Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Finally managed to do what I'd planned on at the start - a little creaky at times (and woke up with tight calves, one of which had cramped a bit at the cricket last night), but no major dramas (and quad fine). Put together a reasonably steady session, initially through Bellfield and then across as far west as the Northcote pool, and felt as if I had a bit still left in me. It's become a fairly regular pattern to get through my weekend runs but not my weekday ones, so maybe the lesson is that I can no longer consistently handle going out within an hour or so of getting up?

Very atypical summer conditions (especially this year), 12 degrees and steady light rain - excellent for running. I'm certainly glad not to be in Canberra or areas nearby - it looks horrendous (and I can't offer any significant hope for improvement in air quality in the short term).

Only managed to crack double figures in distance 10 times last year. Hopefully this year will be a considerable advance on that.

Interesting day meteorologically (although nowhere near as "interesting" as further north and east), with two wind changes around 7am and noon. I'd probably rather have gone after the second one but had other commitments in the afternoon, but the first one was enough to clear the heaviest of the smoke, so headed out around 11. Back was OK today, but quad was again showing signs of fatiguing from around 20 minutes so pulled up a bit earlier than I'd originally planned on. Also the first proper warm-weather run I've done so far this Australian summer (about 28), and noticed it.

Cassie and family left today. Some members of the family have clearly absorbed a bit of Australianness - when I met them at the airport this afternoon the first thing the boys asked me was whether Labuschagne had got his 200 yet.

C • I used to laugh at how you ... 13

Back troublesome this morning and pulled up after an initial attempt. Can't claim the smoke as an excuse because it didn't come in until later in the morning. Will be watching tomorrow with a certain level of apprehension.

C • Nothing to see here... 5

Didn't feel great for running but was OK in the pool - which seemed fairly empty from the outside but was still quite busy once there (Northcote this time). Definitely not busy on the trains, though.

My computer was working pretty hard today, with a number of multi-gigabyte data sets to get through.

After a pleasant just-making-it-past-midnight evening with the family (thereby depriving me of any temptation to call the hotline that Pauline Hanson ran for people lonely on New Year's Eve), surfaced a bit later than usual this morning and headed out to the coast on a pleasant day to get off the mark for 2020. A reasonable start but quad was starting to feel not quite right from about 25 minutes onwards, so pulled it up a bit earlier than I was planning on.

C • An opportunity missed 1

So, 27 December wasn't my last run of the decade after all; my quad had recovered enough for me to feel that it was worth testing out today, and it came through it OK - wasn't much of a run, but at least there was no pain. Discovered in the process that Brindabella (a past Sydney-Hobart winner for the slightly incongruously-located Canberra Ocean Racing Club) now lives at South Wharf; surprising how small it is, and it was also looking a bit the worse for wear.

I spent most of the day trying to get a paper finished (to be used in the next IPCC report, papers need to be submitted by 31 December - I'm aware of at least one colleague who is still working on one as of 10.30pm) whilst not getting distracted too much by news of events in Mallacoota, Batemans Bay and points in between. While I didn't spend as much time around Batemans Bay as a lot of Canberrans did, I still know the area reasonably well (our family used to have a share in a place at Denhams Beach which may or may not still be standing), whilst the bulk of my experience of Mallacoota was waiting around for the winds to drop enough to fly to Gabo Island (the log entry from then is possibly pertinent with hindsight).

Headed down after work to spend tonight and tomorrow back down at Blairgowrie, although in a moment of lapsed concentration I missed the exit onto Peninsula Link and therefore went through the back of Frankston for the first time in the few years, seeing in the process the signs to Lawson Avenue and Blaxland Avenue (you won't be surprised to learn that Wentworth isn't far away.). Road signs also pointed to the 'Tour Of Frankston', presumably not this one.

C • Tour de Frankston 1

This won't go down as one of my great years of running (or orienteering), although the Oceania Long was at least one decent result to show for the year. (Whilst I can't really claim it as my best event given that it included a significant mistake, the one I enjoyed most was probably the limestone at Coffin Bay in June).

I travelled overseas seven times this year but didn't do any orienteering events on any of the trips; the closest I got was test-running various World Cup things in China and doing a course from an earlier training session in Singapore. (Don't think I'll be forgetting the China experience in a hurry).

Most enjoyable run of the year was probably the circuit of Uluru in May; the most oddball one came from the same trip, the one up and down the runways of Forrest Airport.

An earlier start than would normally be the case at this time of year - had a Pilates session at 8 and thought trying to do a swimming session in the evening on a 40+ day would be asking for trouble (even if Jayne managed it last time). Clearly others had the same idea as the pool at 7.15 was still as crowded as I can remember it. The traffic in the water was occasionally bothersome but the session was my best for a while.

Moved on to Pilates, which went pretty smoothly. Doesn't feel like the sort of session where you should get a sweat up, but I still did (a bit).

As noted earlier, I was working today, and watching things pretty closely (most of the action was in eastern Victoria and Tasmania this time). Also watching fires, including a couple in familiar areas - one at Plenty Gorge (so far on the south/west side of the river, but I suspect it will cross to the east side with the wind change), and a big one at Badja - the last time I looked at the RFS map, the west edge of the fire was basically the east edge of the orienteering map, but I doubt that will remain the case.