Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Awoke this morning to be greeted by a 'Canberra Times' front page describing Constable Frogga's Friday night exploits (the alleged offender picked the wrong cop to try to outrun), and got a few column inches in the back myself (this time talking about financial deficits rather than rainfall ones).

I was looking forward to this: a proper long race on classic Canberra spur-gully. To a greater extent than probably anyone else in the field, I grew up on this stuff - there were even a few native cherry trees on the map (as 80s as a 'Beer, Cigs Up' headline on Budget day). The area itself was a new one. We'd tried to get permission to use it without success in the late 80s/early 90s, and found out the reason why it hadn't been forthcoming when it played host a couple of years later to one of the Canberra region's largest-ever marijuana busts. Control of the area then passed to National Parks (presumably the land was seized under proceeds-of-crime laws), who wanted to have two staff present, and paid for at overtime rates, for any event in the area, scuppering plans to use it for the 1997 Australian Relays. Not sure how the problem was solved but it looks like it has been.

The strategy for me for long races these days is to keep plugging away at a reasonable pace, not make any mistakes, and let as much of the field as possible either fall apart or make big mistakes around me. My part of the strategy was executed reasonable well; felt solid throughout, and my only miss of any size was a 15-seconder on the spectator control (although my route on 17 was a bit wider than was optimal). Got the major route choice decisions right too. Started to go through people on the second loop, which was reasonably kind physically. (My interests may have been served better by a tougher finish - the short uphill leg at 21 was my best split of the race). Felt on the edge by the last kilometre but also reasonably strong, which is the position you want to be in at the end of a long race.

Ended up 6th, which is my best placing at this level this year (and matches my result in the equivalent fixture last year).

Good long-distance course setting today - almost every leg was either an interesting leg in its own right or was setting one up.

Event: SILVA National Orienteering League
 

NOL sprint at Bruce. A pretty straightforward course technically, with a second loop which strangely re-used several controls (and one leg) from the first loop.

Started pretty slowly and Ryan was through me by 7; stayed slightly in touch through the middle before dropping off. Not quite with it this morning. Fell apart (by sprint standards) at the end - the third-last control was in the wrong place and lost about 15 seconds there, then another 20 on the last in a bizarre miss. Even without those probably 30 seconds down on where I would like to have been. Once again failed to trouble the scorers; it's probably as well that this will be my last NOL sprint for 2009 (I'm controller for the Aus Champs).

NOL middle at Wild Deer Sands. The course didn't make as much use of the sand mining as I thought it might, but still quite interesting in the lower-visibility areas.

Wobbled a bit on some of the flatter legs early on, particularly 3, but didn't lose much time and hit all the controls well, always an issue in low-visibility terrain. Felt better running than this morning if still a little lacking in sharpness; I suspect I lost a bit of ground in the drag-race over the last two kilometres. Narrowly missed the top 10.

Swim at Northcote before picking Clare up and hitting the road for Canberra. Never really felt like it this morning.

Spent some time at Benalla en route checking things out for the Aus Sprint. One unpleasant surprise is that the very attractive view across the lake to the spectator control is now a rather less attractive view across mudflats - the lake's been drained to try to get rid of the weeds. Hopefully it's back to normal by October.

Shorter than usual for a Thursday morning given the weekend activities. I was a bit apprehensive about this because my shin didn't feel quite right after riding home last night, but it turned out to feel better on the run than it did at rest, always a good sign for an injury. Calves tightest they've been for a while, though.

Didn't want to take on too many hills this morning, so headed up through Bundoora Park then across to Watsonia and back through the bush at Gresswell Hill - always a nice patch for an urban run. This was another run where I felt reasonable but the pace was well down, especially early on. I don't necessarily read a lot into this; the weekend will tell us more.

Like numerous other readers, I occasionally have orienteering dreams (usually involving missing the start for some reason or other), but this is the first time I can recall having a dream involving a meteorological observing site, the site in question being Eyre on the Nullarbor coast (which has a history of very low minimum temperatures, including a WA record of -7.2 last year) - the dream involved running continually towards it. It looks like life might imitate the unconscious here, because today I was doing some research into the possibility of visiting it during my trip next month, and discovered that the last 12km in is a soft sandy track that takes a couple of hours to drive - and 24km sounds like a good length for a weekend long run....

C • Take water! 5

Morning session around Bulleen. Hillier than a lot of my recent runs but still a bit disappointed with the pace, even though I was feeling OK for the most part.

Today's bit of random soreness is brought to you by the letter 'S' (left shin).

Budget night last night. Looks like I still have a job.

Lunctime run around the Tan from work. Nothing startling but not unpleasant. Shin still a bit sore but better than the morning.

Traffic holdups were a bit of an annoyance, but I wasn't prepared to do anything untoward because one of the periodic police blitzes on pedestrian and cyclist offences in the CBD is currently in progress. According to news reports today they've so far managed to find the grand total of five cyclists running red lights in the CBD, which is almost as impressive an effort as that of the NSW police a few years back who raided a festival at Nimbin and only managed to find two people to charge with possession of marijuana.

Cyclist-related offences of another sort were in the news today because Rex Hunt was sentenced to 100 hours of community service for a road-rage incident involving one. I think he could discharge this by not commentating on 50 football matches. (For those unfamiliar with Rex's commentary, it is usually devoid of such important matters as where the ball is, who's got it, what they're doing with it and what the score is). It's being portrayed as an isolated incident, but Morten was telling us on Monday night about a confrontation with him (not involving physical violence on this occasion) on the same road the week after the incident that he's been in court for.

Usual fartlek session. Mundane. Felt OK but no speed (9.45).

As alluded to in comments a couple of weeks ago, one of my colleagues has been embroiled in an argument with a journalist from the 'Australian' on the state of the Antarctic (and has had less than overwhelming support from some parts of senior management). With this in mind, it was interesting to see that a poster has appeared outside our building, 'Ice Will Destroy His Career, Then His Life'. I assume it is a reference to drugs.

Swim at Richmond. Thought shoulder bruising from yesterday might be a problem but it doesn't seem to have swollen at all and was fine once moving. A reasonable session only interrupted by someone taking exception to me moving across too quickly on them after passing (to get out of the way of someone coming in the opposite direction).

Noticed in a search for low rainfall observations so far this year that Kalbarri, on the WA coast north of Geraldton, is yet to get off the mark for 2009. I wonder if they'll still be scoreless when I make it there? (probably about 20 June, plus or minus a couple of days).

Monday night from a new venue, Amy Terry's place in Richmond, and a decent crowd. Like this morning there was a problem with collisions - this time involving a cyclist (whose front light could have done with some improvement) on the Gipps Street footbridge who hit the railing trying to stay out of our way, triggering a pile-up of similar numbers (if lesser damage) to the one on the first lap of the Grand Prix last night. This time I was ahead of the action. No injuries as far as I know.

The run itself was pleasant and smooth on a nice night.