Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Some good photos of orienteers in the latest R4YL, although worra's name was spelt incorrectly and Miss Jones probably won't be too pleased to see herself referred to as a "former elite orienteer" (while in the process of doing the same time, to the second, for a half-marathon as I did for my last one).

Metro event at Plenty Gorge. Might not have gone to this had my club not been organising Stiffer than usual after a long run - obviously I still have some work to do getting used to proper long runs again - and it's probably fairly marginal as to whether this should be classified as a race effort.

Got off to a very unpromising start when the first control was in the wrong place. I lost 3 minutes here (Bruce also lost a fair bit of time). Took a while to get my motivation going again after that, but started to settle down in the middle third; never super-fast though. The course was a good deal kinder than it can be here, with no river crossings and most legs having options to stay high out of the steep areas (options generally worth taking).

Bruce's 10k PB obviously took less out of him, as he did 45.

I thought I might have had more running today, in the form of collecting the more far-flung controls, but I got back from my first lot of control collecting (a stroll around the easy course) to discover that Tim Dent was already off doing it.

My longest normal training run (discounting Wilsons Prom, a bit of a special case) since this weekend last year, and probably close to my best run this year too. Headed out somewhat later than normal after watching a video of last night's football (something to send me out on a high), something which has the plus of being more awake and the minus of dicing with late Saturday morning traffic, lighter but less predictable than a weekday peak hour. (Going across the entrance of a Bunnings at 11.30 on a Saturday morning was probably a suboptimal route choice).

The first third was mostly fairly flat, along the south side of the Yarra initially and then through Westerfolds. Hit a nice rhythm on this section and carried it through onto the hillier section through Eltham and Montmorency (although the route was certainly not as brutal as routes in this part of the world can be), reasonably strong up the hills and flowing well down them. Twinged a groin muscle going down a steep hill into Greensborough at about 1.40 (nothing too serious - seems fine after cooling down), and the going was heavier from there. The last half-hour was hard work, which is understandable given my lack of this type of session in the last few months.

Certainly pleased to get this under my belt; it only needs the reintroduction of my second session on a midweek day (usually Wednesday), which I'll probably do the week after next, to consider my training back to normal. Sets the weekend up nicely with a football win on Friday night and a long run under my belt on Saturday morning :-).

I'm also impressed by the efficiency of the railway construction workers; I knew the line (and road underneath it) was closed for bridgeworks this weekend but hadn't quite registered that this involved removing the old bridge and building a new one in the space of 48 hours (at least it should be 48 hours; there will be a lot of disgruntled commuters on Monday morning if it isn't). The old one was there when I started my run and had gone by the time I got back. The road detour goes up our street, which is predictably busy; the people who are auctioning a house today probably aren't too pleased that their quietish street has been turned into a main road for the day.

C • Helps to think of Wilsons Prom as more of a 4-hour rogaine! 1

A fairly standard session at Fitzroy. Nice when in the water.

Today was the day when I organised the annual Ivanhoe ALP quiz night (among the features this year was the paper plane contest where people were invited to fly a Barnaby Joyce press release into a rubbish bin). I'm always on the lookout for current events to inspire questions, and there was a good one during the week arising from an industrial dispute on the site of the new Melbourne wholesale fruit and vegetable markets in Epping - it was alleged that members of the CFMEU had cut a fence and spread lettuce leaves on the ground to try to entice kangaroos onto the site. (I was also impressed by the effort's of the Age's online headline writer, "A few CFMEUs loose in the top paddock").

A pretty solid morning's effort, although with a bit of left hamstring soreness at times - didn't really restrict me and largely disappeared by the end. South and south-east initially through North Balwyn to Box Hill North; must have been confused by the dark (which it is for the first hour of these now) because I missed a turn on a route I've probably done at least 50 times before. Returned through Doncaster, via one of the less hilly routes.

A long run can give time for contemplation and this one gave time for contemplation of some of the exchanges between our organisation's leaders and sundry Coalition senators in Senate Estimates yesterday. These certainly did not dispel me of the impression that in the event of a change of government later this year, I may find myself looking for another career or another country. (That said, a lot would depend on who the minister was - Greg Hunt, the current shadow, would be reasonable, others would not be - and the previous government did put money into research as a substitute for actually doing something about the substantive problem, a cue which is also being followed by the current incumbents).

C • Long run 4

The Tan, an essentially unsupported run after the first 500 (one of my colleagues came along but had dropped off by then). Promising start but dropped away a bit after the first kilometre, and lost any faint chance of a good time after losing a few seconds to roadworks in the middle (the 2k marker was also a casualty of this). A slower last km than I thought I was doing, which shows what a slight drop-off in mental intensity will do. Still, feeling vaguely optimistic for a sub-14 in a proper race, which I'll get in a couple of weeks.

No 2k marker and hence no 2nd or 3rd km splits. First k was 3.40, last was 3.47.

To/from the Tan. A mild sunny lunchtime and, as would be expected, lots of people out.

From a Hawthorn base down south into Toorak and back past Kooyong and on the bridge hanging under the freeway (with the addition of a couple of out-and-backs down a side street to occupy the five minutes for which the Kooyong level crossing was blocked - it's one of the places where tram lines cross railway lines and the trains only do 10 km/h, and there were two trains in close succession - a hazard of Heyington street events if you get the timing wrong). A run that threatened to catch alight in the first few minutes, then turned into a steady but unspectacular effort.

One part of the work day was devoted to a briefing on the new initiative for compiling national environmental information. This was another piece of evidence for Canberra being a small town - the Department of Environment person handling the briefing was my next-door neighbour in Canberra and a year below me at primary school. (The ABS - relevant section head, Ecmo - is apparently a bit dark that they're not involved at this point of the project).

One area where we don't have a lot of information from our existing sources is terrestrial and landscape data. This, I think, calls for some fact-finding missions. Forested areas should be a high priority because of the importance of remnant vegetation, with a particular emphasis on former mining areas because of potential environmental damage, and areas with lots of rocks because of their abnormal runoff properties from impermeable surfaces. Naturally some company would be needed on these expeditions - occupational health and safety and that sort of thing. Some collaboration with the ABS would be in order, if only in the name of fence-mending, and I think there could also be a place for the Victorian DPI, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and the NSW EPA; we could also do with a forester and a soil scientist because I don't know anything about tree health and soil, a geological surveyor and someone to look for weeds would also come in handy, and it might be worth taking a couple of Melbourne Uni meteorology students along for the experience. Sound like a plan?

C • Data Balkanisation 16

Swim at Fitzroy. Not much I can say about this - there's only so many ways you can describe chasing the black stripe. Warmer than the last couple of mornings, which for swimming is a good thing - the distance from the changerooms to the pool is a long way at 3 degrees (although on such days it's lovely once you're actually in the water).

On the way into work I passed the massive demonstration against clearway extensions which had set up outside the Supreme Court. I went past quickly but the crowd seemed clearly into double figures - it might have even been as much as 15. This won't have stopped them from getting a couple of minutes of publicity on tonight's news. I didn't check to see if any of their vehicles were illegally parked.

Ran at lunchtime because of an evening meeting. This was one with a bit of a difference when it came to the destination. AJ won the OA athlete of the year award again this year. Last year we arranged to do a presentation at the trials for MTBO WOC. There was no suitable event to do a presentation at this year, so instead I organised to do a handover at the most convenient location - outside his workday premises at Fishermens Bend in the middle of a run. Fortunately the award isn't that heavy.

The run was actually pretty good, which could have been related to either or both of (a) coming off a relatively easy weekend and (b) the first run in new shoes. Light rain throughout, but not enough to seriously dampen said new shoes.