Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

I've occasionally mused on whether the iPhone in shuffle mode has a geographically appropriate song selector. On that theme, given that Alex Massey was getting a lift out with me this morning, I thought it was vaguely appropriate that it came up with a song about a building in Newcastle - and then realised that the demolition of said building (and consequent riot) occurred at least a decade before Alex was born.

(The song - Cold Chisel's "Star Hotel").

NOL long at Chinamans Flat. No-one was really sure what to expect with this one - it was a very fast area when it was first used for the 1995 WOC trials (where I had one of my best runs on the Saturday to run myself into the team, then almost ran myself out of it on the Sunday), but it was unclear how it might have grown back after the 1998 fire - as it turned out, quite a bit of bracken (tough in the mining areas, OK otherwise) but not too bad elsewhere.

I might have got away with running while sick yesterday but it wasn't to be today. Felt horrible in the early stages and spent quite a bit of the first loop seriously considering pulling out at the end of it. I'd been dropped immediately and was left to pick off a few that fell off the back. Got caught in some nasty bracken at the end of the first loop and made a couple of small mistakes at the start of the second, then started to feel a bit better after settling into a sort-of-bunch with Mark Gregson, David Brownridge and Reuben. Kept plugging away on the much longer last loop (despite a stupid but small error on the first control of the last loop), and finally started to feel reasonable in the last 20 minutes (this might have had something to do with the fact that the last 20 minutes didn't have any meaningful hills). Mark fell away there, and I got a break on Reuben on a route choice to the third-last. David wobbled on that control but not quite by enough for me to get through him, and then outran me at the end.

In one sense it's good to be able to fight this one out, but the total return from the weekend was zero points - and it's certainly frustrating to have been sick for both my race weekends this year. Hopefully Easter will have something more to offer. Impressed by the depth of the junior men on display this weekend (which is another way of saying that a lot of them beat me).

By the way, did anyone notice that today's map was printed at roughly 1:11000? (must have been the printing as the course lengths were right).

C • Map Scale 14

Long Distance ME 5 - Splits

Event: Eureka Challenge, SILVA NOLs
 

NOL sprint at Uni of Ballarat. Not the horror story I'd feared after a couple of the midweek runs (and after having a bit of a sniffle yesterday, more evidence that a cold - for me anyway - hits one's running hardest before any symptoms appear). Still not fast by any stretch of the imagination, but at least able to run with a vague semblance of speed. Control flow not the best, hardly surprising in a first race for four months, but only one minor wobble in what was really a fairly technically easy race.

NOL Middle at Specimen Hill, a nice little patch of goldmining (the sort of area which wouldn't have been on the radar pre-Sportident - too small). The start draw didn't do me any favours with third-last start in the morning and first in the afternoon (perhaps I should have entered the morning race as Aaron Aardvark - the start list was essentially alphabetical), but that didn't prove a major issue. Flowing well through the first half, if a little slow. Bryan and Lachlan went through me about halfway and couldn't hang onto them (not surprisingly). Became a bit scrappy at the end with 15-seconders at 18 and 20 which cost me a place in the points - an indicator as to how much depth there is at the moment (including an impressively deep bunch of juniors). Still a vaguely decent midfield result, but I'm slipping a bit further back each year....

It's the first time for a while I've been out to the southwest of Ballarat (I think the last time was doing a talk out at Lake Bolac in 2006). The petrol station at Smythesdale no longer advertises 'Fish and Chips and Discount Cigs' (try saying that with a Kiwi accent).

M Open Elite - Splits

Middle DistanceM Open Elite - Splits

A swim at Albert Park (a venue chosen because it suited other logistics later in the morning); I've always found this a particularly uninteresting location even by swimming pool standards (although I'm not sure what makes a swimming pool 'interesting'). Did feel reasonably relaxed by the end. I assume there is somewhere in the complex where one can do pool running but I haven't seen it (and in any case, the last couple of times seem to have coincided with Achilles flare-ups - not sure if there is any connection but it's a risk I'd rather not take this week).

Felt quite relaxed by the end of a swim which was slower than Monday's. Also felt better than I did at the same time yesterday, but going downhill a bit in the afternoon (a late night finalising the documentation for the OA accounts was something I probably could have done without at this point).

Not sure what to expect this weekend; up until a week ago I would have said that I was a bit further ahead than at the same time in the last two years, but the last week has not been encouraging. If nothing else, Saturday afternoon's terrain should be interesting.

I was always going to go short today (by Thursday standards) given the upcoming races on the weekend, but the way I felt on this run would have encouraged such a course of action regardless - weak and light-headed from early on and didn't get any better (and probably the slowest I've ever done a run of this length without extenuating circumstances, other than a bit of newsletter-delivery). Feels like the sort of run where I'm getting sick and there are hints that that is happening, which is not good timing for it. (I don't think it's nausea induced by the front page of today's Herald-Sun, which claimed that the carbon tax would rip $170 million out of the hands of sick kiddies in Victoria, or something like that).

Certainly not a confidence builder leading into the weekend.

Morning run based from Canterbury station, my base in anticipation of tonight's street-O. (The traffic at 6.45 is far uglier than I remember it being - glad that I wasn't trying to get onto the freeway at Bulleen Road). This run had its moments but never quite caught alight, and was still rather slow. Nice morning.

Street-O at Canterbury. I seem to have run on this map an awful lot over the years and my last two outings here have been good, but this one wasn't. Lost time on the first control (which was tucked a bit up an unmapped side lane) and was behind the eight-ball from there (and didn't really have anyone to race with). Felt as if I was running all right, but the stopwatch doesn't lie - only started to get into a reasonable pace in the last couple of kilometres (and found a bit for a finish sprint against three of the Camberwell Grammar boys, whom I presume were on a different course). Not a great time to have hit a bit of a flat spot.

Going to/from the Tan. Was thinking at times that a work breakfast may not have done me any favours.

One pleasing development: the cycle of the pedestrian lights between Crown and Southbank has been shortened substantially - perhaps the powers that be have realised that pedestrians outnumber cars by about 100:1 at that spot at lunchtime.

Stat of the day: the 7-day rainfalls averaged over the catchments of the Murrumbidgee, the Upper Murray and the Lachlan were each almost double the previous records. No wonder there's been a flood.

8x250 on the Tan. Felt as bad as I did the last two times I've done this session in this location, but this time without any excuse of seriously inadequate sleep. Hamstring quite sore again and only gradually got going with any sort of speed. I'd been half-thinking beforehand of asking Bruce if he had a hills session in mind (turned out I saw him heading in the opposite direction, very fast, on the flat) but I would have been blown away today (to an even greater extent than usual).

One of my better swims for a while, on a nice morning. Was working pretty hard by the final third. Amazing how much less boring a swim is when it lasts for 10% less time to cover the same distance.

Water in other places has been very much in the news over the last few days. In some places it's beyond previous records - already in Numurkah, and probably Nathalia and perhaps Wagga. In other places it's nothing we haven't seen before, and there's been plenty of evidence of the benefits of sensible planning in Canberra (total properties flooded as far as I know: zero). In other places there's been evidence of a lack of sensible planning - when a building has been flooded for the fourth time in just over a year, it's probably an indicator that it shouldn't have been built there in the first place.

Monday night is supposed to be a recovery run, but someone forgot to tell tonight's crowd (a select group), who were doing hill surges which I was sort of hanging on to (a bad day for the Achilles didn't help) around the Yarra tracks from Reuben's. Settled into it, eventually.

We didn't see any snakes en route which meant we didn't get the opportunity to put into effect anything said in the all-staff e-mail today about procedures for dealing with them (important at our remote sites but not especially relevant to head office). Spent a bit of time post-run talking about recent political developments, and various attempts in the past to get orienteering publicity (including a subediting epic fail in 1998 when David Colls' local paper announced that he was off to the world jaywalking championships).