Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

A very ordinary morning session around Ivanhoe, despite the nice conditions. Felt weak throughout the run, particularly on the hills. Probably the worst I've felt on a run for several weeks; no obvious reason for it so will await developments.

First hit-out this season on the Tan, but not as I'd hoped it would be - a late-running meeting at work meant that I missed out on being in the traditional 12.25 start-time bunch. (It turned out I didn't miss much as most of the other regulars were also missing, but I would at least have had Liggo to chase). Instead I started at 12.45 with one other person; I thought he might be a useful target when he jumped to a 20-metre break inside the first 100, but I was through him by 600 and never saw him again, so it was essentially a solo run.

Didn't feel too bad on the run - certainly much better than this morning - but still disappointingly slow, even factoring in the 15-20 second differential that seems to be standard between a race and a solo run. The hill was nothing to get excited about. Better in the second half. My training at present is more geared to longer distances - something we'll find out more about at the half-marathon on Sunday - but I'd still like to be sub-13.30 here.

A sunny lunchtime meant lots of walkers to get in the way (but at least not too many dogs, strollers or school groups).

Km splits: 3.40, 3.48 (uphill), 3.36, 3.32.

C • I hope you're not complaining about... 2

Getting to/from the Tan. We'd been warned that there was going to be a film shoot at the bottom of our building involving 'simulated explosions' but no-one had (yet) started blowing anything up.

Fartlek session from my place. Felt a bit light-headed when I started but got into it by the start of the first fast stuff. Not as slow as last week (9.28), but still 15 seconds short of where I should be and 30 seconds short of where I'd like to be.

The large billboard spruiking anti-impotence treatments of dubious merit has disappeared from the road into town, after being ruled offensive by the Advertising Standards Council. There was a letter in one of the papers. "'Nasal Delivery Technology'? My wife is quite happy with the delivery technology I use now".

And, thanks to Crikey, some headlines that could have used some better subediting:

'Police: Crack Found In Man's Buttocks'
'Chick Accuses Some Of Her Male Colleagues Of Sexism' (about a Ms. Chick who is a city councillor in Los Angeles)
'Utah Poison Control Center Reminds Everyone Not To Take Poison'
'Great Tits Cope Well With Warming' (about the response of birds to climate change)
'Tiger Woods Plays With Own Balls, Nike Says'

and my favourite:

'Federal Agents Raid Gun Shop, Find Weapons'

Pretty sluggish this morning, although nice to be outdoors in the sunshine. Not much new that can be said about chasing the black line.

This was my latest arrival at a Monday night run in living memory, thanks to hitting a long red light and then three successive trains at the Clifton Hill railway crossing. A frantic day at work didn't help either. (The first day of the month is always frantic, the first day of a new season more so, and when you throw a big weather event on the other side of the world into the mix...).

As this coincided with the earliest departure on a Monday night run in living memory, I missed everyone and thus headed out on my own, in the hope that I might catch up to them. Had everyone gone their usual way from Dion's I might have, but they didn't so I didn't. Instead I had a rare Monday evening solo run, faster than I usually do these (especially early on). Felt better than I was expecting to, and no sign of the left hip twinge that I noticed walking downhill at lunchtime. I wasn't the only one coming off a big weekend - on returning it was revealed that Dion had been adventure-racing and Nicola had done the best part of three hours herself yesterday (she runs to wherever her daughter is playing soccer on the weekend, and this weekend it was Jells Park).

This time three years ago the Monday night talking point was impending meteorological catastrophe in New Orleans (something people had probably become sick of hearing me talk about after a couple of near-misses in preceding years). Tonight we might have a repeat performance; Gustav is not as intense as Katrina, but this time New Orleans might take the direct hit from the main storm surge (last time the biggest surge was in the Biloxi area to the east, and New Orleans flooded from the back several hours later). We await developments.

I like to finish intensive training blocks off with an epic. This most commonly occurs on the first Sunday in February. I don't often get as concentrated a block as this in August, but decided to make a virtue of necessity on seeing the sparsely populated August event schedule. If nothing else, August's weather is much kinder for heavy training than January's is (although I'd like a few warm days in the next three weeks to get some sort of acclimatisation for Queensland).

Most of this was familiar ground but linked in an unfamiliar way, starting through Doncaster and then coming back through Blackburn and Balwyn, mostly rolling. Didn't feel especially comfortable on the hills but kept going. At its best in the middle hour (perhaps not coincidentally this was also the nicest section scenically). Started to fade away after about 2.10, to a greater extent than I have on previous long runs in this session, but did manage to hold it together to the end - just.

Noticed in today's paper that there is apparently a Sedgwick serial arsonist. Perhaps fortunately, someone is now "assisting police with their enquiries" - if you're going to have a serial arsonist it's probably better for them to be making their presence felt in August rather than February.

It was a big day to finish off a big month. I haven't tried anything quite as heavy as this at this time of year for a long time and will be interested to see what benefits (if any) it's provided. The first test will be a half-marathon next weekend.

Wasn't feeling 100% well yesterday afternoon but what was threatening to become a cold didn't, and had a pretty good run at the Bendigo event at Sedgwick. Was quite aggressive in the terrain, including on the hills (unlike my last couple of terrain runs where I've been uncomfortable on slippery ground), and didn't miss anything. Also found a decent turn of speed at the end on catching Max Neve at the second-last. I'd expect a JWOC candidate to be able to run as fast as me (if not necessarily as long or as accurately), and Max was able to do this (and wasn't following blindly which was also good to see). Evan, David and Jim all did 44, Max 47.

This is one of the shorter races I've run at Sedgwick - it used to be home of the Blodslitet, and twice featured me trying to defend leads in the 25th kilometre (for one win and one loss). It's a good area with nothing to slow you down except the hills.

One downside of the new freeway is that there is now nowhere on the road to eat between Sedgwick and Melbourne. I dropped into Kyneton to discover that it makes few concessions to visitors - the place is pretty much closed by 3 on a Saturday. The one cafe open did a decent hot chocolate; I was the youngest customer by about 40 years. The locals seemed shocked that I was driving all the way back to Melbourne afterwards. I didn't tell them that at the same time six days earlier I had 700 kilometres ahead of me instead of 85.

C • Malmsbury 2

A reasonably routine session at Richmond. Exhausted when I got home last night (not surprisingly) but much better for a reasonable night's sleep.

An early start even by my standards, and the last time for a while that I'll be doing a substantial part of a morning run in the dark (partly because sunrise is getting earlier, partly because I won't do another midweek run as long as this until after the championship season). This early start was motivated partly by the expected length, partly because I needed to be at work a bit earlier than I sometimes do and I thought going 10 minutes earlier was worth it, on the grounds that the 8.17 train usually has seats whereas the 8.26, which comes from further away, almost never does. (Such strategies will need to be rethought when the timetables change in October). A 5.05 alarm was still a bit later than was routine a decade ago, when I would regularly wake up on Thursdays to the dulcet tones of Alexander Stollznow doing the 4.58 international finance report on ABC radio.

Settled down quickly - the quads are fine now - and flowed pretty well for the first hour. Only fair on hills in the middle but stronger at the end, on a course that became increasingly hilly as it went on - started southwest as far as the Studley Park bridge, then east as far as Camberwell Grammar (I wonder if they know that one of their old boys is a world champion?) and then north the steep way, along the pipeline track through Bulleen. Finished quite quickly, partly in a bid to make sure I made the aforementioned 8.17 train.

I suspect the headline-writer for one of the local suburban papers would have enjoyed coming up with 'Happy As A Pig In Poo' for a story about the temporary closure of the Mornington police station due to a sewage flood.