Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

SA badge event at Wilpena Spurs. This is a steeper map than Wilpena Creek but I still thought it unlikely that the winning time would be as high as 75 (as John Nieuwenhoven, the setter, was saying the previous evening), thinking that that would be a reasonable target for me (which in turn meant that 65 would be a reasonable target for Simon).

The first half was steepish in places, but not exceptionally so. Got onto the wrong spur at 4 and lost about a minute, then lost contact in the middle of the long 5th leg - which turned out to gain me time rather than losing it, because I relocated reasonably quickly in a valley which was a shorter route but wasn't my intention because it was allegedly full of medium green that didn't exist. (Simon made the same mistake for the same result). It opened up a lot after that, and was a reasonably smooth run - certainly feeling better than yesterday - but I would have liked to have been a bit closer to Simon (who went through me at about 2/3 distance) than 63 to 77 - a 10-minute gap would have been an acceptable result.

Banged my knee on the way to 2, which produced an impressive amount of blood from the Flinders' unforgiving rocks (I suspect my current running pants are also good at drawing this to the outside rather than soaking it up) but no real pain or lasting damage.

Warm-up event at Wilpena. A few hours in the car probably wasn't ideal preparation for this (fortunately it wasn't a race of any great significance). Felt very ordinary through the first half but improved considerably through the second, probably helped by the fact that this is some of the most delightful terrain to orienteer through that you'll find anywhere - a large part of the reason I'm here. A couple of small wobbles but nothing of any size. Didn't quite get within 1 min/km of Simon.

In at Fitzroy, on another day for the hard core (although the rain stopped just before I arrived). Nothing particularly unusual about this session.

I'm off to the Flinders Ranges events in the morning (which means it will most likely be Tuesday before you hear from me again). It's a bit of an embarrassment of riches this weekend with Dubbo and Castlemaine also on offer.

C • Riches? 3

Someone who shouldn't be holding up a sign about a healthy anything (but is in serious need of a healthy diet):

http://images.businessday.com.au/2010/06/09/158100...

(From the mining tax demo in Perth yesterday)

C • Imagine the impact on the e... 12

My season best by some margin, but frustrating to fall just short of my main target, thanks mainly to a stitch with 500 metres to go - I hit the 3.5km marker in 12.54 and would normally expect to do 1.04 or 1.05 from there, but it didn't quite happen.

I didn't expect it to be anywhere near as fast - I felt very ordinary on the warm-up and equally ordinary at the start, so I was quite surprised to look at my watch at 500m and see that I was 3 seconds under last time instead of 3 seconds over. Continued to feel not so brilliant on the hill but kept the pace going more or less OK until the final stages. There are still roadworks across the top which means running on the (muddy in places) inside track - the splits suggest that might have been worth a couple of seconds (important in this context).

A few were obviously doing intervals rather than racing - in the second half, each time I thought I'd got in a nice bunch they stopped after a couple of hundred metres.

This is the last regular round of the season - there's a 'final' in two weeks (nominally the '12 under 12', but these days they struggle to find 12 people who've done under 13) but I won't qualify for that. (Bruce, who ran his third successive 12.58 or 12.59, will). I'll be back in August or September; by then sub-14 will hopefully be routine. Still, on a day when I felt bad I'm back within 20-25 seconds of a par time from last year, which gives me some optimism that I'll be back there in 6-8 weeks - just in time for WMOC.

Km splits: 3.36, 3.50, 3.40, 3.38.

Going to/from the Tan. Not exactly filled with confidence on the way there about my ability to do a decent time.

Started out not in the mood for anything much at all (except staying in bed - I actually hit the snooze button on my alarm this morning). Not the worst run I've ever had, though - becoming quite nice through the middle and stronger on the hills than I have been, and better for the day after a long run than I would normally expect (which may be an indicator I wasn't trying hard enough yesterday). Also none of the twinges of yesterday.

Cold with light rain almost throughout, but it didn't really unload until I started riding. Definitely took a while to thaw out once at work (and I think I'm on the point of losing the toenail that first blackened on the Wilsons Prom run).

An unusual day for a long run - as with a few weeks ago, this was determined by wanting to race on Thursday. Also a slightly unusual set-up for a long run, determined by the fact that my parents had to leave for the airport at 7.30 (they had a car so I didn't have to take them there, but did want to say goodbye) and I didn't really want to start at 5.30, so did this as a two-loop run coming back home after 80-odd minutes. Both loops were north, the first to Warralong, the second to Macleod.

Felt like I had a bit of a spring in my step early on, which makes it a bit strange that this ended up being the slowest long run I can remember doing - I'd like to blame the darkness but don't think this is the full story. Perhaps that was why I was feeling pretty good at the end. The end of the first loop was well-timed as a toilet stop was needed at that point. A few more Achilles twinges than I've been used to in the last couple of weeks. The plane flights to and from Perth seemed to set it off a bit, which definitely needs to be watched with much longer flights ahead in the coming weeks.

An earlier session than I'm used to on a Monday - my parents are in town so I wasn't going to the Monday night session, and back-to-back meetings ruled out lunchtime. Tried hard to convince myself it wasn't 4am WA time. Also tried hard to convince myself that the front page of today's Age wasn't real.

The run itself was a steady recovery run without being anything to get too excited about.

Second leg of the Monday morning duathlon, at Ivanhoe - which felt stiflingly hot after a run on a chilly morning. Being warmed up obviously counts for a bit as this was less slow than most recent swims. Even more time to think (or to be more precise fewer distractions from doing so) than on the run.