Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Australian Relays. Victoria did its best to throw away the National League today but didn't quite succeed. We were in a very strong position going in - third place (of the states) was enough no matter what other results, and unless SA won fifth would be enough.

I ran second leg. Toph didn't have a great first leg and we were a few minutes behind ACT (who we expected to run down easily) and behind NSW and SA. I went out with Ian Anderson (Queensland) and Bruce Arthur (our second tea). I've often struggled badly to come up physically on Australian Relays day in recent years (the one exception, oddly enough, was 2005 when I hit the wall badly in the individual). Today wasn't too bad, and there were only a couple of minor wobbles technically. It was a bit frustrating not being able to get away from Ian but that probably said more about his run than mine. I lost a bit of ground on a wide route choice at 10, but then pulled away a bit over the last section, helped by Bruce having a longer split. That left us in fourth, but SA were behind NSW and we expected Troy to run Jase down easily, so we seemed fairly safe. That was until Troy completely missed the first spectator control. At that stage we knew our team was disqualified and we were going to need our second team to do the business. Jim was still behind ACT at the final spectator point, but hauled Jase in at the end - and in any case NSW pulled away on the last leg so fourth would have been enough.

So ends another Australian Championships carnival week, with a set of essentially par results. At 36 I'm probably not going to get a lot better, perhaps pinching the odd top-five result when I run well and others make enough mistakes, but as long as I can be a serious contributor to the Nuggets there is still plenty of incentive to keep training seriously.

Australian Long Distance Championships, 9th. A very solid run except for one control. Unfortunately that control was just about my worst time loss of the year - came in underneath 9 at the end of a long leg and lost about 2.5 minutes. Ryan caught me there, and we were essentially together for the rest of the course - hardly put a foot wrong. My best chance to get away was after the spectator control at 20. 21 was a longish leg with a big climb at the end. I didn't stop for a drink at 20, with the plan of forcing Ryan to surge to catch me (which he did) and giving me a better chance to crack him on the big climb into 21 (he didn't). After that it was essentially game over unless we split on route choice or he made a mistake, neither of which happened.

Very happy with the way I lasted the distance - I still had a fair bit left at the end, or at least I felt like I did. Frustrated, though, that the mistake was the difference between a par result and a very good one (which 4th or 5th would have been) - although then if I hadn't made the mistake Ryan wouldn't have caught me and I probably would have been slower.

Very impressive run by Shep.

A somewhat limited warm-up - I was still writing JWOC race reports 20 minutes before my start time. Sluggish on the uphill first leg but quickly hit my stride and then settled into a pretty good run, both physically and technically - only negative was still lacking a bit of strength on the last climb into 15. Only misses were 10 seconds or so on each of 4 and 11 (which gave Cassie the opportunity to take a couple of splits off me). Had a good scrap with Julian Taylor from the Queensland juniors over the last part of the course - impressed by both his speed and navigation (especially for someone who couldn't make the Queensland schools team).

Middle distance qualifying today and no public race so was back in town by early afternoon and went out for a run. This enabled me to carry out step 1 of my other mission for this trip. One of my long-term ambitions is to visit all 103 of the locations in the data set I use for Australian temperature monitoring. I've bagged 59 so far and expect to get another 10 or so on this trip.

This meant my plan was to run out to Dubbo Airport (or at least close enough to it to sight the thermometer screen). I didn't expect this to be a brilliant running environment as most of the way there was along a highway, but there was a decent track parallel to the road for most of it, taking me past such sights as one of Australia's many abandoned drive-in movie theatres (showing an impressive amount of weed colonisation) and the Orana Juvenile Justice Centre. Got some enthusiastic support (at least I think it was support) at a point on the way back from some members of the local indigenous community (not the ones in the Juvenile Justice Centre). Finished off with a loop through the south end of West Dubbo, and pulled up a bit early on meeting the Johnsons and Mounts by the river, and discussing media in general and the Great Hydrogen Scandal in particular.

The run itself was reasonable, certainly not as sluggish as the last two days, but still not brilliant.

First chance to get out on the JWOC terrain. Felt sluggish after a morning doing the commentary for the Schools, and wasn't running that aggressively in a terrain that demands it (no point in doing so in a midweek race which I ran mainly to give myself some terrain familiarisation before running the nationals next door on Saturday). Navigated reasonably well, although a bit hesitant at times and a couple of 30-seconders. Felt better towards the end.

Very enjoyable terrain to be in. It's rocky underfoot, sometimes very rocky, and quite steep, but you can pick your way through it - it never felt like a slog in the way that one might expect a course with 5.5% climb and 8 min/km to be a slog. Some of the forest, with cypress pine, green grass and scattered boulers, was gorgeous to be in. Really looking forward to the rest of the week.

C • Frenchmen... 1

A loosening run after coming back from a long day at JWOC. Started out along the river where we ran the sprint and then looped through the east side of town. Unsurprisingly saw a few JWOC team officials also out running (possibly also a competitor or two if they were really keen), and a few other familiar faces in the centre of town. Also unsurprisingly felt sluggish most of way.