Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Fairly standard recovery session on a nice morning for this time of year, bright but not too cold. Started slowly, picked up a bit through the middle but drifted out of it a little towards the end.

Uplifting encounter of the commute was being next to a car at the lights, whose three rear-seat occupants (all girls of seven or so) amused themselves by making faces and waving in my direction, something i was quite happy to reciprocate. The return to reality came a few blocks later in the form of a get-out-of-the-f***ing-way horn blast, by someone who is perhaps disgruntled by the fact that La Trobe Street is currently narrowed to one lane at King Street because one wall of the building on the corner is considered by the council (with some justification given the visible cracks) to be unstable.

(The building in question is a two-story affair which is apparently the only surviving shop from mid-19th century Melbourne, and as such is of heritage significance. It's owned and occupied by a couple in their 90s who apparently don't have anything like the money needed to restore it properly. I imagine that developers are salivating over the site and will not be in the least distressed if the building falls over; hopefully they don't give it any encouragement to do so, but if it burns down or someone accidentally on purpose crashes a car into it, it's probably time for somebody to ask some searching questions).

C • isn't that something that a... 2

First attempt for a while at a lunchtime run. Wasn't sure what to expect of this, particularly after yesterday, and felt iffy in the first 10 minutes. No significant injury issues after that, but felt a bit sluggish on the way down to Beacon Cove and back.

I suspect the GPS was doing strange things amongst the big buildings, particularly when attempting to navigate the maze of the South Wharf construction site; I certainly didn't run a 4.26 kilometre in the middle of that section.

Also spotted a double-decker bus heading toward the Montague Street bridge. It turned.

State Series Middle at Chewton Diggings. Ran this one early before a shift on the finish (one of the quirks of being in two clubs is that I've worked on two State Series events in the space of a fortnight).

Perhaps I wasn't in a properly focused state of mind for this, but the biggest problem was that I didn't have my terrain legs at all, and never really handled the rockier and rougher bits of this area, or getting in and out of the erosion. Also weaker than most recent runs and struggled with the hills (particularly 11 and 15). Probably dropped 3-4 minutes in 30-second increments. A bit disappointing to turn in such a poor run, but I do have my biggest running week of the year (and in fact since April 2016) behind me so that's a positive. Back didn't cause any real trouble on the run but was pretty sore driving back.

A bit longer than I've been doing on Saturdays of late, and a little more ambitious than a lot of my recent runs, featuring some of the hills of Kew. Thought after a promising start that this might catch alight; it didn't, but still a fairly solid morning's work (and a prelude to a certain amount of birthday-related indulgence).

Spent a bit of time on this run contemplating the rumoured Swiss protest at the WOC relay (see that thread for further details), so I'm glad it didn't happen.

C • Worst case scenario 3

Nice to be coming off a week sufficiently hard that a recovery session came in useful. Fairly standard as these things go, and didn't feel too sleep-deprived after a late night watching the WOC middle distance.

Yesterday wasn't much good but today felt decent from the start. Planned for 2 hours and started with the first sign of a proper long run, heading out at a time which started with a 5. Felt reasonably comfortable through the first half, although slow until it got light (which didn't happen until after halfway). Started to speed up once coming back through La Trobe and a solid last 8k; didn't feel as if I was tiring to any meaningful extent, which is very encouraging.

Spending a decent stretch of this run on Oakhill Avenue made me think of the idea of a JWOC theme run; some checking of the Melbourne street directory reveals that it would be a long one, given the distance between Burrill Court in Taylors Hill and Key Drive in (unsurprisingly) Keysborough. You will find 11 out of the 12 represented by either first or last names, with Asha being the one who misses out (the closest it gets is Steers Street in Sunshine North).

This one was a bit of a shocker - felt sluggish from the start and never got going at all, with the last part just as slow as the first (unusual for me). At least there were no injury issues of consequence. Came across Kirsten part of the way through and thought the stop for a chat might get things going, but they didn't (to any meaningful extent).

Something of a new phase at home as my parents have moved in after leaving Canberra. They'll be around for as long as it takes to build their new house on the Mornington Peninsula (probably 9-12 months), but the first part of their stay won't be long - they're leaving the country for a few weeks on Friday.

A bit of a milestone: first time I've done what I consider a standard intervals session (10x1 min) in about nine months. As you might expect of a first time, there wasn't a lot of sparkle and I didn't get appreciably faster as it went on in the way that I sometimes do in interval sessions, but still enough to be considered a solid morning's work.

Warm-up and down. Didn't feel too lively on the warm-up, but did feel as if there was no real sign of any injury problems, which gave me enough confidence to go through with the morning's plans.