Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

A pool running session with a difference, in the Bermagui sea baths. Was a bit concerned about what it would be like at high tide but it was fine - just the biggest waves creeping over the edge (no doubt it would be a different story in heavier seas). A reasonable session although I cramped once.

I've now progressed from looking like I've been sliding down a burnt-out slope to looking like I've been sitting in a tub of beetroot, which I take to be progress.

Quite a bit of the rest of the day was spent in a spot which Rob discovered at the far end of yesterday's run - a small beach in a cove in between cliffs. Very attractive spot and a good find.

C • polar vortex 6

Not sure I've ever done a run quite like this before. The plan was to meet Rob and Andy at Tathra and run the coastal track south to the next inlet, about 9km worth.

First surprise was to get to the start and discover that our numbers were depleted by one, Andy sidelined by a wrist injury sustained in a mountain bike fall the previous day. (By the time we got back, he was at Bega Hospital waiting on X-rays which confirmed it was broken). That left Rob and myself to take to the track. My expectations were that it would spend most of its time along the clifftops and occasionally drop in and out of gullies and coves, but in fact it spent most of its time dropping in and out of gullies and coves, with many log stairs, and even the flatter sections were pretty rough underfoot. (The crossing of a pebble beach - the first I can remember seeing in Australia - was a highlight in that respect). We didn't break 7s on a single kilometre and it was increasingly apparent that we weren't going to get to the far end of the track and get back in the two hours I'd set as my upper limit today, but Rob wanted to keep going so we split at that point. Going back seemed to pass quite quickly, though not much faster (meanwhile Rob hammered the trip back and got home only 10 minutes after me having covered an extra 5km, although apparently most of that 5km at the far end was much easier going than what we'd traversed). Felt tired at the end but nowhere near the usual muscular fatigue post-run that I'd expect from a midweek long run.

Spent most of the day hanging out with the others in Tathra and not doing all that much (other than joining the expedition to retrieve Andy from Bega), before going back to Bermagui in time to run an OA Board hook-up. (I was worried this was going to come unstuck when I got back to where I was staying and my key didn't work - it turned out that some tradespeople had been in to redo the locks today and the management, who were extremely apologetic about it, had forgotten to give me the new keys).

Odd sighting of the day: a real estate sign advertising something as "Tanja Entry Level, wording which implies that there's a posh end of Tanja that one could aspire to. For those unfamiliar with the South Coast, Tanja is a dot on the map about 10km north of Tathra which the sign refers to as a "locality".

Something a bit longer today as the bruising subsides to nuisance level (except perhaps on steep downhills). Headed inland today on a road which turns to gravel a couple of kilometres out of town and heads into the forest; not fast but a reasonably steady effort on a route which was almost never flat, despite not getting any higher than about 120 metres. Climbing reasonably strongly on the way back. Warmish and humid again, and less windy than yesterday; wouldn't have wanted to be going much further without water.

The forests down here are more open than most coastal ones in NSW or eastern Victoria - technically they're bland gully-spur but could support a local club if one existed (and they would have some good rogaining potential). That said, the south side of the road is a nature reserve which in NSW normally means no go.

Made it into the Blue Pool at the second attempt; it was a crosswind today, and much lighter, so there was none of the choppiness that put paid to yesterday. It's the first time I've done a proper swim session in 'natural' water since one at Edith Falls (near Katherine) in 2009, but 'navigation' was a bit easier this time with prominent features at both ends (and I could be sure there would be no crocs). Felt OK without pushing too hard; salt starting to make its presence felt towards the end.

For the second day in a row, the van from WR Engineering was leaving just as I arrived. The company, along with several others, is famous amongst Canberrans of a certain age for the (lack of) quality of the singing in its local TV commercials back in the day; needless to say, for most of the swim, running through my head was 'Near and far/where great sheds are/the name is WR'. Had the water to myself for the duration of the swim but the local kids were just arriving as I left; presumably the school bus from Narooma High had just got in. (It's the first day of term in NSW today).

C • Old Canberra TV ads 1

Things are improving a little bit with each passing day, though I still look like I've been sliding down a recently-burnt slope sans trousers. It still wasn't the most comfortable of runs but managed to get through something a bit more than what I was doing on the weekend, mostly orienting myself and getting a feel for Bermagui. A decent NNE breeze, a coolish wind here because it's coming off the water, though still felt a little humid when it was a tail wind.

The rest of the day was very relaxing, which was the idea (although I'm now finding out about exactly which bits of the body I missed with the sunscreen), spending time on the beach and time on the couch and time near the pool, and getting through some of the less intellectually demanding parts of my book collection (Christmas presents from a couple of years ago). A reasonable number of people on the street but few on the beaches; I suspect the local population has dropped by at least 50% in the last 36 hours.

Can't say I was too upset to be here as the number next to Melbourne on the Bureau front page read 40, then 41, then 42....

I had planned to do an afternoon session in Bermagui's Blue Pool, an iconic oceanside baths of the sort you'll find a few of in Sydney. The atmosphere wasn't quite playing ball - the place was deserted (the locals having presumably realised that 35-knot NNE winds, straight down the pool, were suboptimal conditions for here), the water was choppy, and I thought that trying to swim here alone in tricky conditions and with the tide coming in perhaps wasn't the smartest of ideas. Maybe tomorrow.

I do wonder what the winning time would have been for the Sydney-Hobart if it had started yesterday. Don't think it would have been that far over one day.

Final day of Sprint Canberra at ANU. Still feeling just as sore as the last two days (and if possible it looks even uglier), but the swelling must have gone down a bit because I felt less impeded on the run than was the case the last two days (the lack of hills probably helped). Still a bit below par, though, and was gradually drifting back amongst the group I started with, being pulled in by Jase and Richard Goonan, and dropping back from Oliver Mill and Jimbo. Also fell into the trap a bit at 13 and dropped 20 seconds or so. Felt I was making a bit of progress, and am still hopeful that I should be up to doing some proper training by midweek.

I thought I was making a bit of a habit of having close sprint races with Lanita (we were five seconds apart today), and a check of the results proves it - in eight meetings since October, we're 4-4, with only two of the eight margins (one each way) greater than 37 seconds, and four of the eight (two each way) 11 seconds or fewer. I'm enjoying it while it lasts, suspecting that she'll have left me behind by this time next year; in a way it reminds me a bit of having a series of close battles in Canberra in 1987 with Jenny Bourne (then the leading Australian woman, who should have had a decent shot at a top-10 place at that year's WOC but had a bad run on the day, and in those days there was no middle distance or sprint to have another go).

This was an excellent series of events - thanks to all those responsible (and especially to lazydave). Will probably be hard to do something similar next year with Oceania taking up a big chunk of January, but the basic concept - both competition-wise and having a training camp combining seniors and juniors - appeared to work very well.

I'm now down in Bermagui for a few days. I was thankful that I was going down the Clyde and not up it - the seasonal migration of the Yogi was in full swing and traffic in the reverse direction was in great abundance (although moving, most of the time). There were also more people than I've seen for a while either in the midst of a deep and meaningful conversation with the NRMA, or waiting to do so. (The upper reaches of the Clyde Mountain used to be a good place to find such people, but today's victims were more evenly distributed).

(And, apropos of the thread that's going at the moment, unsurprisingly the Bodalla dairy outlet does seriously good chocolate milkshakes. Don't think it's going to be on the way home from an event any time soon, though).

Day 5 ANU Elite - Splits

In the bush (partly) at Remembrance Park behind the War Memorial. Didn't feel any better than yesterday - as expected because from my experience bruising-related swelling peaks at 24-48 hours before easing fairly quickly - and it's particularly painful going downhill, which made legs 10 to 14 rather unpleasant experiences. Still, unlike yesterday, I hit all the controls OK, and wasn't too rattled at having Brodie and Hanny barrel through me. The last part of the course was around the War Memorial; I wasn't totally sure if we had approval to be there (and if we did, whether that message had got through to all relevant parties) and was wondering if the soldier out the front was going to start yelling at me, but he didn't.

Day 4 Remembrance Elite A - Splits

Stage 3 of Sprint Canberra at CSIRO. Given how painful things were last night I was reasonably certain that the bruising was significant enough that it was going to mean 2-3 days of swelling and discomfort, and the way it felt today was consistent with that. I wasn't at all sure that I was going to be able to run - for this sort of injury, you're not going to do it more damage by running on it, the questions are whether you can tolerate the pain and whether it impedes you too much. After a warm-up - and noticing that it hurt less at running than jogging speed - I decided to give it a go, notwithstanding the fact that the swelling was sufficient that I could feel it bouncing around on the run, especially uphill.

Despite all this, I felt as if I was running OK in the first few controls, but the fact that Rob Walter caught me a minute inside the first five minutes suggested that my speed was noticeably below par. I then started to struggle on the uphill sections to generate power, and made a couple of silly errors - overshooting a termite mound in the small bush section at 14, then running into a dead end at 18 (a building I worked in intermittently for a few months). Almost got onto the back of Peter Hobbs at 11 but he gradually pulled away from me up the hill; ended up getting him by three seconds after he lost a bit of time on 20.

If I got through today I should be able to get through the rest of the weekend, but the extra things I had in mind will probably be off the agenda. Hopefully should be fine by midweek though.

Day 3 CSIRO Elite - Splits

A pool session down at Belconnen. Nothing to get massively excited about but not too bad either. Got this in before my latest session with Cathy, who seems reasonably happy with my progress on the things she'd originally identified to fix up, but found a few more things which needed fixing too (even before my afternoon misadventures).

2nd stage of Sprint Canberra at Radford. A mass-start sprint race is hardly a format well-suited to my abilities (although one advantage of falling off the back quickly was avoiding the worst of the congestion at the early controls), and my principal objective was not to come last. I was, however, feeling a lot better than yesterday, and settled into a good scrap in the grupetto - the (mostly) old men's bunch also featuring Jim, Jase, Eoin and Matt Purcell. A couple of slight wobbles through being not quite sure what was and wasn't legal, and had trouble getting used to just how quickly things came up on the 1:2000 section in the middle, but was really enjoying myself - until taking a big stack on the stairs coming into control 22 and landing on my backside. (I have a somewhat unfortunate history with sprint races in the wet in that respect, although I'm pretty confident that, unlike Auckland 2005, there are no broken bones this time). Took me most of the next leg (the third-last) to get back above jogging speed, taking away any chance I might have had of making a late attack on Jim and Jase, but did beat a few home on time (as well as the DNFs) and was nowhere near as far back as yesterday, even allowing for the shorter distance. Lanita didn't seem too pleased that I'd got her by two seconds (the women had the same course, though not at the same time).

You had to be young and crazy to do well today - juniors filled the first three places.

My rear end was pretty painful for the hour or so post-run, and still isn't great; it seems to me to be a slightly more severe version of the injury I did in Brisbane in July, in which case I should still be OK to run, if not necessarily comfortably. Will have to tell David Mulford sometime that I stacked it on the front steps of the building that's named after him. (He's the former principal at Radford - was a teacher at Canberra Grammar when I was there, and while I never had him as a teacher, he and his wife became family friends when Mum was working at the primary school there).

Day 2 Radford Course 1BA - Splits

Event: Sprint Canberra
 

It's a slightly odd few days: I want to do the Sprint Canberra races, I want to do more training than 20 minutes a day, but don't want to spend the time sprint training (which is what the camp is about). Not sure if what I'm doing is quite the optimum when I'm trying to build endurance, but I'll see how it goes.

It was good to get back onto Black Mountain but the run itself was fairly mediocre, particularly uphill. Had a brief encounter with Al and Belinda going the other way; not sure too many sets of 30-second sprints will be in my Six Foot preparation (though it was the end of a session of mostly longer hard bits for them).

First stage of the Canberra Sprints, at AIS. I have good days and bad days; yesterday was a good day, today wasn't. Never really loosened up properly and struggled for any speed and power, and was even less competitive than I expected to be.

I think my route (northern) to 5 was marginally better than the southern route since it was one of my least worst splits. Best stretch was through the more technical legs between 8 and 13; Jarrah had not long gone through me there and the detail (mostly fences) helped keep me sort of in touch. A slight wobble coming out of 1 when I briefly misread 21 as 2.

This is, I think, the first time I've run twice in a day in more than a year.

Elite - Splits

First time in the bush for a couple of months (since the last time I was in Canberra, in fact), at the summer series event at the place which I used to refer to as Ainslie Transfer Station. (The only remnants these days of what used to be the tip are a couple of incongruously-placed bitumen roads and an elongated clearing).

Wasn't quite sure how my rusty terrain-running skills or my rusty navigational skills would function. The first control was a bit of test of the latter, a small termite mound in the middle of nothing much, and I was a bit hesitant on it but got it with only marginal time loss. After that I was clean, and although the climb from 7 through 11 was hard work, from then onwards I was really starting to enjoy myself, at a pace which was a little higher than jogging but not pushing too hard (there will be plenty of opportunities for that over the next five days). Even appreciated the "support" from some of the local talent at 17. Haven't enjoyed myself on a run this much in ages.

Our efforts over recent weeks are attracting some attention (some of it from people who are helpfully copying their correspondence to the Minister). One of these correspondents started out by demanding a retraction of a statement one of our people had made about Canberra never having had four 40-degree days in a row (it still hasn't), and quoting some data from 1939 which failed to contain four consecutive 40s, then followed up the next day by claiming we'd left something out of one of our reports which was in fact explicitly in it. I'm presuming it's not the done thing for Ministerial correspondence to read: "Your correspondence of 20 January demonstrates that you can't count to four and your correspondence of 21 January demonstrates that you can't read; now nick off and stop wasting taxpayer-funded time" (although I bet plenty of ministers have fantasised about sending such letters to their more vexatious antagonists).

C • Ministerial Correspondence 3

Run from Richmond before a massage session, starting up through Toorak and coming back along Gardiners Creek (always nice to be on the springy surface there, even if it is the scene for the Commuter Olympics time-trial at this time of day). Started sleepy - sleep has been in short supply in recent days - and was struggling badly through the first half-hour, but gradually built into it, and by the last 20 minutes was feeling as good as I've felt in the last two or three weeks, and definitely energetic enough for a final short loop up near Dimmey's to squeeze the last bit out of the available time. (You'd probably want to be careful as to what you bought in Dimmey's closing-down-sale, given that the reason they are going out of business is their inability to pay a fine of something like $3 million for selling unsafe products).

Hit the road to Canberra this afternoon. I'm making a bit of a habit of doing this trip to a backdrop of sporting epics (and hoping that the ABC Melbourne signal will hold out because Canberra wasn't broadcasting it): 18 months ago it was Tom Hawkins kicking the winning goal after the siren against Hawthorn, this time it was Djokovic-Wawrinka (although I made it in time to see the last few games on TV). Perhaps the most memorable, though, was a trip back (with Bruce, and I think others but I've forgotten who) through Gippsland from an ACT Championships at Badja in 2003; it was Davis Cup semi-final weekend and we picked up the signal with Lleyton Hewitt two sets and a break down against Roger Federer. Lleyton doing what Lleyton does best, he managed to come back to win the third set in a tie-break, and then win the last two.

And for what it's worth, the currently smoking parts of the Murraguldrie fire don't seem to be particularly close to Burngoogee.

It's definitely a different crowd at Ivanhoe in the mornings to that at Fitzroy; my entry into the water lowered the average age of the pool by about a decade, and its average weight by about 20 kilos. This meant there were quite a few people in the lane who were even slower than I was, which meant a slightly awkward swim on a day I wasn't feeling too sparkling anyway. Back a bit tight at times.

The report on the heatwave ended up hitting the (virtual) streets late in the afternoon, which takes a fair bit of pressure off after a few days when I've definitely been too intense for my own good. It was somewhat flattering that the major agenda item in today's section meeting was how we could build a computer system to at least partially replicate the knowledge base and analysis capabilities that reside inside my head (the fact that I'm going to be away for most of the last quarter of this year has concentrated a few minds).

Many of you will have noted in the news of late the various Australian naval vessels which have "accidentally" entered Indonesian territorial waters. Many have probably wondered how a naval commander could accidentally do such a thing, but at least some of them were probably at ADFA in the early 1990s, and having seen the navigational capabilities (or absence thereof) of ADFA cadets at ACT orienteering events in that era, I'm not quite as surprised as many people are. (There was one honourable exception - Jason Markham - but he was a Kiwi anyway).

A bit later than usual after a 1.30am finish last night (or to be more precise, a 1.30 exit by me from the meeting, which I think ran until 3 or 4 our time) - at least it was cool and cloudy so the delay didn't hurt too much in terms of conditions. My quads are fine now but still thought I might be best to be at the low end of long-run ambitions today given the week that's just gone, and did a not-excessively-hilly two hours. Quite decent through the middle hour, but struggled a bit in the last 30 minutes, more for muscular endurance than anything else.

Streets collected: Alfred Ct, Bundoora and Alfreda St, Rosanna. It will be a while before I get another one because the next one's in St. Helena.

Really faded out this evening (after spending a fair chunk of the day not making as much progress as I'd hoped in hopefully having a Special Climate Statement ready for release tomorrow). These sorts of weeks stretch us pretty heavily and I'm definitely feeling it at the moment. At least in a few days any subsequent events (none of which are on the radar at the moment) become someone else's problem.

Perhaps lost in the translation was a report of a joint action by the Italian football authorities and Disney to launch what was described as a "Mickey Mouse initiative to combat racism". Racism seems to be getting the Mickey Mouse treatment elsewhere in European football, after the Polish authorities decided that Lech Poznan supporters singing things like "Your home is at Auschwitz" and "we're sending you to the gas chambers" did not constitute incitement of racial hatred because the comments were supposedly directed at all supporters of the opposition team (which was Poland's approximate equivalent of Spurs) and not just at Jews.

Certainly much improved on anything else this week; it helped that the conditions were a little kinder (though not dramatically so). This meant that it was a reasonably standard run, a little later than usual for a Saturday after a late night on the IOF teleconference last night. Spent a bit of time on the Yarra singletrack (as expected, completely dried out now), having to dodge the odd mountain bike en route.

It's a measure of how quickly one acclimatises that a humid morning in the low 20s felt cool, and that everyone thought that it was a cool night when the minimum of 21.5 would have ranked as the hottest night of the year in about one-third of the years in Melbourne's historic record (though none since the 1980s).

Having accumulated something like seven days' worth of excess working time since the New Year, I'm taking a few days off post-Canberra, initially "down the coast" in Canberra parlance, then making my way round through Gippsland (fires permitting). Anyone interested in a long run at the Prom on Sunday 2nd February?

C • Long run 4

Don't normally do a session in the spa but the Fitzroy pool wasn't too far short of it this morning; the water temperature was 31 (anyone going there in the afternoon to cool down would have been in for a shock, especially as it was probably even hotter by then). A reasonably mundane session without as much to recover from (at least in the running department) as there usually is.

The somewhat anarchic trip in from there gave one the impression that a lot of people were under the impression that all traffic laws had been suspended because of the heat and that everyone was assuming parking inspectors weren't working.

It may have been a light running week but the combination of living through this week's conditions and the work required to keep track of it has meant I've hit the end of the week pretty exhausted (which means that having IOF Foot Commission meetings until the early hours of the morning tonight and tomorrow night is something I could have done with it). Will probably have to work a fairly substantial chunk of Sunday to have the heatwave report ready to go out on Monday, too (one of these days a major climate event will finish sometime other than a weekend).

And, while the information I'm seeing is rather imprecise, I have a nasty feeling that SA may be having to find a couple of new areas for Easter 2015....(The Black Range, which was on our shortlist for the 2015 Australian Long but presented too many access/permission hurdles, looks to have burnt as well).

(stop press: have just read on the Advertiser website of 60m-high flames in the Wirrabara Forest).

C • Snow and cold is also great... 1

The best that can be said for this run is that it wasn't as bad as the one at the equivalent stage of the 2009 heatwave, and that it gave me the chance to catch up with someone I hadn't seen for a while.

On a morning as warm as this I decided to head straight for the Yarra Flats, thinking of 60 as a minimum with thoughts of extending if I was feeling OK. I wasn't feeling particularly OK - this was again a struggle, although perhaps a bit improved on yesterday (and quads are fine now). Oddly enough, I felt best (although slow) on the steepest hills coming back through Eaglemont. Feeling a bit out of sorts in general - not sure how much of this (if any) is illness, how much is the heat, and how much is recovery from the weekend.

The catching-up was with Darren Meeking, whom I'd barely seen since the 2011 Oceania events - he lives in North Balwyn these days (with two children under three, which is a large part of the reason why we haven't seen much of him) and was on his way back on a river loop. We ran together for 15 minutes or so before splitting off and going our separate ways.

Then it was off to crunch numbers, talk to journalists, run a couple of meetings, occasionally pause to draw breath and try to endure the second-last day of the heatwave of 2014. Part of this was trying to put the "Adelaide forecast to be the hottest city in the world" story in perspective (I would guess it would happen at least a dozen times in a normal summer - no city of any consequence in either South America or southern Africa gets above the mid-high 30s with any consistency). So far, the Melbourne infrastructure has just about held up, but it remains to be seen whether it will still do so tomorrow (and then there are fires to consider, with the stronger winds).

Quads significantly improved tonight but still feeling very sluggish running - decided not to make any attempt to go hard tonight. The weather certainly encouraged me in this decision, although a weak seabreeze pushed in just before the start and dropped it to 33 or so (having been up to 41.7). Even at slow pace, I still felt as if it could fall apart at any moment, but it didn't.

It was slightly annoying to not be running fast on a night when I nailed the route - about 500 metres shorter than most of the others, but that merely narrowed the margin (very reminiscent of the Wednesday after Two Bays two years ago in that sense).

C • heat 3

The best that can be said for my quads this morning is that they weren't as bad as they were at the equivalent stage after the last marathon I ran. They still weren't good by any stretch of the imagination, but from past experience attempting to go for a run would help them, so I did (after first walking down the Hawdon Street hill, on the basis that a steep downhill at the start isn't the start I needed). It wasn't particularly pretty even with a course as flat as they get around the Banyule Flats, but hopefully it will get me somewhere. If I'm going to have an enforced easy week, it's not the worst week for it to happen....

I am thankful to the ABC - an 8.30 interview with them meant having to get out in time to finish my run not long after 7, which in turn meant that I got most of this run out of the way while the cool early-morning surface layer remained intact. Street-O tomorrow evening is not going to be pretty, although Adelaide is even worse; today was their third day over 45 since early 2009, which means that there will be children starting school there in a couple of weeks who have experienced more 45-degree days than someone who lived through the entire 20th century.

C • Yeah, but... 10

Part of me was tempted to go for a run this morning on the basis that this morning will be the least worst conditions we have for running this side of Saturday, but I woke up with pretty stiff quads - the sort where I probably could have run if I'd suddenly found myself in the middle of a riot, but otherwise didn't mind an excuse for a rest day. (The plan is for the run which would otherwise have happened today to happen on Friday, although I reserve the right to change these plans given my expectation that the temperature at 7am Friday will be somewhere north of 30).

The swim was slow, and mainly about trying to loosen things up. I'm not sure how productive it was in that respect, but at least it felt OK while I was in the pool.

It was slightly alarming to see a policeman in full riot gear entering the changerooms post-swim, but it turned out he was merely in search of the Gents. (The protest is still going on out the front but seems more sparsely populated on both sides than it was last week).

C • Quads 5

Two Bays. The good news is that I got my Six Foot qualifier. The bad news is that my performance was such that Six Foot is not going to be a comfortable experience unless I improve a fair bit in the next eight weeks.

Felt fairly reasonable on the first half. They didn't have wave starts this year, and they needed to - congestion on the narrower tracks, especially early on, was significant (although it was a lot worse a bit further back in the bunch, as Jenny found out). I felt as if I could have run all of the initial Arthur's Seat climb but there was no point in trying to fight the (walking) crowds for the sake of an extra few placings - at the time I tried not to get too frustrated and thought that the energy saved might be useful for later on (so much for that). It was a bit more frustrating on the single track across the top between 3-5km as I was clearly faster than most on the more technical tracks but couldn't use it.

Got the first sign that all was not well on the deceptively hard climb on the dirt road through 12k. At this stage I was close to Tash (I'd been 50 metres off her for much of the way), and seemed to settle again through the next bit, but then got knocked around by a climb I'd forgotten about at 15-16k. At this stage, I didn't think 2.30 was on, but was hoping for something in the low-mid 2.30s. The mostly flat or downhill (and very nice) stretch from 16-21k was reasonable, but then it fell apart totally. Had to walk many of the uphill parts of the next 1.5k (and they weren't that steep), then managed to plod the last 5k apart from a very unconvincing attempt on the stairs out of the gully at about 2.5k to go. The final adding-insult-to-injury bit was mistaking the 56k start line for our finish line and stopping 20 metres early (which probably cost me another 15 seconds or so, and four places - not that I was really counting by then). At least I didn't throw up in the finish area toilets this year....

Tash did 2.33, which is a pretty good indicator of where I should have been had I not blown up.

Lessons learned:

1. I might have been able to get away with doing 2 1/2 hour runs without eating in the past but not any more. Time to start experimenting.

2. The new pack is good for carrying water comfortably but the flow rate isn't great and I didn't take in enough - the weather was cool but fairly humid and I obviously lost a fair bit of fluid judging by the amount that I've taken in since the run (and not come out the other end).

3. I'll have to be more conservative with my pacing than I had previously anticipated. Everything I've heard about Six Foot is that those who get to the Black Range in reasonable shape can take 30 minutes or more out of those who don't, which is an incentive to be part of the former group rather than the latter.

4. Orienteers are definitely a lot better on technical downhill singletracks than normal trail runners. I don't want to be stuck behind too many people - although I'm led to believe it's almost inevitable. One possible positive of today's poor performance is that I suspect it means I'll go into wave 3 rather than wave 2, and it may not be such a bad thing to be in the front of a slower wave rather than the middle of a faster one?

Will be interested to see how I come up in the morning. Given the forecast, I wouldn't mind too much having excuses to back off on the midweek training this week...

C • Sounds tough 2

C • Orienteers 5

Knowing that I was going down for Two Bays, I was attracted by the fact that there was a Surf Coast series event at Queenscliff - was thinking of leaving the car in Sorrento and getting the ferry across, but it turned out to be more efficient to drive down on the Geelong side.

The drive may not have done me any favours as I was horribly stiff for the first kilometre, but it gradually improved and was quite a reasonable run by the end. I was treating this as a training run and didn't really care about the result, which was as well because my strategy was highly non-optimal - there was a set of four low-scoring controls in Point Lonsdale, a good 1.5km across the isthmus, and while all the Queenscliff controls could be cleaned up in well under an hour (probably 45-50 minutes), there wasn't enough time to get Point Lonsdale and then the remainder of Queenscliff. (Had I not had a race the next day, I might have been tempted to stay out - the late penalty was small enough that getting them all and being 10-12 minutes late would probably still have yielded more points).

Had some terrible fate befallen the ferry across to Sorrento afterwards, at least a higher-than-usual percentage of the passengers would have been able to swim to shore - a very high proportion of them were on the way home from doing the Pier to Pub swim at Lorne.

A sign that this wouldn't be quite the usual Friday session at Fitzroy came when I turned up to see dozens of police stationed in the Alexandra Parade median strip, which I assumed (correctly) was associated with some East-West link protest action. Of course, this being inner suburban Melbourne, you can't have a riot without a coffee van being present (as it turned out, today's protest was peaceful).

(The police food truck was also doing good business, although the box of apples appeared to be largely untouched, no doubt to the disappointment of the Victorian equivalent of Tooms-in-a-past-life).

None of this got in the way of anything once inside the pool, and it ended up as a fairly routine session (not as much to recover from as there would be on a normal Friday). The usual company was there as well as some less usual company, including someone with a jet-black and limited-maintenance beard who definitely looked like he wouldn't have been out of place out the front chaining himself to an item of construction equipment.

Heard today of an apparently-stating-the-bleeding-obvious headline from a local paper in southern England, 'Shell Found On Beach'. Apparently it relates to some WW2 remnants which washed up after one of the recent storms.

Much later and shorter than usual; later because I'd had a teleconference until 1.30am (and consequently wasn't going into work until mid-morning as a trade-off), shorter because I'm having an easy week ahead of Two Bays. Despite being later than usual, it was still a decidedly sleepy run, although muscles were functioning OK - expected the sleepiness from the way I was feeling at the start (and seriously considered deferring it to lunchtime, but decided I preferred sleepiness to heat - today was the first day in the 30s for a while, although it pales in comparison with what we're getting next week, which in turn pales in comparison with what Adelaide or Bendigo will be getting).

Ships getting stuck in the ice in the Antarctic have been much in the news of late, but clearly the ice wasn't where it was needed.

C • Adelaide or Bendigo 2

Street-O at Croydon Hills. Felt better than the last few runs but still not pushing any real speed - probably a bit improved on last week, given the hills (and a couple of bits of terrain in the mix). Reasonably happy with the route - others managed a little shorter but I seemed to miss most of the steep hills. Started out with Bryan (on the comeback trail) for the first few, then on my own through the rest of it. Back not 100% early on but definitely better than yesterday. Decent conditions - certainly better than it will be next week. An excellent course on which I changed my mind three times between the start and halfway.

Had the slightly surreal experience of listening to myself on the radio (talking about Queensland drought) coming into the event. The sudden flurry of media interest in Queensland drought has at least had the useful effect of producing some rain (10-20mm today in some of the core drought areas around Charleville).

And the "oops!" award for the day goes to the hoon down Wonthaggi way who decided to do what hoons do and abuse a group of cyclists he was passing. He probably would have done better to choose a group of cyclists which did not include the Chief Commissioner of Police.

Not a good day - back was definitely playing up today and only really started to ease in the last couple of kilometres, despite the fact that this route didn't have all that many hills. Certainly won't want anything like this to happen on Sunday (although it's not the sort of thing which would stop me dead, just make things unpleasant and slow me down).

Not really looking forward to next week's forecast, although I guess we've dodged a few heat-related bullets so far this summer. (On the subject of matters meteorological, for all the media hype the current situation in the US is getting, the (relatively) coldest parts of North America have only been about as far below average over the last month as the warmest parts of Scandinavia have been above).

Street collected: one close to home, Alfred Street, Heidelberg Heights.

And the reviews of Cory Bernardi's book on Amazon are entertaining, if you feel inclined to read them....

C • below and above 10

I've been involved in discussions of fires on a couple of other logs but it was a fire of a different sort that gave this session a slightly delayed start (in the form of a shop fire in Clifton Hill which caused a traffic jam). Feeling a lot better this morning, and once in the water, a comfortable if not overly strenuous session - which was the objective of the exercise.

The swim was a good deal less exciting than it would have been if I'd been trying to do it in Mount Isa.

First excursion to the Tan for 2014. A reasonable run by recovery run standards, a grind at the start but reasonable after that. Lots of people out and about on Southbank, it being school holidays. Encountered Bruce at the Tan start/finish point where he'd just finished a session with the Midday Milers, and ran with him for a few minutes.

Meanwhile, my greatest success of the day was managing to get a report on the heatwave through all approval processes in a single day. This is a feat at least as challenging (although probably less painful) than breaking 4 hours for the Six Foot*.

(* - disclaimer: this should not be taken to imply that I think I'm going to break, or even go especially close to, 4 hours for the Six Foot).

Probably should have got the hint when I spent most of the first 100 metres coughing and spluttering. From there it was an ordinary run for the first few kilometres, and worse than ordinary beyond that. Feeling that I was probably not 100% (a bit of a runny nose as well), I thought that my first priority was, if there's anything wrong with me, to get it right as quickly as possible (and definitely before next weekend) and cut this one considerably shorter than I'd planned on - I was hoping for another hour, and definitely another 45 minutes. Struggling to break 6s on the climb through Greensborough suggests I probably didn't call it off a moment too soon. Feeling a bit better in the afternoon, so hopefully nothing worse develops.

Tested out the new pack/water container that I'll use at Six Foot this morning - it worked well (certainly better than its owner).

Collected Alexandra this morning. The pair of Alfreds which were also on my target list will have to wait.

Not a great day - struggling on the hills today. Headed out in the direction of North Balwyn for the first time in a while; there are a few hills out that way, although I didn't take on as many as I might have (a west-east traverse of the centre of the suburb has plenty of ups and downs). A few showers along the way; I'm definitely glad that the extreme heat has stayed up north.

A reasonably relaxing session in the pool before a reasonably non-relaxing day - our annual climate statement came out this morning (and to throw another element into the mix, Walgett (49.1) had NSW's hottest day since 1939, and records were broken all over northern inland NSW and southern and central Queensland). Didn't do quite as much media as I thought I might - and what I did was focused mostly on NSW - but lots of number-crunching in the background, too. I eventually made it home about 10.30 (and will probably be in on Sunday too so that we can get the report on the heatwave out on Monday whilst including tomorrow's numbers; I'm probably going to end up with something like 50-55 hours under my belt in what was nominally a two-day week....).

Not feeling anywhere near as tired as I thought I might.

My speed (such as it was) might have gone AWOL this week but on the evidence of today there is nothing wrong with my endurance. This is a combination I'm not too upset with at the moment, given that the principal aim of my training at present is to finish Six Foot in reasonable shape (although it could lead to some ugly results, even by my usual standards, in the sprints in Canberra and Brisbane).

Thanks to the planned length - 2.10 is what I'd target for a Thursday in my base phase but is more than I did midweek at any stage last year - and a slightly earlier train departure time (they've got rid of half the trains until late January - allegedly because of works, but there are no works on our line so saving money is more like it), my alarm started with a 4 for the first time (at least for running purpose) in a long time. Headed out at 5.50, in the light but gloomy enough to remind me that it is only two or three weeks until such a start time will be in the dark. For the first third it was slow and grinding - fairly consistently 20 seconds/km slower than the same stretch on Sunday. The middle third was tough and hilly (some of you will have found out about the last part of that section at tonight's street-O); wasn't going very fast but had a bit of strength, and then was at my best through the final quarter, with the last 10 minutes being better than the equivalent point last Sunday.

Streets collected today: Albion Cres, Greensborough and Alex Ct, Watsonia (which is northwest of 14 on the street-O map). Would have needed another 5-10 minutes to get Alexandra so it will need to wait for another day. On the way to Alex I passed Tarcoola - am not sure whether that street was named after a town, a goldfield, a horse, a NSW cattle station, an Aboriginal word for a riverbend or just because someone thought it sounded nice.

Undoubtedly the oddest sight of the morning was the kangaroo bounding down the street in the middle of suburban north Watsonia, a good 500 metres from the nearest open space. It was last seen heading in the direction of the Ring Road, a destination which leads me to believe that its life expectancy is probably limited.

The morning was merely the opening of a very long day (which I coped with better than I thought I would), with the combination of staying on top of the current heatwave - for the second year in a row it looks like we've fallen just short of 50, although there is an outside chance tomorrow - and putting the finishing touches on the annual climate statement, which will hit the streets in the morning.

I seem to have forgotten how to run fast. It wasn't like yesterday where I felt horribly sluggish, nor was it like a couple of Wednesdays ago when I fell apart on a warm night - I just had zero speed. Perhaps it's an indicator that I can't recover from long runs like I once could (and therefore that a more significant taper is required going into races). At least my abysmal speed meant that it wasn't too frustrating (from the point of view of missing out on a good placing) when I fell victim to that occasional Hawthorn East hazard, the disappearing laneway (which cost me 200-300 metres on the way into 6).

Lots of number-crunching at work (yes, I was working today). I'm definitely glad it was nowhere near today's 48.9 when we were at Tarcoola in June. In Melbourne it was a strange evening - rain from very moist upper levels (courtesy of the spinoff from Cyclone Christine) falling into relatively dry surface air, so it didn't feel very humid even though it was raining.

Did some sorting of my pile of maps this morning. Judging by the first maps in the pile, I did this on New Year's Day last year too.