Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

This wasn't one of the easier long-haul trips I've had - I don't often get dud seats these days but did this time (next to the toilets and with a very large next-door neighbour) and, unusually for me, didn't get any meaningful sleep. With that in mind I thought (correctly) I'd probably go downhill quickly during the day and that I should get out as soon as possible after getting in the door, and did so; my original thoughts before the trip were to aim for 90 but in the circumstances I was happy to settle for 70, out to the Finns Reserve bridge and back. The run itself was fairly typical of just-off-the-plane runs - feeling uncomfortable because of various clogged passages, and Achilles a bit touchy (especially uphill), but not actually a bad run in terms of what I was doing and how long it was taking me to do it.

I'm now in semi-zombie mode and hoping to stay awake until a reasonable hour (if I get to the end of the first session in Cape Town I'll have done well). I get to do all this again next Monday and then the Wednesday after that, although those trips won't be quite as long in time terms, or involve quite as big a time change, as this one did.

Had 9 hours between flights in Dubai and decided to stay in the hotel in the airport terminal (expensive, but given that the amount that WMO were paying us per day in Morocco considerably exceeded the amount that hotel actually cost, I think I'm still in front for the trip). This came with access to the gym (note for future reference: while it's located within the hotel area, this appears to be open to the broader public for a fee of about $15), so I headed there for a turn-the-legs-over session before getting on the next leg of the flight.

Was hoping to use the treadmill but someone else was already on it, so used the stationary bike instead. A session that did what it was supposed to. Actually running from airports is something I've only done a couple of times, both times involving going from the old Adelaide domestic terminal (which conveniently had luggage lockers in the car park) to the beach. As far as I know Lauren Shelley is the champion in this respect, her personal best effort being to manage to do a run between flights at Heathrow, an airport which doesn't actually have any route in or out of it which is legal to traverse on foot.

C • Dubai gym 3

Was never likely to find time for anything today - headed off to start the return journey at 6.15, a little apprehensive about the potential for transport connections to go wrong after my experiences on the way here. (It turned out that things went much more smoothly this time and I got to the airport in Casablanca 3 1/2 hours ahead of time). The walking distance at the Dubai airport end was almost long enough to constitute a session but that was after midnight anyway.

With this train trip being in daylight I got to see a lot of things I didn't see on the way here; at the Marrakech end there was again a hint of South Australia, as there was yesterday, but this time low rocky hills of the sort you might see around Whyalla. In the northern half of the trip it was flat coastal plain, quite green at this time of year. One is reminded that it is still a poor country on seeing an increasing number of (in the South African euphemism) "informal settlements" on the approach to Casablanca, although it's always a slightly incongruous sight to see crumbling shacks festooned with satellite dishes - something first encountered in the back blocks of rural Kazakhstan on the 2004 trip, where the extent of the local cash economy in semi-subsistence agricultural communities was to sell a few cows each year and buy satellite dishes with the proceeds.

Something I neglected to mention earlier is that maps can be a sensitive issue here: Morocco claims the Western Sahara as an integral part of its country and showing maps which indicate the existence of a border between the two is poor form in these parts, although I'm not sure if it's actually illegal or just impolite. (In India it's illegal to possess a map which shows the India-Pakistan border in Kashmir where it actually is rather than where the Indians think it should be, which is why you'll often see disclaimers in atlases and travel guides). I found myself applying a bit of last-minute virtual whiteout to a couple of world maps with national borders in my Monday morning presentation, which had a broader public audience (nobody cared within the smaller group meeting).

Another early start, this time because we were leaving early for a day in the mountains (it is a school holiday week in Morocco and local advice - correct - was that the traffic would get congested, as opposed to moving but anarchic, if we left it much later). Headed for the Menara Gardens which I'd heard good things about, but they weren't open yet so instead my route took me through the sparsely built southern part of the city and signs advising of various real estate developer's fantasies (several of which involve resort hotel/golf course combinations - I was thinking that perhaps the developers got sidetracked on their way to Phoenix, but in fact the Marrakesh area already has more than 20 of these). A somewhat different sight was seeing the palm trees which had been used as a platform for mobile phone antennas.

I don't normally do as much as this the day after a long run, and it showed a bit - various creaks and pretty slow most of the time, although picked up somewhat in the last 10 minutes.

The rest of the day was spent in the nearby Atlas Mountains, first going up to 2700 metres and seeing the country around what passes for a ski resort in these parts (it's been a drought year and the snow cover was thin, and visibly covered with red dust), then down into the valleys. Beautiful country - in the lower parts the mountains had a lot in common with the Flinders (at least if you mentally subtracted the villages clinging to various hillsides), higher up they were rockier still and almost devoid of vegetation (which didn't stop them being used for grazing sheep). Something you wouldn't have found in the vicinity of Wilpena, though, was the strip of cafes/restaurants intermittently scattered along one of the river valleys over a distance of several kilometres - the ones on the far bank being reached via footbridges of varying degrees of dodginess.

Also ventured into the local public transport system last night (our hosts would probably be horrified if they found out) - perfectly fine if a bit crowded and on a somewhat ancient vehicle (though it doesn't qualify as a genuine developing-country bus because there were no chickens on board). As regular readers will know, I enjoy exploring foreign public transport systems, definitely not being a subscriber to Margaret Thatcher's supposed dictum that anyone who finds themselves on a bus after their 26th birthday can count themselves as a failure in life.

Heading back tomorrow morning. It's as long a trip as the one here was, but the gap between flights in Dubai (9 hours) is long enough to go to an airport hotel (it's the middle of the night - if it were during the day I'd take it as a chance to look at Dubai, February being a much better time of year for that than August).

All the ingredients were there for a lousy run this morning - doing it off no breakfast (too early), and not much sleep after waking up at 3.15 and not being able to get properly back to sleep. With that in mind, I should be pleased that this run passed as a fairly routine session - and it's been a while since I've been able to treat two hours as purely routine, even if it wasn't sparkling.

Started out on the main road to the station and past into the northern parts of town - a 6am start means doing the first 40 minutes in the dark, so I didn't want to hit the medina too early as I suspect its lighting is limited or non-existent. From about 7km, the next section was through the 'normal' suburbs - passing on the way various football murals and graffiti, some of which even pertained to local teams and not to Barcelona or Real Madrid - before hitting the medina around 12km (where I kept better map contact than yesterday). Briefly dipped out of it before going back into the casbah section, before finishing around the open land between the city and the hotel.

A bit of left Achilles soreness today: something I often experience when travelling so I'm not overly concerned (yet). As noted earlier, Marrakesh is dead flat (though there is a range of hills just outside the north edge of the city, which I saw at the far end of the run today), but the gutters are high and going up and down a lot of them is slightly draining.

The meeting finished today. Even though I'm not officially chair I seem to have ended up as the de facto leader of the group (whose official title is the Task Team on Definition of Extreme Weather and Climate Events). The good news is that this means that most of the recommendations are mine, the bad news is that it means most of the action items are mine too.

The session I'd been looking forward to most on this trip - plunging myself into the heart of the Marrakech medina (after dealing with the 15 minutes to get there). As expected it was an absolute rabbit-warren; I had a decent street map but there were still a few points where I lost contact and wasn't quite sure where I was, but did know which direction I was heading to know roughly where I would end up.

I was early enough in the morning to miss most of the crowds in the medina, although the traffic on the boundary roads was noticeably heavier after 7.30 than it had been at earlier times yesterday - there were a couple of points where I had to revert to the Hanoi road-crossing method (maintain a predictable course and let the scooters go around you). The medina itself is mostly carless - the streets are too narrow - but still has enough scooters and donkey carts that you have to keep your wits about you. Couldn't help but fantasise about what an amazing place this would be as an urban orienteering venue - probably at least the same level of complexity as Venice (and, because most of the smaller alleyways end up in mazes that don't go anywhere, a lot of potential for 'you can't get here from there' route-choice legs).

As a run, this started out well, but tailed off a bit in the section coming back - possibly because I was feeling the boringness relative to what had just preceded it.

(In very marked contrast to the medina, where I'm staying is just down the road from Marrakech's version of a modern shopping mall, where I ventured this afternoon to get more bottled water. The food court would definitely not have been out of place in Northland).

The first exploration of Marrakech - as often on my first run in a place, mainly about getting my bearings and finding out where things were. The hotel we're in is in a new part of town and a bit further from the centre than I thought, so the medina wouldn't really have been in range on a run of this length - tomorrow will be the day for that. Instead I headed for the "gardens" on the map (actually an agricultural area - in a city with vast numbers of productive orange trees - and not open to the public, but not much traffic around the edges). Most of the run ended up being a big loop around the outside of the Jardin Agdal, at the far end going past a grand entrance with police outside which I assumed had to be something important (it turned out it was a royal palace). Marrakech is not an early-rising city and there was little traffic around at 7 (and in this part of town the blocks are big enough to mean not many road crossings, which is as well because the driving is anarchic).

The run itself was OK without setting the world on fire. Didn't feel as sleepy as I thought I might have, particularly after being woken up by a 1.30am mobile phone call from a journo who didn't know I was overseas.

C • Time management 2