Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Event: Victorian Long Champs (SILVA NOL)
 

A bit reversed from yesterday - a run which felt like it was a good one, very good at times, but got a worse placing than I thought it was going to. I thought it was a top-six run but it only got 10th, thanks to the rest of the field refusing to crumble the way they usually do in long, physical races. It's a good sign for Australian orienteering even if it was bad for my result.

The course was hilly with a lot of small route choice but not much in the way of epic route choice - there was no 'how on earth do I do this' leg - and quite technically easy. This made it in essence a long hilly running race. It felt solid from the beginning, and better later on, with a fair bit of strength up the hills, even later on (including the big climb into 19 at the end).

The knee is just about right but I did myself another injury in the closing stages - ran into a fence wire and appear to have strained something in my quad from the suddenness of the stop. It hurt enough to suggest that it might have been a problem had it happened 20 minutes from home rather than two.

It was another moist day (although rainfall totals were small) and we cut up the access road pretty badly. Most of it was thanks to some ill-timed roadworks but I still expect we'll attract some local ire (even if we helped the local CFA raise a couple of grand).

Event: Australian Middle Champs (SILVA NOL)
 

Australian Middle Distance Championships at Chewton. Finished 8th, a pleasing result and better than what I thought my run was going to achieve when I finished. Having the best of the conditions helped but others made errors, and I certainly didn't expect to be as close to the lead as four minutes.

I went out with an organiser's early start, not as lonely an experience as it usually is because this was an MFR event and five M21Es were in that category. I was a little wobbly at the start, but nothing bigger than 15 seconds, and was settling in reasonably well by mid-course, although seeming to lack a bit of power up hills (perhaps a legacy of the knee, which otherwise stood up OK). It was a little surprising to be (almost) caught by Bruce at 12. I caught Simon Goddard at much the same time and we were a group of three, more or less, for the rest of the course. The other two got a bit of a jump on me into 22 when they got a better gap in the gorse than I did and I couldn't get back on them, which disappointed me at the time - but a bit less when we found out afterwards that our splits on that sector ranked 1, 3 and 5. Bruce ended up 3rd, an excellent result for him.

Doing the commentary without being able to see anything was a bit of a challenge to say the least, but I hope we managed to keep people interested.

Getting close to being right; would have gone out today had I not had a big race tomorrow. Hopefully I'll run as well tomorrow as I did in March after a few days off.

Most pointless sporting tribunal proceedings of the year go to Cycling Australia for their hearing a couple of days ago in which Chris Jongewaard was suspended for six months. As most of you will know, he isn't likely to be competing anywhere in the next six months regardless of the tribunal's decision - he's in jail for at least the next nine.

Can anyone explain to me how anybody thought it might have been a good idea for Brendan Fevola to record a Footy Show Street Talk at the post-Brownlow festivities?

C • Good for ratings 3

A bit better today - walking normally now and the only real soreness is going up stairs or getting up from a chair (not something I did a lot in the course of a very long, but productive, day at work). Still decided not to chance it on the Tan at this stage.

It could have been worse - I could have been attempting to run today in Sydney, Brisbane or anywhere in between.

C • i saw people out running...... 2

Knee much the same this morning as it was yesterday. On last night's evidence this means I can run on it if I need to, but at this stage of the season there's nothing really to be gained by doing so.

C • You can massage it though! 2

Wasn't quite sure what to expect - first day with a new injury is about discovering what your limits are. No real dramas in the pool, although not an especially fast session. Also OK on the ride into work - it seems to be one of those injuries that is harder to walk on than to do anything else with. This makes me think it probably isn't terribly serious, but I would have preferred it to happen some other week.

Epic Fail of the day goes to the call centre of a certain well-known telecommunications company that one of my work colleagues had the misfortune of having to deal with today. At the first attempt they wouldn't deal with her because they said her date of birth was wrong. Half-a-dozen calls later it transpired that her date of birth in the system was 01/01/1901. You might have thought that the call centre people might have noticed that that didn't look terribly credible (or alternatively that they had the world's oldest mobile phone user) but apparently not.

MFR Monday night from Warren and Tash's. Started with the intention of seeing how it felt and pulling the pin quickly if the knee gave trouble, but it didn't - felt a bit odd at times but no pain, which is a good sign. Once I was reasonably confident it was going to hold up OK, this turned into a pretty routine Monday night. The rain held off until after the run (and then unloaded in earnest, although not - yet - to anything like the extent seen in SA or parts of western and northern Victoria).

C • I'm older.. 1