Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Felt somewhat better this morning and thought I'd at least try to go out, although I knew it was unlikely I'd do the full 10k M45 course (a lot of the masters courses were on the long side - 7k for M65, for example). However, given my body hasn't been retaining a lot of nutrients (or fluid) for the last three days, it wasn't surprising that I felt weak and light-headed as soon as I started to run (or attempt thereof). In this condition I thought the best thing I could probably do was do a bit of technical training on the controls in the detail around the finish, so at least I achieved something. Part of that something was making a bit of a mess of the last control, climbing up the wrong spur out of an erosion gully (at least this was a less visible misadventure than some of yesterday's last-control misadventures).

Some interesting results today, including first-time NOL wins for Patrick Miller and Mikayla Cooper - don't think too many people would have picked the junior women's top three of Cooper, Melhuish (T) and Lehtonen - and a personal-best second for Andrew Barnett. Unfortunately the two Finnish W16s who impressed in older company this weekend (Venla-Linnea Karjalainen's middle leg was important to the result of the Victorian W21 relay team) are both on their way home within the next few months, although talk is that we may not have seen the last here of Iida, at least.

The weekend might have been a write-off for me from an orienteering perspective, but even without participating, there are worse parts of the world to spend a weekend in (and the company was good, too).

C • Ring ins 14

NOL/SL2 day 2 Hard 3 - Splits

Event: National Orienteering Leagues 1&2 / NSW State Leagues 1&2
 

Any thoughts that I was on the improve were dispelled fairly dramatically around 3.30 this morning (and on multiple other occasions in the following hours). Perhaps more concerning in a running context was that I also had quite severe lower leg cramps during the night - bad enough that there was some residual soreness all day - which I took to mean that something was fairly significantly out of balance.

I wouldn't have even thought about starting in an individual race; in a relay there is the element of letting the rest of your team down, but a suitable replacement was on hand in Warren (in fact he did better than I probably would have done, even if well).

At least dehydration wasn't an issue today as the endless summer of 2018-19 came to an abrupt end (at least for now). At Orange, which is probably a good match for Hill End, it didn't get above 10 after 10am and it ended up being the coldest March day since 1987. It was even more chilling waiting outside for dinner (at least until Bridget found an appropriate use for a copy of the Daily Telegraph, namely using it in the fireplace).

Staying in the centre of town at the Royal Hotel has its advantages; it certainly has old-time character, even if the only thing which has obviously advanced since the 19th century (other than the prices) is the existence of electricity.

Landed back in Sydney this morning (narrowly missing out on being diverted because of a control tower fire alarm for the second time this year), after sleeping fitfully at best on the flight. Worked out of the Sydney office during the day; my original plan for today had been a lunchtime swim but that obviously wasn't an option in my present condition. Did start to feel better during the afternoon (i.e. I actually felt like eating this evening), so hopefully won't be a complete wreck tomorrow after a (hopefully) decent night's sleep, and at least with tomorrow's forecast dehydration isn't going to be a major issue.

It's surprisingly difficult to find non-spicy food (other than burgers) in the evenings in reasonable proximity to our office (which is close to Central Station). Normally this would not be a concern for me but it was tonight.

Had another middle-of-the night teleconference and slept very badly after it. Still attempted to go out but very quickly decided it was no good. Plan B was to try again in a late morning slot which I thought was free, but it turned out not to be free, and in any case by then I was feeling more under the weather than warranted merely by a bad night's sleep (I think) - always a bad sign when I don't feel like eating at lunchtime. (Fortunately, I had nothing more strenuous today than a couple of meetings).

Now ready to head out of Guangzhou - a less time-consuming airport passage than last time even if my bag got ripped apart three times (twice by security, once by customs) - feeling slightly better than earlier in the day. Hopefully it's just something I ate at breakfast and won't have any lasting impacts on the weekend.

No training as such today, but spent quite a bit of time in the field in the middle distance area (demonstrating in the process that Inov8s are not a good footwear choice on damp, mossy stone steps, though I didn't actually manage to end up falling over properly). Looking in pretty reasonable shape.

Perhaps it's an indication of how far I've fallen that a slow, flat 40 minutes feels like a minor triumph but that's the way it was this morning. A bit tight in the first 10 minutes, better after that but not quite as smooth as Sunday. Headed west along the road at the base of the mountain today; there seem to be two basic options here if you don't want some serious stair-climbing, turn left out of the hotel or turn right.

The humidity in the mornings isn't too bad - probably comparable to Melbourne the few days before I left - though today was the murkiest day I've seen in my recent visits to Guangzhou. Yesterday it only got to the low 20s with occasional light rain and the locals, in true Darwin style, seemed very concerned that I was underdressed for the conditions. One wonders how the city coped when it snowed a few years ago. (In this part of the world, even though it's in the tropics, very cold air of modestly-modified Siberian origin finds its way a long way south every now and again - Guangzhou and nearby Hong Kong have a couple of single-digit days in a normal winter - but usually the air which comes with this is very dry so snow is extremely rare in Guangzhou, and I don't think has ever fallen at city level in Hong Kong).

Lots of fieldwork today in the sprint and sprint relay areas; generally looking pretty good although the last part of the sprint course may need some reworking. I haven't been used to being on my feet most of the day of late, and was pretty tired by the end of it.

C • Underdressed? 10

Didn't end up getting into the hotel until 1am (4am Melbourne time) so was keen to get as much sleep as I could in the morning (not that I slept that well anyway, perhaps because Chinese beds are often pretty hard and this was no exception). I was never planning to run today but that removed temptation to get out in the morning. Instead I ended up on a stationary bike in the hotel gym in the late afternoon - not a particularly strenuous session because I couldn't work out how to change the resistance on the bike, but did turn the legs over.

Today was mostly about logistics - things like places and concepts for event centres and ceremony locations (the latter will be spectacular if their plans come to fruition). I'll be getting out onto maps tomorrow.

I've been slightly annoyed over the last couple of weeks by the difficulty of finding things on the new IOF website. I was more annoyed about it today - they put most of the documents linked from the website in the cloud (OneDrive to be precise) and not on the website itself, which is all very well except that you can't access OneDrive from China. Words will be had.

And apparently our hotel is also playing host tonight to a Chinese movie star, which may explain the presence of a few people whom I presumed to be either fans or paparazzi, and a few more whose job seemed to be to try to keep those people away.

C • IOF website 5

On the road again, for another event advising trip to China. Having not managed to run yesterday, I thought I'd try doing one on the way out to the airport and it went surprisingly well - slow (probably at least in part because of darkness) but no real signs of injury problems. It was early enough that for some it was still part of Saturday night, which meant there was one of a group of revellers to high-five on the way through. For the first time in a long time, felt like I would have liked to have kept going for longer, but there was a plane to catch.

My hamstring didn't enjoy the flight too much, although walking through the corridors of Hong Kong airport made it a bit less painful, eventually. Took a somewhat unusual route - due north to Charleville, then northwest over Cloncurry and Groote Eylandt - which probably had something to do with avoiding a certain weather system to the west. (Speaking of weather, it was the clearest I can remember the transit of the Indonesian and Philippine islands being).

Had hoped for better this morning but was out of sorts (hamstring more than elsewhere, but it's the same underlying problem) and had to settle for the pool. Not quite as slow a session as it felt; a bit of rain kept the outdoor pool at Northcote less crowded than it can be on a Saturday morning (meanwhile inside the median age was about 6).

Not a terribly demanding session, which is just as well as I wasn't terribly awake after a meeting which ran from 3-4.30am (after which I predictably struggled to get back to sleep). Running about 30 minutes later than usual so a slightly different crowd (aqua aerobics has got going in earnest here in the last few weeks).

Definitely not at my most productive at work until coffee had kicked in.

Cleared a couple of recent hurdles - ran two days in a row and got through an evening event (only course C, but you have to start somewhere). Felt pretty bad in the second kilometre but better after that - seems to be a recurring pattern. Helped that Westgarth doesn't have as many hills as Templestowe. Think I got the route pretty close to right (a bit of local knowledge helps).

In other news of the day, a recall has been launched for a certain brand of eggs after some were believed to be contaminated with salmonella. Those with the eggs in question are asked to crack them over the head of the nearest racist return them to the place of purchase for a refund.

C • Phil Torode managed 4.5k. ... 5

Last night's session must have done me some good because this was the least worst run I've done for a while (in the suburbs at least) - a bit of back stiffness around 5-10 minutes but otherwise the issue was just one of being badly unfit. Headed across the Darebin bike bridge for the first time in a while (and perhaps the last in a while because the route under the Chandler is blocked until the end of June, which probably means the end of December). The newly expanded road bridge is clearly doing its job because the traffic jams which gave me so much joy a few weeks back have disappeared.

Started promisingly, drifted out of it in the middle and then finished reasonably well. Shoulders seemed a bit stiff at times, a little surprising since this is the first time I've swum for a bit. Not yet doing a morning swim in the dark - will probably get that chance in a couple of weeks.

Entertaining news story of the day was that the French minister for European affairs has called her cat "Brexit", because it meows loudly wanting to get out but then won't go through the door when it's opened.

And recent events involving eggs reminded me of a late 1980s episode in Canberra when an anti-nuclear protester threw yellow cake at the French ambassador. They were acquitted after convincing the court that the cake was actually perfectly edible and therefore did not constitute a "repulsive substance" as per the charge sheet.

Early pilates session; a couple of changes to the exercise set this morning, which seemed to work pretty well for me. Felt a bit more awake than usual this morning (notwithstanding the fact that I arrived in semi-darkness).

My journey was less challenging than that of some; the weekend rail works were running late and the trains still weren't running early on. Think it got sorted out eventually.

Felt reasonably good this morning so thought a run was worth a try, and it worked out, more or less. A bit tight in the first 10 minutes, and slow on the (short) climbs out of the Merri Creek valley, but settled down more or less OK. Not exactly the most stellar run that I'll ever do, but at least it's a run.

Couldn't back up for a second day, so instead it was taking to the water - early enough that there weren't a lot of people in the outdoor pool (different story inside where swimming lessons were in full swing). Went OK as these things go, but I'd rather have been running.

Trying to get into the city on a day when both our area's rail lines were out of action was perhaps not my smartest of ideas.

Currently watching an interval-start cross-country ski race from Falun - watching these gives you an indication of where the IOF get some of their ideas from. As I write an Australian early starter got to match Matt Doyle's WOC experience last year of a stretch on whatever their equivalent is of the leader's couch (although I suspect her Australian connections are somewhat distant as her home town is Anchorage). Also seeing quite a few classic Scandi flops on display at the finish line.

Feared that today would be another write-off when I woke up with a stiff back, but it loosened up a bit by the time I headed out and ended up being more or less manageable, even a bit more than that by the last couple of kilometres. Better to have done this than not done this, though tomorrow will be more of a test.

Moved on to my first stint of political doorknocking in this campaign, discovering in the process that the street the Arthurs live on isn't the only one in that pocket with slightly quirky street numbering (it has numbers which go up in intervals of 1 rather than 2 because the railway line is on the other side). In other streets in the area numbers abruptly jump by 6 or 8 in a few spots for no obvious reason. As usual, you do well to have half-a-dozen decent conversations in a couple of hours, but of those we did have, there was a pretty strong consensus in this part of town that (a) climate change is a big problem and (b) Fraser Anning is a national disgrace. The former is slightly challenging ground in these parts, mostly because "stop Adani" makes for a snappier slogan than "let Adani fall over by itself to avoid the risk of a massive compensation payout" (the latter being Labor's de facto policy on the subject).

Speaking of Adani, they rather ludicrously claimed yesterday that mining 10 million tons of coal would produce only 0.04% of Australia's emissions. This is true only if none of the coal which is mined is actually burnt. (If it is burnt, it's more like 6%).

C • Early door knocking 3

Seemed to take longer to get going than usual for this session, but worked out well in the end. Next step is to see how running goes tomorrow - no events planned this weekend but still hoping that things will hold enough to get something done.

It was a day which started in a sense of great optimism, and ended in something very different.

Was getting the car serviced today. Plan A was to run from there before dropping the car off, but that didn't happen, so instead switched to plan B, which was going for a ride afterwards (thus delaying my departure from Fishermans Bend by an hour and avoiding the worst of peak hour). Out and back first through the industrial area and then down the foreshore bike path as far as St. Kilda. Pretty windy, as you'd expect for a coastal ride (more crosswind than anything else) and pretty slow. Got going better towards the end.

One hazard that definitely wasn't in evidence in Yea; people trying to hand out flyers for a strip club to passing cyclists.

Geography fail of the day goes to Michael McCormack (who, in case you have forgotten, is the Deputy Prime Minister), for saying of a plan to relocate jobs in the Murray-Darling Basin Authority out of Canberra that its jobs should be closer to the Basin. I must have been imagining which river the Molonglo ends up flowing into.

Street-O at Templestowe Heights. Went into this cautiously optimistic and was still cautiously optimistic when I warmed up, but that was knocked out of me at the first hint of a hill - obviously can't handle post-work runs yet. From there I decided to stay out there and hope it loosened up, jogging (not very convincingly) the downhill/level sections and walking the hills - probably ended up running about 70-75% of it. It never really did loosen up, so will have to see what it's like tomorrow.

This is a steep area, and the steeper parts of the area had a certain theme to the street names, which included Hotham, Feathertop, Buller, Howitt and Macedon. Didn't see a Buggery.

Early morning pilates. Not totally convinced that I'm improving but the instructor thinks I am (or maybe he's just trying to make me feel good).

Had tentative plans of trying to get out for a lunchtime run, but came up post-morning session with a bit of soreness in my right hamstring, so left it for tomorrow. One of those days where I didn't feel as if I got an awful lot done.

C • One of those days 1

Decided to get out for the day on a public holiday Monday (my original thoughts, once I'd decided I was sufficiently on top of work to be able to actually take the holiday off, were to keep going west after yesterday's event, but by then there was no reasonable accommodation left near the Grampians). Requirements were within a reasonable range of Melbourne, not likely to be ridiculously crowded on a long weekend (like beaches), and not currently on fire or smoked out (which ruled out most of Gippsland).

Settled on a northeast loop, taking in the Kinglake Ranges (first time I've been there since Black Saturday), Yea, Eildon Dam and the lookouts above it, and a side trip up the Rubicon valley - a nice day out and took me into a few areas I haven't previously been into.

I was never going to run today (felt sufficiently tight this morning that I doubt I would have been able to anyway), and instead took to the bike, using this as an opportunity to do a bit more exploring. My chosen starting point was Yea - headed from there on the road towards Highlands. This was a decent ride once off the highway, but the first 3km or so out of town along the highway weren't a lot of fun (with hindsight I probably should have parked at the turnoff and ridden from there) - at least the highway west of town wasn't as busy as it was to the east or south. Some moderate hills on both sides of the Goulburn River crossing, but turned around before the main climb to Highlands (which as the name implies, is a long way up) - felt better coming back.

On a day like this my eyes are open for quirkiness. Inevitably there was someone with lots of signs proclaiming a grievance, which seemed to be against the nearby Rubicon Education Centre (an outdoor ed place) along with just about every federal, state and local government agency imaginable. (My guess is that it's someone upset that what they thought was going to be their solitary mountain retreat is in close proximity to sometimes noisy kids). A political grievance of more distant vintage is hinted at by the property called Nareen (the same name as Malcolm Fraser's farm) with a large Eureka flag flying outside.

And the small town of Buxton seems to be a bit geographically confused: a sign on the takeaway proclaims "voted Melbourne's best burger", and one entering town says "welcome to the Yarra Valley". (The Yarra catchment is about 15km away at its closest point).

Victorian Autumn Series at Petticoat Gully. The good news is that I actually made it around a bush course today (at the third time of asking in 2019), with no significant injury issues, and had a reasonably clean run on a technical goldmining course - only minor time losses at 2 and 19. The bad news, which shouldn't have come as too much of a surprise given my lack of training - this was the longest run I've done in time since last year's nationals - is that I didn't really last the distance and walked significant parts of the last 20 minutes (and suffered somewhat in the process of "running" the slightly uphill finish chute). Still, lack of fitness is something which can be worked on.

Thought the winning time might be in the mid- to upper 40s but Patrick did 42; getting close to 6s in a sometimes rough area is an impressive effort.

Sprint at La Trobe Uni. This was a pretty low key event (and a late addition to the calendar) but got an excellent turnout, and was well worth it - excellent course setting with decisions to be made on almost every leg, and a few legs with micro route choice as well. Got the key decisions right - just one minor hesitation at 12 - and avoided falling into any of the traps. Also felt better running than I have for a couple of weeks, and even felt like I was lifting the pace a bit towards the end. (Got inside the 50% mark this time, although I don't think Nathan and Joe, who were unofficial, were going flat out.

Shortish Yarra Boulevard ride as soon as it got light - pretty slow early on (pretty slow paths to get there via the pipe bridge; trying to negotiate the Chandler bridge in its current state on a bike is no-one's idea of fun), but got into it after a while. This is a good place for feeling inadequate (although there's not quite as much bike bling on display as there is on Beach Road). No tacks to be seen - the person who was spreading them seems to have gone quiet since the police released an image of a "person of interest", although no arrests have been made as far as I know.

Going alternate days at the moment (and not very much) but still felt pretty borderline, for the back at least (foot was OK apart from immediately after one sharp downhill). Dropped down onto the Darebin Creek park with thoughts of doing the circuit over the new bridge, but decided that that was a bit ambitious the way things were feeling (it's a sad day when a slow 40 minutes falls into the category of "too ambitious"). Nice morning to be out, at least (earliest sub-10 in autumn in Melbourne since 2005).

C • Angriest Summer 7

Following advice last night I'm being fairly cautious about going too deeply back into running for the time being, so abandoned the idea of going to Scotch tonight (a pity as it's usually an interesting area, and an ideal night for running) and took to the pool instead. Definitely felt like the first day of autumn with a cool southwest wind (cool enough to provide a bit of resistance in the water). Fairly mundane as a session.

One of the things that cricket fans do every now and again is come up with "theme" XIs (say, one of each letter of the alphabet). Someone came up with a good one today - a line-up of Gooch, Sehwag, Vaughan, Ponting, Martin Crowe, Kallis, Ganguly, Greg Matthews, Warne, Gough and Doug "The Rug" Bollinger. The common thread - all of them have done ads for hair transplants. Quite a decent team, if a bit short on pace and lacking a specialist wicketkeeper.

C • Callum 2

A run, of sorts. The good news is that my foot, after a bit of initial soreness, was OK after the first couple of minutes, and apart from one short-lived rough patch the back was also OK. That was about the best that could be said for a sleepy and sluggish run (I think I've got a bit of a cold at the moment), although the last few minutes wasn't too bad, and the foot didn't come up sore afterwards.

Had my regular session with the physio tonight and she isn't especially happy with how tight things generally are on the right side (and as I am, she's concerned that an injury has recurred twice in a month even though it seems to be settled for now), so I'll be reasonably cautious with things for a bit.

Morning pilates session. A bit rushed getting there because my alarm didn't work (or to be more precise, the radio shifted slightly in frequency and the static wasn't enough to wake me up). Feels earlier in the morning when it's dark, too.

Seemed to go OK, and the quads don't even scream quite as much in the lunge set, either.

Still felt a bit sleepy when I started this. A bit up and down once in the water, but not doing too badly once I was properly under way in the second half.

Down on the Peninsula this weekend. The foot was improved but still feels a day from being runnable, so took to the bike instead with the opportunity to go out to Point Nepean. It's the first time I've been all the way out for many years - last time must have been around 2000 because I remember that the "danger unexploded ordnance" signs were also in Albanian (the old barracks were used for housing refugees from the 1999 Kosovo war, back in the days when it was still considered a bit vulgar for mainstream conservatives to try to get themselves elected by making white people scared of brown or black people). Also noted a bit of slightly-further-back history towards the far end, in the form of a monument to someone who went swimming where they shouldn't (allegedly trying to impress a woman other than his wife).

The ride went pretty smoothly on a hot morning; not too much traffic around this early. A few short sharp hills at the Point Nepean end but otherwise reasonably flat. It's a while since I've ridden for this long without any traffic stops, and my wrists were quite sore by the end from holding onto the handlebars - do those of you who routinely ride much longer distances have the same problem?

(Speaking of routinely riding longer distances, former JWOCer Callum Fagg rode close to 350km in a day yesterday - and those of you who've been following this weekend's weather in Tasmania will know that the conditions were less than optimal for it).

A somewhat different rest of the day (after a hectic couple of weeks of work); we headed up to Main Ridge to watch my cousin's 11-year-old son play in his cricket semi-final. Turned out to be a thriller as his team won by one wicket (although he got a duck himself, copping a near-unplayable ball from the opposition's best bowler). The rules for under-12s make for some interesting strategy - they're 35-over matches, all players (other than the wicketkeeper) must bowl 2 overs before anyone can bowl any more, and batsmen retire at 30 and can only return after everyone else has batted. The net result of this is that the worst bowlers are usually bowling between overs 14-20 (making it a good time to attack) before the guns come back. On this occasion, chasing 113, two of the top three got to 30 but had to retire just before the 20-over mark, exposing the middle and lower order to the best bowlers once they returned (with predictable results). The end result of this was that the last-wicket partnership (which came together with 8 needed) was between the two best batsmen coming back.

I was impressed with the quality of the sledging too ("more dots than a Dalmatian" after a slow patch of batting - no-one ever came up with anything as creative as that when I was spending two hours making eight runs back in the day).

C • U12 rules 9

C • Regular cycling 2

Foot improved a bit but still not runnable, so took to the water again once down at Blairgowrie for the weekend. Might have eaten a bit close to this but otherwise felt reasonable (and I don't think I'll get tired of the view any time soon, although it was a bit concerning to see the pyroculumus from the Bunyip fire.

Today's fires have alerted us to some of Victoria's quirkier placenames; the Country Fire Authority issued an advice for Dogs Grave, Flourbag and Hogtown, while other warnings covered Happy Go Lucky and Peter the Swede.

And one positive I'm drawing from the week's events is that the acres of newsprint that the Australian is devoting to George Pell Is Innocent OK articles is space that they're not using to attack us.

C • Peter the Swede is definite... 1

C • Peter the Swede is definite... 1

A bit of a late start after a birthday conversation with Cassie (which revealed that Norwegian schools have something we don't - yesterday was a ski day for Max's school). Slightly annoying at the start because someone in my lane was doing alternate laps freestyle and breaststroke and we kept having to go around each other, but settled down and ended up reasonably smooth, if not very fast.

Rode in to work after that. Somewhat to my surprise there did not appear to be any media representatives present outside the Melbourne Assessment Prison. (The return trip was one of those which gave the impression that all traffic laws are suspended when it hits 38 degrees). To cap off a busy week for Victoria's legal system, my guess as to who Lawyer X was was correct (I'd remembered her name from a cameo appearance in the 1996 election campaign), although I don't think I was exactly alone in working this out.