Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Oceania Middle. Not sure whether I should count this as getting through five races or not - I did get around the course, but the back was bad from the start and I wasn't really racing at any stage, walking much of it and jogging the rest. Ended up in the bottom half, as I deserved to (and lost time on the second-last to add a bit of insult to injury). Had it been a training run I'd have bailed in the first five minutes, and I might have done it here too had the configuration of uncrossable fences not meant that I had to get as far as #5 anyway, by which time things had loosened up (a little).

Despite finishing on a poor note personally, the week was still better overall than I was expecting. On a more general note, the event week was excellent - one of the biggest we've had in Australia (and one of the most complex to organise - Stephen Goggs definitely deserves plaudits for extreme skills in cat-herding), and very little significant went wrong.

And my car didn't even smell as bad as I thought it would, and the bags fitted into my bin which is being collected tonight (the rubbish being joined by the underpants I wore today, whose elastic made it known that it had reached the end of its useful life).

C • Your AP readership 4

"Hello, is that ACT Policing? I'd like to report a robbery in Homebush..."

C • Absolutely 1

Kangaroo Crossing has been pretty kind to me over the years (including winning a World Cup trial there in 2000); perhaps I instinctively understand the internal logic of the terrain. It worked again today with probably my best result since the 2017 nationals.

Not terribly fast through the early controls, which were mostly downhill, and perhaps went a bit further right than I needed to on 2, but was hitting them nicely, and by the time of reaching the scarily-downhill-into-low-vis-vagueness 5, I was beginning to think that today was not just about survival, there was a decent chance of getting a result. Started to wobble a bit in mid-course on 8, 9 and 10, but probably only dropped a maximum of 15 seconds on each, and was further encouraged by seeing Andy, who started 4 minutes ahead, coming out of 11 (turned out he'd made a big mistake on 4 and then gone back through me on 9). 12 was a long leg but less rugged than it looked at first glance; walking the significant hills, as was the case all day, but running the rest.

I haven't been beyond 70 minutes in training all year, so it wasn't too surprising, on a warm day, that I started to feel as if I was hitting the wall around 12. By then, there were only three more shortish uphill legs to go then the rest was downhill. Didn't run much of 13/14/15, but didn't fall apart and was able to make a reasonable fist of the final downhill section (although the two-contour climb across the creek into 19 was as much of a test as I could handle).

Ended up 4th, at the head of a fairly close bunch but 90 seconds behind Scott in 3rd (just like in M12 at the 1982 nationals). Bruce blitzed the field with 70 (but 16 minutes is still closer than I was last weekend, on a longer course), Carsten did 77. Was thinking so near and yet so far, but I'd forgotten that Carsten isn't (yet) officially a Kiwi until I got called up at the presentations for 3rd Oceania.

Not especially energetic in the rest of the day - at least there were sufficient control collectors that my services weren't required (except to transport some of the stands, and some of the rubbish - my car will smell interesting by this time tomorrow - back to Melbourne). Probably not too many sports where you'd see the national president collecting money at the entrance to the car park and then a world champion pointing people to their parking spots.

C • Passports 5

The purest place for a pool session is, in my view, under a clear sky in a small country town's War Memorial Pool (or equivalent). Wagga isn't quite like that, but the backdrop of Willans Hill was still nice to have, and the clear sky was definitely there. Also nice was the fact that almost all of the 50-metre outdoor pool is deep enough for this so I wasn't going round and round in circles.

Headed down to Beechworth today - was thinking about it and I don't think I've actually been to Beechworth since the NOL weekend in 2014. It's even longer since I ventured into downtown Wodonga (my lunch stop) - probably 15 years or thereabouts - and the centre is unrecognisable. The good news is that it's good to see the central area has had a fair bit of investment (and has been made pedestrian-friendly), the bad news is that what they've actually built looks like the central shopping centre of a treeless outer-outer-outer suburb on the northern or western edge of Melbourne.

Decided after yesterday that I'd rather not go out after a session on the mike so instead jogged round some controls before the start. I think the only time I've previously run on Pomingarlana was a NSW Relays about 20 years ago; it's an area which looks pretty straightforward gully-spur but it's easy enough to find yourself on the wrong level if you're not careful. Good to do some control-picking, and feeling a bit better running than I was on the weekend (at least I could jog gentle hills, if not steep ones).

The Schools relay lived up to its reputation. NSW always looked in the box seat, and with both their junior teams getting maximum points they'll probably be up the top for a while. Random piece of trivia: it's the first ever winning NSW team which did not contain at least one Meyer.

And a rather sad day for the map nerds among us.

Didn't really feel like going out on a hot day after a long commentary stint, and a brief attempt at warming up reinforced that. Might try and go out before the relay tomorrow. Good day of competition though - and there are still five states in with a chance (although NSW are definitely in the box seat).

The ACT senior girls swept the board again (not even the legendary early 1990s teams ever managed that), and no New Zealanders ran a place in anything (but their teams are still leading).

The introduction of GPS tracking means that we now have to work out how diplomatic to be in commentary when someone is making a Very Big Mistake.

Currently looking at early Australian Middle/Short Championships from before they became an all-ages event in 2006, and some of the convoluted things which were done to incorporate the juniors - perhaps the most convoluted being in 2003 when the 21E course was two loops, the 20s results were declared at the end of the first loop, and juniors could continue if they wanted to to get a 21s result, which is how Grace managed to come first in 20s in 25.53 and fourth in 21E in 36.15 in the same event (not sure how we'll handle that one if we ever get round to getting all of the results into a single database). Until the early 2000s there were qualifiers (to match the WOC format); the 1998 men's qualifier, with the top 19 to go through and the cut 4.06 behind the winner on a technical granite area (Kahli's Rocks), must be one of the deepest elite races run domestically in Australia.

C • ACT senior girls 3

The Wagga aquatic centre was conveniently close by, and on the way to the sprint, so I thought it was a good opportunity for a session, chalking up another pool swum in (apparently there are 900-odd public pools in Australia and someone's embarked on a quest to get the lot; I think I'm in the 40s). Stiff early on but got into it pretty well in the second half.

C • Pool visiting 1

I was originally thinking of sitting a day out but thought I might as well at least give this a go and see how it felt. The answer was not terribly good, which is a pity because it seemed a pretty interesting course on a small area (long since being past the stage of beating all the kids, I'd set my target time as Leith Soden's 18, after the numerous close contests we had at Sprint Adelaide). Standing up for a while beforehand worked for me at the Victorian Long but not so much today (perhaps four days in a row was asking too much).

Commentary seemed to go pretty well today, although the results feed wasn't really giving me all the information I wanted so I fell back a fair bit on old-school methods (i.e. a start list and a watch).

Later in the evening, I made a confirmed sighting of a rug shop closing down sale where the business in question actually appears to have closed down.

Australian Relays, 2nd leg in M45 (with Dion and Warwick). Expected a ferociously steep course and got one - right from the start with a full frontal assault on the escarpment. Walked up that (but so did everyone else), but then dropped a minute at the control, then another 2-3 minutes on 2. That pretty much sank this run as a going concern; the rest wasn't actually too bad, although slow except in the downhill section from 2-5, but the result was pretty disappointing. Brett caught me at 6 but then dropped back again (with some help from me having a short split).

We ended up 6th. Had I got down to 45 it would have only got us one more place, but would have been a result I was reasonably happy with. Bruce did 35 for the Australian team, which won comfortably. At least I managed to string three days of running together for the first time since July; baby steps...

Took the back roads back to the Schools venue at Borambola (I was speaking at the opening ceremony), seeing road signs which didn't look like they'd changed in 50 years, doubling the Nangus general store's daily takings (I bought an ice cream), and doing a section on the Old Hume Highway and wondering how many decades ago this winding dirt road through the hills, barely two lanes wide, was the actual Hume Highway (my guess would be pre-WW2). Also found myself for a while behind a ute bearing the best business name I've seen for a while, Licensed To Kill (pest controllers).

Weird orienteering dreams department: on Saturday night I had a dream which involved picking up a Kangaroo Crossing map with no contours or rock (only vegetation, tracks and watercourses). Hopefully the real one on Saturday is complete.

And there are enough orienteers to have a presence even in a town the size of Wagga: I started the day encountering an MFR carload at a coffee shop, and finished it by encountering Lanita, Asha and Tara (all of whom can be well pleased with their top-10 W21E results yesterday) in a gelato shop.