Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Second of three epics scheduled for the summer. I feared the worst when I got up (a) because it was still 28 degrees and (b) because I'd had a restless night with some soreness in my lower back. The change, such as it was, had some through by the time I started (although it was still 23-24 and quite humid for most of the run, nice if you were in the shade or going into the breeze or both, not so good if you were in the sun and out of the wind). The back was noticeable for the first hour without causing real trouble then settled down well.

On my own for the first 50 minutes from home, then met up with Bruce, Liggo and Reuben at the pipe bridge. Was with them up to Banksia Street, and then back down the east side of the Yarra to Burke Road where I split off to come home. Finished via a slightly unusual route through Ivanhoe, prompted by the availability of reliable water at a particular place on the Ivanhoe playing fields (and the lack thereof at the Eaglemont tennis courts).

Never reached the heights I did at times two weeks ago, but a good solid effort in more difficult conditions. Working pretty hard in the last half-hour but not utterly exhausted.

I won't be too upset to farewell the serious heat for a couple of weeks in a few days' time, although there may be a bit too much contrast - the high on Thursday in Asheville (a lovely place to run from past experience) was -6 (+18 forecast for Monday, though). Miami, and to a lesser extent New Orleans, can still get pretty warm at this time of year, but at least 30 is close to an upper limit.

C • Run length 6

A session on the Kew hills with Bruce (and initially Nicola) on a warm morning. Had memories of a dire session (probably my worst of 2007) on the same hills on the same weekend of last year. Today wasn't as bad as that (got 15 minutes further before my legs refused to surge up another hill) but still not great - I can run hills well in a race but surging up them in a training session is a problem. (As Bruce dropped me on another surge, it seemed a very long time ago since I broke away from him with a hill surge during the 1998 Australian Championships).

Northland on a Saturday morning was just a tad less frantic than it was last time I visited three weeks ago.

Very stiff when I got up this morning, and took a long time to get going once in the pool, but did seem to have the desired effect. Also tried out the new goggles for the first time - they work, which is more than can be said for the last lot towards the end of their life.

A note indicated that Richmond had been judged pool of the year (or something like that) in Victoria by the relevant industry body. Obviously the judges didn't visit the mens' showers (on a typical day a third of them don't work and the others are lukewarm). The pool itself is good, though.

Not as busy a media day as some other annual statement days have been, but still managed nine interviews yesterday (mostly for newspapers).

A lovely morning but for most of the run my performance wasn't matching the conditions, uninspired through the earlier stretches along the Yarra and then downright bad for a section across Montmorency and Watsonia between 70-100 minutes. Unexpectedly came good later on, starting with a section through La Trobe Uni, and the last 20 minutes were quite reasonable.

Saw quite a bit of wildlife along the Yarra, both native (kangaroos) and non-native (rabbits and foxes). I've seen plenty of kangaroos and rabbits in the area but can't remember seeing a fox before. There was a short-lived bounty on them a few years ago - you could get $10 for each fox tail handed in a Natural Resources and Environment office (which led to some inventive criminality when a person or persons unknown burgled an NRE office and made off with several hundred fox tails).

And the prize for the biggest local idiots of the holiday season goes to a learner driver and his companion, who both blew over the limit - outside the Rye police station, which they had gone to in order to retrieve some confiscated alcohol. I assume they didn't get their grog back. (Internationally, it's hard to go past the pair in New Mexico who managed to accidentally shoot themselves while tracing an outline of a .357 pistol to use in a tattoo).

A somewhat sleepy run back at home, thanks mainly to the efforts of Jetstar who managed to be 3 hours late on a 1-hour flight; didn't make it home until close to midnight. Didn't really want to be going back to work in a sleep-deprived state but there you go. At least conditions have cooled considerably since yesterday (although it looks like being a brief respite).

Park Orchards, but not as we know it - the northern part of the old map, crossing to the east of the Warrandyte Road.

First event of 2008 and made my first mistake of 2008 inside the first minute, failing to notice two parallel tracks inside the bush reserve. Retrieved that one easily enough but then made an even more clueless mistake shortly afterwards, being so absorbed in planning for the challenging route-choice problems ahead that I completely forgot to punch 16 as I ran past it and had to come back 100 metres for it. At that point I was still behind Ted van G, Ian Davies and Rachel Johnson, but went through them over the hilly middle section, and I think I got the route choice roughly right (although 14-6-19 was probably a better option than 14-11-19). Enjoyed running through the 100 Acres bush reserve on the way home, but didn't have any great speed (although did manage to trigger the radar speed display running along the road to the finish at a less-than-stellar 13 km/h). I've not found it easy to get 'up' for the street-Os this year and today was no exception. About a minute behind Bryan, which means he can't have had much of a run either.

Old Warrandyte Road between 1 and 18 was an unpleasant historic site for me - the only place I've ever had to abandon a training run because of injury (a knee problem - interestingly, the only knee overuse injury I've ever had - in late 1997). Had to hitch a ride back to where my car was parked which is easier said than done in outer suburbia (the first person I asked said no but then had second thoughts when they saw me limping heavily 500 metres down the road). Had a vague twinge this time in remembrance but it disappeared quickly.

A run from the Fairfax residence up onto some nice farm tracks of varying degrees of roughness. Started out with Louise and Yelena as a warm-up, then did sets of 5x1 minute (walk recovery) and 10x20 secs (20 sec jog in between). Most of the latter set was downhill so it wasn't as demanding in one sense as such a set normally would be, but it was good to train running hard downhill on fairly rough ground. Didn't feel enormously sharp, but does anyone feel sharp at 9 on New Year's morning?

A nice recovery run of sorts, although a bit hillier than the usual recovery run - four loops of the walking track at Notley Gorge, a patch of rainforest north of Launceston, with the newly married couple (plus mother and sister). This is a reasonably rough track and has a big climb, but the rainforest was lovely to run in on a warm day. An enjoyable effort.

With five hours left in 2007 I think I can now safely say that I've successfully got through 2007 without a lost-time injury, for the first time since 1999 - although in truth I haven't had a new injury since early 2005 (the two missed weeks in 2006 were for surgery to correct the after-effects of my 2005 broken arm). Not surprisingly this meant it was also my biggest training year since 1999, but my performances in the biggest races were pretty disappointing - made too big a mistake in Dubbo and was unwell at Oceania. Hopefully 2008 will give me something to be more proud of.

I haven't got as extensive a list of 'awards' as last year - partly because I didn't go to Europe. Best run: a long one I did on a gorgeous winter morning in Melbourne in early June (probably the best training run I've done in several years), with honourable mentions to Falls Creek on Australia Day, and Neerim South at the end of March. Best race performance is harder; my best result was the National League event at Murray Bridge, but that was a bit of an oddball race and I'm not sure how much the opposition cared about the result.