Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

So-called season opener event at Bostock Reservoir. This is a reasonably mundane (but pleasant) gully-spur area - this year they used the east end which had a fair bit of pine (not as green as it's mapped). The control placement was easy on the whole (which made it annoying to screw up), but there were some decent route choice legs. Lost about a minute on 10, on top of a vague spur - ran close to the flag without seeing it. The other mistakes were minor, and I don't think one of the controls in question was quite in the right spot.

I felt reasonably good running, but still not really letting myself go in the terrain, which is something I'll need to work on. Hard to read the result but I think I was a bit below par. Morten beat me by 90 seconds (on the evidence I saw quite a bit of this came between the last control and the finish), and David Brownridge would have been very close had he not lost 5 minutes at 1. I'd expect to be a bit more than 5 minutes clear of Ted van G as well.

Another solid week of training with more of an emphasis on speed, but I still feel below par in the sharpness department. I've managed to maintain training through my summer travels better than I thought I might have been able to, but I think it's the quality that has suffered a bit.

C • Location of 10 10

Technical training at Tarrengower with Kathryn, Jasmine and Liggo. Ran the senior girls relay course from the 2003 Australian Schools (mainly because it happened to be the set of maps I had in my cupboard), with a big climb to start because we started from the shelter the usual State Series events start at.

Really happy with the way I was navigating in the rock - picking features well and (in as much as you can tell such things with no controls out) spiked everything. Not as strong on the hills as I'd like, but is anyone ever as strong on the hills as they would like? Not running flat out, but definitely faster than a jog, especially when I was around Kathryn through the middle of the course (nothing like running against a woman to motivate the blokes!).

When the time to/from the start is subtracted this probably equates with 31-32 for the relay course itself - as a point of reference Hanny did 34 in 2003.

A lot of the larger prickly pears are dying or dead; not sure if they're drought casualties or have been poisoned. Whatever their cause of demise, they stink.

C • Dying vegetation 2

Multi-loop Hagaby race at One Tree Hill. Got off to a bad start when I slipped down the side of an aqueduct and tripped over a rock in the first 200 metes, and my rhythm in the terrain didn't get a lot better from there. Also several annoying small mistakes, although partial mitigation because it was a map with most of the black removed (mainly to get rid of the many small tracks) and it was not always easy to pinpoint controls; nothing bigger than 20 seconds or so.

Had similar early splits to Liggo and Kathryn and was with them at the second common control on the first loop, but then had a different split and didn't see them for a while (or, in Liggo's case, again). Saw more of Kathryn on the second loop and we were again together at the last common control, but by then I knew I had a much shorter split so wasn't too concerned in that duel; the gap was a bit under 3 minutes in the end. Thought I'd be behind Evan and Liggo nevertheless, but Evan pulled out and Liggo lost time later on. Wonder if Kathryn gets brownie points under the theory that the best way to impress a selector is to beat them?

This was my first bush event in Australia since October; a lot of cobwebs to shake out (I found the fallen timber and small rock much harder going than Tarrengower), but at least I did it here and not next week. A solid day's training.

C • Tough terrain for bendigo 1

A hill session in the parklands alongside the lower end of Walmer Street in Kew, 10 loops on a 2-minute cycle. Felt very ordinary indeed in the warm-up but the repetitions were better; thought I might be struggling when going lactic in the last part of the 4th and 5th uphills but finished off pretty well. Yesterday's soreness is essentially gone - the jarring didn't seem to be a problem.

Part of the real estate sign on the (very incomplete) goods shed renovation next to our office has been covered up. It's the bit which used to say 'Move in 2007'.

Jaw a bit sore after yesterday afternoon (I knew the tooth in question was probably a lost cause, but they had a bugger of a time getting it out) - don't think it would appreciate the jarring of running, and in any case I was advised to take it easy for 24 hours. Hopefully back in action tomorrow.

Rearranging things a bit this week - I'm getting some dental work done this afternoon and, although I don't expect anything too untoward, thought it better not to commit myself to too much tomorrow.

This was a run that sometimes threatened to turn into a very good one, especially in the first half, but ended up a bit of a grind. Still felt considerably better than on my runs in the last two days. A cool morning with a real autumn feel (even a bit of ground mist in low-lying areas).

Running the gauntlet of the Fitness First spruikers in Collins Street at lunchtime, as one sometimes has to, it was very noticeable indeed that one of them was in very serious need of his employer's services. Not sure if it was a wonderful advertisement.

I thought I was following Australian news fairly closely from afar while I was away, but I obviously missed the announcement that trucks are now exempt from clearways.

C • Trucks 1

A pretty nondescript morning run, starting on the Banyule Flats and then through Rosanna and Viewbank. Felt a little weak on the hills (but then I'm a bit out of practice on the hills). Good morning for it, though.

Spotted en route: someone wearing an interesting-looking cycling jersey which turned out to be, not one for one of the pro cycling teams, but instead one for the Magistrates Court of Victoria. I'm assuming they're not into sponsoring cycling teams (although the City of Banyule used to have a team in the Herald-Sun Tour, so anything's possible) - they probably run a team in the Around the Bay or similar. Also spotted was an board advertising 'Rosanna's Landmark Development'.

The Bolte Bolt (as the name implies) is a race which runs from Docklands to the Bolte Bridge and back. I've never run it before because it is normally on Thursdays, but it switched to Tuesdays for a couple of weeks so I thought I'd give it a go (it was a timeslot when I wanted to do something fast in any case).

As it turned out the field was virtually non-existent so it was in effect a time trial. I'm not sure about the measurement of the course, and (despite the lack of hills) it's definitely a slower course than the Tan because of several sharp turns, stairs and some rough gravel, but from the times that other people have done previously I would certainly have wanted to be closer to 16 than 17. Didn't feel too bad (although hints of a stitch at the end), but still struggling to find an extra gear.

The course is a somewhat fluid one - the south bank of the river is an active development area and every year there are new construction sites to go around.

Warm-up and warm-down for the Bolt (the warm-down was pretty cursory). Thought it might have been a truncated warm-up because of a media call just before I was heading out, but the race was later than I thought it was.

Got back in late morning after a brief stopover in Brisbane (and then was held up at the end because my bag had a slightly less brief stopover in Brisbane than I did), and headed out on this one in early afternoon. A strange sort of run with some parallels with the one I did just after returning from the US (although nowhere near as bad as that one was). Felt half-asleep for much of it but faster than it felt (this is a loop I've used many times for recovery sessions and this was a good 2-3 minutes faster than usual). Fairly cool for Melbourne but still felt a bit sticky to me in light of recent experiences.