Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Australian Long Championships, Split Rock. My main objective for this week is simply to get around all five championship races so that part of the mission was accomplished. Back was threatening to tighten on any climb so I wasn't attempting to run many of them, but managed to keep plugging away on the flat and downhills, and most importantly made no significant errors - especially satisfied to nail the downhill diagonal 11. Probably close to the upper end of what I'm currently capable of, but still rather frustrating when you know that if you were fitter you could be doing this 20% faster. Probably not going to do much about that in the next week (a technical middle next weekend might be my best chance in that respect).

Ended up just missing the top 10 in 11th (and would have missed it by a bit more had Jon and Matt Stocks not led each other astray). Only had one top-ten split which says something for the consistency (and lack of pace) of this run. Carsten and Bruce 52, Craig 53, Andy 55.

Oceania Sprint Championships, just below halfway in M45. This was probably around the result I expected but still revealing as to how far off the pace I was. The first part in the buildings was pretty technical and my splits weren't too bad, but struggled more once up on the hill - mostly through not registering properly that just because it was in the bush didn't mean the scale was 1:10000 (and thus overshooting the short 11 in a fairly significant way, dropping a minute or so). Back not too bad, although threatening to cause trouble up a couple of the hills; fitness definitely well short of requirements.

At Northcote in between lots of paper-reading on what was supposed to be a public holiday Friday. Session seemed to go pretty smoothly even if the wind was knocking me around a bit.

Something we see a bit less than we did a couple of years ago is media coverage of business groups complaining about how many gazillions this particular holiday is going to cost the economy. Obviously they don't count the income of all of the establishments on Station Street which were going gangbusters.

At this stage, just getting something on the board which would have been routine not so long ago is a plus. This run was fairly sluggish and lethargic, but apart from brief hip twinges there were no injury difficulties. Also took on something vaguely resembling a hill out of Darebin Parklands without my body freaking out, although that might have been just because I was fired up after an encounter with a boisterous dog and its unconcerned owner.

First time for a while I've done the gentle descent down the path through the west side of Ivanhoe, too, seeing in the process that half of the very long-lived Carl Kirkwood For Preston sticker has finally disappeared from a power pole next to the path (if I recall correctly, the last election in which he was a candidate was in 1992). His political passion was cemeteries; I guess someone has to care about them (and, if you're a backbencher and aren't going to be a minister, finding a specialist niche which is your own isn't the worst of ideas).

Early Yarra Boulevard session. Felt rather lethargic, particularly in the earlier stages - hills were hard going, and as usual got blown away by some of the more regular cyclists; suspect running today wouldn't have worked out that well. Probably a bit better later on. At least getting onto the Boulevard is an easier process now (and will be easier still once they finish working on the old bridge).

Got going at a second attempt after not working out in the morning. A bit iffy at times, but certainly improved on this time last week - good to see that I can get out at lunchtime again (and a good break from a day of binge-paper-reading, sandwiched somewhere in between bias correction schemes for lower stratospheric temperatures and methods for estimating exactly when individual ships in the early 20th century switched from using wooden to canvas buckets for sea surface temperature measurements).

There are no hills on this route (other than a few bumps over bridges). I'll need to relearn how to run hills soon, after seeing that the Australian Relays have 7.4% climb.

Back to the Monday morning pilates session (at least for this week). Somewhat higher resistance for some of the exercises, but seemed to handle it OK (and core stability seems to be a bit better in the parts where that mattered).

Then moved on to the pool for the first double of this type for a while - a chilly, windy morning when it was definitely better to be in the water than out of it. Gradually wound myself up as the session went on, and managed to avoid any cramps this time round.

First time for a while my last week's training time has had a 6 in front of it (even if part of it is through doing last week's normal Monday on Tuesday).