Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

All went fairly smoothly with the flight home - both legs were early (I knew I didn't have to worry about my connection when my companions on the train in between terminals at Dubai were the pilots for my next flight).

Slept well, perhaps too well, on the second leg, despite a few distractions. When you're a gold frequent flyer in economy you usually end up fairly close to the front (although on the way over I was in one of the handful of economy rows on the top deck, which was good), which means you tend to be close to small children (who were quiet after the first hour). Also amongst the company was the person behind me who made it known in not-to-be-argued-with manner that I was not to recline my seat then changed his mind 30 minutes later, and someone who felt a regular urge to rearrange the things they'd put in the overhead locker, a process which intermittently involved dropping things on me.

Not sure if I'll call this one of my best runs of 2015 - it was a little slow-paced for that (not sure how much of this is the slippery ground?) and my Achilles was intermittently troublesome - but it was definitely one of the most enjoyable.

Flew into Zurich late last night and stayed at one of the airport hotels in Kloten (a town/outer suburb around 2km from the airport). Airport hotels are often in very unpromising running environments but I knew from staying here in January that Kloten had potential.

Today's plan was fairly straightforward - head into the hills between Kloten and Winterthur with a vague target in mind, and after the initial climb, see where the yellow signs took me. In Kloten itself snow was falling but not settling on hard surfaces, but 50 metres higher it was proper snow, and most of the run was done in it - just a couple of centimetres of fresh snow with no ice beneath, the sort that's nice to run in. Took quite a while to build into this run, but had plenty of good moments, especially on the sections on white tracks across fields (if it wasn't too windy) or through forests. The highlight, though, was the descent back towards Kloten at around 16-18k - gentle downhill through a fairytale forest with a couple of centimetres of fresh snow on everything (except the track I was running on). The last loop in town to get me up to the 2.15 I wanted could have been a bum note, especially as I felt as if I was starting to fade a bit at 2 hours, but it turned out reasonably good, taking in the town's Christmas market (at which the most lucrative economic activity appeared to be the issuing of parking tickets). Rolling hills most of the way, with almost no extended flat sections until back in town.

Now on the homeward leg - due back in Melbourne Sunday night, but the tightness of my connection is such that there's every chance of some unscheduled time in Dubai (although at present our departing flight is showing on time, and as an A380 we shouldn't have a bus transfer in Dubai, which from experience can add another 30 minutes to the time required).

More of an orienteering experience than a full-blown training. Original plan was terrain intervals with Jim, but this didn't quite happen - (a) because Jim wasn't well and decided to call it a day after the first section, and (b) because the forest still had quite a bit of snow and ice, with only limited melting despite temperatures today being well above freezing. It wasn't enough to be a major impediment to progress in itself, but I didn't have the confidence to know what holes the snow might be filling in the rougher stuff (and running down a partly snow-covered scree slope requires more bravery than I possess). Nice on the tops, though. A bit wobbly on a couple of the early controls but otherwise navigating reasonably well on a decent area (Norwegian Middle Champs a couple of years ago).

Amazing what difference having a bit of metal on your shoes can make in these conditions - parts of the track to the start were sheet ice, but it was still possible to run up them, albeit slowly.

In the petrol station on the way back, encountered someone of Middle Eastern appearance with no Norwegian and very little English who wanted to know how to get to the processing centre for asylum-seekers.

I leave Norway tonight - initially to Zurich, then flying out of there tomorrow afternoon. May not have seen the last of the snow for this trip as the forecast suggests there is at least some chance of snow in the Zurich area tomorrow morning.

Club training near Bekkestua. This wasn't exactly a Halden Onsdagsnatt, but it was my first experience of Nordic night orienteering, on a map which was partly open and partly a patch of forest a few hundred metres across. Complex relay format with teams of three and two runners out at once (most of the time) - I was in a team with two juniors of 16 or so (one boy, one girl).

Took most of the first leg to work out what I was doing, then did OK with one exception - but it was a significant exception. At 4, I didn't see the marker (the controls were reflectors and this one was hanging on the other side of the tree); I didn't have the confidence to be sure I was in the right spot and convinced myself I was on the next knoll 100 metres down the hill, losing 2-3 minutes in the process.

One lesson: just because everything else is frozen doesn't mean that marshes are.

Second leg of the relay. A mass start and all in the yellow, so much easier than the first leg. I thought there might have been forking but there didn't seem to be; dropped by the bunch out of the start (which I wasn't quite ready for), but picked off a few in the second half. Definitely more intense pace than first time round.

Headed north (we've moved since yesterday and are now at Avlos, on the south side of the Kolsas hill), with a view to doing an out-and-back on the trails on the east side of the hills. That was dependent on conditions. The ice had mostly cleared in the suburbs, and there was almost none in the forest itself (presumably the trees intercepted the ice yesterday morning), but anything in the open was still lethal. There wasn't actually that much in the open, but enough that I decided that, although it was possible to run, it wasn't that enjoyable, so I dropped back into the suburbs.

Not being especially familiar with this part of town, once through Bekkestua I figured that I would eventually hit either the T-bane to the north or the Sandvika-Baerums Verk road to the west. As it turned out I did a fair bit of semi-looping (some of it nice, some of it not quite so nice) and became somewhat unsure of where I was and which way I was heading (low cloud meant the hill wasn't available as a directional landmark), but eventually popped out one station west of where we're staying.

My attire, or relative absence thereof (I was wearing shorts, it being above freezing), attracted a certain amount of comment from the locals, particularly various groups of kids coming home from school.

Not a fast run but the ice had a bit to do with that; a bit sore at times but felt as if I had a reasonable amount left at the end (I'm orienteering tomorrow night, so today wasn't as long as a midweek long run normally would be; have some lengthy plans for Zurich or points nearby on Saturday morning).

Went to bed thinking there might be a bit of snow overnight, but woke to see none. There was a puddle in the car park and I thought the changeover to rain had already happened. Stepping outside quickly disabused me of that notion - there might have been puddles on some of the more heavily salted roads, but everywhere else was sheet ice. It was pointless even contemplating doing an intervals session in such conditions and I quickly decided to try my luck again in the afternoon, but it was still too treacherous when I got home (it would have been OK at Blindern by then, I think), so this becomes my weekly rest day from running instead of Friday.

The culprit was freezing rain. For Australians who are unfamiliar with the stuff, this is when rain falls from a warm layer of air aloft into a sub-freezing layer at the surface, becomes supercooled and freezes on its first contact with the ground or any other object. (The most common scenario for it is when warmer air is pushing in after a cold spell, with it eventually turning to rain as the surface layer warms - which is what happened today).

In large quantities it's known as an "ice storm" and can create havoc, especially with trees and power lines (Norway sensibly seems to have put much of its urban electrical infrastructure underground). Today certainly wasn't on that scale, but walking to and from stations and anywhere else where gravel hadn't been put down was an interesting challenge (seeing people trying to negotiate the ramp out of the Forskningsparken station suggested that the locals weren't finding the conditions any easier than I was). The roads weren't as crazy as I thought they might have been but apparently someone drove off a road into the ocean at Sandvika (they got out).

With temperatures expected to stay above freezing overnight, I'm cautiously optimistic that things might have improved by the morning.

Morning recovery session before the OA Board meeting (which for me started at 10am). I had the idea of going out to an island, which sounded attractive in theory. It was a bit less attractive in practice - I'm staying next to what's described as "Norway's biggest shopping mall" (I was under the impression that Norway's biggest shopping mall, if defined by the amount spent there by Norwegians, was actually in Sweden), and getting to said island involves a couple of kilometres each way of negotiating commercial districts and main roads in peak-hour traffic. It was nice once on the island though. Back considerably better today.

I realised before I started that I'd put my gloves in the wash by mistake and they were still at Cassie's. If it had been, say, -2 I'd probably have just gone with bare hands, but at -7 I didn't think that would end well, so I improvised by wearing socks on my hands instead. Seemed to work OK.

It was reported today that an international study of sports governance structures had actually rated FIFA second-highest. It doesn't say a lot for the rest, although I suspect that FIFA has a lot of structures which look reasonably good in theory but buckle in practice under the deluge of money that floats around football. In case you're wondering, shooting took the wooden spoon. (Orienteering wasn't part of the study, although looking at the criteria I think IOF would score reasonably well).

C • Island 2

I think this is my first swim in Norway, in the pool at Bekkestua (with my nephews enjoying themselves in the kids' pool). Thought I'd picked an appropriate lane but someone felt differently, because they said to me something in Norwegian which I took to mean that he wasn't happy with my presence and wanted me to go elsewhere. (Swimming in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne has given me plenty of experience of locals who don't take kindly to interlopers on their turf). Moved across to what I thought was the fast lane with no further issues.

C • Skating 8