Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Travel day: Geneva-Dubai-Singapore-Melbourne (first time I've been through Singapore for a few years). Reasonably smooth though the flights were pretty full (not surprising at this time of year). I'd hoped to sleep most of the Dubai-Singapore leg and stay awake for Singapore-Melbourne but didn't quite succeed on either count. Scenic highlight was an excellent view of Java's line of volcanoes, all behaving themselves at the moment.

With a free morning before flying out, my original thoughts had been to hire a bike, but I woke up with a sore wrist for no obvious reason and thought it might not appreciate the bumping that comes from being on the handlebars, so took to the water instead. Probably a better session than the last one, perhaps because I know my way around that corner of the lake better than I did last time (and know where to avoid the underwater plants). Got the wash from a passing boat at one stage, but definitely no tsunami.

Now at the end of the first leg of the trip home. Not sure what it is about Geneva flights to Dubai, but for the second time in a row our plane was parked so far from the terminal that it could almost have been in Abu Dhabi.

Hips still no good - think I might wait until the physio has a chance to have a crack at them on Tuesday. The few minutes I got was at least long enough to learn of the existence of the Geneva Street Food Festival, which I took advantage of later in the day, before doing something I hadn't got round to doing in any of my Geneva trips over close to a decade - taking the cable car up to Le Saleve (it's open in the evenings on Fridays in summer). A bit too hazy for really good views (and seriously sweaty for the walking at the top; it's become very humid), but still worth doing. Not sure if walking steeply downhill within reasonably close proximity of dinner was such a good idea, though...

The Le Saleve trip also means I can lay claim to having been in France on their hottest ever day - it's over the border, although if you can tell where the border actually is you're doing better than I am (it seems to run through the middle of a car park).

Walking back this morning I saw a pest controller's van which advertised, among other things, "deratisation". That's a word which needs to be adopted into English.

Headed for the water, in the form of the Bains des Paquis - it's one of the wonders of Geneva that it's perfectly reasonable to go swimming in a lake in the middle of the city. Even at 7.30 there were plenty of people there, although not so many actually in the water (which has warmed up from 18 to 23 in the last week). Took a while to find my rhythm (and there was a bit of a current to get used to), but not too bad. Misjudged the distance/time a bit - now I know I need to do seven round-the-pontoons sets rather than six if there's a next time.

Tracking the heatwave again today, although not as much as those who are in Toulouse for the International Meeting on Statistical Climatology, who appeared (at least from tweets and Facebook posts) to be as interested in whether it would reach 40 in Toulouse (it did, a June record) as in the papers presented at the conference. Hopefully Toulouse has cooled down a bit by the time of the IPCC meeting at the end of August. There was certainly a June French record but I'm not quite sure what it is: the 43.5 was at what looks to be a dodgy site but there were others in the low 42s (the record was 41.5) which look reasonable.

And the pressure's on for one of my bits of writing, now that I know it might get an audience I hadn't previously suspected at some point in the future; a full reading of the most recent IPCC report (presumably not including the reference list) is being done as a performance at this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The ticket website contains a warning "contains distressing themes".

Getting closer but not quite ready, as I found out on the first set of steps. Hopefully tomorrow (and if tomorrow isn't a running day it will be a swimming one; there should be plenty of space in the lake, if not necessarily on its shores).

Today's records list was June national records for Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic (all in the 38s) and an all-time record for Clermont-Ferrand, France (40.9). The Berlin sites were in the 37s. The hottest air hasn't mixed down to the surface in the Alps, so Geneva's got off relatively lightly (33.4 today).

At some point today my log had its 300,000th visitor. I wish I had something more interesting to tell you (other than reflecting that these days the 35.7 degrees in Berlin on JWOC 1991 relays day, the city's highest temperature on record at the time, now gets surpassed almost every second year, as it will be tomorrow). Hip tightness is the issue at present.

C • 1991 Jwoc 7

For those who've always wondered why the SA-NSW and SA-Victoria borders don't quite line up:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Australia%E2%8...

Swim after work in the Varembe pool; more or less as crowded as usual, but it seemed to flow reasonably well today. For the first time that I've been here, the outdoor pool was open, but it isn't marked (or suitable) for lap swimming. I expect I'll take to the lake later in the week (along, given the forecast, with several thousand of my newest friends).

The square outside the UN had a particularly fertile crop of demonstrators this evening, with one group campaigning against arbitrary executions in Saudi Arabia, another against persecution of Tamils in Sri Lanka and a third against persecution of religious minorities in India. It's probably as well that I wasn't in the actual negotiations part of last week's meeting; with the Saudis being obstructive as usual at climate negotiations (albeit not as obstructive as the same meeting last year, where they held everything up for two days by vetoing the approval of the agenda), I might have struggled to be sufficiently diplomatic to restrain myself from making any reference to the alleged activities of their Istanbul consulate.

I'm staying close to the station but on the other side of the tracks to where I usually do, which has meant a new neighbourhood to explore. It seems to be well endowed with cafes, which I consider to be a Good Thing.

C • UN protests 4

Feeling slightly better than yesterday, I started out mostly downhill in the hope that the climbing might be doable once I was warmed up. That didn't quite work out, but at least I got a nice section on the Godthab ridge before things turned slightly pear-shaped.

Good to catch up with the Oslo end of the family as always, although I had to leave earlier than I would have liked because it was the only option with a reasonable connection and a not-totally-ridiculous price on the opening weekend of summer holidays (the evening Oslo-Zurich-Geneva route I've sometimes used was $3000!). Turned out I could have got the one with the not-so-reasonable connection because that Oslo-Copenhagen flight was the same plane as the one which did our Copenhagen-Geneva one. This being the most time for a while I've spent in Copenhagen Airport, it was clearly evident that it's run by the same people who run Sydney (this is not a compliment, unless you like your airports to be shopping malls that planes incidentally take off and land at).

Newbie traveller of the day was the person who tried to get a six-pack of Carlsberg through security at Oslo - a particularly expensive mistake in Norway. They were clearly a newbie because (a) they didn't know about the rules about taking liquids on planes and (b) they didn't know that beer was almost certainly cheaper in whichever place they were going (or, for that matter, in the airport duty-free) than it was in Norway.

C • Beer 8

No good today either. I suspect that doing it in the afternoon (after spending quite a bit of the day either watching the boys train football or fielding shots at goal) didn't help.

Football was to feature later in the day as well, in the form of the Australia-Norway match, which had a result somewhat more to the liking of the Norwegian members of the household than it did to mine (Max and Esten both said beforehand that they were going to support both teams, but I think their leaning was towards the red rather than the gold). I'll now be hoping for the best for Norway, if only in the hope that their quarter-final against (probably) England prompts a commentator to say "Can you hear me Boris Johnson? Your girls took a hell of a beating".

Enjoying a cool and bright weekend before the week to come.

Woke up with a stiff back this morning - I'm blaming a hard hotel bed. Would have been nice to know in advance then I wouldn't have had to get up at 5.30 (this morning's proceedings started at 8). Did manage to get a reasonable amount of walking done during the course of the day (seeing in the process that the Rhine has considerably more water now than it did at the time of the late 2018 picture which appeared on my meeting poster).

Next stop: Oslo, via Dusseldorf, an airport with which I was previously unacquainted (it seems to be functioning efficiently at the time of writing, though I'm not actually on the plane yet).

A classic run in a lot of German towns and cities is to run uphill from the centre; many have hills or escarpments quite close to the centre, often with a fair bit of forest (and quite often topped by a TV tower, sometimes bearing some resemblance to Black Mountain Tower, although Bonn's is just a mast).

The way I've been going the last week I wasn't sure that I would handle this, but decided to give it a go anyway, and it worked out OK. Almost continuously uphill for the first 4km, and handled the grind reasonably. Went up the road on the way out whilst I got my bearings, but on forest tracks for some of the way coming back - as I sort of expected, these stayed on a flattish ridgeline for a while and then dropped off steeply, something I'm not sure I would have managed in the reverse direction. Quads, which haven't done anything like this for months, were starting to feel it in the later stages of the downhill, but overall this was a pretty good one to chalk up. Also decent running conditions, which I'm appreciating while they last - this time next week looks like being well into the 30s (on some of the more extreme forecast scenarios I might even be on the scene for Geneva's first 40).

Something I wasn't expecting was that today is a public holiday locally (though the meeting I'm at went ahead regardless) - put a bit of a spanner in the works of a few plans I had, but definitely good for traffic.

C • Rain 4

Not much chance for anything today, with the late night last night, a lunchtime meeting and travelling from mid-afternoon onwards - I'm on the way to Bonn for a couple of days to present at a UNFCCC meeting. This being Europe, I'm doing it on the train (flying wouldn't have been much faster in any case, because the closest place with a direct flight from Geneva is Frankfurt).

I did wonder when I saw the information beforehand for yesterday's car rental whether they actually wanted any customers - I quote:

"For this rental you will also need two original forms of proof of address. These must be original documents issued to you by post and feature the same address as on your driver’s licence.

The following rules apply:

a) One must be a credit card or bank statement for the credit card presented at the desk.

b) The other must be a utility bill (gas, electric, water use bill etc.).

Please note that mobile phone bills, council tax bills, electronic bills (such as emails and online statements) or their printouts will not be accepted.

Both documents must be dated within 8 weeks of date of hire."

Precisely none of this was actually asked for, saving me from having to tell any fibs about my bank statement not being a PDF printout (the water bill was original).

C • Harsh 5

Somewhat improved today on a warmer morning, particularly in the second half. Started out northeast along the lake with a bit of a false start because the underpass I remembered is only open during botanical gardens opening hours, then climbed to the UN complex and through Servette. A bit interrupted with traffic at times but not too bad.

There was a smoke plume on the other side of the lake (can't have been too significant a fire because there was nothing I could see on the local newspaper website), so inevitably this was the earworm of the morning. The fire brigade were on the scene for a while on Sunday afternoon of the building next door to where I've been staying , but there was no sign of fire (or any great concern for the surrounds) so I'm not sure what they were doing; perhaps someone sent the Greek consulate (contained therein) some white powder?

The evening's activity was going down to Grenoble (about as far from Geneva as Melbourne is from Bendigo) to watch the Matildas play Jamaica. Definitely a worthwhile occasion (and the Stade des Alpes has a very impressive backdrop), though Australia's defence will need to improve if they want to get past Norway on Saturday. (I'll be in Oslo on the weekend, which could make for some interesting uncle/nephew interaction when the game is on). Didn't get back until after 1am, not helped by a long (and unsignposted, but I didn't get too lost) detour for motorway roadworks around Annecy, and a somewhat suboptimal route choice through downtown Geneva - not having driven in Geneva before, I was familiar with the roads but not which ones you're allowed to drive down/turn into.

Stayed up until a reasonable hour last night and then didn't sleep too badly (awake for a bit in the middle of the night - and it's definitely middle of the night here at this time of year if it's dark outside - but otherwise slept until my alarm), so hopefully through the worst of the jetlag. Still struggled with the run, though - as sluggish as I was in Darwin, although without fading as alarmingly as I did then. Possibly I'm not 100% well as the recovery time on the watch (which I assume is picking up on heart rates) is still unusually high.

The redevelopment of the public beach on the other side of the lakefront is approaching completion after a couple of years of work (there are signs which variously say it will be open next week or in July). A project which has been even longer in its gestation (160 years or so in the thinking, and probably close to a decade in the building) is also not too far away, the new rail link to France - there's even a countdown clock in the station so they must be reasonably confident that the scheduled opening on 15 December is actually going to happen.

Not up to running straight off the plane these days. Not a bad flight as these things go - feared the worst when someone who looked like Lasith Malinga (and was definitely built like a fast bowler) sat next to me on the Adelaide-Dubai leg, but we managed to stay out of each other's way and I got a reasonably long block of sleep. Only issue was the #firstworldproblem of the lounge in Dubai being too crowded to get a shower in the hour or so I had there (this after a bus ride from the plane to the terminal which was so long I was half-expecting to see a "Welcome To Oman" sign).

Route choices between Dubai and Geneva are a pretty good indication of the current state of Middle Eastern politics. For years they'd tracked through western Iran (or less commonly Saudi Arabia), staying clear of war zones in Iraq and Syria. More recently they've started giving Iran a wid(ish) berth and going through Iraq instead, and today we stayed a little further away from Iran than usual, probably not unrelated to the current tensions there. If the US is stupid enough to launch a proper war against Iran, though, I wonder if Dubai itself might be too close for comfort.

(There is a history in Australian orienteering of people getting caught out by their planned flights going through war zones; Grant had to find another way home after JWOC 1991, having booked on JAT Yugoslav Airlines just in time for the civil war to break out).

Geneva itself was at its best this afternoon. I've previously remarked that it can be a dead place on Sunday, but not on a pleasantly mild June weekend with the sun shining (this after 100mm of rain in the last 8 days). There were people out everywhere, half-block queues for gelato places, and even the demonstrators (who I think are in favour of more democracy in Algeria) seemed in a good mood.

Got back to Melbourne (briefly) late last night - it was definitely the conference flight, but I still didn't expect to find myself sitting next to the person I sit next to at work (this wasn't pre-arranged), with someone else I know well in front of me, who was one of the three people I dropped off on the way home. (All three live in Coburg or Preston, suburbs much hated by airport taxi drivers - many of whom aren't shy of making their displeasure known to their passengers by all accounts - because they're just outside the radius of short-trip destinations which allow drivers to skip the queue when they return to the airport).

Back had been OK in Darwin (or maybe I just didn't notice it in amongst other issues) but wasn't good today, so I took to the Northcote pool instead - last time I'll be doing this for a bit. Felt like I was working pretty well in the water. It's a lot quieter here in the middle of the day than it is on a Saturday morning.

Next move: my next stint in Geneva. In the process of flying out this evening, something which involves a slightly creative route choice (presumably the Melbourne-Dubai leg was very full judging by its price, so I'm going via Adelaide instead). So far so good.

I suppose it counts as progress that it took me a bit over 30 minutes to run into a brick wall today rather than 25 like it did yesterday. Maybe if I stayed around for another week I'd acclimatise to a decent level, but I won't be (that said, I suspect my next destination will be almost as humid in the second half of next week).

Checked out Mindil Beach (surprisingly little litter after last night's market), and a nice patch of tropical suburbia in Stuart Park (certainly nicer than the semi-industrial strip along the highway itself).

Heading home this evening, briefly.

C • Snakes 10

Promising, if not brilliant, for the first 25 minutes - certainly improved on yesterday - but clearly ran out of fluid at that point on another humid morning, because I hit the wall hard and abruptly. Ended up walking for a few minutes, which was enough to cool myself down enough to run the last part - but obviously not pleased not to be able to get through what should have been a straightforward 45 minutes. At least this will be good acclimatisation for the next stop in the northern summer.

First attempt to take on Darwin's rather unseasonable humidity, and it wasn't pretty. About the most positive thing to be said for this run was that my back wasn't giving trouble, but it was a real struggle and one of those days where I was more than happy to make stops to read signs at attractions, admire a very low tide (and the resultant expansion to Mindil Beach) and so on.

Without any talks of my own to do today, I spent plenty of time following other people's (as well as pulling out my Hug A Climate Scientist Day T-shirt for the occasion). As usual at these conferences, the ratio of (ideas I'd like to pursue further):(ideas I'll have time to do anything about) is probably at least 5:1 if not beyond.

C • Ratios 2

Early morning (earlier than might otherwise have been the case because I had to go and pick up my poster before the conference sessions started) in a hotel pool which wasn't really well-suited to lap swimming, but I managed to complete something resembling a session without feeling too dizzy. As might be expected in Darwin, the water was warm.

Got my first talk out of the way, with its slightly quirky title (inspired by seeing bleached drought-affected grass outside the Helsingor castle last July, a photo which was my opening slide): "Something rotten in the (climatic) state of Denmark: global climate in 2018". I'm next up on Friday, this time talking about dense local observation networks in Bendigo.

C • Dense 9

Tadpole Bay, a map almost entirely yellow and green, with some limestone but not the features of yesterday, a patch of sand dunes, and some flat areas. Felt very ordinary at the start - back troublesome on the first hill - but thought there would be enough to be worth exploring a bit at least, and hope that things settled down, which they did on the downhill through 6 (though I still walked the climb to 9). Dropped maybe 30 seconds on 3 and a minute on 4, a vague control, but navigation decent thereafter. Don't think the route choice along the top of the coastal cliffs to 8 was optimal, but it was scenic. Went wide to 11 which seemed to work, got the dune controls well, and thought I'd nailed the potentially troublesome 14 as well - which I had (the place that it was supposed to be), but no flag in sight. Dropped about 3-4 minutes there in collective searching, before playing out the last part of a hare-and-tortoise game with Ethan (who'd caught me at 9 but lost time going straight to 11) and Remi, decided in unusual fashion when they both veered off going from the last control to the finish - not quite as good a finish chute scalp as Martin Dent in similar circumstances this time last year, but I'll take it :-).

Pretty disappointing performance today but enjoyed the experience, once I got moving. Think an easier day will be in order tomorrow, particularly as I attempt to adjust to an unusually humid dry-season Darwin.

I wouldn't normally expect to feel happy after a run which contained a 4-minute, a 2-minute and a 1-minute error (even if Winsplits failed to notice the last two), but I was pleased just to get through a run of this length without significant physical trouble, in interesting terrain which always felt enjoyable. The limestone terrain in the Eyre Peninsula, as I've noted before, is like nothing else in Australia (reading the vegetation is a bit like Cantara before it got overgrown), and provides a major challenge - not just for me judging by the number of big blowouts.

I got out of the car stiff and wasn't even sure at that point whether I'd be able to go out, but was pleasantly surprised that things loosened up well on the warm-up (maybe Bridget was sending me positive vibes). Got the first three OK, then was very hesitant on the way to 4 - this is unforgiving terrain if you lose contact - but didn't actually go too far off the line, which is probably how I still won the split despite regarding it as a mistake. The other two misses were at 6, where I struggled to pinpoint a small depression (in the company of Ethan, for whom this was the start of a day he'd probably like to forget, culminating in punching the wrong last control), and 9, where I thought I'd found a gap in the green which would lead me to the control but had got the wrong gap, and was sufficiently confused on the other side that I ended up dropping 4 minutes or so. From there it was pretty good, and I even started to feel as if I had a bit of flow in the running at times.

Ended up further ahead of my opposition here (Greg, Ruhi and Ben) than I might have expected, although Ruhi is carrying an injury. Simon put all of us into perspective by doing 72 for 12.something.

Wildlife log: one dead roo and one live (and fast-moving) emu.

Coffin Bay event which I was treating as a warm-up for the more interesting stuff to come with the limestone on Sunday and Monday. Back wasn't great from the start, and eventually decided that 30 minutes or so would be enough for it today so called it a day early (not that the compilers of the results seem to have noticed the last time I checked). Nominally a park/street event but in fact a few patches of bush too (of the might-be-worth-crashing-this-50-metres-of-green variety). Didn't help that two early controls were misplaced (I never found #5, but didn't spend too long looking for it).

Did some pleasant exploring around the national park afterwards (and put a face to the name of Point Avoid).

Travel day today and didn't get the chance to get out; Melbourne to Adelaide first thing in the morning, then Adelaide to Port Lincoln late afternoon after working the day out of our Adelaide office. (I'm going to get to know Adelaide Airport pretty well - these were the first and second of four visits in just over a week, the last of them to come as a result of a slightly creative route choice to Geneva). A few minor annoyances at the start of the day - including the automated check-in not coping with the fact that my "connecting flight" was nine hours after the first one (eventually sorted - I didn't really want to haul my bag around Adelaide if I could help it).

You know you're an orienteer when #149: you walk/run/drive past a school and immediately start sizing it up for sprint potential. (The one which caught my eye here was the block that Pulteney Grammar and another primary school are on - our Adelaide office is at the junction of King William and South Terrace - but it might be a bit small and I'm not sure there's a way to link the bits together other than coming out to the main road).

I've joined the Casanova clan for the weekend and part of the accompanying reading material is a book on the 'Deceptive Lands' (country which will be familiar to those who've orienteered around Burra), published in 1968 by the Terowie CWA. Opening this at a random page, my attention was captured by the following account (undated, but other searching suggests late 1890s):

"An attempted demonstration of great interest was that given by Matthew Eyes, the engine driver, when he attempted to prove his worth as a rain-maker. The Government, assisting his project, provided the necessary equipment and Mt Packer, a hill to the north-west of the town, was chosen as a suitable site for the demonstration.

All was in readiness as government officials, newspaper reporters and a large crowd of spectators gathered nearby; land-owners who had ridden over from all directions to witness the event, stood around tightly gripping the reins of their horses. The procedure went as planned until the balloon was half full when something apparently slipped and Whang! - over went the whole contrivance on top of men and horses. Fortunately no-one was injured and a disgusted crowd straggled disappointedly homewards".

(Other accounts of the event I found online suggests the plan was to send explosives up in a balloon; what could possibly go wrong?).

C • I believe pultney school an... 1

Something of a replay of yesterday, except that I went northwest rather than northeast, and an unusually good run with the lights meant I didn't get the chance to put the stop-at-10-minutes theory to the test but my back loosened up after that anyway. A struggle in the first couple of kilometres but got better as it went on. Originally had thoughts of doing something longer before the start of the day, but got squeezed a bit for time because my parents dropped in their way through from the airport (they've been in Norway), and things are still sufficiently fragile that a shorter run probably wasn't such a bad thing ahead of the weekend.

Looks like I really will be doing the crime scene tour in Darwin: I sent my conference poster to Darwin Officeworks for printing and discovered that they're across the road from the Buff Club.

Another day which was hard going at the start but improved as it went on. This time it seemed to be a traffic stop about 10 minutes in which did the trick; perhaps a stop-and-stretch at that point comes in useful? Did some exploring of the top of the east bank of Darebin Creek, knowing that the stepping stones that I sometimes use when on the east side would probably be under water after the recent rain.

Big day at work, but did get my conference poster for next week done. (Probably as well that the conference, in Darwin, is next week and not this week - suffice it to say that in the place I'll be staying, there will be some fresh bullet holes next door to look at should I feel so inclined, which I probably won't).

A see-if-things-work-again session. Pretty borderline early on but loosened after the first 10 minutes, enough to make me think that something more substantial is viable tomorrow (especially if the work of Attack of the Killer Physio this evening has done its job).

The drainage on the Merri Creek bike path north of the St. Georges Road bridge has not improved since the last time I was there the day after a significant rain event.

Sign of the times: the event information for Saturday's event at Port Lincoln includes the line "IF YOU ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH USE OF A PUNCH CARD when orienteering, PLEASE SEEK GUIDANCE BEFORE YOU START.". (Perhaps I'll have an advantage as a Victorian here, as most Melbourne park-street events still use them).

Felt like I was struggling a bit to loosen up this morning, although back seems somewhat improved on the weekend. Probably a better morning to be doing things inside than outside (although the heaviest of the rain had cleared by the morning).

Earworm of the day came thanks to news that the Vengaboys "We're Going To Ibiza" has become a theme song of left-wing protests in Austria (this is a reference to a scandal, which has led to the collapse of the coalition government they were part of, which involved the leader of the hard-right Freedom Party being caught on tape meeting in Ibiza with someone posing as the niece of a Russian oligarch, and discussing a deal which involved said oligarch buying Austria's largest newspaper and turning it into a Freedom Party propaganda sheet in exchange for government contracts), and that this week the Vengaboys themselves had turned up in Vienna and parked the Vengabus in front of the Chancellry to perform it at a protest. In turn this led to a possibly inevitable Twitter thread putting Vengaboys lyrics to use in the name of anti-fascism, the best being:

The Vengabus is coming
And everybody's jumpin'
We're playing at your rally
The Internationale

(Seeing far-right politicians going down in (metaphorical) flames anywhere in the world is something which gives me a certain amount of Schadenfreude, as the Austrians would put it).

Back probably as tight overnight and in the morning as I can remember. Didn't even consider running, on a day (first Sunday in June) which has featured more than a few memorable long runs over the years. Going into the water did loosen it up, a bit.

Spent the afternoon at the football. Essendon were mediocre but that was more than enough to see off Carlton. (Carlton don't even have the prospect of the number 1 draft pick to look forward to - they traded that to Adelaide).

Thought Smiths Reef, an area I haven't been on for about 15 years, might have been a sufficiently gentle reintroduction to terrain, but it was evident from the first downhill that I wasn't ready to go back into terrain yet (that said, the way my back felt on the drive back suggested that I might have struggled even with a flat road/track run today).

At least it was a semi-wasted trip to Maldon and not a semi-wasted trip to New Zealand (and it was a nice day to be out, and some quality time was spent with the lentil soup at a Castlemaine cafe and inside a nearby bookshop).

C • Maldon 2