Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Spoilt an otherwise good run with a mistake on the third-last in the vague stuff - drifted down the hill and came in underneath a creek junction, which then meant that I found myself too far over. Dropped about 2.5-3 minutes there, which was enough to cost me the win on the day as Dion had an excellent run (although we were close most of the way - indeed we were tied at controls 12 and 13).

I actually thought I might have had a bit more in hand than that because otherwise I felt quite a bit better than yesterday, and when taking the no-guts-no-glory option on the hilly 8, felt as strong as I've felt up a big hill for a long time. Still have what should be a reasonably comfortable lead (4.44) going into the last day, as long as I don't do anything stupid. Dion starts 4 minutes after me, but I don't intend to try the strategy of waiting for him and staying on his back for the rest of the course.

It's actually an unusual experience for me to be leading into the last day of an Easter. I've won four, all in juniors, but three of them were coming from behind after two days (two by seconds, one by 9 minutes). One of them was M20 here in 1990, when Ant Burnett was about 15 seconds ahead of me after two days, and was none too impressed that the start draw had me two minutes behind him. On that day you ran some distance from the 6-minute pre-start to where the maps were, and he took the opportunity to swap his top over so I wouldn't know what I was chasing. As it turned out, I never saw him, but gained enough ground (a minute or so) to take the win anyway. (No splits in those days - I suspect a lot of ground might have been made up at the end). Pity Ant isn't here to renew the contest, although he's a year older than me so would have been in M45 in any case.

Day 2 Course 5 - Splits

It's a quarter of a century since I last fronted up on Easter Saturday to run anything other than M21E (coincidentally, last time was at exactly the same venue). It was a bit of a culture shock not to have a middle-distance day today (that part wasn't quite a quarter-century ago - my first couple of 21E Easters had three days of similar distance), and to have to check what course number I was running - although last year's WMOC debacle made me careful of that at least (Tara was today's victim in the wrong-course-number department).

I started last of the four M40s. It's also a bit of a culture shock to go into a race as a warm favourite (the last time I can think of this happening was probably the NT Championships in 2009). The other three, Greg, Dion and Tate, are all good enough to be competitive but I'd expect to beat them on a good day. Fairly steep on the first few and didn't feel that fast, and drifted a little of 4 (no real time lost though), but settled down quite well after catching Dion at 5. For the next few we had a nice scrap - he was running a bit faster but didn't have quite the same flow, especially at controls - until an elegantly-executed drop manouevre at 11 (a while since I've done one of those) as he missed it to the left. Caught sight of both Tate and Greg on the long 14, but then lost time there in my only significant miss of the day, hitting the creek a bit high and thinking I'd hit low, dropping 90 seconds or so. Clean the rest of the way and got Tate at the end, though just behind Greg (on the ground). Between 4.15 and 6 minutes ahead of the rest of the field which is probably close to a par result.

Today will be remembered, apart from the orienteering, for the copious quantities of dust - I will need to ask my colleagues in remote sensing when I get back whether the dust cloud along the road was visible from outer space. Late in the day I assisted in providing some muscle power to help extricate a car which was stuck in its parking spot. We got it out and then noticed that the rear wheels weren't moving; it turned out that the driver (who shall remain nameless) had forgotten to disengage the handbrake.

C • Dust cloud 2

Day 1 Course 5 - Splits

Event: 2015 Australian Three Days
 

Easter prologue at Jamestown. It was a bit of a battle just to get a run in this race (a long story that I'll let others tell if they want to), so I didn't want to embarrass myself by coming last or close to it - something I thought was a real risk in a sprint I expected to be a running race. (Jenny and I explored for sprint areas here two years ago on the way back from the outback and didn't find a lot we thought promising).

Didn't feel super-sharp at the beginning, but got into it as the race went on. Gradually pulled in the Hong Kong runner a minute in front of me and had caught him by 8 (whereupon he was one of, I suspect, many to infringe on a poorly defined OOB area), then settled into a nice pace and generally didn't do anything silly until the school section - a reasonably technical finish to the run. Had my only time loss there, aiming to exit 21 through a southern gap which didn't exist (maybe 10 seconds?), but generally contented with the way it went - although the gap to the big guns is a bit scary. A virtually identical result to UNSW in terms of time behind the winners, ending up about 2/3 of the way down the field.

The course made the most of an unpromising area, and putting us into the most technical bits at the end caught a few people out.

And I knew Clive Palmer's mineral businesses were struggling a bit with low commodity prices, but perhaps he's fallen further than I thought, because Clive Palmer Photography and Framing is to be found on Jamestown's main street - not exactly a bustling place on Good Friday. (The bakery, missing a massive opportunity, is closed all weekend, but at least the supermarket was open, which provided a banana-acquisition opportunity).

C • Bakery 2

Elite Prologue Course 1 - Splits

Got this under my belt before an earlyish start at work (with the plan of an early getaway to SA - albeit not quite as early as I'd planned as the Etihad Stadium car park now doesn't give you the early bird rate if you leave before 1.30pm, so going at 12.30 as per my original plan would have cost an extra $22). Started well and truly in the dark, and not many other people around. Seemed to be working pretty well.

Oddity of the week: during school holidays, the morning traffic is much lighter than usual in the suburbs, but as bad as ever near the central city.

Broke up the road trip with a quick stretch-the-legs out jaunt up Mt. Wycheproof, advertised as the "world's smallest mountain" (43 metres above the town). The mountain will be known to those of you who've been around for a while as being the place where Jim won the annual race up it several times - the degree of difficulty being increased considerably by the fact that you had to do it carrying a 60-odd kilo bag of wheat on your shoulders. (Judging by my conversations in the shops afterwards, Jim's exploits are still remembered in these parts). Perhaps not surprisingly, the race became a casualty of insurance issues in the early 2000s.

I didn't have any bags of wheat to carry (although I guess I could have hauled my pack up if I'd really wanted to). Back was a bit tight which was expected given I'd been sitting in a car for three hours, but definitely better for having done this (thanks Hanny for the tip).

Despite the story which appeared on the Age website to that effect on April 1, there was no sign of any work to erect a giant statue of Peta Credlin (a local girl) on the top of the mountain.

The trip up was a bit slower than I'd hoped (including three stops in 800 metres in Charlton - one to buy a chair, one for a phone call and one for a random breath test). Some of the things spotted en route included a sign advertising a Thai restaurant in Korong Vale (prominent, alongside Licola and Lima South, in a discusson on my log a few years back on the subject of the biggest backwater in Victoria), and another sign noting that a certain street was the Leading Garden Street in Nullawil, an honour not contested by an especially large field as Nullawil only has about four streets. (I also suspect the 16-room motel for sale in Sea Lake probably costs less than the house I've just bought in Fairfield).

In Renmark tonight.

C • Lima South 5

Not terribly awake this morning, for a jaunt which initially took me along the Yarra in the approaching dawn (this featured the sighting of a wombat), then up into Macleod (no wombats there). Haven't been getting enough sleep lately but will hopefully be able to do something about that tomorrow night (not while I'm on the road).

Headed out through North Balwyn on a reasonably hilly course, at least through the first half. Hadn't slept terribly well and was a bit so-so through the early stages, but got progressively better, and the second half was probably the best I've run since Six Foot (with a couple of surges where gaps in the traffic demanded it).

I was copied in on some detailed and useful advice Hanny sent today to the juniors. It was good advice for the rest of us too, although given that it's 10.45 and I'm only just home from work, I'm not doing too well against her point 3: "Start trying to ease back on outside stressors. If you can have an early minute with your uni or school study then do. Try to work efficiently during the day so you can get some extra rest and sleep in the evenings. Don’t be afraid to ask for a little extra help in order to relax a bit more."

Of course, the big news of the day was the (possible) resolution of the Essendon saga. (Appeals are still possible, but I can't recall a case where there has been a successful appeal against a finding of insufficient evidence that banned substances were taken at all - the successful appeals I'm familiar with involve inadequate penalties or inadequate explanations for the presence of a banned substance). My own thoughts are that a very messy process has arrived at approximately the right result 18 months later than it should have; even if no banned substances were involved, there were clearly serious failures of governance and due diligence, and the club and its officials have rightly been heavily penalised for that (and may well be penalised further once WorkSafe gets involved), but the culpability of individual players was at a much lower level (if it existed at all). Unlike many of my fellow Essendon supporters, I certainly don't believe that no-one did anything wrong.

C • "extra help to relax a... 1

First time I've swum for a couple of weeks. Shoulder was a bit stiff early on but generally felt like a reasonable session. Numbers starting to dwindle from the summer peak towards the hard core, though the weather isn't too bad yet.

It appears from the NSW election result that we have missed out on getting someone with orienteering experience into Parliament, although to describe Cameron Murphy as an enthusiastic orienteer would be as much a stretching of the truth as some of the things that were said about him in the last week of the campaign - he was definitely amongst that group (we had a few) at school who were only doing orienteering because they had to do a sport and they disliked it less than they did rugby.

Out on the Tan at lunchtime, a bit earlier than usual prior to three back-to-back meetings (the joys of being acting sub-section head this week). Quite a nice run on a nice day.

It's the first day of school holidays and there appeared to be quite a lot of people out having some quality grandparent-grandchild time. There also seemed to be a lot of builders working on the basis that now that there's less traffic around they can block whatever they like (particular brickbats to those who reduced the broad promenade outside Crown to something which was a metre wide if you're lucky).

The masseur this evening had a much easier job than she did two weeks ago.