Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Took on Mount Lofty from central Adelaide as flagged in earlier discussion. This was a reasonably serious challenge, even if it was 10 kilometres shorter (and 30 degrees cooler) than my last long run in these parts. Started east as far as Waterfall Gully, which meant the first 9k was almost constantly gently uphill - not a bad way to warm up for what was ahead. After that climbed up a steep path to the Mount Lofty Summit (3.7k, and I'd guess maybe 400-500 metres climbing), before descending past the Cleland wildlife park and taking a more northern route back. This was going through suburbs, but by and large it was nice suburban running (and gave me the chance to put a 'face' to the names of various suburbs that I'd only previously seen as affiliations on SA schools team lists).

This was a solid effort and I was happy with it. My quads threatened rebellion twice, near the top of the climb and the bottom of the steepest part of the descent, but ended up OK, and the last 30 minutes, most of which was gently downhill, flowed nicely. Chose The Parade in Norwood as my finishing route, but there was an ulterior motive for that - I was checking out which cafe(s) might be promising as a venue for post-run Olympic marathon watching over a hot chocolate.

The drive back was pretty hard work - it's a long way and the Western Highway is not a nice place to be after dark, when the tailgating truck convoys take over.

(The quad soreness is not what I was referring to late last week - that was a site-specific sore spot, possibly a minor strain, which was gone by Saturday).

Went up to Belair to get some terrain running in in an area where I haven't previously orienteered, using one of the old (1991) maps that Jamie left behind when he moved out and a couple of the courses contained thereon; started near Belair station and covered most of the map.

I'd heard Belair described as the most continental map in Australia, with some justification - right down to the straightish slopes without much definition and the dodgy point features (pits, knee-high boulders etc.) on vague slopes used as control sites. It's probably not realistic to use it for a selection trial (although Simon's probably the only one who would be really advantaged and he'll be in any WOC team he wants to be in for the next 10 years), but you could certainly do much worse than to use it for a training camp for a continental WOC.

Had trouble pinpointing stuff, some of which was lack of concentration on my part and some of which was dodginess of the map - a lot of the small tracks have gone and the vegetation was a real mixed bag (is there a newer version of it around). Happy with my strength on the hills, and also with my terrain running for the most part, although there were a couple of horror stretches on very green steep slopes which were white on the map.

Pretty slow, especially early on, for no obvious reason.

The foot soreness from Wednesday has disappeared - nothing like running 27km on an injury to make it go away (I didn't think it was a serious problem if it didn't hurt while running). However, I've now got a bit a strain in my left quad - not quite sure how one gets that on a long slow run but it's happened. It feels runnable on but I won't put it to the test until tomorrow.

On my way now to Adelaide, mostly to speak at a meteorological gathering. Hope to get a couple of nice runs in in the hills while I'm there.

C • adelaide 1

Another step in a heavy month. Not the most inspired run I've ever had, and I suspect continued sleep deprivation will catch up with me sooner or later (although things should improve on that front from today now I've got the OA accounts just about done), but managed to keep plugging away. Had a bad patch around 90 minutes but finished quite strongly. Still a bit slower than I'd like to be.

There was a bit of an Olympic theme to this run because the later part of the run passed through the 1956 Olympic Village area, after leaving the Darebin Creek path. Plenty of sightings of the rings - not sure if this is IOC-sanctioned or not. Also saw evidence that there is nothing new about trying to ingratiate oneself with the heavies in the form of a street named after the then IOC president.

On other fronts, I've obviously made it as a significant climate scientist because Andrew Bolt has got stuck into me. If you're brave you can read the gory details at http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/inde....

It feels a little bit like the first time I had to do a drug test - a sign that someone takes you seriously.

C • Lightening Bolt 9

Did a loop from Surrey Hills (where I've parked in anticipation of tonight's street-O) east into Blackburn, as far east as Blackburn Lake. This is a very nice place to run, particularly the forested streets in the eastern part of Blackburn and the area of bush around Blackburn Lake (the petrol station which has been 'temporarily closed for renovations' since 1997 or thereabouts is less attractive). It's also not in range from my place except on the longest of long runs, so it's good to get an opportunity to run there. Unfortunately my run wasn't as nice as the setting, not really feeling comfortable at any stage - possibly accumulated sleep deprivation? A bit of right foot soreness afterwards which will need watching.

I hadn't made the connection at the time, but it turns out I know the mother of the Young Liberal mentioned in Monday's entry - we were part of a quiz night team last night. I got the impression she also thought he would have done well to engage his brain before opening his mouth.

C • Saturday 7

C • Closed petrol station 3

Another pretty disappointing effort - time was slowed down a bit by a section down a muddy rough lane in the dark, but wasn't going very fast for the rest of the time either - just never had a lot of zip, perhaps a product of a tough training block. Also felt like I didn't do a great job of the route choice (but it was the sort of area where it was easy to emerge thinking you hadn't made a good job of the route choice) and lost time on a couple of controls, one of which was my fault and one of which wasn't. Foot was a bit uncomfortable walking around during the day, and afterwards, but fine when running.

Track intervals session at Clifton Hill - the usual 8 x 400. Very sluggish early and a bit of calf twinge in the warm-up, but settled into it well and ended up getting down to 75s for the last couple, which is territory I haven't been into for a while (stop sniggering down the back). Still a bit scary to think that this means I was covering 50 metres in roughly the same time that it takes Usain Bolt to do 100.

A reasonably mundane session at Northcote. Like a lot of indoor 25-metre pools, it's really a bit too warm for its own good.

A lot of headline-writers have done predictable things with the name of a certain very fast Jamaican. There's nothing new about trying to make something from the names of appropriately-monikered sportspeople; my favourite is the British headline after a footballer, one Gerry Queen, was booked for fighting in a game at Crystal Palace: "Queen in Brawl at Palace".

Also noticed an interesting quote from the president of the Australian Liberal Students Federation, speaking of an apparently pro-Palestinian blog run by someone at Macquarie Uni: "If Macquarie values its reputation as a free-thinking university, it will tell its staff to clean up this website or face the sack". Haven't seen anything like it since a 1980s Nicaraguan information minister defended his closure of an opposition newspaper by saying "They accused us of suppressing freedom of expression. This was a lie and we could not let them publish it".

Fairly casual Monday night from Nicola's looking over some of the views of the CBD at night in the Studley Park area. Sluggish early on but ended up pretty smooth in the second half. Ground a little rougher at times than I was comfortable being in within lights, despite the full moon.