Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Early-morning trip up Bluff Hill in Napier with Jenny before starting the drive to Wellington. Did this sooner after getting up (and with less in my stomach) than usual and thought I might suffer for it, but not too bad. Grinding up the steep climb but felt a bit stronger than in most of this week;s races. Knee also stood up to the steep descent on asphalt coming off the hill, which is pleasing.

Now at Wellington Airport about to head home.

The public race was a bit incidental to the day but it still looked like a fun (if physically tough) area to get out on, in a mass start race on a hot day - 33 degrees or so. I started out by taking a wide road route choice on the long first leg, not worth it as it turned out (although I didn't help myself by butchering two fence crossings). Reasonably steady then for the first half, although bailed out of one slope crossing which I didn't think I could manage safely, which cost me a minute or so (and generally didn't do a great job of really steep downhills). The long 10-11 was the killer though - I'd misread felled area as white (the printing wasn't great) and the small track I was counting on was overgrown, so instead of a few hundred metres on a nice shady track it was a long slog through long grass and felled stuff. I think the damage this did was mental as much as physical; in any case, I hit the wall at this point (perhaps not surprising given a lack of hot-weather practice) and walked and jogged in. Small miss at 14.

I knew I wasn't fit leading into this week and today further demonstrated it, although considering that it wasn't that long since I didn't expect to be running this side of March, I'll take the one good result I got.

Event 7 - Course 1 - Splits

As noted yesterday I'd taken the decision some days ago that I wasn't up to racing four days in a row at my current level of fitness (or lack thereof) and that if I was going to miss a day this was the one to sit out. Nothing that happened today gave me any indication that my assessment was wrong - not that it didn't look an interesting area and course, but a full-blown long distance on a hot day (which is what it turned into) isn't what I would have needed at this point in time.

Instead I took to the water earlyish in the morning in the Napier seaside baths, a decent enough session although a bit more pricey than I'm used to (it's a swim/spa/sauna/gym complex and you pay for the lot whether you use them or not). Not pushing as hard as I have in some recent swims.

It may have been warm here (low 30s inland away from the seabreeze) but it was a lot hotter back home; had it been a working day we would have spent a lot of it speculating on whether we'd see a number on the Bureau website with a '5' in front of it. As it turned out we didn't quite make it, peaking at 49.6 at Moomba. In one sense I'm not too upset about this outcome - I have 49.6 in the office sweep.

Oceania Relays. Better than yesterday only in that I didn't make any navigation mistakes, albeit on a fairly simple course (my only time loss was 30 seconds or so on a route choice). Again lacking any sort of hill strength and not all that fast elsewhere, either (and no-one was surprised that the climb was double that advertised).

Went out a couple of minutes ahead of the NZ team but close to a couple of other teams; edged away from those in the first half of the course but dropped behind them later on (Eric went through them on the last leg). The gap to NZ widened a fair bit though - I think Rolf made a fairly big mistake. Good to get the result we needed, although no real thanks to me.

The four Challenge races are now completed. Two weeks ago I would have considered getting to the start line a success, so I can't be too upset, but the last two days have indicated that some hard work is ahead to get competitive again before the start of the Australian season. I'm not hugely surprised by this - the first two or three weeks after a major layoff are always hard going and I've never before tried to do that sort of comeback in a race period. There are still two carnival events to come, but I'll sit out tomorrow - four races in four days is a bit much at this stage.

And we couldn't quite manage to win a Challenge on NZ soil for the first time since 1994, but we did manage to draw one.

Had a feeling today would find my lack of preparation out and so it proved. No strength whatsoever on the many hills (the majority of which I had to walk), and not a lot of speed away from the hills either. As expected for an Oceania long distance in NZ, it was a very physical course (although not the epic that M21E was), with numerous gullies/ravines which were very slow to cross and sometimes called for a bit of scrambling. (The lowlight in that respect was the almost-cliff I pulled myself up using tree roots on the way into the second-last - something I had to do 1 3/4 times because on my first attempt I lost my SI stick 3/4 of the way up).

One annoying mistake, at 7 where I didn't see the flag in the gully, saw an Australian junior (Mary?) a couple of contours higher and thought she was at the control, and headed up there when I'd been almost in the right place to begin with. Dropped a minute or so there; this area had quite enough necessary climb without doing any of the unnecessary variety.

It was frustrating not to be able to make a useful contribution to the team, especially as we lost the class by 50 seconds (although I was several minutes away from being a scoring runner) and had we won it it would have squared the Challenge.

C • Weather 4

Long Champs - 3 - Splits

An event-free day in Wellington. Still a bit sparing in how much running I'm doing - the races will be enough this week - so took to the pool instead, thinking of a few heatwave-analysis ideas while I'm at it. Quite a few people doing the same thing (although not as many as the number of familiar faces that I spotted at Te Papa, the superb national museum, later in the day).

C • Quite a few people doing the same thing.... 1

Oceania Sprint Championships. A bit closer to expectations than Sunday was - lacking strength and speed and generally feeling below par, although avoided any major disaster (and did my main job, which was to beat the members of the NZ team). Ended up 4th (3rd Oceania) in M40, but blown away by the M18s on the same course.

The first three were in the forest on the side of Mount Victoria, with an uphill first which was an early strength test. Got through these OK. Lost a little time on 5, the first major 'you can't get there from here' leg, when I started on an option with no good way out before realising the error of my ways and turning around after a few seconds; also started down a dead end at 10. Maybe 20-30 seconds combined. Nice area and well-used, although (perhaps inevitably) it wasn't quite as epic as the World Cup courses.

Knee was fine in the race but gave a few twinges going to the start through the streets - this is the first time I've run on hard surfaces with it for any length of time so will need to watch this.

Sprint Champs - C4a - Splits

Swim at the Oriental Bay pool - a fairly routine session before the World Cup sprint qualifier. Ended up being a slightly longer stay than I'd planned on because I hadn't worked out that the clutch on the car has two stages and it has to be pressed beyond the first apparent stop before the car would start.

C • New colour, new category 12

10 days ago, I didn't expect to be starting today, and even yesterday I wasn't confident that I'd be able to do anything more than jog. I certainly didn't expect to emerge from the day as Oceania champion (and second in the race behind Mikko - although results from other classes on the course put my time in a bit more perspective). It was an area for brains rather than brawn, which was as well because I still didn't have a lot of brawn on offer - not much strength up the (many) dunes, but none of the muscular issues from my previous two runs (and no knee problems either).

Avoiding technical disaster was the order of the day today. Missed probably 2-3 minutes all up in small increments, the worst being about a minute at 11 - through others suffered much more badly there (judging by the number of places I gained there), most notably Ecmo whom I saw two-thirds of the way to 12 looking for 11. Didn't feel that fluent finishing through the forest patches but kept it together OK. We did enough to beat New Zealand in our class; not overall, although it was close enough (13-7, with three of NZ's wins being by less than a minute) to give us some hope for the remaining three races - would be a good one to win as no Challenge has been won by a visiting team since we won the relay in 1994.

(A Challenge quirk: Phil Wood and I have lined up against each other as juniors (M16, 1987), elites and now as masters. Not sure if any other pair has done this?).

A highly technical area where low speed was a plus was something which suited me very well today. The remaining days will be tougher, although I should pick up a bit of extra fitness with every run.

C • Congratulations! 1

Middle Champs C 3 - Splits

First foray into the terrain, going out early (before a commentary stint) with the plan of staying out for 30-40 minutes and doing a reasonable selection of controls in both the high-visibility and low-visibility parts of the terrain. The good news is that the knee gave no trouble whatsoever. The not-so-good news is that muscle tightness elsewhere was quite restrictive (today more lower back than groin) - this is something I'll just have to work through. Not exactly ready to race tomorrow but I think it will be a good day not to be trying to go too hard. Not always entirely confident with my navigation, but no errors larger than 15 seconds or so. Not aggressive in the least in the macrocarpa but still ended up with a red patch on my forehead (which I didn't notice but others noticed it for me).

Event 2 C 1 - Splits

Event: 2013 Oceania Carnival & WC Races
 

Made it into New Zealand but my orienteering shoes didn't (too much Rowdy Flat grass seed - get them back on the way out). After a quick shoe-purchasing expedition I headed to the waterfront pool at Oriental Bay. On a day as nice as this it's a pity that a pool in such a location is indoors, but as most Wellington days aren't as nice as this I'm not surprised it is.

I'd planned to swim but they had pool running belts available, so I decided to do that instead. Felt as if I had quite a bit of energy, perhaps surprisingly after sleeping badly last night. Quads are pretty sore though - hopefully these will warm up OK over the weekend.

C • Good thing you're flying out from the same airport! 1

No-one said comebacks were easy. Like the last time I came back from a layoff of this sort of magnitude, I had quite severe groin tightness, which eased a little bit through the run but was never great. (Hopefully history will repeat itself - last time the tightness disappeared within a few days). The good news was that the knee caused no trouble at all, just a couple of slight twinges up and down hills. Muscle soreness/stiffness during the day was much as I'd expect if I'd done my usual Thursday 2 hours, not 30 slow minutes on the Yarra Flats. Still, you have to start somewhere.

41 in Melbourne tomorrow (and 44 in Bendigo). Did I mention I was happy to be going to NZ?

C • Hobart 3