Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Melbourne Series event at Dale Creek. This is a good area for this type of event, if one accepts the limitations of the map (contours OK, vegetation undermapped and heavily generalised) and the area (mostly rather bland, and some parts steep or thick or both). It has the advantage of not being too far from Melbourne. I wouldn't be rushing to use it for anything more significant, though.

It was a longer run than I'd planned on after yesterday - indeed I'm not sure I would have run A if I'd known it was going to be 70 minutes. Didn't feel outrageously stiff but did rather lack energy on some of the climbs in the second half. The middle of the course went through some very steep, and often thick, country which was heavy going and really blew the km rates out. Navigation good for the first three-quarters of the course, but lost it a bit towards the end - some bingoish controls (pits in green) but still should have done better. Lost 2 minutes at 15, partly through being led astray by some streamers (not sure what they were marking but it certainly wasn't the route to my control).

C • Control 15 7

Was a bit apprehensive in the early stages of this run; I wasn't feeling brilliant last night (probably tiredness as much as anything), and the first half-hour wasn't really sparkling, but it gradually built into a very solid effort. I hadn't planned to go quite this long, but once I got into Eltham became confident enough to take on two of the big challenges in this part of the world: the powerline track on the east side of Eltham, then the crossing of Eltham North and St Helena from east to west. It's a few years since I last did the powerline track but seemed to handle it OK (and then had a very good spell on the flatter ground before moving into St Helena). The last 30 minutes was a grind but most of the hills were gone by then: Rosanna Parklands is one of the easier ways to finish a long run. It was slippery underfoot at times after morning rain, but nothing fell during the run itself.

I went out a little later in the morning than I often do - why spend half the run in a slow-moving rainband when you can instead spend half the run looking east towards a slow-moving rainband? - and got to see the suburbs coming to life on a Saturday morning. If it had been January the sight of a convoy of CFA trucks passing through Eltham, the names on them a roll-call of Melbourne's outer eastern fringe, would have been alarming. Later on there was a Vietnam veterans march in Greensborough - I guess it must be a significant anniversary (will have to check tonight's news to see what it was) - and to finish off the constabulary had collared an alleged malefactor at the Rosanna shops. Having sighted the police, fire brigade, army, navy and air force during the course of the run I only needed the ambos for a full set, but was a bit tired to increase my chances of that by doing an extra loop around the Austin Hospital.

Memo to writers of political bumper stickers: if you get too personal you run the risk that your sticker may be overtaken by events. 'Don't Bugger The Bay Bracks' (produced by the campaign against dredging Port Phillip) looks a bit dated now, although it's not that many years ago that I last sighted an 'Export Fraser Not Uranium'. (A lot of the people who sported those stickers in the 1970s and 1980s probably now regard Malcolm Fraser as the nation's conscience).

Obviously that run took a bit out of me. I turned on the football on the radio this afternoon, settled back on the bed with some reading - and woke up at three-quarter time.

A swim at Kew on the way to a massage in Richmond. The pool has recently been renovated. Unfortunately the clientele remains unrenovated, particularly in its complete disregard for lane speed signs or keeping the lane ends clear. The message you're usually left with here is that This Is Our Territory and if you don't have a six-figure income and a seven-figure house you can **** off back to Broadmeadows where you belong. The local councillors in this bit of town have been fighting tooth and nail against the construction of a bike path bridge across the Yarra for the last 10 years, ostensibly because it would cut across 'a park popular with dog-walkers' (you'd think it was an eight-lane freeway being proposed), but more accurately to keep the hoi polloi out because all right-thinking people know that the only reason why people would ever come from north of the river to here is to rob their houses or violate their daughters.

After getting through the session, changing lanes in the middle because I was getting sick of my 45-second laps being blocked by people doing 70-second laps in the 35-second lane (I'd applied what I thought was the standard discount factor), I left everyone else to continue plotting sacking half their workforce and putting the rest on AWAs, and resolved next time to go the extra 10 minutes and swim at Richmond instead. Maybe they were just in a foul mood because they'd realised how many thousand dollars was about to be wiped off the value of their share portfolios.

C • Tumbles? 11

Obviously the log entries that gave me error messages when I posted them still got through (deleted now...).

Spent most of this run in the hills of Ivanhoe and Eaglemont with periodic stops at letterboxes, then headed out onto the Banyule Flats once that part was done (surprised how dry the Banyule Flats were underfoot). Lacked energy on some of the hills but otherwise a decent run, particularly coming off a tough run today. A couple of awkward road crossings at the end because roadworks had sent heavy traffic into my street.

Hyperbole award for the week goes to the Geelong policeman who likened central Geelong to Baghdad in yesterday's Herald-Sun. I must congratulate my boss (who lives there) for successfully negotiating the roadside bombs in Moorabool Street, the Kardinia Park snipers and the rocket-propelled grenades being fired from the Barwon River rowing boats and making it in to work this morning. (I think the remarks were prompted by the sort of early-hours-Sunday-morning-brawl-outside-nightclub which can be found in just about every city in the known universe if you know where to look).

Slightly different territory today - started from Camberwell as my car was getting fixed there (after getting through 8,500 km with only trivial incident, the main headlights failed two days after I got back). Got out as far as Wattle Park. Felt somewhat ho-hum on this run, although better towards the end. A little longer than I'd intended.

A bus outside Strathcona girls' school had the destination sign 'Smile!', so I did. Not sure if anyone noticed.

Wednesday night street-O at Doncaster Heights. A little below full intensity but definitely a step up on usual training speed. The map is quite a small one so there was absolutely no doubt that we were going to get all the controls well inside the 60 minutes (I'd originally thought sub-40 was on, but strategic use of some cul-de-sacs meant the course was about as long as possible for this area). It's also a long, narrow map so there weren't many route choice options.

Felt OK but wasn't quite matching Bryan and Adam for speed, although I pulled a little ground back on them towards the end. Ended up about 1.30 behind.

Back on the old circuit for the first time in a few weeks. Felt reasonably sharp but the time was fairly slow - 9.21 for the fastest loop. A really nice morning for it, experiencing the pleasures of shallow cold-air layers on a clear morning (probably 5 degrees colder on the Yarra Flats than it was a few metres higher). Suspect it won't be so pleasant for my ride home tonight.

A session at Fitzroy. A bit tight early on but going quite smoothly (at least by my standards) in the second half. As usual only the hard core were out on a winter's morning (also as usual the one-legged man was there and going considerably faster than I was).

It was the first Monday morning commute since I got home, with about the usual level of cluelessness. (Scoreboard - driver going wrong way up one-way street 1, driver entering blocked intersection on yellow and therefore stopping traffic for the entire next cycle 1).

Spotted by the 'Age' at a demo on Saturday: a sign reading 'Reckless with a SIM? Arrest Shane Warne!'

A Monday night run from my place. Now that I'm the most remote member of the circuit the turnout usually isn't terribly large from here, but it was particularly dismal last night - Nicola, Suse and that's it. Obviously Darebin Creek is proving an increasingly formidable obstacle (must be that map which shows on the eastern bank, 'Here Be Bogans').

The run wasn't particularly quick but was pleasant enough. Nicola kept apologising for her illness-induced slow pace up the hills but it didn't seem too exceptional to me.

Suse and I showed off our trip photos to the assembled multitude (or lack thereof) afterwards.