter an intersection you can't clear, and the penalty is a not-to-be-sneezed-at $466, but this must be the state's least-enforced law - I've never seen anyone booked for it. (If they cared to enforce this law, at $466 a pop I expect the police could raise a six-figure sum for the state's coffers in a single morning at any major CBD intersection).

Had another session with the physio tonight, including my first taste of needles for a few years. This is apparently nothing to be alarmed about. Shuffling a bit afterwards but not as tight or as painful post-session as I recall from many such sessions in the 2000s.

And I regularly give out brickbats for sloppy wording in the media, so kudos to the Herald-Sun for putting "allegedly" in the right place in a story that started "A Reservoir great-grandfather killed allegedly by his 90-year-old neighbour....". (Too often, you'd see "allegedly killed", but that fact that he was killed was not in dispute). Latest news, however, is that the police no longer consider it suspicious.

C • Allegedly 1

C • Entering intersections 2

Not sure whether I should count this as a celebrity endorsement.

Your eyes are not deceiving you - this was an actual run. I wasn't entirely sure after yesterday whether I should go through with it, but decided to do so anyway - it was short but you have to start somewhere (basically what I do as the warm-up and down when I do South Wharf intervals). Felt a little awkward at times but most of that was relating to parts of the body other than that where the original injury was. Pulled up fine afterwards.

According to the Guardian's politics live blog, the One Nation seasonal greeting cards have surfaced. There is no truth in the rumour that they contain the words "dreaming of a white Christmas".

A slightly longer session of the 4 on/1 off flavour, around the bottom of the Aranda Bushland (where there are lots of flowers in the paddocks, although I think most of them are being produced by weeds) and then onto the lower part of Black Mountain. Not a hilly route compared to a lot of what's on offer here but still less flat than what I've been doing, and felt a bit of a struggle at times. Calf also fatigued a bit in the last few minutes (whether it was the extra distance or hitting the steepest hill it's dealt with so far, I'm not sure), for the first time since this return. My plan was to do a proper (if short) run tomorrow if I came through this one OK, but I think I'll make sure it feels fine in the morning before committing myself to that.

Saw a piece in the Guardian yesterday about various bizarre F1 cars. One of these was a car which upset the prudes at the BBC and various other broadcasters (the mid-1970s being a somewhat more prudish time in such quarters) because its major sponsor was Durex (for the youngsters out there, a well-known condom brand of the era). Somewhat unfortunately, the car in question suffered punctures in two of its first three races.

C • F1 1

Went out after Katinka's party for a circuit of the lake. This was harder than it sounds because Dad's bike (which I borrowed) is a pretty heavy MTB and had low tyres, which made climbing up any sort of hill hard work - in particular the climb up from the lake back to Aranda. Perhaps also a certain amount of party over-eating syndrome; the offerings included waffles (partaken of enthusiastically) and brown cheese (not so much).

On a pleasant evening there were plenty of picnics out, including someone wandering across the path at Acton holding half a bottle of wine. This made me think of the glory days of the Canberra Food and Wine Frolic (aka the Alcoholic Frolic, although I didn't fully appreciate this as an innocent child), although that took place across the road in Commonwealth Park.

Poll finding of the day: had the vote in the British EU referendum been restricted to people who change their underwear every day, Remain would have won.

Stretching it out a bit more (4 on/1 off). As with the the last couple of runs, didn't feel as if I was running that well but no real issues (and calf was OK). A little bit of groin tightness, which is fairly standard for me coming back after a substantial layoff (and should sort itself out within a few days).

Heading up to Canberra this weekend (the first of three trips up there in rapid succession) - this one's for a family gathering to mark Katinka's first birthday. I've got the train to Albury to link up with an uncle and aunt who are also going up, and spent the time doing some work on the all-years Australian Championships results file - now basically updated to 2016, but I'm sorting out a few issues (mostly people who've run under different names in different years - trying to link the results of people who've run under different last names if something I've put in the too-hard basket for now, but I'm trying to make the Bob/Roberts of this world consistent across years). Should hopefully get it up on the OA website sometime next week.

Made a last-minute decision to take to the pool this morning rather than the bike, mainly because I thought I'd have more opportunities for the bike than the water in Canberra this weekend. This could have turned out to be a very bad move, because it meant that on the commute ride in from Fitzroy, I was in the spot which somebody changed lanes into without looking. Getting hit by a car isn't the greatest way to start a day, but it appears that no significant damage has been done to myself or bike (and the words exchanged post-incident were moderately civil and none of them began with F).

The session in the pool itself was fairly standard - I don't mind this as a recovery session but would prefer it not to be the core of my training. Hopefully this won't be the case for much longer.

Legal argument of the day goes to someone in Queensland (you won't be surprised to hear that he's a mate of Senator Culleton's) who's arguing that all Australian laws since 1966 are invalid because they were signed by a Governor-General who is paid in dollars rather than pounds.

Still 3 on/1 off but over a somewhat longer distance, doing course C at Summer Series at Gardiners Bend. It was a somewhat longer distance than it needed to be because I suspect my route was distinctly non-optimal; it's a different sort of skill to pick a good option for 11 out of 20 than what it is for 17 or 18, and I saw good options for 10 and 12 but not for 11. (Overran 19 in a moment of absent-mindedness, too).

As usual in the early stages of a comeback, didn't feel too crash-hot running, and had tightness in a few areas, but not the one that's been injured so I'm happy with that.

According to WMO's figures, the media coverage of last week's statement had a "reach" of 1.4 billion people. Part of me thinks that those figures have a similar level of rubberiness to the claims you used to see that the AFL Grand Final was being watched by tens of millions of people internationally, but it's clear that it did get very widely reported (unless you rely on News Limited for your information - the only one of their Australian outlets who bothered to mention it was the NT News, despite my failure to make any reference to crocodiles anywhere in the statement).

Swim at Northcote on a morning when yesterday's heat had turned to today's steady light rain. Didn't feel completely sparkling - getting back after 11 last night might have had a bit to do with that - but ended up as a reasonable session.

It always feels good to resolve a data issue, and today's was one of the better ones. I'd worked out that the minimum temperatures for Canberra in November and December 1913 had been transposed, found the scans of the original forms, and it turned out that both forms had split in two and been taped back together (not unusual for records that old), but the left side of November had been taped to the right side of December and vice versa.

A further slight extension in both distance and proportion of running (3 on, 1 off). Was reminded of pre-injury running issues like taking a while to get going when starting early in the morning, but that settled down. Once again no calf issues. A few small bumps on the route, whilst still being just about dead flat by Lorne standards. I don't think I'd cope well these days with starting out straight up the hill the town's on, which is how some runs started last time I was here - but then Hoggster was leading the way and this time he's injured too. (We do have one top-notch runner in our midst at this workshop - Nick Earl, who I think I've mentioned here before, came down yesterday after winning the City2Sea race).

As expected, this was a really good workshop - pity I could only stay for one of the three days. Inevitably I've come out of it with about ten times as many ideas for things to do as I'll have time to actually implement. There was also a big thunderstorm through this afternoon, which provided lots of interest for both the Extremes group and the Convection group.

Heading down to Lorne for a workshop at the start of the week so decided to take the opportunity to do some more two-wheeled exploration of corners of Victoria I haven't been to before - this time the eastern Bellarine Peninsula, on a loop Ocean Grove-Drysdale-Portarlington-St.Leonards-Point Lonsdale. (I've been to Point Lonsdale and Queenscliff but not really any areas either side).

This was an easier ride than the last long one - not much wind and the only section that was hilly was early on from Drysdale to Portarlington (the hills aren't big but the roads take no account of what topography there is). A fair bit of traffic around at times but most of the busier roads had decent verges (coming towards Point Lonsdale being one exception). At its nicest on the quiet coast road from Portarlington through Indented Head to St. Leonards. Probably as fast as I've been on a long ride but that reflects the conditions and the terrain (or absence thereof). Felt like I was fading a little at the end - as noted before, others do much longer rides than this, but just being out and doing something for 2 1/2 hours (or a close approximation) is what I'm looking for at the moment.

A definite thumbs-down to whoever dumped nails in the bike lane coming back into Ocean Grove. (I saw a shininess in the road ahead and went around it, thinking it was broken glass).

Didn't think 25 minutes of jogging-walking would be quite adequate for a Saturday in the exercise department so went out in the morning on the bike, initially towards my old haunts and then continuing on around the back of La Trobe, before a somewhat convoluted route back in the name of getting up past an hour without too many traffic stops (West Heidelberg is pretty good for this). Got more into it as it went on, and handled the hill which was a regular companion on the way home for 17 years without undue difficulty. The apartment-construction in the area around Darebin station is gathering pace (and La Trobe seems to have sprouted a new building since I was last there, too).

Sprint into Spring at Newport Lakes - thought I might as well go even though I wasn't going to be running properly (2 on/1 off were today's riding instructions), if only to get a look at an area which I haven't been to before - although I was starting to have second thoughts while in one of the numerous traffic jams on the way there.

Quite a good course on an unpromising map, with some big route choices early and then some control-picking on what seemed at first glance to be ordinary parkland - but was more complicated than that - later. Only negative was that it wasn't always obvious from the map where you were and weren't allowed to go. Overshot 7 in a moment of absent-mindedness, and didn't quite nail 23 either. Got more into it on the running side as it went on, and again no hints of calf trouble.

Some of my absent-mindedness was before I started - I left my O-kit bag at home so had to borrow an SI stick (appreciating in the process how much slower the old sticks were).

With 8 minutes of walking in the mix, no doubt my scalp will have been claimed by many for the first time. Looked like there was some worthwhile training happening afterwards but I'd exhausted my assigned running time quota for the day.

First time in the pool since being sick on the weekend. A reasonable session, this time minus the sunglare that's been a bit of an issue the last couple of times I've done it (this being at a time of year when the sun is still something to look forward to otherwise, rather than being something to dread as it may be in a couple of months).

One approaching summer landmark, definitely later than last year - I've turned my sprinkler system back on.

Our immigration minister distinguished himself today by saying that the Fraser government had made a mistake with some of the people they'd let in 40 years ago. As someone pointed out, one shouldn't stop at 40 years - after all, no-one did anything 228 years ago to stop a group from entering the country, even though many of them had criminal records, and they refused to assimilate or learn the local language.

You have to start somewhere and this was it. Returning after a long time out is never easy and this was no exception - even 60 seconds of running felt like an effort. That was all I was doing, because this was a session of alternating 1 minute job/1 minute walk, around Princes Park. Felt a bit better later on, but the most critical mission was accomplished - no sign of trouble from the calf either during or afterwards.

Koonung out-and-back, although a bit shorter than on previous occasions because I was a bit squeezed for time (having spent some of it watching a recording of our football team's less than stellar performance in Thailand). Not terribly quick this morning, although drizzle might have had a bit to do with that.

Spotted a building site with hoardings in the city this evening with advertising saying that it would be completed in December 2016. Given that there is yet to be any structure visible above the hoardings, they're going to have to get a wriggle on.

After being at least vaguely diplomatic about the aforementioned President-elect on ABC radio, I headed to work the long(ish) way. Good to get out again for the first time in a couple of days, but didn't feel that sharp or strong (possibly not surprising). Quite a bit of traffic on the path this morning, including more coming the other way than is usually the case.

Didn't do as much media as I'd originally expected - because of the timing of the release, a lot of the Australian media picked up reports from wire services or the BBC. If you haven't already seen it, a summary is here. (The picture's a product of my NSW flood chase a few weeks back).

A bit improved this morning but still not feeling great (and the conditions weren't exactly conducive for getting out on the bike, either). Much improved during the day so should be right to do something tomorrow (assuming that the day isn't completely overwhelmed).

Feels a bit strange to think that my work (if probably not me personally) will be making global headlines this time tomorrow. I'll try to remember not to say anything rude about Donald Trump in front of any live microphones.

C • saying something rude 1

Added a stomach upset to my injury woes, which scuttled plans for a longish ride today (wouldn't have been too pleasant in this morning's weather in any case). At least I'm getting it all out of the way at once.

Koonung Trail ride. Didn't feel as good as last time but still seemed to be moving OK. Headed out earlier than I usually do on a Saturday, but still a reasonable number of people (and dogs) out which created the odd anxious moment on the faster downhill sections.

Spent most of the day at the Victorian ALP conference (or to be more precise at the "fringe conference", a series of talks and other events outside the main conference). One of these was an interesting session on the use of social media in political campaigning, which provided some useful insight on the use of social media for other purposes, too.

Same old, same old. Spent a bit of time thinking about possible plans B if the US climate monitoring infrastructure falls over, and my possible role in said plans B. Lots of sunshine, which means lots of sun glare for half the session.

Woke up to a conga line of gloating conservatives on the ABC radio news - exposure to Hanson, Christensen, Abetz and Abbott in the space of a minute is a bit much to bear. (Perhaps fortunately, I hadn't eaten breakfast yet).

Didn't feel as if I was riding that well, but ended up a reasonable session. A somewhat extended commute, heading out to the Burke Road bridge first before coming back along the Yarra. This is a distance which is perhaps a little long for me to be taking my work backpack, and my back was telling me a bit about it.

Physio still doesn't think I'm quite ready to start running again (maybe this time next week), so it will be the bike and the pool for a bit yet.

C • time to get panniers...? 6

One late night's doable, but back-to-back 11pm+ finishes is tough and I was feeling pretty sleepy this morning. Carried that form into the pool, but ended up as a reasonable session.

I wasn't having a particularly good day to start with and it certainly didn't get better as news from the other side of the Pacific started to come in. I was in a shocked daze for most of the afternoon and so was everyone around me; apart from all the other consequences of the result (and there are many), all of us know numerous people in the US climate community, many of whom will lose their jobs, and a few of whom would be on the unwritten list (headed by Hillary) of those that the new President-elect would like to see in jail.

With the alternative being to go home and sit around feeling miserable, I decided to venture out to Ringwood even though I can't run yet, and venture into the street-O walkers division for the first time in a few years (and hopefully the last for a similar length of time). It's a good format for strategic thought - usually when I do score events at street-O it's simply about the most efficient route to get all 20 controls, but once you know you have no chance of doing that it makes things more interesting. I almost but not quite got it right, dropping a string of five low-scoring controls around the south and east sides of the map and hoping to get all the rest, but ended up with a minute or two too little to go for 13 at the end (I would have been better off dropping 4 instead and picking up two extra points).

Heard someone remarking at one point near 11, reached by a crossing of the rail line, that they were happy to have got across before a train. There was never any risk that they would not; the next train on that line is due in approximately one month. (It's closed for level crossing removal works a couple of stations further up).

Let the office with the words "see you tomorrow, if nuclear war hasn't broken out in the interim". It was that sort of day.

Morning out and back on the Boulevard. Didn't feel especially sprightly, perhaps because I'm putting in some pretty hard yards at the moment - an 11.30pm hook-up last night (and didn't get in the door until close to 11 tonight). It's a bit easier to put in that level of effort when you know how important the thing you're working on is - it will be hitting the world's headlines this time next week (assuming that Donald Trump's election hasn't triggered a nuclear war first).

A somewhat laboured session - didn't feel as if I had that much this morning, and was consequently not as good as last week. Still managed to find something for a bit of a surge at the end.

The ride into work (and home) seemed reasonably tame today.

I'm assuming that at least some of the area we ran on at the 2012 WOC trials has been burnt by the Cessnock fire - can any Newcastle people enlighten us?

C • Cessnock & Port Stephens fires 1

With running still not part of my plans (would have been a nice morning for a long run), I decided to head some distance afield for a ride. My selection criteria were (a) looking for something around 60-70km, preferably without much doubling up (b) bitumen roads (my bike wouldn't cope with too much dirt) (c) not too far from Melbourne (d) not too much traffic (e) enough hills to keep things interesting but not mega-climbs.

I thought west Gippsland might fit this bill from my experience of some years of Gippsland field days. That made me pretty familiar with the country to the north of Warragul and Drouin, so I decided to go south instead, as there was what looked like a pretty good loop from Drouin south to Poowong, a place whose name amuses the small child in all of us, especially small children. (There's soon to be less poo in Poowong - a sign on the way into town announced that South Gippsland Water was in the process of building a new sewerage system - although I'm sure the cows will still produce plenty).

The route was what I expected - rolling hills, more so in the first half than the second, but only one long climb, about 4km from about 26km (and pretty exposed on the top). At its nicest in the kilometres before that, on a quiet back road snaking through the top end of the Lang Lang River valley and the gloriously green hills on either side. (The road's name was Main South Road, but its "main" status is probably at least a century in the past - my guess is that it was the overland route to Korumburra and points beyond in the horse-and-cart days, before the swamps around the northeast side of Westernport were drained). More traffic coming back on a more major road coming back, although everyone outside town left me plenty of room - my only vehicular issue was someone coming out from a side street a few hundred metres from the end who, despite a clear line of sight, good weather and my wearing the bright yellow Norwich top which on a good day is visible from outer space, somehow failed to notice that I was about to cross his path.

This was a good solid ride - tame compared to what some do, but still the longest I've done for a few years. Handled the climbing reasonably well for the most part. Could never really relax on the faster bits because of the crosswinds; whilst trees provided shelter from them much of the time, every now and again you'd get a burst. (The piece on Paul Crake in the Saturday Age magazine was a reminder of what can happen when a strong crosswind gust hits a fast-moving bike). Didn't feel as if I had a great deal left at the end, but I often feel like that at the end of a session regardless of its length.

Ride out on the Koonung Trail to basically the same place as last time plus a loop around the block to avoid doing a U-turn. A false start as I realised what was causing the front wheel vibration (one bit of the tyre wasn't sitting on the rim - surprised I could ride as well as I did with that on Thursday) - nice once that was sorted. A bit later than I'd thought so a few more dog-walkers and the like out, but it worked out fine. Quite a windy morning, but there's more to get in the way of the wind here than there is on the Hay Plains (or on Beach Road), and in any case the headwind bits were also generally the downhill bits.

Something of the end of an era today with the sale of the old family house in Aranda, although my parents won't leave until July so I'll have a few more visits left (it suited the purchasers to rent the house back until early in the new financial year so they can claim anything they want to do to the house in the interim as a tax write-off, or something like that). One of my school friends had been seriously interested but in the end decided to build on a vacant block instead (thanks to Mr. Fluffy, there are a reasonable number of vacant or soon-to-be-vacant lots scattered through most suburbs without having to go to the trouble of demolishing what's there now).

I've been watching the cricket most of the day (whilst working on IOF and OA Conference papers, among other things). One thing's changed this year - I have yet to see a single piece of memorabilia being advertised.

In at Fitzroy. It was a slightly misadventurous morning in general, but that part of it which was in the water was fine. Lots of sun - we're starting to get more hints of approaching summer.

Extended commute again. Had planned something a bit longer but ran out of time after spending a bit longer than expected sorting out my front wheel (which has an annoying vibration when remounted so I've obviously done something not quite right). Still moving a bit faster on the new type than the old one, not wholly surprisingly.

It was a big day yesterday for unexpected living creature-traffic interactions. A kangaroo was sighted on North Terrace in Adelaide, a pig caused issues on one of the motorways in Auckland, and police in Dundee reported traffic disruptions as a result of a chicken crossing the road. It was not reported whether they carried out an investigation into why it did so.

Ate something which disagreed with me a bit last night which put the pool off the agenda this morning (and with the bike also out of action I'd run out of options, although I did go for a decent walk at lunchtime).

I spent a lot of the day chasing information from all corners of the globe for the WMO annual climate statement I'm working on. Undoubtedly my most exotic destination was the Korean Central News Agency (the mouthpiece of the North Korean regime), in search of information on the floods there at the end of August. I expected some interesting rhetoric and I got some: "The Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea put up the militant slogan "Let us achieve miraculous victory of turning misfortune into favorable conditions on the front of recovering from damage done to the northern areas of North Hamgyong Province with the great might of single-minded unity!"". They described it as "the biggest disaster since the liberation of Korea", probably not an expression I'll use in the WMO statement. Once you stripped out the rhetoric, the information available on the flood itself was actually surprisingly good, although I'm not entirely convinced as to the accuracy of the claim to have rebuilt most of the 11,000 destroyed dwellings within six weeks. (No information was presented on how many of these dwellings were rebuilt by Kim Jong-Un personally).

(I would have thought that, from the KCNA perspective, the liberation of Korea was incomplete until such time as the American capitalist running dogs and their South Korean puppet army had been despatched from the south, but clearly I'm not up with the latest in local ideology).

It was also a bit of a novelty to see someone calling themselves "militant", although these days it appears to be a compulsory part of the Herald-Sun style guide to insert that adjective into any reference to the CFMEU.

C • biggest disaster since liberation of Korea 1

The plan today was to take advantage of the Cup Day traffic (or absence thereof) and go for a reasonably long ride, after first replacing the tube on my front tyre (as noted yesterday, the pressure was getting low and the valve was broken so it can't be pumped up). The tyre hasn't been touched since I bought the bike (which was about 6 years ago) and was hence exceedingly difficult to get off. After about 30 minutes of battling, I finally managed to get it off - to discover that it was in fact tubeless and hence couldn't have its tube replaced anyway.

Plan B was to go to the pool for a swim, then drop into the nearby Melbourne Bicycle Centre to pick up a new tyre and tube on the way home. Got underway with the swim, and when my goggles started to give a little trouble again, focused on trying to swim with most of my head above the water - and suddenly became 10 seconds a lap faster less slow. Not quite sure why it would have taken me a decade to work out that if there's less surface area pushing the water there's likely to be less resistance, but there you go. It's harder work staying high in the water, but that's no bad thing.

The bike shop part of the plan didn't work out - I'd assumed they would be on their Sunday hours but they were in fact having a well-earned day off. The Cup part didn't work out either, although at least, unlike the last horse I bet on, Oceanographer didn't finish its day in the pet food factory.