Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Outside of orienteering, a major part of my life in the last couple of years has been a complete reworking of the long-term Australian temperature data set. This turned out to be a much bigger job than I was expecting (and then became a bigger job still as it started to take a higher profile). There's an international review panel coming out in early August and effectively I needed to get everything that needed to be done ahead of their arrival before I left. It became obvious two or three weeks ago that getting there was going to involve some seriously hard work. On Thursday I wasn't sure I was going to make it, and even on Friday I thought I'd need all of the weekend to finish it off, but things went well on Saturday (one advantage of working on a weekend - fewer distractions), and after yet another trip to get the laksa that's fuelled me through many late evenings at work in the last two years, I thought I could finish that night. Shortly after 10 I did so. It was a pity not to have anyone else around to share the milestone with - it was certainly the biggest single thing I've done since finishing my PhD - but nice to have it over. (I still had to go in this afternoon to tidy up a few other bits and pieces, but the pressure was off by then).

I needed a good sleep. Badly. I got it, more or less (was still very much asleep when the alarm went off at 7, late by my standards), and set out for the Melbourne Series event at Plenty Gorge. My running has suffered in the last few days from general tiredness and the hint of a cold, and did again today, plus I haven't quite managed to unwind properly yet - the next couple of days will be good for this. Hills rather weak. Most of the course was more about route choice than fine navigation, but I made a bit of a minor meal of the first control, the only challenging control of the course and the sort of control I'd expect to see a bit of in continental Europe (high point in some green in amongst the remnants of an old quarry) - only lost 30 seconds but it was annoying to lose time in such a careless manner.

On the plane to Budapest tomorrow morning, hopefully a less drawn-out process than the trip of Jenny and Susanne (who I'll be joining there).

C • Well done! 2

Yet another truncated night (but the last really bad one), and was still half-asleep when I started running; ground out a fairly unconvincing 90 minutes although it did improve a little as it went on. Felt progressively better through the day, though; I'm functioning on adrenalin at the moment and the finish line is near...

Some years back we had a workshop in Auckland for which the venue was the premises of the Employers' and Manufacturers Association. On one of the days a few of us were eating lunch outside (it was a nice day) when one of the EMA staff came out to say that their chief executive had complained about us spoiling the view out his window (or words to that effect). I was tempted to say that we'd stop eating lunch outside his window when he stopped driving in bus lanes (he'd been quoted in that day's 'Herald' in a piece on public transport improvements as saying that he liked the bus lanes because they gave him somewhere he could drive quickly if he was running late), but thought that would probably get us thrown out altogether, thought better of it, and decided he was the sort of arrogant so-and-so you'd expect to find in charge of an employer organisation. I mention all of this because he's now at the centre of a political storm in New Zealand after making some very politically incorrect remarks about women in the workplace:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id...

Another sleep-deprived night thanks to an international teleconference which ran until almost 1, but actually slept properly (if not terribly long) and was much better for it. The session in the pool was reasonably mundane but then got through the day smoothly - I think part of my problem yesterday was above the shoulders after getting a bit frustrated when things weren't working smoothly in the morning. Now that I'm close enough to the finish to be confident that I am actually going to get everything done by Sunday night, it feels a bit like the point on the old Melbourne marathon course when you got your first sighting of the Arts Centre Spire. I even felt sufficiently on top of things to take the evening off to go to the football (although perhaps I shouldn't have bothered).

There were three separate tribes making their way east from the Melbourne CBD this evening - the Essendon supporters, the Hawthorn supporters and the people on their way to a Miley Cyrus concert at Rod Laver Arena. It wasn't too hard to tell the third group apart from the other two. (One teenage girl who wasn't at the Miley Cyrus concert was sitting a couple of seats away from me at the football: I'm not sure whether to be worried that she couldn't spell 'commentary' or pleased that she cared enough about correct spelling in a text message to ask me. It reminded me a bit of the person coming out of a heavy Melbourne Victory loss a few months back whom I heard ask "how do you spell 'embarrassing'?", something which would have been relevant tonight too).

In a week like this I really need to take full advantage of time spent at home to get some sleep, but it didn't happen last night - slept very poorly. It didn't seem to affect the run greatly, though - it was a reasonably standard run, slowed a bit in the dark, but found something for the last 20 minutes when I needed to get a bit of a wriggle on to get the train I was looking for. Knee not an issue and seems to be on the improve.

That, though, was all I had as I hit the wall in reasonably spectacular fashion during the morning, to the point that had it been a building site I would have been sent home as a menace to occupational health and safety. Got a bit of a second wind in the afternoon after spending frustrating hours, not for the first time in this project, grappling with issues in the Moree data set and having minor mishaps as I did so. I'm wondering if we ran over a black cat in Moree once on one of our trips to the Gold Coast, because the last time I actually set foot in the place it was just after we'd run into a flock of galahs on the road out of town which took out both my headlights (on one of my more misadventurous orienteering road trips).

C • Road trip 1

3x1k on the Tan with (roughly) 500 recovery. Doing this off five hours' sleep instead of one like this time last week but didn't feel a great deal sharper, except perhaps on the last one (which was a bit faster than last time). Feel as if I'm getting a bit of a cold, which is no surprise whatsoever (last night I didn't even get around to eating dinner until 11.15). At the moment I'll be happy if I can hold myself together, more or less, until next Monday morning.

Going to/from the Tan. Had to divert around some tidal flooding underneath the Swan Street bridge, which wasn't a surprise after having to go around some on the bike underneath Citylink. Wonder if anyone's tracking the number of times per year this happens as an indicator of sea level rise?

8x400 at Clifton Hill on a 2.5 minute cycle. Felt a bit more lively than I sometimes do for this but fairly similar times (82). A classic cold-outbreak morning with the wind getting up a bit on the last couple of reps. Knee a bit iffy in the warm-up but no issues on the track itself (and feels better afterwards than it has for a few days).

Warm-up/down from the track session.

Swim at Ivanhoe rather than Fitzroy because that's what fitted best with the best of the day - it isn't usually my favourite pool but not as stifling as usual. A fairly standard swim, nothing to get too excited about.

Monday night from Dion's on a warm (for winter), windy and unusually dark night, through Yarra Bend and back along the Yarra on the Collingwood side. Within myself running. Knee still feeling not quite right, again not an impediment to running in its current state but I'm not entirely confident it won't get worse.

Took a long time to relax tonight, which says something about the intensity level I'm operating at during the day this week. I'll be pleased to step on the plane next Monday.