Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Yesterday was encouraging but today was back to the grind that I might have expected after the last few weeks - similar heat and humidity to the Canberra NOL and a fairly similar sort of run, except that it was for no result. The third control was misplaced; I didn't lose a lot of time there (mainly because John Toomey was sitting there), just checking out a couple of likely potential misplacing locations, but from that point a no-race was more or less inevitable.

I was struggling for concentration for a while after that (most notably at 7, where I lost a minute through coming in high and not being able to get down through the rocks to the control), and subconsciously for motivation too, knowing that the result would almost certainly not count. It ended up being a bit of a slog but never really fell apart. Lachlan went through me on a route choice at 16, and we were in sight from there until we both missed 20 a little; he gradually eased away after that.

I'm a little surprised that no-one saved themselves explicitly for the last day, either by bailing or by jogging the remainder (except for Ecmo, who had a good excuse for his DNS - having to take a sick child to hospital in Perth - and was as surprised as anyone to find out he was still in the race). Thumbs up for the field.

Tracy's recovery from the run was to hold the attention of an impressively large group of youngsters through storytime in the tent. I didn't think they'd be terribly excited by the reading matter I had on hand, the Orienteering Australia 2011-14 budget and forward estimates or the February issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (although Anne suggested the increasingly-numerically-inclined Mason might be interested in the former). The latter did have one of the quirkier titles I've seen, 'What Comes Down Might Go Up' (about the potential impact of climate change on landslide risk in coastal California).

C1 Day 3 - Splits

First full day of Easter, the middle distance. Got into a nice flow early on hitting the first few pretty well, a bit of a wobble on 5 but nothing of any significance, and picking up the yellow/bare rock lines (important for speed in this terrain) well. Speed was still a bit down, but I was a little surprised to see Jimbo coming into 6 as I was going out, having caught 1.30 of a two-minute gap. I got a good route choice on 7 which broke that gap open again, then made an annoying 20-seconder on 10 (seeing the feature but not the flag) and thought he might be on me again, but he wasn't. Reasonably solid finish, and reasonably happy with the run - I don't get a lot of single-digit placings these days so this was a pretty good start.

C1 Day 2 - Splits

Event: Frazzle Rock Easter 2011
 

Easter prologue, on a bush map rather than an urban one. A little slow to start and missed 15 seconds on 3 (misread which side of the boulder it would be on), but then settled down OK. Robbie caught me before 6, but missed it (of which more below) - through me again a couple of controls later. Not great uphill but moving OK otherwise. Fallen timber not as bad as feared. Good Friday for me is about damage-limitation, so I was reasonably happy to be under three minutes down, and to score a National League point, a rarity for me in sprints these days. Glad it wasn't a longer race, on a 33-degree day.

Highlight of the day was the drop manouevre executed on Robbie at 6 - he was running alongside me and I noticed that he wasn't looking up where I thought we should be looking up, so I dropped back a stride or two and then turned once he couldn't see me. Only held him off for a couple of controls but it's fun to do. (Since it's pretty rare that I can burn people off with speed, I've had a lot of practice at finding other means to break packs up).

Day 1 (Prologue) Long - Splits

Did what I imagine is the Classic Central Perth Run - up from the central city to Kings Park, along the track on the upper part of the escarpment, back along the Swan River. Thought I might struggle through not eating anything beforehand but seemed to be OK. Knee not too bad.

I'm used to having random encounters with orienteers in the streets of small country towns at this time of year, but thought Perth might have been a bit big for that before coming across Tracy and Sticky (and kids) on the way to work (I'm working out of the Perth office today).

C • Weather Forecast 2

Rest day. Just about to head to Perth.

Morning run from home out around Yallambie, reasonably hilly for the first two-thirds before the nice finish through Rosanna Parklands. Not brilliant early on but built into it later on. Knee also slightly annoying early on but gradually improved, but I think I'll rest tomorrow and do something light on Thursday instead of the other way round - in any case fitting a run tomorrow was going to be challenging unless I wanted a pre-5.30 start (which is not really what you want on a day which is going to be stretched out by going to Perth).

Still tossing up ideas for the post-Easter week; have had a couple of offers, or do I do the climate-station equivalent of getting the 20-pointers-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-that-are-only-worth-getting-if-you-think-you-can-get-them-all, and bag Morawa and Meekatharra? (Marble Bar is too far away).

C • Take it from a local 3

Flailing around a bit for the first few laps but gradually built up into something vaguely reasonable. Starting to get to the stage of the year when it's cool enough in the air to feel warm in the water. (Speaking of which, it looks like it won't be super-hot for Easter - probably near 30 on Friday and mid-high 20s for the other three days, which is an improvement on last Saturday, 36.3 - a late-season record - at Perth Airport and 34 at York).

A couple of dubious dealings relating to real estate were in the news over the last day or so. One was down here where some unfortunate/gullible people had laid down deposits on an apartment block which hasn't been built yet - a problem that Kez is not unfamiliar with - except that in this case it turned out that the developer didn't actually own the land the alleged apartment block was going to be built on and the alleged 33-storey block was going to be in an area of Frankston which has a 20-metre height limit. (Perhaps the fact that the real estate agent was in Castlemaine should have rung some alarm bells). The other one was from Canberra, where the latest manoeuvre of a business trying to stave off eviction by their landlords, the ACT Government, for unpaid rent has been to lodge a native title claim over the premises. One presumes they might have had a slightly better chance of getting away with that if they had actually been Aboriginal.

MFR Monday night from Dion's. A slightly faster pace than usual for this session, not unpleasant on the whole but worryingly weak on the one decent hill. Knee a bit uncertain at times. Had some new company in the form of Fredrik (didn't get his last name), who divides his time between his job in Kazakhstan and his girlfriend in Brunswick; the former gave us a subject for conversation (although his job is at the end of Kazakhstan that has the oil, not the end of Kazakhstan that has the nice forests and the high mountains).

C • Johansson 2