Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Hadn't slept that well last night, but felt more or less OK once into the pool. A slightly better swim than in the last couple of weeks, although faded a little at the end.

It felt quite cool this morning, which is a slightly disconcerting sign of acclimatisation given that 15.1 is only a few tenths below the average for January. (The run of 15+ nights remains alive and will reach a record 26 days on Friday if the forecast is right, before stopping there; meanwhile, Sydney's record runs of 26+ days and 20+ nights both ended today).

South Wharf intervals. After a very unsettling morning at work I needed this session as much for my mental health as my physical - don't think I've had quite such a sense of taking my frustrations out on the pavement for a long time. Perhaps that helped the running side of things because this was actually a pretty decent session, on the first occasion for a while that I've been down here. Slightly harder work on the even reps into a fresh easterly wind (not often you see that in Melbourne).

(Things did improve considerably in the afternoon, and I don't think that the run was entirely responsible for that, although it helped).

Warm-up and down, including the rather amusing sight of a 'Cyclists Reduce Speed' sign about two metres from the end of a pier - must get out there with a camera sometime. (It's a leftover from when there was a temporary bridge off the end to get around a building site on the shoreline).

Had a bit of Attack of the Killer Physio tonight (she worked on my Achilles more than has previously been the case - although it's actually been a bit better in the last couple of days than it was for most of last week).

For those who've seen the exit sign to Little River on the Geelong freeway and wondered what's there, the answer is "not much" - perhaps a couple of hundred people, a pub (but no general store that I saw), some impressive 19th century bluestone public architecture (two bridges and a station), and a surprisingly large primary school for a town its size (wonder if they pick up any students from Werribee?). It has a remarkably country feel for somewhere only 45km from central Melbourne.

We were here because Jenny was keen to do a run in the You Yangs, and given that I wasn't running this afternoon I was OK to pass up the morning race too. I haven't been there since a stint of scrub-bashing with Bruce in about 2003 in the name of determining that it was too thick to contemplate using for Easter 2006 (a pity because there's some terrific rock there). We settled on the track that goes around the mid-upper slopes of Flinders Peak, the main mountain - a bit scrambly at times, but some excellent views, especially from the eastern side. Really a tourist run. The initial climb was a bit of a wake-up call, reminding me that I don't usually start runs uphill these days, but OK after that.

Before the post-fire thickening after 1985, it was a pretty nice area, most memorably at the 1985 Victorian relays, held on the first weekend of the WOC 1985 carnival, with almost nothing on the ground and a mass start of 300 teams, including many of the top international elites (who were doing not much over 4 minutes/km). In one of my occasional outbreaks of teenage craziness, I ended up running all three legs after my two teammates didn't turn up. (Also in my list of craziness for that fortnight was running the women's WOC course the day after the event after first crossing the mountain because I hadn't heard that the start was near Melville Caves; perhaps it's not that surprising that in amongst that, actual M14 courses on competition days seemed pretty tame).

C • no mention of the boat? htt... 3

Last-minute control checking/turning-on run for the Parade event, which I was controller for - they were all in the right place (although one unit wasn't working) and all the gates were in the state the map said they should be. A little closer to the first start time than I'd originally planned on (which meant a bit of a last-minute dash for food in between this and the first start, meaning the last-resort option of the Hungry Jack's drive-thru).

The event seemed to go well - Ralph's courses were well-received and as far as I could tell the only thing that went wrong was that it took a while to get the results screens working. The overall results were also calculated within a few minutes of the last finisher thanks to the series scores option in Eventor (must remember that one the next time I'm responding to a letter from someone complaining about it).

C • Food 4

MSW 3 at Deakin University in Geelong - another new area for me. Seemed to be lacking a bit of energy this morning and that carried through onto the course, but a reasonable run technically for the most part - only glitch was at 20 where I went for a small gap which didn't have an exit but only lost 10 seconds or so. Like a lot of people, I had trouble working out what was what with the ramps near 11 but went out a bit wide to sidestep the issue.

Not quite the same level of finish chute embarrassment this morning as last night, managing to hold off Lauren Baade (who I was sort of around for the last few controls).

A new map for me and a new one for everyone else as well - Kardinia International College, at the top of a hill on the northwest edge of the city, with good views over the northern part of the city, the bay and the soon-to-be-former Ford factory, but not a particularly steep map.

Word from earlier runners was that it was pretty technical, and I got my route slightly wrong to 2, but reasonably clean after that - seemed to maintain concentration pretty well. Got to know the area reasonably well after the second time through. Thought I'd done a bit better than the other runs, so I was quite surprised to get back to discover that I was stone motherless last, and in serious danger of staying there. Tyson eventually saved me from that (he was 20 or so seconds behind me all weekend), and a couple of others came in behind too.

Somewhat unsettling before the start was the sight of Mike Hubbert departing the scene in an ambulance (second-hand reports suggest heart issues but not life-threatening).

Ended the day at the Little River pub (suggested as an overnight venue by Jenny as a jumping off point for tomorrow morning). I wonder if the Little River Band have ever played there?

Event: #Eurovision Melbourne Sprint Weekend
 

First race of the Melbourne Sprint weekend, at RMIT Bundoora. Like a few of this weekend's other venues, others have been here before but I haven't (by virtue of having been away for all of the 2014 and most of the 2015 sprint series). A bit apprehensive before the start because my Achilles, which has been pretty sore on getting up from a period of inactivity over the first couple of days, took its time warming up, but it was a non-issue once racing.

Fairly straightforward start but some good legs in the last two-thirds of the course (was happy not to fall into the trap many did at 13). Not great on the pace with John catching me by 9. Only time loss of consequence was at 7 where I overshot a bit and lost 15 seconds or so.

Almost had a head-on with Zoe Melhuish at 6. I suspect she would have come off second best from such a collision had it taken place.

And Geoff Lawford got me by 1 second, demonstrating that if I can stay at this speed for the next 15 years I potentially have what it takes to win an M60 WMOC sprint gold in 2031.

Second and biggest race of the Melbourne Sprint weekend, at the University of Melbourne. People seemed to assume that I would have a home-ground advantage here, but in fact the School of Earth Sciences where I was based when on campus (which wasn't that much of the time - I spent probably 70-80% of my time at the Bureau) is across the road from the main campus, and it was the best part of 20 years ago anyway. More recently my excursions onto the main campus have mostly been to play CSIRO at soccer, something which will hopefully still be possible this time next year.

Felt decent in the warm-up but struggled a bit for a top gear in the race. Had a first-ever annoyance - losing my control description sheet when it fell out of the holder on the way to 3 - but otherwise unrattled through the first half of the course. Ended up making one error of consequence, dropping 20 seconds or so through failing to notice that my exit direction from 14 did not in fact have an exit (a conclusion assisted by seeing a 'NO EXIT' sign, without which I would have dropped another 20-30 seconds). Did the garden section at the end OK, but had some ego-battering at the end when I was comprehensively walloped in the finish chute by Sophie Arthur.

Despite the seedings, I did not beat Ralph (and neither did anyone else).

1 - Splits

A pleasant enough session in the pool (which felt a bit cooler than normal). Achilles feels particularly tight when getting up from sitting down at the moment - hopefully that won't be an issue over the weekend. (I did quite a lot of sitting down today, in the process of getting our report on the recent/current heatwave out the door - have certainly had a bit of practice writing reports about extreme weather in the last few months).

Not exactly super-fast and a bit of a grind at times, but definitely my best run this week - even felt like I was enjoying it some of the time, particularly in the middle. A bit cooler with hints of rain at times. Shorter than normal for a Thursday given the racing ahead this weekend, but felt as if I probably had something left in me.

I've been doing a bit more media of late than had been the case for a while (partly because of the abundance of interesting weather, partly because we're not trying to make ourselves such a small target on climate issues since the change of leadership, partly because I'm picking things up for a couple of absent colleagues in the regional offices). Yesterday's one for ABC News 24 was a bit awkward, not because they asked any difficult questions but because the earpiece sound was very loud and a bit distorted and no-one could work out how to do anything about it. I could sympathise a bit with Brian Johnson, who's now had it medically proven that rock n'roll is indeed noise pollution.

Felt horribly sluggish and a bit tight and decided to turn this into a jog; there were moments when I thought I might have cut it short altogether but didn't think I could stomach two DNFs in successive weeks. Finally started to come good in the last 10 minutes. Not sure what the issue has been this week; surely it's not just the humidity (humidity which would be tame in Brisbane in the summer, or Darwin most of the year) getting to me?

Heyington Heights is a place prone to route-choice epic fails. I thought I'd made a decent job of it given that the course-setter's estimate was 9.8k, but Bruce went a kilometre shorter to disabuse me of that notion. It also takes one past some vastly expensive real estate for a taste of how the other 0.01% live, with the sounds of what I assume was a Toorak society party coming from behind one of the hedges between 1 and 14.

The assembly area was at the Kevin Bartlett Reserve. Not only was this named while he was still alive (something you wouldn't see happen in Canberra), it was named while he was still playing - the plaque from 1980 somewhat optimistically says "he has played in five premiership teams to date". (As AFL fans will know, Richmond haven't won one since). They must have been confident that he wouldn't disgrace himself in a nightclub incident.