Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Event: Australian Relay Champs (SILVA NOL)
 

Australian Relays, running second in the second Victorian team. I've often struggled to come up for the relay in recent years and didn't feel great in the warm-up; not too bad once running but certainly not as strong as yesterday.

I went out a couple of minutes down (and lineball with Bruce in the first team). The first couple of legs were a bit wobbly and I lost Bruce quite quickly (on a different split as it happened), but then settled quite well technically through some tricky sections (especially 8, which was a bit scary). The juniors must have been common with us through this section because I saw a few of them - dealt with Kas and Chris Firman without too much trouble, but needed several legs to make much of an impression on Ollie, who ran an excellent race. In the process I'd slipped up into third, but there was a pursuing pack of Robbie, Kerrin and Bruce. They were almost on me at 15 and then went through me on a route choice to 16, although I was able to get back onto Kerrin, more or less, and through Bruce who had a different split. Bruce ended up doing me - just - in the sprint (we started the leg within five metres and ended it within five metres), but Victoria 2 ended up beating Victoria 1 pretty easily after Bryan had a last-leg blowout (and Toph didn't). We were fourth and fifth.

Knee didn't feel great in the warm-up, but was fine during the race. I'd be a bit apprehensive still about how it might respond to large volumes of training, but as I have no plans to do large volumes of training for a month or so this is not an immediate concern.

I now have the grand total of one and a half days in Melbourne before heading for Sydney and then Thursday Island (assuming no late hitches in the travel arrangements). Should be an interesting destination, although I can't say I'm looking forward to reacquainting myself with the joys of running in 25-degree dewpoints. I also hope the Hume is a bit less stressful on Tuesday than it was today (Tuesday is not the last day of Victorian school holidays so that's a reasonable assumption).

Some of the Queensland girls were asking me today about a bus-related scandal that apparently occurred at the 1990 Schools. I wasn't at the 1990 Schools and don't recall hearing about it; does anyone who was there want to enlighten us? (I presume it is not a reference to the 1989 SA bus which broke down five times between Adelaide and Newcastle, the first time before it got out of the car park).

In the absence of any other information I suggested that they should refer their questions to the Queensland Minister for Transport (who was on that team if I recall correctly).

C • 1990 Schools Champs were in SA 5

Event: Australian Long Champs (SILVA NOL)
 

Australian Long Championships. Ultimately a bit disappointing; running reasonably strongly for much of the course, but lost about 5 minutes, 3 on navigation, 2 on route choice, and missed the top-10 place which was my principal target. Ended up 12th.

Slightly hesitant on 1, but ran 2 (which troubled a lot of people) well and caught Steve Todkill there. We were together for a couple of legs which settled me down, then I got clear on 5 and had a good stretch up the hills to 6 and then into a section of short legs - but then made a mess of 9, on a clearing in the green, and lost about 2 minutes. Recovered through the middle, but things then went wrong on 14 - took too conservative a route out on the track to the right (and then lost time on the control too). On the other hand, the conservative route on the track on 16 paid off, both on the leg itself and in leaving me with something for the big climb to 17, after feeling like cramp might not have been too far away a bit earlier. Ran the control-picking finish well and gained a couple of places.

This was certainly a better run than last year but also a better field; I feel as if I'm not going backwards, but also not making much progress, which isn't much surprise in my late 30s. There's no reason to move up, though, while I'm still regularly a scoring runner for the Nuggets (and there wouldn't have been much motivation in winning M35 by 20 minutes here). There's still the relay to look forward to, and the Masters next week too. I certainly won't have the pace to match Carsten, Grant or Nick Barrable in the sprint, but the long could be interesting; Grant, myself, Nick and Bruce (in that order) were all within three minutes today.

This was a really nice forest to be out in at this time of year (although the drizzle was a bit miserable) and the low visibility in many places made for quite technical orienteering. Another addition to the list of good NE Victorian maps, and it's showed what potential the Warbys have if mapped properly.

Event: Australian Sprint Champs (SILVA NOL)
 

Jog around the Australian Sprint Championships controls to make sure everything was in the right place. There were quite a few elephant tracks from the control-placers even when I was out - there must have been heaps at the end.

Hope everyone enjoyed it, despite the rain. It seemed to go off almost without a hitch (the only drama was that one of the BMX kids moved a control near the start, but that was fixed pretty quickly).

Now for the big one tomorrow. I have a pretty reasonable history in NE Victorian granite, so am hoping for a good result.

C • elephant tracks 1

A fairly casual swim at Collingwood - pretty routine. Putting in a day at work today before heading up to Benalla tonight, hoping to finish off a paper I've been working on (and made good progress on yesterday afternoon - Maldon's not a bad place to do some writing).

Forecast tomorrow looks pretty miserable - steady light to moderate rain. This is a pity because I think it's an excellent spectator area on a nice day.

Also looks like there's a chance work might be sending me to Thursday Island next week. Will await developments.

C • Thanks 1

A run around the controls at the Australian Schools Relays early in the morning, in the name of keeping the SI units awake until the first competitors arrived (others had already gone out before me, but too early). Nice forest to be out in but felt pretty ordinary - glad I wasn't racing today (and hope it was because it was too early). Good news was no real problems from yesterday's hamstring twinge. On the other hand, Sunday's bruise is even more spectacular today than it was yesterday.

As might be expected for an urban-fringe forest, I saw quite a bit of evidence of illegal dumping and various other environmental sins en route (as well as a suspected humpy up against one of the map's few cliffs).

And I think I've worked out why the hole in the ozone layer reaches its maximum annual extent in early October - it's all the hairspray used by the Schools relay teams.

Easy track run at Browns Reef after the end of the Australian Schools; I prefer not to do all my recovery runs in terrain in a race week and hence didn't venture into the bush except for a bit of a shortcut at the end. Quite smooth. A bit of left hamstring tightness later on.

This was one of my more challenging commentary sessions, thanks partly to the assembly area configuration (it would have been useful to have eyes in the back of my head and my right ear) and partly because there wasn't a start list of any kind until 20 minutes after the start, and the one I did get wasn't in any useful order and didn't have running numbers. I don't recognise as many Schools people by sight as I once did and suspect I made quite a few identification mistakes, although we got the key moments right.

Swim at Collingwood, a slightly oddball venue chosen because of its proximity to the station (I'd had to drop some gear off at Warren and Tash's en route and didn't have room for the bike as well, although this was not such a bad thing because it was raining). A reasonably smooth effort which got a few cobwebs out.

American geographical ignorance (an occasional series): former Telstra executive Phil Burgess, in the middle of a rant about the government's telecommunication plans, was heard to say that there was already one Hugo Chavez in the Southern Hemisphere and no need for another one. Unless he is on a visit to somewhere further south than Venezuela, there are no Hugo Chavez's in the Southern Hemisphere; the southernmost point of Venezuela is at about latitude 2 degrees north.

This certainly wasn't the day I would have chosen for a fast run around the Tan, but it was going to be my only opportunity to post a time as a make-up for the Corporate Cup round I missed last week. From past experience of solo runs I knew I'd do well to get under 14, but it was soon apparent that even that modest goal was well out of reach. The second half was a bit better but still well beow par, not surprising coming off yesterday (the track conditions weren't great either).

The good news was that my quad, which was still a little sore this morning, came up fine on the run - just a very slight twinge pushing off hard. Looks like nothing to worry about.

Km splits 3.50, 3.56 (uphill), 3.44, 3.41.

Going to/from the Tan. Still a lot of Grand Final function remnants on Southbank, and Yarra River muck on the path near Swan Street bridge.