Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

A pretty disappointing session, struggling on the sand and quickly deciding that this was a minimum-viable-session day. Still, I discovered a few new tracks so the morning wasn't totally wasted (and the back beach is a nice place to be even if I wasn't running well). Quite a few people fishing off the cliffs (further above the water than their Sydney counterparts, which presumably makes them at somewhat lesser risk of being washed into the ocean).

A late afternoon ride to get today's amount of training up to a vaguely respectable level, out to Portsea and back. Felt a bit sleepy at the start, and not really myself on the smaller hills but better on the sharpest one (coming back into Sorrento). Lots of people heading back to Melbourne.

The house on the Portsea Back Beach corner that was flying an Icelandic flag last time I was here was flying Swiss and Spanish ones today.

This is the third time I'd planned to run the course from the Sorrento street-O (somewhat to my surprise, not set up as a MapRun, so I was working out for myself whether I was at controls). The last two times injury had got in the way, but I managed it this time, more or less - though somewhat unconvincingly, and walking some of the steeper dunes. At first glance the course looked clearable in the 45 minutes I'd given myself, but it was deceptively long - perhaps the map had been resized in the print? - and I didn't go to four at the far end, and one other. (It would have been a bit shorter if some of the paths between dead-ends had actually been mapped).

Nice day to be down here - moved on to a good market at Point Nepean afterwards (first time for a while I've had the experience of being waved into a car park on grass by people in hi-vis vests, a good warm-up for Easter), and not as crowded as I thought it might have been on a long weekend.

On CityStrides, an urban orienteering course is often a recipe for progressing a lot of streets but not finishing many, but today's route collected quite a lot; 500 completed streets since I started tracking (about this time last year) is a bit of a milestone. (In Australia it seems to track "cities" by local council area, so today didn't make much headway into the 3600 streets in the Mornington Peninsula Shire).

Headed out after an early-morning meeting to do some circle work in the general vicinity of Brodie's new place (this being one of the hitherto-uncoloured areas on my map). Back certainly better than yesterday, which wouldn't be hard, but still triggered a bit by short climbs. Something of a struggle of a run, but did get a bit better right at the end.

For the first time in a few weeks, a morning run was a false start (perhaps not surprising after last night, and it's the first time this season I've tried to come up the morning after an evening street event). Took to the pool instead at the end of the day, and definitely felt much better for doing this - back even felt a fair bit looser which isn't always the case for this session.

Heyington Heights, as noted before the annual event where you get the opportunity to see how the other 0.1% lives (although my route tonight meant that I only got the Scotch College bit of this and not the Toorak mansions bit). Was fairly quickly apparent that this wasn't going to be any better than last Thursday; at least I made a decent job of the route on a map where route choice disasters are not unheard of. Ventured onto the path hanging under the freeway for the first time in a long time (a sufficiently long time that I'm pretty sure the Greta Thunberg mural on a freeway pylon wouldn't have been there last time).

Another day back in the office (these will probably get a bit more regular from here), and the first time I've done the position-myself-in-the-morning-for-evening-physio-appointment thing for a while. This opened up some new options so I decided to clear the area on the far west edge of Northcote, between St. Georges Road and Merri Creek and south of Arthurton - so lots of going back and forth, initially east and west, then north and south. Back better than it has been (though a few hip twinges at times); fairly slow, although I think possibly all the turning might have done me out of a bit of distance, and the handful of hills coming back were hard work, but on the whole a bit more positive than last week was.

This is the first time I've done a significant ride into the city since last March. There are a few more bike lanes now, although they're still prone to builders leaving stuff in them, people turning right across them, and the odd person parking in them. (On the last point it might have been tempting to ask "where are the police when you need them?" except that the most egregious offender was a police van).

Monday morning Pilates. Feeling pretty tight this morning (and a change to one of the exercises put a bit more pressure on the back, which it coped with, eventually).

Moving on to the pool. Not as sharp as the last couple of Mondays and slower throughout, but did pick up a bit later on, and I think my back was somewhat improved once all this was done.

On the way back dropped into one of my regular coffee stops, having seen it on the news on the weekend as a backdrop to a ministerial policy announcement.