Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Morning swim at Belconnen. Slept abysmally last night - after having held up more or less OK through the weekend (probably through being around friendly faces most of the time) things caught up with me. (Turns out my worst fears about how much traction the weekend's story would get weren't realised - got a bit of an airing from Alan Jones but not a lot else). Swim was mediocre but not as stiff as I thought I might have been.

One wonders what the Australian would have thought if they'd known that my next stop was a South American embassy. The embassy of Paraguay, where I was dropping off a visa application, turns out to operate out of an ordinary suburban house (in as much as any house in Empire Circuit, Forrest can be classified as "ordinary"), complete with kitchen liberally festooned with fridge magnets - not the worst place to, say, be holed up for a couple of years evading another country's arrest warrant. Very nice people, too, although I'm slightly sceptical as to how much of the visa fee (payable in US$ cash only) will see the inside of the Paraguayan treasury.

Headed out for a run after picking up the visa, in an atmosphere of gathering storm (although it didn't really start raining until the last 5 minutes). Definitely a nostalgia trip for significant parts of this run, starting out by going past the former house of a certain other APer before linking up with the back half of the old school cross-country course, behind the Mugga Way houses. For the first 10 minutes it was definitely feeling like it would be tempting to do a Cherry Lane (the short-cut occasionally used by less enthusiastic participants on said course), but improved steadily after that, particularly after rounding the La Perouse sign and recalling the day of doing so (at a speed probably at least 1.30/km faster than today's), seeing no-one in sight within 200 metres and thinking that there might be something to this idea of training.

The next part was also familiar territory - seeing people attempting the triple jump and mostly struggling to make it to the pit. The set-up was, and presumably still is, that you did as many events as you could over a few weeks and got a score out of 20 for each; in my case, this usually meant about 17 for the 1500, 15 for the 800, 12 for the 400 and less than 10 for the rest (the only field event I ever got double figures for was once in the high jump). Disappointingly for entertainment value, the pole vault (which normally about one or two people in each year could do) is no longer contested.

Like many cities, Canberra's drivers don't react well to rain and there was a big traffic jam coming back across the lake thanks to a prang on the bridge. Had to laugh on hearing a traffic report on the radio advising of said crash and saying that police had warned drivers passing the scene to slow down; as my average speed in the kilometre approaching the scene was about 5 km/h I'm not sure how much slower they wanted us to go.

Event: ACT Long Dist Champs at Gibraltar Hill (ACT League # 10)
 

ACT Long Champs at The Gib. This was a plodding performance but got round with no errors of any size (the only thing I'm not putting down as a spike is being a bit higher than I would have liked on 12). Well-set course with some good long legs and not too much on the north end of the ridge with all the fallen timber (this should really be green stripe).

The warm-up was as bad as the last couple of runs which didn't give me much confidence, but the first couple of legs were downhill (and the first section of the course generally was pretty easy physically, only touching on the rock) which gave me a chance to warm up. Got the route choice on 10 right (saddle, then low to the left), but struggled through the very rough section to the map change. Grant, Dave and Andy were near me here. Didn't see Dave again, but was back with Grant again at 19 and Andy at 20 - although as trains go this was definitely closer to all stations to South Morang than Paris-Lyon TGV. They were running faster in the open but not in the rough stuff and we were still sort of together at 25 before the last long leg, but split on that route choice and they got clear (I think, as it turned out, given our relative strengths and weaknesses we would all have been better off had we swapped routes).

Last of the finishers, which doesn't happen often (particularly with a slow but not horrible run). Tired without being shattered at the end (though later snoozed through most of the first half of the Bulldogs-Swans match, as did most of the Bulldogs' team), but was slightly daunted at the end to think that this time next week I'll have at least another hour still to go.

Considerably earlier than usual for a Saturday morning because I had something to get to at 8.30. The best that can be said for this run is that it wasn't as bad as Thursday, but it still left a fair bit to be desired, particularly up hills - not really the lead-in I was hoping for before tomorrow. I might have felt worse if I'd seen this morning's Australian before I started.

The early start also proved to be unnecessary, because I got to where I thought the gathering was, in East Malvern, and it turned out to be in Doncaster.

One more street collected: Anerley Street, at the southwest corner of Ivanhoe. It will be a while before I get another one because the next one is at the extreme northeast end of St. Helena (but at least once I get there there will be four in a cluster).

Not one of my better swims: was feeling tight early on around the right shoulder although that loosened up. The good thing was that I thought after yesterday's shocker that I might be getting sick but there's no further evidence of that.

Learned a new German word today: "Schnappsidee" (literally "schnapps idea"). It refers to having an idea which could only possibly be considered a good idea if one was under the influence of alcohol at the time (say, running onto the MCG without any clothes on).

Yesterday was one of the better runs I've had this year but today was up there with the worst - didn't sleep well at all (for no obvious reason), was weak throughout and back also more troublesome than it has been for a while. Originally set out with 2 hours in mind but in the end decided it wasn't worth flogging myself three days out from a race. Felt a bit sniffly on the run but nothing seems to have come of that in the rest of the day.

Three more streets collected: Anderson Parade and Andrew Place in Bundoora, and Andrews Street, a dead-end not far down from my place in Heidelberg. (There are, somewhat to my surprise, only seven streets by that name in Melbourne - might be a few more in 50 years' time depending on the result of the upcoming election).

One of my work activities today was looking at an evaluation report assessing the veracity of a potential New Zealand record low temperature: -25.6 at Ranfurly in July 1903 (uncovered when some previously unknown documents were found). Seeing names like Naseby and Middlemarch certainly evoked various NZ orienteering trips, especially the latter which was visited on one of the great orienteering road trips I've been on, the 1997 one with BJ, Jamie Potter and Nick Hain (all of whom were 15-16 at the time). I think the event there was run on the Gladbook property where there was an unofficial observation of -25 on that day in 1903 (which makes me think the Ranfurly number is OK).

South Wharf intervals. Somewhat unexpectedly, this was the best session of its type I've run in a long time - certainly the first time for a long time (a couple of years?) that I've had rep times with a 5 in front of them, with consistent 58s and 59s in the second half. Working hard, and just starting to get a little lactic on the last couple. Nice to stress the body and have it respond positively - something which has been all too rare of late.

Warm-up and down. Was already feeling promising in the warm-up; the calf tightness from the last couple of days had eased significantly (and the heel is getting close to being right again, too).

Left calf extremely tight when I got up and for the early stages of this run, but it gradually loosened up and by about 3k this was a reasonably normal run. Felt confident enough to take on a reasonable number of hills today, including the Bulleen pipeline track which is definitely a proper rollercoaster. Coming back up the hill was a bit easier than it had been two days earlier....

Have ticked off another couple of pre-trip jobs at lunchtime - getting 5x5cm photos for visas and some US$ in small denominations. Working in the CBD definitely has its advantage when it comes to this sort of thing.