Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Left Broken Hill early (albeit not quite as quickly as I'd planned because someone had parked me in last night and it took a while to find them). Rain started landing on the windscreen about 50km out of town, and while I didn't think there was much to that lot (indeed as it turned out it failed to trouble the scorers at Broken Hill), the consequences of getting it wrong were severe, so I gave Mutawintji a miss and headed straight for Tibooburra. This did give me time to do some exploring in the eastern section of Sturt National Park; quite nice, but I suspect I missed out on better.

The run was done in the late afternoon, with my target The Granites nature trail about 3km out of town. This name may hint at something - Tibooburra is surrounded by the stuff (although the hills are so densely covered with it that I suspect many of them would be unmappable). The track gave some good chances to look at rocks and take pictures of some of the more photogenic rocks. Hamstring still not quite right, and I decided not to take it out to an hour as I'd originally planned.

I've previously remarked on the regularity with which the highest Greens vote in Australia is found in Nimbin or environs. It's now emerged that Glenore Grove had the highest One Nation vote in Australia (42%) - does that make it the most racist place in the country? (Nearby Gatton, if I recall correctly, had the highest No vote in Australia in the 1999 republic referendum).

Not the most comfortable of nights (combination of mattress not inflated enough and 5am relieving-oneself excursion), and awoke to see the curse of the winter camper - dew - but nice morning for a run. Headed for the visitor centre and one of the walking tracks beyond, a little longer than advertised but that was OK. Hamstring felt as if it was fatiguing a little in the second half but no pain as such; run a little uninspiring despite the setting.

Today's route was Mungo-Pooncarie-Menindee-Broken Hill. Lots of dirt roads on this except after Menindee and when picking up the last bit of the main road to Pooncarie (a plaque advised that this particular bit of local infrastructure was officially opened by Slim Dusty in 1993, which is a change from the usual state or federal MP); mostly in good shape today but some sections, especially across blacksoil flats, made it obvious why nothing moves in this country in the wet. The re-running Darling has just made it to Menindee (there are signs all over the place blaming its absence in the last couple of years on mismanagement by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, although I would have thought one of the catchment's worst multi-year droughts on record might have had something to do with it), although not yet to the main lake, and its reappearance is being eagerly anticipated in Pooncarie.

Ended the day in Broken Hill, which I last visited for Easter 1997 (incidentally, if I remember correctly where the day 1 and 2 areas were, the weed infestation that scuttled the last attempt to hold an event there in 2011 seems to have eased, at least in as far as can be determined from the road). This will be the biggest place I'll be in for a while, with a variety of eating options, though it took a while to find one. Plan A was taking in the Priscilla murals over dinner at the Palace Hotel, but it was closed for a private function; plan B was to join the comrades at the Barrier Social Democratic Club but half of Broken Hill had the same idea and the queue was almost out the door, so I ended up at a place next door (which, as it turned out, was an offshoot of the club so hopefully my money has still done a little to further the cause of social democracy in Broken Hill).

On a trip like this you can get a bit obsessive about the weather. The systems of the next couple of days are stronger than was forecast a few days ago and have necessitated a change of plans; I'd originally planned to camp tomorrow night at Mutawintji (much recommended by those who've gone before) and then move on to Tibooburra on Monday, but with rain forecast to arrive late afternoon or evening tomorrow, at most I'll do a flying visit on my way past to run one of the walking tracks (and perhaps not even that depending on how things are looking in the morning) before pushing up to Tibooburra tomorrow night. Tomorrow's rain is not expected to reach as far north as Tibooburra, and Monday night's is expected to reach to Tibooburra but not Innamincka (where I plan to be by then), but a 200km error in either forecast could throw a spanner in the works.

Not quite as I'd planned it today (you don't expect things to go completely to plan on this sort of trip). I'd booked a 2pm tour at Lake Mungo - you can only go up close to the Walls of China on a tour - but got a call yesterday to say I was the only booking for 2pm and would I mind switching to 9am? I don't mind early starts, but it did mean leaving Balranald at 6.45, not really a time I wanted to be on the roads - it's the first hint of dawn, but as it turned out the only animals I saw in the dawn section were sheep.

Lake Mungo wasn't quite what I expected - the photos I'd seen had led me to believe that the clay cliffs were tens of metres high, but in fact they're more outcrops, albeit amazingly intricately eroded ones, a few metres high at most - but very interesting nonetheless. I was aware in general terms of Mungo's significance as an archeological site but not of how much material the site continues to reveal - the dune has become mobile over the last 1000 years and more material gets uncovered every time there's a big storm. There are shells and bones which have just come to the surface which look like they're recent but are in fact thousands of years old. Doing this with an Aboriginal guide was absolutely worth it - otherwise I'd have just admired the landscape features and missed all the other stuff. (It occurred to me that caring for one's traditional country as a national park ranger must be just about the ideal job for an Aboriginal person - it's a pity there aren't a lot more such jobs available).

The run was never going to be a big part of the day - it was just about checking whether my hamstring was back in shape. As often after a layoff of a few days, my body wasn't functioning super-well for the first few minutes but settled nicely after that. Hamstring was fine.

Kangaroos were not in short supply at the campground, and seemed oblivious to the presence of humans - a bit unusual, though I've seen similar in the roos near the main walking/running tracks on Black Mountain.

C • Road trip 1

I'll be going on some reasonably rough roads over the next fortnight, but this morning involved a higher risk of a flat tyre than the rockiest outback track: riding the Yarra Boulevard. I did, however, manage to avoid any of the calling cards of the Boulie Tacker (who seems to have been lying reasonably low since the police released an image of a person of interest a few weeks back), and had as reasonable a ride as you can reasonably expect in the middle of peak hour. Hamstring fatigued a little towards the end but no pain as such.

Hit the road shortly after this, getting as far north as Balranald, taking in some previously unexplored territory in northern Victoria between Bendigo and Kerang (including seeing how much of a pyramid Pyramid Hill is). Very green and rather wet in much of northern Victoria - some of the 'dry weather only' roads looked very muddy - but somewhat drier north of the border, which given what my plans are for the next couple of days is a good thing.

I was last in Balranald in 1990 (it's on an obvious route choice from Canberra to South Australia, but isn't really on the way from Melbourne to anywhere except Lake Mungo). It doesn't give me the impression there's been a lot of progress in these parts in the last 26 years, and strangely it doesn't seem to have a pub in any meaningful sense (although it does have an RSL club so I didn't have to resort to roadhouse food).

The funeral wasn't until the afternoon so I took the opportunity to spend the morning doing other things, and fitted a pool session in in the middle. Main purpose of this was to see if my hamstring could cope with this, a question which was answered in the affirmative - I now feel as if I could run on it if I needed to, but will give it another couple of days. (I'm also well aware that alternative training opportunities are going to be somewhat limited where I'm headed, unless I try to do a deep-water running session in Cooper Creek).

I was wondering whether it was going to be possible to do this session because part of the area I'd normally use was blocked off for overhead works, but there was still enough space right at the deep end. At least I have an answer now (3) to the question of how many Banyule Council contractors it takes to change a light bulb (admittedly, a rather difficult-to-access light bulb).

Picked up a little bit but thought it best to give it another day before doing anything more strenuous than walking. Still a little sore doing that.

My original plans had been to head north last weekend, but instead I've been at work yesterday and today (ahead of the funeral tomorrow and a Thursday departure). Since I hadn't expected to be at work today I hadn't made any commitments; it's amazing how much you can get done when you don't have any meetings and people aren't expecting you to be around.

Somewhat improved today - at least able to walk reasonably freely (if still with a bit of soreness). Thinking that I might be in a position to do something in the water and/or on the bike tomorrow, although we'll see how that goes when it happens.

Pretty sore today, and not walking entirely comfortably. Feels some time away from being runnable, and probably a bit away from other forms of exercise, too. Perhaps it was a good thing that I didn't get too many opportunities to aggravate it through enthusiastic goal celebrations (a means by which I have injured myself previously) at today's match.

The principal reason for my team's dismal season, Stephen Dank, was in the news because his house was the subject of a drive-by shooting on Saturday morning. The report in the Age suggested that those in the know in the Melbourne underworld scene weren't in the least surprised - it seems his current line of business is also favoured by various colourful identities (some of whom have an interest in motorcycles) with a distaste for additional competition.

This was an event which almost didn't happen. In a triumph for the centralised permit system, we'd been given a permit to use the area - as had the Sporting Shooters undertaking a fox shoot. Even without our presence, letting shooters loose on an area close to town seems a pretty reckless thing to do (there are plenty of ways into the forest and plenty of locals who use it, but as far as we know only the main entrance was signposted) - at least when the Canberra kangaroo cull was on no-one was left in any doubt where it was.

(This did remind me of another unfortunate clash of events which I've probably mentioned here previously - at the Canberra showgrounds between the 1988 ACT junior road 10k championships and a street machines meeting. It was necessary to hold one's nose passing through the cloud of burning rubber on each lap, and I'm assuming the lead women got some enthusiastic "support" from the street machines crowd).

The event eventually got under way about 20 minutes late. Browns Reef is a very fast and open area (especially at its south end); the course was on the long side for a Bendigo Saturday but that wasn't surprising. Got under way nicely but felt sudden pain in my hamstring between 2 and 3. It didn't seem to be impeding my running much and continuing on the course for a while was almost the shortest way back anyway, so I decided to press on and see how it went. The answer was that it didn't get any better but didn't get any worse either. Pretty clean technically, just a little hesitant coming into 7 and a little high into 8 (although that was a map issue). A pretty tight bunch when I finished with five of us within 3 minutes, although Ben Goonan later took 4 minutes out of all of us. Strangely enough, it's my first time in Bendigo this year (even the February event was in Heathcote).

Reappearance of names from the past: last week it was Emma Prime, this week it was Ross Slater.

The Campaspe was as high as I've seen in for a long time on the way up, although not enough to warrant a flood warning (unlike Cooper Creek, which is now forecast to produce major flooding at Windorah - depending on what that flood does as it moves downstream I may have to cut out the Cooper Creek/Innamincka part of the trip and go straight from Tibooburra to Thargomindah). Went through a cold and heavy shower around Kyneton and thought about going over Mount Macedon in pursuit of snow, but the skies had cleared by then. The trip did put me in mind of another regular diversion on the way back from Bendigo which I won't be doing any more...

The hamstring is definitely still sore tonight although hasn't tightened up as much as I expected. The suddenness of its onset and the fact that I was still able to run effectively (unlike the ultralong, where I lost all uphill power) makes me wonder if it's a more standard strain rather than a recurrence of my trouble from earlier in the year. Don't think I'll be doing 2.15 tomorrow, although I'm hoping I'll recover in time to be able to do exploration runs on the trip; that's part of the fun.

C • Diversions 1

A somewhat oddball day - perhaps symbolised by waking to pouring rain, and getting out into by far the most humid conditions ever in Melbourne in July (dewpoint was a July record by 2.6 degrees, although 15.8 is still tame by Darwin standards), although the rain had just about stopped by the time I got to the pool.

My employer has decided, in its wisdom, that anyone going overseas has to have a full medical, and part of the deal was not eating after midnight (I found out when I fronted up at 3pm that they actually meant eight hours, so I could have had breakfast after all). Wasn't quite sure how my body would respond to the rare experience of doing exercise on no food but it seemed to function more or less OK.

And then I got out to see a missed call from my father, and the news that I've been expecting each morning this week. 91 years is definitely a pretty good innings (and her mind was more or less intact to the end, although she'd become very frail in the last couple of years). Pleased that my last memory of her was her joy at seeing Katinka for the first time earlier on this month.

(That is actually the reason why I'm not hitting the road tomorrow - although as it turns out it's for the best since a delay will give a few more days for things to dry out up north. The funeral's on Wednesday and at this stage the plan is to head off on Thursday).

Slow in the dark part of this but otherwise a reasonable run, feeling as if I had plenty left at the end. Quite a wet run which wasn't entirely expected by either me or my colleagues.

There's been a significant heatwave, even by local standards, in the Middle East the last couple of days (it was 50 in Baghdad yesterday). One of my colleagues pointed out that this is one heatwave which may have a negative death toll - it's too hot for fighting.

My departure north is going to be postponed for other reasons, but that's probably for the best, given that there is currently a moderate flood warning for the Cooper Creek at Windorah with a peak expected around Sunday 31 July.

All Nations intervals. Felt pretty reasonable. A faster start than has typically been the case lately but then didn't speed up as much during the session as I sometimes do. Again a bit sleepy when I set out but fine once properly under way.

Warm-up and down. Seemed to strike every traffic hold-up going (this was also true on the bike heading into work).

Got in pretty late from Brisbane last night (didn't get in the door until 11) and wasn't bursting with enthusiasm to get out the door this morning, but the run went pretty well after the first kilometre - not especially quick but felt pretty comfortable.

Passed a Grylls St at one point. Someone had hung a bear (of the artificial variety) on the street sign.

Saw the splits from Sunday online today. Out of the 11 legs, seven different people won splits. I wasn't one of them.

Fairly easy morning session from Lance and Wendy's. Considerably less hilly than a lot of runs from here, but the climb back over the saddle from Paten Road is still enough to keep one honest. Took a while to get going but handled the climbing OK once it started in earnest. Knee that I took some skin off on Saturday a little sore at times, but I don't think it's anything to worry about. Quite humid for this time of year, even for Brisbane.

Heading back to Melbourne tonight. The plan is to hit the road and head back north on the weekend although there are a few variables in this, of which the weather is one.

Local event at Stockyard Creek, on the southeast fringe of Brisbane (those with longish memories may recall its place in political history - a deeply unpopular proposal to build a freeway through this bit of bush contributed to the demise of the Goss government).

The locals I talked to all said this was the nicest area in Brisbane. I wasn't entirely sure whether this was damning with faint praise, Brisbane bush not being noted for its enjoyability, but in fact this was indeed a nice area for a run - generally open forest and decent gully-spur, not especially challenging but good for flowing through. Pretty fast; the big boys would have gone well under 5s here.

Started a minute behind Lance and pulled half of that in by the first control, but didn't make further headway for a few controls - we were going at a fairly similar speed and he got a slightly better line than me at 2. I got through him on a route choice at 6 (lovely leg, running free and mostly downhill), but didn't get away properly until the very end. Drifted a little on 6 and 8 but only 10 seconds or so a time, although that was enough to make the difference - Lachlan Howard (who I think was in the Queensland schools team back in the day) got me by 13 seconds for the win.

C • Lachlan Howard 3

Test-running a course for the Australian Sprint at Griffith Uni on the Gold Coast. Won't give too much away but it's a very good area and a very good course - because I've reviewed the course I knew where the traps were, but still managed to slip once in execution. One of the most challenging sprint courses I've seen in Australia.

Felt pretty good running, although not always confident of my footing on wet surfaces (I was later to do a fairly graceless backside-plant whilst looking at other control sites) - not quite sure what the ideal shoes are for this situation but I'm pretty sure the Inov8's aren't it. Comfortable with the course length and the winning time (I figured that as long as I got under 21 the winners should be able to go sub-15).

C • Inov8's aren't it 5

Pool session, done for the first time in a while in my traditional location for such things - Fitzroy - with the traditional crowd, which meant we got to compare notes on whatever atrocity we'd noticed from a One Nation senator-to-be (I suspect we'll be doing a bit of this over the next three years). Continuing to feel pretty reasonable.

Heading up to Queensland this weekend to fulfill my responsbilities as stand-in Event Adviser for the Australian Sprint (there are worse fates than a controlling trip to the Gold Coast in winter, although the forecast for this weekend isn't exactly beach weather). Looks very interesting on paper so I'm looking forward to testing it out in person.

Another pretty decent run, flowing fairly well from the second half. Started from Fishermans Bend (car being serviced) and headed initially to the Garden City bit of Port Melbourne, then along the coast for a bit. Still a somewhat biting wind so not too many bodies being shown off on the beach today (summer Saturdays are a different story).

Lunchtime around the Tan. Felt pretty reasonable, including on the Anderson Street hill. Seemed faster than it was although I didn't get an especially clean run with the traffic. Definitely an encouraging sign of a return towards decent fitness.

Got test results back this morning - negative for all the low-probability options (including shingles) so looks like the initial diagnosis is correct (is certainly behaving like it). Typically the rashes disappear in 3-6 weeks but mine has already lessened significantly in a bit less than a week so it might be a bit shorter than that range.

Slightly depressing: a Facebook group "Stop The Gladstone Mosque" apparently has over 5,000 members. In case you were wondering, there is no mosque in Gladstone, there are no plans to build a mosque in Gladstone, and according to the last Census there are fewer than 200 Muslims there.

Another attempt at returning to running. Definitely grinding in the first kilometre but significantly improved after that - certainly nothing like Sunday. Was even feeling reasonably good in the last part, although that may have had something to do with doing downhill with a tailwind. Haven't tried anything resembling a serious hill yet - will dip my toe into those waters tomorrow.

Should have chosen their target a bit more closely: some would-be carjackers tried to steal a BMW a few weeks ago. It was possibly unfortunate for them that their intended victim happened to be one of Melbourne's more prominent mafiosi. It was reported that the intending perpetrators departed the scene rapidly, with a few extra holes in their vehicle for good measure. (The media's getting very excited about a few incidents at the moment, but as I've noted previously in these pages, there is nothing remotely new about this crime - I came across a reference to what we'd now refer to as a carjacking in South Melbourne in a newspaper from 1929).

At Fitzroy for the first time in a few weeks. It's more expensive than it was the last time I was here, July 1 having been and gone (the State government has capped rate increases at 2.5% so councils are busily trying to make up shortfalls through non-rate income, although there are council elections in October which keeps things under some sort of control).

It had been a fairly wild night (meteorologically speaking) but the winds had settled somewhat by morning. The swim was reasonably standard. Will have another go at running tomorrow (although not very far or fast).

I've taken on the IOF Event Adviser job for the Australian Sprint to replace Eric. At the time I thought there were worse fates than a winter controlling trip to the Gold Coast. Now that it's approaching it appears I may not have chosen my time well, although there is considerable forecast divergence - depending on which model you believe, the forecast rain for this weekend is anywhere between 1mm and 200mm (the 1mm one has the better historical track record).

Suspected I wouldn't be up to it but there was only one way to find out. Learned pretty quickly that I wasn't up to it - weak as expected, but also rather light-headed and finding it very hard to focus. Wasn't going to do myself any favours slogging it out for a couple of hours in foul weather (although it turned out not to get quite as foul quite as quickly as originally anticipated). Haven't seen any times as yet - will be interested to see what people did, and the routes on some of the key legs.

In anticipation of some really foul weather, I think this is the first time I've ever worn thermals to race (or even to train) in Australia. Less favourable in the gear department were the shoes - by mistake I picked up the retired about-to-fall-apart pair. Not sure whether they would have got through a full race but I didn't find out. The shoes went into the bin as soon as I got home....

Will take things fairly carefully this week until I get a better sense of running normally.

First crack at running. After a little initial uncertainty, the shin (whose swelling, already limited, had gone down since yesterday) felt fine to run on, but my body did feel a bit like it was in post-cold recovery, struggling a bit on the (small) climbs. Not sure how this is going to set me up for 100 minutes on steep Daylesford hills in foul weather tomorrow, but there's only one way to find out....

No-one seems to be in a hurry to pull their election signs or billboards down - perhaps they're anticipating having to re-use them in the not-overly-distant future. For the same reason, I didn't despatch all my leftover election stuff to the recycling on Sunday like I usually do (although in practice, I think we're now at the stage where the only real scenario for an election within 12 months is a Liberal split - something which is not inconceivable - or a Turnbull overthrow (possibly followed by a by-election loss) and the crossbench deciding their commitments don't apply to a new leader).

The Alphington wetlands path, where I went today, is in an area where out-of-date signs have previously been noted (there's one on the bridge advising that there will be a cycling event on Yarra Boulevard in October 2006), and I saw one today which said that environmental works in the area are due to start later in 2003 and will continue in 2004. Later climbing back into the suburbs, it was into a JWOC theme because the streets in that area are named after places in or near Switzerland (although a non-trivial proportion are spelt incorrectly).

Woke up this morning to good news and bad news. The good news was that I felt much better (in fact pretty much back to normal). The bad news was that overnight I'd developed a severe rash on my left shin (sufficiently severe that I wasn't entirely convinced at first it wasn't internal bleeding). I had no idea what this was or how serious it might be on the spectrum from nothing-to-worry-about through to go-directly-to-emergency-do-not-pass-Go.

The second bit of good news (and it's my birthday, so the good news should outnumber the bad news, shouldn't it?) came from the doctor whom I hot-footed it to as quickly as humanly possible, as he thinks it's much closer to the former part of the spectrum than the latter - he thinks it's a skin condition which will resolve itself over a few weeks with no long-term implications (and the symptoms of the last couple of days are not inconsistent with the early stages of its development), although there's a blood test to confirm. (I was rather amused to see on the documentation that said condition typically develops in people between 20 and 45 years of age - made it by a few hours...).

The third bit of good news was that when I asked him about exercise, expecting to be told not to do anything until the test results come back next week, he said it should be fine within reason. I'm still a little wary about running because there's a bit of swelling there and I'm not sure how that will respond (will try it out tomorrow, though), but the pool was fine.

C • Happy birthday and I hope i... 5

Was on the couch within a few minutes of getting home and asleep a few minutes later. Ended up feeling somewhat less awful on waking up this morning, but still some way short of feeling in the mood of getting any sort of exercise - conserved my energy for getting through a reasonably full work day.

We're getting an indication of some of the talent that may be finding its way into the new Senate; suffice it to say that Pauline Hanson looks to be the least out-there of the potential new One Nation senators. Today's instalment is their WA possible senator-to-be. He may not be a senator-to-be for much longer, because he's being sentenced next month after being convicted in absentia in NSW for stealing the car keys of a tow truck driver who'd come to repossess his car (since the maximum sentence for theft is more than 12 months, I think that disqualifies him regardless of the actual sentence), and for good measure also faces court on his home turf next month for dumping hay bales on the vehicle of receivers who'd come to foreclose on a neighbour's farm. (Don't think it's too hard to see where he stands on a royal commission into the banks). Should he be disqualified, he stands to be replaced by the number 2 or 3 on the ticket, respectively his brother-in-law and his wife.

C • Possible senators 6

All Nations intervals. Not a sparkling run, but not too bad considering my stiffness on the warm-up. Not as muddy as I was expecting given the amount of overnight rain.

Warm-up and down. Eventually settled down OK.

And then things went pear-shaped - by 10am I was feeling as I'd been hit by a truck. Obviously winter illnesses haven't passed me by this year - managed to hold out at work until about 4, then headed home and flaked out on the couch straight away. Seems similar to February last year; if that's the case it's going to be a tough week (and Sailors Falls on the weekend might be falling off the agenda).

C • Awww 1

A somewhat uninspired morning run before the rain started in earnest. Got out to the hills on the Kew side; handled the hills vaguely respectably (at least the back was OK).

Got the train into work this morning and was standing on the platform next to a family heading into town during school holidays, with a boy and girl of about 11 and 8 respectively. My first hint that they might be somewhat atypical of their demographic came by virtue of the fact that his book was 'The Legal System in Australia' and hers was one I didn't see the title of but was a couple of centimetres thick with reasonably small print, then he was joined at the next stop by a friend of around the same age and they started talking - the finer points of the election results. I was only too happy to join this conversation and spent the rest of the trip discussing the finer points of the geography of Batman booth results and expected trends in late counting in Flynn and Capricornia with a couple of specimens of my 1983 self. You don't really expect to encounter election nerds on the train, and you certainly don't expect to encounter a pair of 11-year-old election nerds (although I wasn't sure how useful it would be to bring up analogues from past campaigns with people whose only potential involvement in the Kevin '07 campaign might have been as potentially kissable babies).

A somewhat so-so run after not being inspired by seeing Iceland's elimination. A bit of a struggle early on despite not having done much yesterday, and still tight enough to reinforce that doing not much yesterday was a good option, but got into some sort of reasonable shape later on.

Unsurprisingly, I spent as much time at the office today explaining political scenarios as I did actually working. (The work part was mostly going through various bits of data from Queensland, which occasionally drew my mind to which still-in-doubt seats some of the sites were in - just in case you were in any doubt as to my nerdiness status). Potential Royal Commissions were also the subject of a certain amount of conversation.

I thought yesterday might catch up with me and it did - had thoughts of a long run today but felt very tight this morning which was evident on attempting to run, so switched to the pool instead. (Not sure a long run would have suited me much today anyway - apart from anything else, the food at last night's post-election gathering was crappy even by the usual standards of such occasions). Fairly mundane session at Northcote, with the unusual element of a headwind for half of it. Also found out the reason for the disappearance of the outdoor clock - apparently the work health and safety rigmarole that had to be gone through to climb up to it to change it for daylight saving was too difficult.

I've spent quite a bit of today looking at numbers (as you might expect). One interesting set that I found was that the Hipster Wall is real - Labor won every booth in Batman north of Bell Street, and the Greens won all but one south of Bell Street. The one exception was one of the two booths nearest to me, which I might have tried to attribute to the brilliance of my local neighbourhood campaigning had I done any. (My Batman campaigning efforts took place elsewhere). Wills showed a broadly similar contrast, except that Labor narrowly won a couple of Coburg booths just south of Bell Street and narrowly lost one just to the north.

C • Hipster Proof Fence 3

My traditional election-day democracy run, which involves taking in as many local polling places as I can find (on my old turf it also involved saying hello to a lot of the Labor people at said booths, but I don't know as many people here yet). I wasn't expecting a lot of the run, as I was doing it off a 6-10am shift at Heidelberg (initially setting up then handing out) and my back had been feeling quite sore in the last half-hour of that, but it ended up not being too bad.

Didn't get as good a result as I'd hoped for at Heidelberg (a small swing against Labor, although I think the booth's effective catchment may have been extended further into Eaglemont by closures further south). Reasonably pleased with the national result (or lack thereof) though; I still think the Coalition will probably end up in a better position to form a government than Labor, but a Labor minority government is still within the realms of possibility.

One result I didn't enjoy was the One Nation Senate result, and not just because of Pauline; their number two Senate candidate in Queensland, Malcolm Roberts (presumably no relation to the NSW orienteer), is a climate conspiracist of the highest order - he managed the considerable feat of getting kicked out of the Galileo Movement for saying something so extreme that it was an embarrassment to them (namely, implying that climate science was a Jewish conspiracy or words to that effect) - and is likely to cause me (and my colleagues) a fair bit of grief personally if he is elected (unlikely but possible). Amongst his efforts was a website showing the 'degrees of separation' of various people to Maurice Strong, a recently-deceased Canadian environmentalist much unbeloved of conspiracy theorists. I feature on this, and so does Dad (I've forgotten what he did to deserve that and am disinclined to look it up); Cassie must be very disappointed not to have made the cut.

The big day is coming up tomorrow. My tip is for a narrow Coalition win - 77 Coalition, 66 Labor and 7 others - but I still consider a hung Parliament to be well within the range of possibilities (I don't think an outright Labor win is). If that is the result, I'd expect a conservative coup against Turnbull, probably within 12 months...

A couple of wildcards to watch for:

- polls fairly consistently show a reasonable swing to Labor in Queensland but also show little or no swing in Brisbane marginals. The only way to square this particular circle is if there's a big swing on in regional Queensland, which if it happens could claim seats not really on the current radar (says he, dreaming of George Christensen going down in Dawson....).

- most polls' two-party preferred numbers are based on how preferences from Greens and 'others' (with 'others' treated as a single bloc) split at the last election. This works fairly well for the Greens. I'm not sure how well it will work for 'others' - partly because the mix of others is different to 2013 (no Palmer United in House seats), and partly because an 'others' vote is an anti-incumbent vote by definition (unless you're in Indi, Denison or Kennedy) and hence might be thought more likely to preference against the incumbent government, whoever it is.

I don't think the Greens will quite get across the line in Batman, Higgins or Melbourne Ports, although it wouldn't totally shock me if it were otherwise.

Best candidate slogan of the campaign: Kingsley Liu (Greens, Lindsay) with 'Asian Greens Are Good For You'. He also gets an honourable mention with 'Nerd Appeal Not Sex Appeal'. Other honourable mentions go to the blind candidate Tony Clark (Labor, Deakin) with 'No Sight, Great Vision', and to 'Vote 1 Sex Party: The Only Party That's Not Faking It'.

With the morning devoted to spreading the word at Westgarth station - the number of people with British accents who said they couldn't vote suggested that it might have been worth someone's while to campaign here for the EU referendum - I headed to the pool in the evening instead, on the way home from picking up tomorrow's supplies. Not the most inspired of sessions and felt as if I'd had enough (in a mental rather than physical sense) in the last 10-15 minutes.