Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Typo of the day: Kilmarnock FC tweeted during last night's game that one of their players had just fired a shit over the crossbar.

C • possibly 9

Melbourne Bush-O at Diamond Creek - with a somewhat more limited bush component than some other events of this genre. What was there still had its perils though, and I made a significant mistake (2 minutes or so) by the standards of such events at #9, ending up at #10 - there were definitely map issues in this area relating to the small tracks and an unmapped waterhole, but I still should have been more on the ball coming in.

Wasn't sure about this before the start but decided to go out, and felt OK doing so. Had a good battle with Martin Steer through the first half of the course, gradually edging away from him on the hills (and he missed an opportunity to get it back when he made a similar error at #9). Was leading when I finished by a minute over Lanita, but I'd expect Bruce, and perhaps others, to go near or below 30 (I didn't hang around myself, with a football match to go to - one which was worth going to given we've waited almost all year for such a result). Missed out on seeing the Olympic 10k but I suspect I would have missed out on seeing most of it anyway had I been relying on Channel 7.

A couple of legs took us across what were mostly railway line bridges; the foot pads at either end were well enough used that I suspect the paths are 'legal' (in that there are no signs or fences to indicate otherwise), but I still wouldn't have wanted to be there when a train was passing and I don't think it was particularly appropriate for the courses to use them. Lanita was considerably more fired up than I was on this point.

C • Bridges 6

Hamstring last night was as bad as it had been at any point in the last three weeks. It had improved considerably overnight but still a bit short of being runnable, so took to the pool instead. Worked out OK in the pool, with a couple of infrastructure deficiencies to deal with - (a) as noted previously, the outdoor pool at Northcote doesn't have a visible clock so timing is a guess until you get out (b) the water temperature was 24 degrees which is unusually low for a public pool. The latter was a bit of a shock to the system initially but fine after a few minutes (the sunshine helped).

I suspect the IOC will have been very happy with Fiji's rugby win yesterday. The two ways new sports generally get into the Olympics is either they offer potential for a significant new TV audience, or they offer medal prospects for historically under-represented regions. (You'll probably note that orienteering doesn't score well on either count). One of the major selling points for rugby sevens would have been the chances it offered for medals for Pacific island countries.

Run down in the Albert Park area, settling fairly well after the first few minutes - though the degree of difficulty was reasonably low. Hamstring was not quite right but fine to run on during the run, but pulled up tight afterwards (although the main tightness seemed to be a bit lower down) - still not especially confident about its current status.

Saw a leftover election billboard for Michael Danby - which, oddly enough, trumpeted that Labor would end cosmetic testing on animals. I'd assumed the reason he got preferences from the Animal Justice Party over the Greens (something which might have got him across the line) was because there was still bad blood between the last two over the ACT kangaroo cull, but perhaps there was policy to it, too. (If the truth be known, I suspect a lot of Labor people - providing it didn't cost government - wouldn't have been too upset to see him lose).

Was still feeling a bit tight last night so decided to swap sessions between Thursday and Friday, and give the hamstring an extra day to settle down. Fine once in the water, which was a bit more thinly populated than I'm used to at Fitzroy (even in the middle of winter).

I returned yesterday with a list of things I wanted to get done on my first day back, but in the end I barely got through clearing out all the accumulated e-mails. Seems a bit mundane to be back, although I won't be for long - my next Geneva stint (with a detour via the last bit of WOC and associated IOF meetings) starts in a couple of weeks.

Intervals along the edge of Lake Jerilderie. There's plenty of water around - the marker for one endpoint of my set was a semi-submerged tree in the creek nearby.

Took a couple of reps to get going but felt fairly reasonable after that; hamstring was fine almost all the way but twinged in the last 10 seconds of the last rep. Will have to see how it comes up tomorrow.

Jerilderie, like Rio, is well known for armed robbery, although in Jerilderie's case the armed robbery in question took place 137 years ago. An upholstery shop in the main street had a sign with a picture of Ned Kelly's helmet and the words "we won't rob you but we will stitch you up".

This morning was the last leg, getting back to Melbourne around lunchtime and reacquainting myself with features like traffic lights and difficulty in finding parking. Certainly pleased to have done the trip; it's a land of subtlety rather than spectacle, and I'm guessing some of the roads would become a bit tedious if you were doing them regularly, but as a first-timer I definitely enjoyed myself.

Decided to make this a 'tourist run' (something I thought there might be a bit more of on this trip), on one of the walking tracks at Gundabooka National Park, centred on a 650-metre mountain west of the Bourke-Cobar road. (I was taken a bit by surprise by this - I thought this part of western NSW was dead flat but there are random peaks scattered around the place, of which Gundabooka is by some margin the biggest).

Little Mountain, the name of the track, turned out to be very little - only about 20-30 metres elevation - but was still high enough to give a good view of the main range. The flat country around was mostly mulga - this is quite clear underneath on foot (probably less so on a horse) but quite low-visibility, and would have been quite disorienting for the early explorers having to cross a couple of hundred kilometres of it.

Arrived back to see a petrol tanker pulling into the trailhead car park. I couldn't think of any good reason for such a vehicle to be there - it turned out he was looking for the National Park headquarters and took a wrong turn.

Continued on the road after this - the last real outback day, traversing NSW from north to south, not really breaking out of the scrub until 50km or so north of Hillston. Hillston, another small town where half the shops on the main street are empty, featured a poster advertising a course Riverina TAFE are running on "Backpacker English", inviting visiting fruit and cotton-pickers to improve their Australian English (which sounds like a worthy initiative). I wonder if The Castle forms any part of the course material?

After Hillston, the settlements become a bit more regular (if still mostly small) and start acquiring silos. One of them, Merriwagga, is the third claimant I've seen so far to the Black Stump (also spotted in Blackall and north of Coolah), and has a pub claiming to have the highest bar in the Southern Hemisphere. I'm sceptical that anyone has checked for the existence (or otherwise) of other claimants in Paraguay or Botswana.

(Actual freshly-created black stumps are not in short supply on either side of the NSW-Queensland border, as a result of what the LNP spokesman described on the ABC Queensland Country Hour yesterday as "vegetation management activities").

C • Quality courses 1

I remembered from my previous visit that Griffith had an indoor pool and was keen to use it (although I wasn't quite sure whether it would still be open when I got there) to swim 100 metres in the same amount of time as it takes Mack Horton to swim 400. (Actually did a bit better than that - it was one of my less slow swims for a while). Nice break on a long day.

There was a certain amount of planning in finding myself in Griffith around dinner time - wherever you find mafiosi you'll find good restaurants. I'm not sure how many mafiosi there still are in Griffith these days, but the restaurants are still there.

Ended the day in Jerilderie - the first bit of highway driving I've done in the dark. I suspect I didn't miss much in the scenery department (except the chance to see whether the Murrumbidgee was flowing as strongly as the Lachlan). First place I tried advertised '24 hour reception' but couldn't be bothered answering their bell at 9pm, so my business went down the road instead. (By the way, staying in a motel means you get to fill out the Census the old-school way).

C • Old school 3

Not my best run on this trip. I've had IOF teleconferences until midnight or thereabouts the last two nights (and will again tonight) and felt sleepy and sluggish for much of this run.

Got the chance to do some exploring without too much out-and-back (possession of a decent map helps), incorporating bits on the Warrego levee banks - raised since almost the entire town was flooded in 1990. At the far end, on the other side of the river, got into some semi-rural areas which had a similar vibe to the Darwin rural area (minus the UFO sightings).

Clash of eras time: there is a facility in Charleville called the King Edward Skate Park. There hasn't been a King Edward for 80 years (and that King Edward was one who probably didn't get too many things named after him), and I'm pretty sure the skate park is more recent than that.

Headed down to Bourke on a day book-ended by site visits at Charleville and Bourke, completing the set I was aiming for on this trip. Bourke was the most challenging of the six, being 2km off the road on a somewhat overgrown track (although had I decided that my vehicle wasn't up to the job, going in on foot would have been straightforward). Cunnamulla definitely has an air of decline, and Bourke one of a trouble spot - it's the first time since Brazil that I've stayed somewhere with an electric fence. (I think, and hope, that this is mostly about stopping car break-ins). The river precinct is interesting and there are some notable historic buildings, but it's definitely not a town which encourages you to linger.

C • King Edward Park 2