Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

This was always going to be a bit of a challenge. I've done 2+ hour runs before coming off the plane when returning on a Sunday morning, but definitely not with this sort of temperature contrast, and was happy to settle for something like one hour today. Also thought about delaying it to later in the day to give myself more time to rehydrate from the flight, but in the end decided that (slightly) cooler weather and still being reasonably awake was worth giving it a go in the morning.

It wasn't the most pleasant of runs, but I got through it, which was the main thing. A reasonable pace in the first half - not having ice to contend with has its advantages - but understandably tailed off in the second half. A bit of high cloud in the last 20 minutes helped. I've got two weeks to regain heat tolerance before the NOL races. (This morning's conditions, 28/16, is pretty much what I would expect for the long day of Easter).

Something I noticed on the Yarra Flats is that a lot of dead trees seem to have fallen into the river - perhaps a legacy of the various floods of the last 18 months? The northeast wind would have been enough to potentially topple wobbly trees, but that's about the only way in which Melbourne northeasterlies resemble Geneva northeasterlies.

Next challenge will be to stay awake to a reasonable hour. I'm managing so far, but it's only noon...

Event: BendiGo ToDay
 

In transit. Everything went smoothly (and my luggage didn't even manage to get mislaid this time).

Backed off a little bit on what I'd originally planned for today after pulling up a little tight yesterday, but it ended up OK. Took the first proper opportunity to go along the lake - still extensive areas of ice in splash zones, but they've retreated enough to be able to go around them. After leaving the lake shore there was a scenically-unpleasant 15 minutes to be endured along a main road with major roadworks complicating things, but that set up a nice section on deserted lanes through the hills behind the lake, before coming back into the city for the last 20 minutes. A moderate run but still a reasonably solid one to get under my belt.

The record of every run here being done in a temperature below freezing was not broken, but it's warmed up during the day to the point of reaching double figures (still some way short of the 18.7 in Birmingham yesterday, a degree short of the British record for February).

I start the long haul home in a few hours. After being a regular visitor here in the last year and a bit it feels a bit odd that I won't be back in the near future (for work at least - I might find myself passing through around the time of WOC). The position rotates around the regions every two years but I'm not sure what I'll be doing when Oceania's turn next comes up, in 2022.

C • Hobart 5

Felt up to hitting the streets again this morning. Very slow to start with, but eventually settled down after the first 15 minutes or so. The first half took me through Onex, the sort of district of widely-spaced tower blocks that seems to work here (and in Scandinavia) but turns into a ghetto in Paris or London or Melbourne, then I dropped down to the stream-side track that was a regular haunt of mine in November but has only become ice-free enough to run in the last day or two this time.

The calf was basically fine on the run except for a little bit of a twinge on the one steep downhill, but pulled up a little tight later in the day - a day that was largely spent sitting down, with two major reports (one here, one back home) finalised and submitted - definitely a big day on that front.

-4 didn't feel in the least bit cold, which is a bit of a worry in the context of trying to handle something close to 40 degrees warmer on Sunday.

And I seem to have misplaced my coat. I won't need one again myself any time soon, so hopefully it ends up in the hands of someone who needs it.

Calf improved today but thought I'd give it one more day, so instead headed for the water, at the pool near where I'm staying rather than the one near work (which is closed this week) - its 7.30 opening time provides just enough time to be able to get to work at a reasonable hour.

This pool doesn't have lanes so staying out of the way of other people wasn't always easy (on the positive side it meant I didn't have to remember to swim on the right rather than the left). Swim went OK, if slowly, but foot cramps surfaced a couple of times. Also, oddly enough, my Achilles is worse (walking) after a couple of days of not running than it has been with lots of running.

Something to occupy my mind while in the pool was thinking of possible plan Bs for getting home after hearing of a strike by ground controllers at Frankfurt Airport (by the afternoon the strike had been called off). I would have had my mind occupied somewhat more had I heard of a Washington press conference which was taking place as I stepped out the door. For the moment I'll settle for the government holding together (under whoever) for long enough to get through the queue of things awaiting the Senate, and from a more selfish point of view, for me to have moved into the less politically fraught area of rainfall, as is likely to happen later in the year.

Left calf feeling much the same, or a bit worse, today on waking up than it did yesterday. As mentioned yesterday I can run with this if I need to, but will give it a bit of rest to try to get it right as quickly as I can.

Felt some tightness in my left calf yesterday - seemed to tweak something in the last few minutes yesterday - and it was more evident this morning. It's at a level where I can run on it, but not entirely smoothly, and I'll be hesitant to run hard on it as it stands, but it also feels like something which shouldn't hang around for long.

Otherwise a fairly standard Monday run. The snow and ice are almost gone from the city but are still around in places in parks and on the riverside paths, which continues to slow things down a bit. (The soil is still frozen and pretty rough underfoot too, although it will probably turn to mud once it thaws). Didn't seem to be a lot of drivers paying attention to pedestrian crossings today.

The local headlines were about the successes of Geneva's sporting teams on the weekend - both the ice hockey and football teams won. The ice hockey team are two points outside the possible relegation zone with two games left, the footballers are in mid-table, although Swiss football this year is turning into a bit of a last-team-standing affair - of the 10 teams which started this season, Sion are on minus 4 points after being docked a lot of points for transfer irregularities, while Neuchatel have stopped playing (although they're still listed in the table) after their Chechen oligarch/warlord owner got locked up for something or other (I was thinking 'probably tax fraud', and then realised that it's quite difficult to get yourself locked up for tax fraud in this part of the world).