Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Victorian Middle Championships. As expected, i.e. lousy - couldn't generate power on short 2-4 contour hills which were not in short supply today. Nice area which I couldn't take advantage of; certainly wasn't remotely competitive on pace. A day spent at the frontlines of democracy yesterday probably didn't help.

Reasonable race technically until the end, when there was a 45-seconder on 15, trying to work out which of the 55 rocks on the ground were the two on the map. The only real high point was nailing 7 when Leon passed me mid-leg and then missed it (didn't stop him from winning).

A smoke plume was visible on the way home which turned out to be from the old Smorgy's restaurant in Bundoora. This building has been vacant for the last couple of years and is the subject of a contentious redevelopment proposal. You'll be shocked to hear that the arson squad are investigating.

After setting up our booth in the early morning (for the first time in five elections, the Liberals turned up before 7, but we still got there first), I took a break from political duties for my traditional election-day tour of as many booths as I could take in, touching base with various comrades on the way. The less said about the run the better - felt a bit like I'd eaten a dodgy sausage, and overall about as inspiring as a Warren Truss speech on the Meat and Livestock Corporation Levy (Amendment) Bill. Hills particularly ordinary.

Very quiet in the second half of the day at Rosanna Golf Links - it's a relatively small booth but seemed to tail off even more sharply than usual this year after lunch.

Australian readers (at least) will not need me to tell them the election results (more or less what I expected in terms of percentage, but worse in seats). Closer to home, there was a fairly substantial swing in Jagajaga - not totally surprising as the Liberals threw a lot at the campaign (certainly much more than in any previous campaign I've experienced). Looks like about a 7% swing in the seat, although less than that on our booth (4.0%) - which makes it five times in a row that we've outperformed the electorate average. As always, the atmosphere was very civil - I've never seen any serious aggro between campaigns on a polling booth (although, having said that, I've never worked in a genuine battleground seat).

C • Battle grounds 7

Didn't hit the water in the morning because I was otherwise engaged outside Heidelberg station drawing attention to the Liberals promising not to fund urban public transport, so headed out in the evening instead at Ivanhoe (in between picking up the how-to-vote cards and preparing the results-and-swings-by-booth spreadsheet). A fairly nondescript session as it often is here. Pool very quiet (certainly quieter than it would be a couple of hours earlier); it was getting late.

I'm not expecting to have a lot of joy tomorrow night, apart from the possible political demise of Sophie Mirabella (a shadow science minister who would be hard-pressed to spell CSIRO) at the hands of an independent. (At least the AFL Commission have stopped me from having an even more miserable night). We can, I suppose, be grateful that with all the intense passions on display at times through the last three years that we've got through those three years without anybody getting shot, not something I've been especially confident of at times during those three years.

My tip's a two-party vote for the Liberals between 52.5 and 53% and a majority of around 26, with Labor losing 3 seats in Tasmania, 2 in Victoria, 2 on the Central Coast and another 5 or 6 in Sydney, and no net change anywhere else (I think a regional Queensland seat, most likely Dawson or maybe Leichhardt or Hinkler, might do some strange things on Katter/Palmer preferences to offset a loss or two in Brisbane, while I think Labor is holding up in regional NSW - that's the only way to reconcile the modest swings in statewide polls with the big swings in western Sydney). I expect that Wilkie (easily) and Bandt (just) will retain their seats, that Cathy McGowan will win in Indi, and give Clive Palmer a decent chance in Fairfax. Locally, I think the swing here will be bigger than the state average (thanks to the most energetic and best-funded Liberal campaign here in living memory) but still expect Jagajaga to be held with a margin around 5-6%. Let's see how it works out....

C • Sophie's demise 17

Never woke up on this run, from the top of Royal Park as far north and west as Essendon, past Essendon's soon-to-be-vacated headquarters at Windy Hill (might not be vacated for a bit longer now they have to find an extra $2 million). A struggle most of the way although at least didn't fall apart at the end like last week. Probably can't even blame the weather, although 20 degrees at 6am in the first week of September is faintly ridiculous. (The eventual minimum was 19.7, easily an early-season record and equal second-highest for September as a whole).

Matters election-related are starting to dominate discourse (and not just the ones which gave us a good laugh last night - you'll be pleased to know that the Palmer United Party have promised a "conscious" vote on gay marriage, although a few unconscious votes have probably been given in parliaments over the years, particularly the 1989-92 ACT Legislative Assembly). One policy which is a bit of a worry is the Coalition's to introduce the potential for political decision-making in the allocation of Australian Research Council funding, which could easily be used as a basis to cut off funding for fields of research the government doesn't like. (I don't come under ARC funding myself, but many in the university sector do).

I've also been having a look at possible scenarios for micro-parties to surf cascading preferences all the way to the Senate. Three in particular stand out; 0.2-0.3% could be enough to elect the No Carbon Tax Climate Sceptics in SA (as long as Nick Xenophon is not too far above or below one quota, which is 14.3%, roughly what he got last time), the Australian Fishing and Lifestyle Party - not to be confused with the Shooters and Fishers Party - in Queensland (unless either Palmer or Katter get close to a quota in their own right), and the Bullet Train for Australia Party in Victoria (as long as Family First are eliminated before Palmer United). Nothing quite that crazy in the other states, but depending on how the vote splits between the major parties, 2-3% might be enough for Pauline Hanson in NSW, or Family First in Tasmania.

At least One Nation won't be getting anyone up in Victoria - they forgot to lodge their Senate ticket which means they don't get a box above the line, and I suspect that numbering the boxes consecutively from 1 to 97 is beyond the intellectual capabilities of most One Nation voters.

Just in case you thought you could escape here, Liberal Party ads are starting to turn up on Attackpoint (although so far down the page you'd have to look very hard to see them).

C • My ads are for sa solar fee... 5

After yesterday's fartlek fail I decided to have another crack tonight at the Wednesday night street-O at Kerrimuir, doing alternate legs hard/easy (this always confuses the heck out of anyone around me who's not used to it). Ended up as a reasonable session although it's always hard to go flat out in the dark. Thought after the first few controls that I was going to be comfortably inside the hour, but there were enough can't-get-there-from-here legs later on that it was a reasonably close-run thing. Very warm night - if it wasn't dark one could imagine this being December. No injury issues but tired right at the end (and definitely out of practice when it comes to punching at metal plates on the ground).

The local football club was having its best-and-fairest count, but the MC didn't seem to have quite managed the fine art of Andrew Demetriou's pregnant pause when someone with the same first initial as a Brownlow favourite gets votes late in the count.

Training session fail - started with the intention of doing a fartlek session but back and associated muscles were playing up today, so bailed after the first couple of reps and turned it into a standard run. Will try again tomorrow (this time using the street event as a basis).

As expected, had plenty of sore spots to iron out. Not sure how good a job I made of it but at least not too disastrous a session in the water. Slept well last night, as I expected I would. Already at the stage where brilliant sunshine in the early morning means warmth rather than cold, something more normally associated with December.

Lunchtime on the Tan, with plenty of people out on a sunny early spring afternoon (the seabreeze was in so it only got to 21 - warm in the sun but pleasantly crisp in the shade, which the Tan has plenty of). Didn't feel like everything was flowing but didn't end up a bad session. Slight hold-up at the end because I didn't think crossing Flinders Street in front of a policeman was a great idea (although I'm reasonably confident it was technically legal, being more than 20 metres away from the nearest lights).

Notable records of the day: probably a toss-up between Canberra's earliest-ever 25 (11 days earlier than the previous record), and the 41.1 at Fitzroy Crossing, the highest ever in Australia so early in spring. Up until this year the only place in Australia to have reached 40 on or before 2 September was my much-loved Kalumburu (in the news today for crocodile-related reasons - http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-02/man-rescued-...) in 1970, but alongside Fitzroy Crossing, Curtin (near Derby) and Mandora (halfway between Broome and Port Hedland) have also been added to the list.

C • Fitzroy X 1