Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Took advantage of a long-run-free Sunday to go up with Bruce and have a look at an area I'd wanted to check out for a while - Granite Hills Park on the edge of South Morang (presumably once upon a time there was a Morang or a North Morang or both, but no trace of such can be found on maps now). The name implied the presence of some rock and I'd also seen some from the air (it's underneath a common approach path for Canberra-Melbourne flights).

The part of the area with rock is only small (probably about 600x600 metres) but could certainly support a sprint and has enough vegetation to keep the visibility down; there's also some small erosion features which would provide worthwhile sites at 1:5000. However, the numerous signs referring to conservation areas and the like don't fill me with confidence about getting permission to use it, which is a pity. A block to the east which I had expected to be private property looks like it's council land but the rock seems to disappear at that stage.

Once we finished with that park, we crossed to the other side of the valley and ran along a ridge - great views but nothing terribly exciting for orienteering. (The views also included a few building complexes at schools and similar that Bruce thought might have urban sprint potential, but all the ones we looked at afterwards had too many high fences - probably built in anticipation of outer suburbs with little public transport containing a lot of bored teenagers with nothing better to do than vandalise the local school). The climb onto that ridge was hard work today, an indication that this wasn't a brilliant run - wouldn't have fancied 2 hours+ today.

C • Bruce 2

A hillier course than others I've been doing this week, through Eaglemont. Muscles were finding hill-climbing pretty hard work (and left Achilles was a bit dicey too) but the performance itself was reasonable once warmed up. A warm morning, not the last one we're likely to see in the next week.

It feels strange to have a weekend in which I won't go outside the bounds of metropolitan Melbourne - I think my last one of these was in June. Have spent most of the afternoon on accounting (both OA's finances and doing my tax), unexciting but necessary.

Fairly relaxed session at Fitzroy, with sunglare an occasional nuisance. The sun was making its presence felt yesterday too, and with it being the first reasonably warm evening since daylight saving started, it seemed like half of Melbourne was taking advantage of the occasion for some al fresco eating and drinking (including my neighbours on either side, and numerous establishments along the main road at Ivanhoe).

Just when you thought the football season was over, we have trade week to keep the journalists happy. (This isn't something that orienteering features, although I've been heard to mutter sometimes that the Cockatoos must have got some awfully good draft picks for me in 1994 with all the recruiting they've done since). This week always features far more speculation than actual deals, which was highlighted last year when someone won a slab of beer from one of their mates by successfully getting a completely fictitious trade reported as a possibility in the 'Age' (there may have been bonus points because the story featured a quote from one of the players concerned saying he was surprised his manager hadn't told him anything about it). Still not quite on the scale of the effort of the Times a few years back when they wrote a story linking Liverpool to a player who did not exist.

And the latest magazine of Bicycle Victoria (or whatever it calls itself now) had a full page ad in it for cycling in Greater Shepparton, including reference to a Victorian downhill MTB round. I'd be interested to know where they have it - 100 times down the banks of the Goulburn River?

C • Victorian downhill MTB 7

Felt a fair bit better today (and also felt a bit strange to be getting up so late on a Thursday). A reasonably routine easy run through Macleod and back down through Rosanna Parklands. Achilles a bit sore on some of the climbs.

A lovely morning for running, and subsequently for riding into work.

Up the Maribyrnong River from near work. An awful, sleepy start for the first 10 minutes but gradually built into something remotely resembling a respectable run, though still hardly pleasant. Cold still at nuisance level. Glad this is a recovery week. Didn't even feel inspired by the knowledge that the carbon price almost certainly would (and did) pass the House later in the morning, despite spending 15 years waiting for it. (It does have to get through the Senate yet but that's largely a formality; there is some cause for relief that we've managed to get this far with a lot of threats of violence but no actual instances of it that I know of).

The odd spot of the run was having my first experience in my 40 years of having the lollipop man stop the traffic for me (at a school crossing in Ascot Vale). Lollipop men and women weren't a feature of my Canberra upbringing as our primary school had an underpass under the main road, which occasionally played host to scary big people (some of whom may have been as old as 14).

And Apostrophe Man strikes again: apparently Moonee Valley council are staging a "Teddy Bear's Picnic". I hope the teddy bear doesn't get too lonely.

C • Template 1

More of a struggle today. Cold does seem to be returning; a quietish week this week will be no bad thing.

I still haven't fully unpacked from last week....

Swim in Fitzroy after dropping Jenny off early at the airport. The main purpose of this session was to get as much stiffness out of my body as possible - there was a bit of it around (in particular my back stiffened up a lot on the last couple of hours of the drive home). This mission was largely accomplished, albeit slowly.

Headline fail of the day goes to the Sydney Morning Herald's poster: 'Brothels Linked to Sex Trade'. I'm sure a Walkley's on its way for that gob-smacking revelation. The story it linked to did actually contain some worthwhile journalism, involving allegations that a number of (legal) brothels were involved in trafficking of sex slaves. One of the alleged establishments was in Heidelberg but I've never seen or heard of it (if the allegations are true I'm not surprised they keep a low profile). The distinction between Heidelberg and West Heidelberg, which will be familiar to those who know the area (or have read Shane Maloney's books), may be relevant here.

Orienteers don't do Mad Monday like footballers do (don't expect to see any reports of us engaged in altercations on King Street, or in unnatural activities with small domestic animals). No-one put their hand up to host this week so the plan was to go to the Monday night event, but as it happened only Suse and I turned up.

The event was a longer run than I'd planned on. Felt pretty awful in the first 100 metres but a fair bit better after that, and actually started to flow decently at times later on, although the cold seems to be making a bit of a resurgence because I felt a bit clogged up. One silly mistake running in one street too early. The rain always looked it was about to clear but never quite did, which made for some soggy control cards.

I hadn't planned for quite such a long first day back after the championships season. Tomorrow will be shorter. (I don't intend to do anything fast, or significantly over an hour, this week, and not for most of next week either - things start again in earnest in the last week of October).