Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

The word thing I was pondering on the road today was: how rare is it to see the word "noxious" unless it is immediately followed by "weed" or "weeds"?

C • Noxious gases or noxious fu... 4

Pre-Easter sprint. This week might have been encouraging but today wasn't - it's going to be a long four days if it's like this (but it probably won't be). Once I realised that things weren't happening today I walked the uphills and jogged the rest, not wanting to burn myself out too much for tomorrow. Still managed to make some mistakes at that slow pace, most notably at 20 where I misread the white around the number 20 as a gap in the building it was printed on.

Still good to see a big national event happening (and the Queenslanders even made it) - early in the year there were questions being raised as to whether we should press on with it, but I'm definitely glad we did. (It helps that Easter is an event a relatively late call can be made on, whereas for an Australian Championships the Schools accommodation is a major constraint).

On the way up, passed a sign in Young proclaiming that the Riot Act was read there on 14 July 1861 (presumably this was something to do with Lambing Flat). I'm guessing there isn't a similar sign in Frankston to mark the last time this was done in Australia (by a hastily-summoned JP standing on the bonnet of a police car with a megaphone), in 1979.

There is an Orange in California. Sadly, I found this out via a news report which dealt with the usual reason why American places you haven't heard of make the Australian news (although as US shootings go it was a relatively small one so it only made the website equivalent of a paragraph on page 17).

C • Late call 2

Public Prologue Course 1 - Splits

An easy session before launching into Easter. Felt a bit sleepy at the start this morning but less so once I hit the water (which I take to be a good thing).

The start-of-weekend road trip up the Hume is a very familiar experience for me, but a less familiar one in the last 18 months or so. Reacquainted myself with a common dinner stop (the former La Porchetta in Albury), although it might be the last time because the place seems to be on its last legs - it was half-empty and the average age of the (not very numerous) staff seemed to be about 14. (Quite a few closed restaurants up that end of town). Made it as far as Cootamundra tonight, longer than I would have chosen but Gundagai (except for the pub, which I didn't fancy on the night before a long weekend) and Holbrook were booked out when I looked a week or so back. At least it means a relaxed trip in the morning.

And the most absurd election result for a while has come with one Wilson Tucker (not to be confused with Wilson Tuckey, although some of the voters may have done) of the Daylight Savings Party riding the preference snowball from 98 votes to a seat in the WA upper house (representing the Mining and Pastoral region, whose residents would presumably be very keen to see the summer sun disappear as quickly as possible). It may be a while before Mr. Tucker can make a parliamentary appearance, because he is currently stuck in Seattle.

The weather conditions have been favourable for fuel-reduction burning this year, and there's been plenty of it - big ones on the way up in Barambogie, and south of Benalla.

C • fuel-reduction burning 1

Short run starting from the office before work, exploring some of the streets of Docklands that I didn't get into during the 2019 City Race, and getting further out onto the point than I have previously (haven't been past the Woolworths before). Wasn't sure about this after sleeping poorly last night but it started to feel almost normal (back was again fine, and fitness is starting to get a bit better), so somewhat encouraging as we head into Easter - although finishing all days is still my main objective.

I definitely wasn't going as fast as my GPS suggested at times (at one point it had me doing 2.40/km, which is about my 400m PB pace from many years ago), nor was I going through the middle of buildings - the vagaries of satellites in the middle of the big city.

One highly unseasonable thing to happen in March was getting attacked by a magpie while I was warming up. Could have been nasty too - went for the eye but just missed it (hurt a bit but no obvious damage).

And a sort-of-target for the year is 300 hours: at 77 after the first quarter (which, in days, is the shortest quarter), it's just about on track.

I'm a bit disappointed to learn that it appears that Charlie Pickering did not invent the word "nontroversy" - used tonight with respect to the petition to rename Golden Gaytime ice-creams (something which appears to have been an attempt to troll News Corp and friends for which the targets fell hook, line and sinker).

C • Surely... 8

Another reasonably encouraging day by the standards of the last 12 months. Whilst I would hardly regard this run as stunning by past standards, being able to get through a run of this length without undue difficulty (and feeling as if I had at least a bit left at the end) is definitely a positive. Only minor back issues, even on the hills (modest ones; we're talking two- or three-contour affairs here). Without being too convoluted about it, drew a few new lines in Croxton and on the north side of Darebin Road. Nice morning to be out too.

Had a physio session this evening. She partly worked on my quads which were a bit touchy even after a modest session. Didn't like to think how it would have felt like doing that after, say, the Six Foot Track.

I also discovered that the Six Foot Track is not the only place in that part of the world with a geographic feature named for a piece of meteorological equipment (the (in)famous Pluviometer Hill). I was looking for the location of Cedar Ford on the Kowmung River (upstream of Warragamba Dam), one of the sites which had a record flood level last week. The coordinates I had were only to 0.01 degree precision (1km or so) so I wasn't surprised to feed them into Google Maps and find a spot which wasn't a river. What this did show, though, was that the nearby track was called Gauging Station Track. I would speculate that the actual location of the instrument is somewhere in close proximity to where said track intersects the river.

Wasn't even a hint of light outside for the first half of this on a drizzly morning. A bit stiff early and found it hard work at the start but loosened up pretty well (and felt a bit more awake than I sometimes do for this).

Second part of the Monday morning double, though this time it was on the way to the office for the first time in just over a year. Felt a bit smoother than the last couple of weeks, still not very fast but a bit less slow than those. Finished off reasonably well. Pool pretty quiet - the autumnal conditions might have turned people off.

Somewhat to my surprise, my back felt pretty good today (at least in everyday life). Hopefully that remains the case for a while.

Morning run didn't work out so I went out on the bike to make sure I at least got something on the board today. Back felt pretty stiff in the first few minutes of the ride too, but loosened up quite quickly and felt pretty good through the second half (a tail wind in the later stages helped). A reasonable number of people out on the paths (although nothing like it would have been at the equivalent point last year), and - definitely not like this time last year - lots of junior football being played (more girls than boys in the places where I was).

Yesterday may have given me some confidence about my ability to get through one of the longer days at Easter but today knocked it around as to my ability to back up and do it again the next day. Back was pretty stiff in the morning, but thought I'd give it another go in the afternoon in the hope that a day's activities would have loosened it up a bit. It had, a bit, but this was still pretty marginal and I cut it off as soon as I respectably could.

Did explore a bit of new ground (at least since I started tracking my exploration of ground - I suspect I've covered a reasonable amount of it in my Heidelberg days) - covered the west side of Bellfield, on the way home from a haircut. In terms of collecting streets this is a target-rich environments (lots of small streets and cul-de-sacs).

Kooyoora North, including the (in)famous Bermuda Triangle section but also slightly easier terrain to the southeast - excellent preparation for Easter. I spent the first half of the course struggling badly with the body and thinking there wasn't going to be a second half, not running much except in the more open bits, but freed up from about 30 minutes onwards and was enjoying myself quite a bit in the later stages. Only small misses, although drifted on the second-last, which can be very bad news here but I picked myself up in time and probably got away with 30-60 seconds lost (it was actually one of my better splits). Almost nailed the very tricky downhill last but just overshot a little in the circle. Pleased to get through - definitely had the "tired but happy" feeling on the way out (until an hour passed and I was just tired) - which will give me some confidence about doing likewise at Easter, but Pat and Aston (and to a lesser extent Bruce) showed up just how far I am from being competitive at the moment.

Getting something to eat in Bridgewater on the way home (inevitably I was not the only orienteer at the bakery) I came across some of the Loddon Shire'stourist literature. Some creativity is required to promote the difficult-to-promote (a classic of the genre was something I once saw about how to spend six days in Merredin), but I'm still unconvinced that anyone actually does refer to Boort as the "Kakadu of the South".