Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Struggling this week - perhaps dehydration in the humidity, although today was a bit less humid? - and definitely in maintenance mode. At least back was in better shape today.

Today's spotting of out-of-place Australian clothes involved an Essendon beanie and a Maribyrnong Primary School T-shirt. A lot of clothes placed in Australian (and other Western) charity bins end up being sold in developing countries, something which is worth remembering the next time you hear the Peter Duttons of this world sounding off about refugees wearing designer labels.

The workshop finished up today and I'm heading home tonight (very briefly).

Realised after a few minutes this morning that it was going to be no good - had felt a bit on the edge yesterday so this didn't surprise me greatly. Still struggling to feel awake at 7am or thereabouts.

Today was the day of the workshop which didn't involve me quite so much, so I got things done like writing up (not especially flattering) reviews of a couple of papers. Slipped out of the dinner before the kava ceremony - apart from anything else, I don't know if kava contains anything on the WADA prohibited list (although I suspect not, otherwise Fijian rugby teams would fail drug tests en masse). Was sitting at dinner with a very large Fijian (even by local standards) and I remarked that he'd be hard to stop on the rugby field; he said he used to play "a bit". It wasn't until somewhat later in the conversation that I found out that "a bit" translated as being good enough to play for the ACT Under-21s (alongside Ricky Stuart) while he was studying at ANU in the 1980s.

And one of the workshop participants from Nauru goes by the name of Thorndon Captain Scotty. I would speculate that at least one of his parents had an interest in Star Trek. (Nauruans seem to find slightly unusual things to name their children after; I gather that numerous Nauruans of a certain age are named after Gary Ablett).

C • Names 1

Readjusting to the tropics, which was a bit of a shock to the system, and in the end just managed to hold it together for long enough for something which could respectably be called a "session". Enjoyed the exploration, though, taking in a small town/outer suburb of Nadi (largely dominated by people commuting to Nadi if the heavily laden buses - most of them several decades past their prime - and traffic jams on the road into Nadi were anything to go by), and a bit of the countryside beyond. Had thoughts of doing a loop but the relevant road on Google Maps turned out to be a farm track.

Lots of hellos/bulas from the locals, both adults and kids (not something you get much of at home these days). Lots of dogs too, but none were aggressive or even particularly inquisitive. Saw one local wearing the colours of the Greater Western Sydney Giants, which is one more than I've seen on the streets of Greater Western Sydney (not that I've spent an awful lot of time on the streets of Greater Western Sydney).

Spotted a real estate sign bearing the name of Swastika Investments. I'm guessing they aren't chasing the German market.

A reminder of the reason I'm here came in today's Fiji Times, which gave almost as much space to the effects of sea level rise (in two stories about a coastal village being flooded by high seas on the weekend, and the planned relocation of a coastal school) as it did to rugby.

Don't think I've previously done a flight like that - 5-ish hours, eastward, overnight. Not a combination that's conducive to sleep, and I only got a couple of hours of it.

With that I didn't think it would be the best of days for a run (and in any case it was pouring rain in the morning). Instead, I took to the hotel pool after workshop proceedings were over for the day. Hotel pools can be a bit dizzying but this one didn't work out too badly, although 80 laps gets a little hard to keep track of. It was getting dark and at times I had trouble holding a straight line.

Most of the workshop participants are from the Pacific but there are some UN people who are from all over the place. One I was talking with at afternoon coffee break (coffees were certainly welcome today) was from Pakistan. You'll probably be surprised to learn that it took as long as two or three minutes for the subject of conversation to turn to cricket, especially after their big win at Lord's.

The surrounding area looks at first glance as if it will be OK for running (apart from humidity); not too urban but not too rural (the problem with 'too rural' is that turning up in villages unannounced is frowned on in these parts, although not as much as it was 150 years ago when an unfortunate missionary ended up in the cooking pot). I'll find out more tomorrow.

A bit of a theme of conversation from time to time this weekend was things which happened 30 years ago which wouldn't happen now, so it was perhaps fitting that we weren't that far away from Pheasants Brush, the day 1 Easter 1988 area which leaves one wondering (a) how we ever got permission to use it and (b) why anyone thought it was a good place for orienteering in the first place. (Perhaps my views were coloured by the fact that I had an early start, in an area which was largely heathland which tracked massively).

Like yesterday this was largely a "tourist run" - doing lots of volume wasn't really part of the plan for this weekend. I didn't go to Pheasants Brush, but I did head up to the top of the escarpment to the Barren Grounds, broadly similar terrain on the next plateau to the south. Solid climb up there (first 1.5km up the road which was a little hairy, next 800m up the park access road), and further in than I thought, which meant I gave away ideas of doing a loop track and just went out to a bit past the Illawarra lookout and back. On a clear day the views from this lookout would extend a long way, but this was not a clear day, despite the sunshine (lots of burnoff smoke). Still a decent view in the foreground even if you could only just see the shoreline in the distance. Most happy about the fact that I was able to handle a 2km/200m climb directly from the start without my back, my Achilles or any other body parts completely freaking out, even if it was very hard work aerobically (and also happy that at the time of writing my quads seem to have survived the descent).

It was definitely a good weekend; 30 years is a long time but we quickly slipped back into a mode as if it had been only 30 days. Now for the second leg.

Up for the weekend at a place near the top of Jamberoo Mountain, with a group from school - some of whom I've been in regular touch with, others I haven't seen for 30 years. This run was mainly devoted to exploring the surrounds - I'll do something a bit more ambitious tomorrow. The first half was a footpad through rainforest, almost terrain running in places, then an out-and-back on a side road. Some nice forest and some excellent views.

The rest of the day involved lots of hanging out, various card games, some go-karting, and trying to recognise people in old photos (one of the Girls Grammar people I might have suspected of being Tara Melhuish had it not been that the photo in question was taken at least a decade before Tara was born).

The earliest I've started a run in many years - had an 8am flight to Sydney (and not a lot of obvious opportunities to do anything once there), so the best available option was to head out before the flight; in the name of getting 20 minutes' extra sleep, I decided to do it on the way to the airport rather than from home and got under way about 5.45. (Being able to get a shower at the airport helps).

This took me to Airport West, not a place I've done much running (occasionally ventured in here from my grandmother's old place nearby in Essendon). It's flat and not terribly inspiring, but the former is good for a recovery run and it doesn't matter much how inspiring the scenery is when it's dark. Started from the vast car park of the Westfield (bigger than it needs, which may be why a circus has set up in part of it) and essentially did a lap of the suburb. Quads tight early, but once I'd shaken that out, not a bad run (although fairly slow).

The locals may not have appreciated my presence, as I managed to set off not one, but two, burglar alarms at businesses I was running past (can't remember ever doing that before). The second of these was outside the Airport West Sexyland, something which has been generating a certain amount of mirth on social media.

As noted a couple of days back, I'm doing three trips back to back. With a very wide range of gear requirements and climates (there's not that much overlap between a work meeting in Fiji and an orienteering trip to NZ) my bag is even more packed than usual. Fortunately, I managed to find a spot at the terminal end of the long term car park so I should be able to do a gear swap in between the Fiji leg and the NZ one.

Longest run for a while. A slow start in the dark - took me until 6k to start getting under 6 min/km with any consistency - but felt like it was going to be OK in the injury department, and so it proved. A steady grind of a run, and certainly knew that I'd been going for a reasonably long run in the last 20 minutes, but happy to get this one on the board.

Quads were quite stiff through the day. It's a bit of an indicator that I haven't done a lot of long stuff lately that a not-particularly-hilly 100 minutes had more impact there then a lot of runs which were a lot hillier and a lot longer did.

A rare-this-year Wednesday evening outing at Camberwell to mark World Orienteering Day. For the first couple of kilometres, I thought it was a case of here we go again - struggling quite significantly on uphills - but something clicked about 2km in, and from there it was a pretty nice run. Seem to have got a pretty good route, too, coming in about 500m shorter than most of the others I talked to.

Unlike last year, I confined myself to doing a single event, in my home state.

C • You got me by 20 seconds. R... 1

C • You got me by 20 seconds. R... 1

Still not in a great state (one wonders what it's going to be like trying to come up in the evening for World Orienteering Day tomorrow), so took to the water instead - once I'd negotiated the traffic jams to get there. (These seem to be unusually bad at the moment; I guess people are avoiding Hoddle Street because of the roadworks there?). A reasonably mundane session in the pool, which seemed a bit cooler than usual but the numbers don't suggest it was.

I do get around a bit, but the next couple of weeks are going to be particularly busy in that respect. I was already going to NSW this weekend, and to NZ the following weekend - and now in between it turns up something has come up with work at short notice and I'll (probably) be spending most of next week in Fiji. (Before anyone starts talking too much about junkets, I don't expect to see too much other than an airport hotel and whatever there is within running distance of there). The timings are sufficiently tight that I don't expect to have time to go home between any of the three legs. Would have been a lot easier if I could have flown direct from Fiji to NZ, but that's far too complicated.

Monday morning pilates session. Woke up with a pretty stiff back - at least this was tangible evidence that I wasn't imagining things yesterday (I sometimes wonder about this) - but this loosened up after the first couple of exercises. Seemed to be working a bit harder than last week, possibly an indication that I'm doing the exercises closer to properly than I was last time.

Lots of fun and games in Senate Estimates today (we were up, but I haven't heard about any crazy climate conspiracy theories being aired today, unlike some previous occasions). There was even something which came up about the Great Barrier Reef which had nothing to do with climate - Border Force pranged one of their patrol boats into it. (Maybe one of the few positives of sea level rise is that it will make it less likely that Border Force will prang patrol boats into the Reef).

C • Border force boat 1

Dropped back to act my age today (the days of long WOC trials are behind me now, even if this one was soft compared to 2005 at the same venue - for a start, the climb had three digits instead of four), but it still didn't work out - first time this season my back has been bad in a forest race. Suppose it had to happen eventually, but persisted for five controls (quite long ones) before deciding it wasn't going to warm up. I'd already made a bit of a mess of the course, too - Tipperary has quite enough necessary hills without going up any unnecessary ones, but that's what I did thanks to a parallel error coming out of the creek on the way to 2. Probably dropped 3-4 minutes on that one.

Briohny gets quote of the day before the start: "Mummy's going to be out for a long time". (As it turned out, like me, she wasn't out for quite as long as she'd planned on).

And result of the day definitely goes to the dead heat (for fourth in W20) between the George twins.

C • Mummy 1

NOL middle at Yorkshire Hill. Thought I might have turned the corner a bit last week but this one was a bit disappointing; felt flat most of the way with just a few fragments of something better. Also a bit scrappier than I would have hoped, losing 45 seconds or so on each of 9 and 14 on what was otherwise not an especially difficult course.

Ended up with an unwanted milestone - a last place in an NOL race (perhaps indicating that it might be time for me to get out of the shorter NOL races, too). I thought I might have avoided this late when Simon Rouse came in with a slower time but he'd punched the wrong second-last control.

First time for a while we've seen the drug-testers.

C • Visitors? 6

At Fitzroy. Drizzly before I started but nice once in (even a bit of blue sky emerging towards the end). Felt fairly routine once I actually got there - the traffic was uglier than usual, although considerably less ugly than it would be in the CBD this evening (glad I was on a bike for that bit and not in a car).

The authorities are currently trying to trace the ownership of a couple of slivers of land next to Melbourne Airport which are required for an airport expansion; the land concerned was last recorded as being owned by John Pascoe Fawkner, one of Melbourne's founders, who died in 1869 without descendants. (Someone suggested the Department of Infrastructure should try asking the Kerrigans of Bonnie Doon). Those combing their family tree for a possible connection might have their ardour dampened by the possibility of being up for 149 years' worth of unpaid rates.

A caller to the ABC while I was on the way to the pool suggested appointing Prince Harry as Governor-General. This would probably be a positive to the ACT nightclub industry, but I'm struggling to see any other good reason to do it.

Had hopes for something big today (was aiming for 100-105) but it wasn't to be - had the sort of low-level back tightness in the first couple of kilometres that normally disappears eventually, but today it never did - not bad enough to stop me but bad enough to make it a struggle all the way (as indicated by the pace, which I don't think I can completely blame on 30 minutes of darkness).

Slept extremely well last night - so well that I didn't wake up until at least 8. This is a problem when your run starts at 7.20. Quite often for this session, I shake myself out of drowsiness/sluggishness with the first couple of reps, but it didn't really happen today. Still, I got through my first faster session for a while without doing myself any damage, so that's one plus.

There was a very attractive rainbow for the first couple of reps. Pity the run wasn't equally attractive.

Not one of my better starts, and not one of my better finishes either. Surprisingly little traffic around (all of it turned out to be in a jam I rode past on the way to work).

Six days turned out to be as many as I could put together; set out today along the Merri Creek but the back wasn't cooperating today. The flow of water along the creek seemed unusually strong (and muddy) considering it hasn't rained significantly for three days; wondering if water is being discharged from a site or sites upstream?

Started this one close to Northcote High, which was in the news last week over the latest Herald-Sun mega-splash on youth crime (unusually for a big Herald-Sun splash on youth crime, it featured an incident in which the alleged offenders were not black.).

One of the 1954 news stories I didn't mention yesterday was that of a brawl involving female MPs in the Japanese parliament. There is definitely no possibility that there would have been any such brawls in 1954 involving female members of the Australian House of Representatives (which was all-male as recently as 1980).

Having a fixed schedule is a bit of a motivator; not sure I would have responded to the 6am alarm this morning had I not needed to be somewhere at 7. Was reasonably awake by 7, and a decent session once I was there. Progress is incremental but noticeable.

Those who've been following the Albuquerque thread may be wondering why the US Navy has a presence in Albuquerque (which is an awfully long way from the ocean). I'm assuming it has something to do with pilot training, the standards of which have hopefully improved since 1954. (I spent a week in Albuquerque for a conference in 2001, a week I remember chiefly for almost getting frostbite after going for a long run, wearing not as much as I should have, on a morning which I thought was -8 but was actually -16).

Another attempt at a lunchtime run, and this time a successful one (for a certain value of "successful"). A bit tight in the first 10 minutes but managed to keep myself moving, not always entirely convincingly, but well enough. Nice lunchtime to be out, and a nice route once clear of the central city, down the linear park through Port Melbourne next to the light rail line.

Apart from the abovementioned inattentive pilots, discoveries in my trawling of historical newspapers today included the founding of Eurovision (the TV networks' consortium, not the song contest they organised, which came two years later), and the more-optimistic-than-warranted headline "UN Hopes For End To Refugee Camps By 1960". The approach to crime in Western Australia was also a bit different in those days; a couple of miscreants who appeared before a Perth magistrate on a charge of disorderly conduct were bailed on the condition they left the state within seven days and didn't come back.

Event: ACT Middle Distance Championships: ACT League #6 & NSW League #6, Orroral C
 

ACT Middle Championships at Orroral Crossing. When I first started orienteering this had the reputation as the ACT's most fearsome area (it had been used for the 1977 Australian Championships) - at one event a friend of Dad's bravely/foolhardily decided to take on a hard course here in his first attempt at the sport (I don't think there was a second attempt). It gradually opened up in the 1990s before being burnt again in 2003 (the original thickness having been in response to a 1952 fire). This was the first time I'd been back since then.

I'm not quite sure why the first control was on a track junction, but after that it got more interesting - some decent running areas and some patches of green, a stretch in the open on the other side of the river, then some pretty tough green coming back. This was generally a consistent run, hitting the more dangerous controls OK, and playing it safe on 14 and 16 which both had major potential for trouble. As with yesterday, not quite as far off the pace as I've been for most of this year. Found myself in the midst of a junior train at the end, which may have helped me to what will surely be a season highlight - beating Martin Dent on the finish split. (He managed to lose the small track which ran for some of the way in). Matt Doyle did 38, Matt Crane 40.

Course 1 - Splits

Event: ACT Sprint Distance Championships: ACT League #5 & NSW League #5, Canberra
 

One I've been looking forward to for a while - coming back to the old home turf (although in reality, probably close to 50% of the buildings are new since 1988, and large parts of the course were in the primary school section which I rarely went to) - and home ground it was because the finish was in our house's lunchtime gathering area, as well as the finish area of the then school cross-country course, which meant many runs starting and finishing there. (The infamously hot 1986 race has been mentioned here before, and I've given it a few runs in the media of late in the context of many of the April records set that day being threatened or broken in recent weeks; this year's edition, which took place yesterday, was at the opposite extreme).

Probably the only real home ground advantage was knowing which sets of stairs were least likely to be awkward (in slightly slippery conditions), and I had to force myself to take straight lines across the grass in the main quadrangle, something which might have landed one a detention 30 years ago. (I did notice, wandering back in afterwards to take photos, that not too many of the current Grammar participants were game to take straight lines there).

The run was generally decent. Only a couple of minor time losses, a few seconds going around the non-optimal side of the hedge into 20 (I could perhaps be forgiven for being distracted here, having recognised the control site as the location of my brother's memorial stone), then going wider than I needed to on 22. Finished up 5.5 minutes down on Craney, which is probably a slightly above-par result for me by the standards of the last couple of years. (Martin was a bit faster but had a wrong control). Well down the list as expected, but did manage to edge out Seb - also returning to old haunts - in his orienteering comeback; the course was probably about 2000km too short for him.

Took a slightly wide route choice this morning on the way up (having stayed in Holbrook last night) in the hope of finding some snow, and did find some above about 950m between Tumbarumba and Batlow, although it was melting rapidly.

After my first long(ish) run for a while came the first attempt to run the day after, starting from work (and managing to avoid most of the rain). Never felt particularly sparkling but did manage to get myself going reasonably well after the first few minutes.

On the road this weekend, to Canberra for the ACT Sprint and Middle Championships. Looking forward in particular to actually competing on the Grammar map for the first time.

A pleasant surprise, with one of my better runs for a while. Felt from the start as if it was going to be reasonable (although took a while for the pace to pick up at all). After a couple of false starts in earlier weeks, got out as far as the new Rosanna station (which is impressively large from the lower side) before heading back; handling the climb back past my old place smoothly was a sign that this was a good one. Finished with plenty in reserve, and no sign of any problems (including with the Achilles which has struggled with longer runs in recent months).

Adding to the positive mood, I thought I'd left it too late for the train I wanted, but it turned out it was running a bit late and I just made it. (I then discovered that the train I was on wasn't the 8.20 running 2 minutes late, it was the 8.12 running 10 minutes late).

Ground sponsorship comes to local footy: De Winton Park in Rosanna is now Get Wines Direct Oval (or at least that's what it says on the sign).

And my attention was drawn today to the current ASADA sanctions list. One Johnny Whenuaroa, a bodybuilder, seems to have decided that if he was going to go down, he was going to do it properly; he got busted for no fewer than 18 different substances. Seems slightly incongruous that he still only gets four years.

That's more like it. An early start (with a similarly early start at work), but had more energy than I've recently had for early starts and got through the run reasonably well. No trace of trouble with the calf - can only assume a nerve was doing something strange previously - and no other issues of consequence either. A nice morning to be out, on the last day before atmospheric armageddon unloads, although it now looks like the most intense of the rain action is going to be in Gippsland. (The system is also sufficiently cold that I'm tempted to divert via Tumbarumba and Batlow for a snow chase on the way up to Canberra this weekend, although Saturday morning might be a bit late).

My cough is taking longer to go away than I would have liked, but at least it doesn't seem to be interfering with exercise. (I suspect that I might have taken whatever it was to China with me; my weakness on NSW Championships weekend seemed indicative of illness on its way).

At the moment I seem to be acquiring an impressively diverse ways to put myself out of action. Today's version (actually last night's) was an abrupt pain in my calf for no obvious reason while riding home last night, which was still intermittently painful this morning (although there didn't seem to be any loss of function). Thought it best to be careful with it. Whatever it was, the pain was gone by lunchtime so hopefully it was only very temporary.

Most obscure Budget measure so far: celebrities will no longer be able to license their faces to a company or trust to avoid tax. This is expected to raise an "unquantifiable" amount of revenue (probably not very much).

C • The phase in life 5

This will now become part of the standard Monday routine (which means I'll most likely attempt to do at most one of a swim and a run; today I managed neither, with a short-lived attempt to run at lunchtime as close as I got). Starting to get a feel for it and probably not as draining on the muscles as the same set of exercises last Tuesday were (which I guess is the idea).

At about this time last year I noted the decrepitude of a bus in the business of taking people to a music festival in Bendigo (or failing thereof). It emerged today that the company in question had been the subject of an inspection by Transport Safety Victoria in March which resulted in all 11 of their buses being issued with defect notices; they had another visit from TSV recently after a tip-off that they were continuing to operate the same buses but with switched number plates. Someone should really go to jail for such a flagrant piece of law-breaking, but we don't believe in putting people in jail in Australia for breaching laws relating to business, so instead their company's accreditation has been suspended for a few weeks.

C • it took us a while on Satur... 1

Today was an unwanted landmark of the ageing process; I entered something other than course 1 (or its equivalent) at a non-championship state-level event without a specific injury-related reason to do so (as readers will know, I haven't been well this week but had already decided before then anyway). I think this is the first time in 32 years that this has happened.

I didn't feel good before starting and on the first leg and was wondering if even course 2 was going to be beyond my capabilities. Somewhat to my surprise, having expected that I might have to walk significant hills (in as much as they exist here), I managed to run up the steepest hill on the course - the climb out of 3 - and settled down from there. My gully-spur navigation, though, was a little wobbly, and became more than wobbly on 7, where I saw the gully where the control was, thought it was much too big (1:15000 map?) to be mine and concluded I was too far up, and ended up at 8. Probably dropped 2.5-3 minutes there. Decent second half but the damage was done.

The last time I was here, three years ago, I was in a terrific first-leg relay scrap with Aston. Today he beat me by 20 minutes. I suspect about half of this is him getting better and about half is me getting worse. (He became the latest addition to the list of people who've gone sub-5s at Eppalock; once upon a time I was one of those).

Took a turn for the worse overnight and spent the first hour or two after getting up coughing and spluttering (and the Achilles wasn't great either), so thought I'd better do something easier. This worked, more or less (and things improved a bit through the day).

As expected, I wasn't the only one there - it's a lot harder to get a parking spot at 9.30 on a Saturday morning than it is, say, at 7 on a Monday (although the little kids are almost all in the indoor pool so it wasn't too crowded once in the water).

Had the increasingly rare modern experience this afternoon of watching my team play at the MCG at 2.10pm on a Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, they only played for three quarters and the match goes for four.

Back in action, which I was pleased about. Achilles soreness early on, and had a stop about 10 minutes in to clear various bits of gunk out (common for a first post-cold run), but handled things OK after that. Had the novelty of some light rain to contend with. A good start with hopefully better things ahead.

I spent some of today going through 2016 Census data (for the purposes of updating my list of populations of places associated with my observing sites). Kalumburu has lost one person between 2006 and 2016 - hopefully they didn't have as much trouble getting out of the place as I did - whilst Port Hedland's 10-person lead over Broome in 2006 has now reversed with Broome a bit over 100 in front in 2016 (in 2011, near the mining boom peak, Port Hedland was over 1000 ahead). Also quirky was that Eucla appears to have about five motor vehicles for every resident, although the Census may not have asked how many of the vehicles concerned were actually capable of being driven.

C • Digging in the Census 3

Felt somewhat better for a decent night's sleep, and much better over the course of the day - sufficiently so that I was beginning to regret not having gone out in the morning. Looking forward to a resumption tomorrow. (I'm not the only person in this part of town who's looking forward to something resuming tomorrow - the rail line is reopening).

As often when exploring travel plans, I'm seeing plenty of website ads for places I've already searched for, although one advertiser must be somewhat confused as to which language I was doing the searching in because its ad proclaimed 'Precio Minimo Garantizado'. (I did once see an ad - on the Bureau website when viewed from work, no less - which said that there were rooms on offer in Brisbane from only 511 Swedish kroner - this one was a particular mystery because at the time I hadn't booked or searched for accommodation in Sweden for years, Cassie and Jenny having made the arrnagements between them for my previous visit).

My credit card and bank accounts have been working hard this evening - ranging from a recently-installed house pantry, to a cottage near Woodhill, to a ferry in Alaska. Presumably my bank is already well aware of my travelling habits because they haven't yet queried any of this. (Perhaps they're too well-aware, because when my card got skimmed a few years ago they failed to notice that there was anything suspicious about the fact that it had been used for ATM withdrawals in Miami and Rio two hours apart).

The question of whether my cough was pollution or a cold was answered fairly comprehensively overnight. Had entertained some thoughts of taking to the pool at the end of the working day, but as it turned out a (slow) bike commute was at the outer limits of my capabilities today.

That wasn't quite how it was supposed to happen. Somewhat to my surprise, I had trouble getting to sleep (partly I think through the time zone change, partly because I'd been working on something mentally stimulating too close to bedtime), then not long after I finally got to sleep I started cramping, badly. My assumption is that whatever it was I ate after Sunday (which was a dehydrating race because of the very high humidity) didn't have enough salt to replenish what I'd lost, and this was the first time I'd been lying down since then.

Decided I wasn't going to do any exercise until I'd done some salt replenishment through the day and had tentative plans of an evening swim, but that didn't work out either. At least I got a big report off to internal review just before I left. Did feel a bit better later in the day, although I have a bit of a cough - not sure if this is a cold or a remnant from Chinese pollution, although Guangdong is the least polluted part of eastern China (thanks to the combination of a nearby ocean, and regular winds and rain - unlike the Beijing area or the Sichuan basin, where dry stagnant conditions can persist for weeks in winter).

I'm going to count this - it was hard work (on the muscles if not aerobically).