Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Had 3 1/4 hours between flights in Dubai, everything went smoothly with the transfer and I didn't feel too sleepy (I'd got a couple of hours sleep on the previous leg, after getting a row to myself), so I decided to head for the airport gym. This was a bonus session in a lot of ways and I think it did me some good in the getting-through-the-flight department (although that will be fully tested tomorrow). Felt better than the corresponding session in Oslo although not much more interesting; the televisual backdrop this time was a movie of the sort where it was rare for 60 consecutive seconds to pass without someone shooting at someone (except during the ads) and there was one scene which contained five different items of total implausibility in the space of about 15 seconds.

Unusual route choice from Geneva to Dubai - southeast across the eastern Mediterranean and then east across the north of Saudi Arabia. I assume this is because of winds and not because of an issue with Turkish or Iranian airspace. (Iraq, Syria and Israel are all no-go zones, so you have to pass either north or south). Highlight was a spectacular view of Mount Olympus.

C • Movie 1

Sometimes I need reminding that I can't do everything, and that trying to do an earlyish run before breakfast following a long race, a four-hour drive, a flight and a late night arrival in Geneva probably wasn't going to work out too well. This was indeed the case. Best that can be said for this one is that it was better than the last one I did in the same general area (the one I attempted to do between flights from Geneva Airport in August). Did find some new pockets of the Geneva suburbs.

Just about to head home now, after paying a morning visit to CERN (nerd alert!). Don't feel super-energetic at the moment so will have to see how things work out at the other end.

C • CERN 7

Not sure how climb is calculated in Portugal, but I got my climb at roughly double the advertised on both days. That involved plenty of one and two-contour up and downs (and it didn't really feel like a 6-6.5% course), but I had a go at producing a climb-minimising route on Sunday, including some wildly outlandish deviations, some crashing of dark green and contouring along the side of a gorge which I suspect would have been impassable in practice, and could still only get down to 330 - 270 was advertised.

POM long distance. A significantly better run today - still couldn't run up the big hills, but otherwise felt fairly reasonable - certainly a major step up from today. Not as much dark green or as many difficult walls as yesterday, either, and a pretty smooth run technically. Most significant time loss was at 5, once again a route one rather than a navigation one - this was one of the ones in "tiger country" and I planned a route which contoured into the control, but the slope was impassable (not sure how much help the map was with that) and I had to do a bit of rockclimbing to get up to somewhere I could get across. Maybe lost a minute there. Still got blown away on the run-in but various young kids but I'm used to that. This will give me a bit more confidence - it's actually the longest course I've done for a while (since the middle of last year, I think).

This felt like a run several minutes better than yesterday, and the results bore that out - about a third of the way down this time, and about 10 percentage points closer to the winner (Eric Perrin again, in 55).

Headed off straight after the event, wanting to leave enough time for contingencies on the way back to Porto, and got some. First I found myself on Coimbra's bridge to nowhere - a very impressive structure, but the motorway then abruptly ends at the base of a cliff a few hundred metres later (probably to be a tunnel entrance eventually) with a small road off to the side continuing on. Then had a half-hour traffic jam at roadworks going into Porto - trying to squeeze four lanes into one on a major motorway was always going to be challenging. Still made the flight back to Geneva comfortably.

Event: POM 2017
 

Had about 90 minutes still to travel to the event on Saturday morning, with one of the first starts. Portugal doesn't really do early mornings (exemplified by the McDonald's I saw which is open 22 hours a day, its two off hours being 6-8am) and I had to leave before the hotel breakfast started, so servo food (a roll this time) was the only readily available option again. Foggy for much of the way and when I arrived at the event, but broke up before the start. At least the motorway part of the trip was quick: in theory the limit's 120, but at 130 (in the less foggy bits) I was still being passed by a lot more than I was passing. (Didn't see anyone above probably 150-160 though, which may indicate how far over the limit you need to go to actually get yourself booked).

Many visitors to Fatima go in search of miracle cures for the sick and the lame, but going there en route to the event didn't seem to help me much in either department (the absence of any relevant prayers may or may not have had something to do with this). The positive was getting out into the terrain, and it was mostly the sort of terrain which should have been enjoyable, but I was running too weakly to really be able to appreciate it. A couple of minor navigational time losses, 30 seconds at 10 (didn't read the description) and 15 at 11, but my biggest time loss was getting stuck in brambles (of which there seemed to be considerably more on the ground than on the map) on the way to 9 - perhaps a minute or so.

Ended up about halfway down the field, which was probably better than my run deserved. Eric Perrin (sometime French national team member in the BG era) won with 25. Alain Berger started 12 minutes behind me and given the run I was having I expected him to go through me, but I saw him running in the opposite direction when going through 10. This appeared to be an extremely creative route choice and so it proved, leaving him 6 minutes off the pace (he's also carrying an injury).

In a lot of ways this was very much like the more open Australian granite areas - the rock combined with occasional areas of brambles reminded me of Tharwa Tor, although the slabbiness of the rock was perhaps a bit more WA-like. Control placements tended not to use the full complexity of the rock, though. One feature we don't have in Australia is stone walls, some of which were pretty nasty to get across because they had (generally rickety) barbed wire fences on one or both sides.

(Another feature we don't have in Australia is the defunct bullring next to the arena. I get the impression that bullfighting as a sport is very much in decline, but it still exists because later in the day I saw posters advertising a fight in a couple of weeks).

One bit of good news is that the hamstring got through its first terrain test with only slight twinges.

Still feeling a bit croaky this morning (and sleep somewhat interrupted by the loudly-singing, presumably drunk people spilling out of a nearby nightclub at its 5am closure). Didn't have high expectations for this one and set out along the lakefront and hoped for the best. It actually didn't work out too badly; settled by around 3k and moving reasonably for the rest of it. Only minor hamstring issues.

The hills around had a nice-looking cover of new snow down to 800 metres or so (especially on the Jura side), but Geneva stayed essentially dry. There's expected to be a more substantial round of moisture Tuesday/Wednesday next week (probably too warm for snow in Geneva, but should give a good top-up for the mountains).

This brings the Geneva part of the trip to its end, apart from passing through Sunday night/Monday morning. Off to Portugal this evening for Portugal O-Meeting, and looking forward to it - the terrain looks interesting without being excessively physical (which at my current level of fitness is a good thing). A good international field in the elite races as you'd expect.

Got into Porto on time and had the first bag off the plane (I think this is the first time that's happened to me), but then had a 40-minute wait to pick up the car so didn't get out of Porto until after 8, with a couple of hours of driving ahead of me. Given this I thought I'd get something to eat at one of the motorway service areas. I've previously had a decent bacalhau at such an establishment in this part of the world, but no such luck this time as the only thing on offer was lukewarm, dried-out fried fish and equally lukewarm rice. I think this qualifies as just about the worst meal I've had anywhere on the face of the planet - about the only positive that can be said for it is that at least it didn't make me sick.

I'd picked Fatima as my overnight stop, on the basis that it was next to the motorway and, as a massive destination for pilgrimages, was likely to have the sort of hotels that wouldn't be too perturbed by someone turning up to check in at 10.30 (and, as an added bonus, because it's totally out of season said hotels are pretty cheap). I didn't really spend any longer in the place than was required to change clothes, sleep and change clothes again, so didn't see any of it. No doubt Catholic kitsch is on sale in industrial-sized quantities.

C • Was your dinner really worse 5

Feeling a bit better this morning. Headed to the pool, to discover that the increase in traffic which has been evident on Geneva's streets this week also applies in the water, and that I'd run into a similar crowd to the one I've come to know and love elsewhere here. Wasn't swimming that smoothly either. This session was eventually put out of its misery when the lane I was in was taken over for a squad session on the stroke of 8, and I couldn't be bothered starting again in another lane which was even more populated.

Got my (reasonably) final text off today; just have a few images to finalise. Also had some local climate extremes to admire both locally and in the (relatively) near distance - the near distance coming with the storm in the UK, the local bit coming when it reached 19.3 in Geneva, the highest February temperature since 1903 (and I suspect the 1903 site, which would presumably have been in the town, would have been a warmer one than the higher and less built-up airport).

Speaking of big storms, I really wish that the European meteorological services would get their act together in the naming department. I've seen the same storm bestowed with four different names by different countries, although this one so far only seems to have two. It makes life difficult when you're writing reports for an international audience, although writing up 2017 storms will probably, but not definitely, be someone else's problem. (The Asians have an agreement to take it in turns to name typhoons in their region, and I think such a system could work in Europe too).

Took a turn for the worse overnight and was in two minds about going out. The first few minutes didn't do a lot to encourage me but I was sufficiently bloody-minded to press on, and it gradually got a bit more reasonable, although never remotely close to good. Got out to one of my traditional Geneva running haunts, crossing the Arve at the power station before heading back through the higher suburbs, and had enough enthusiasm to do various bits of convolution through the old town to get it up to the intended hour (not sure the GPS was giving me full value on this bit). A few hamstring twinges today, not enough to get in the way of running, but not the best day sitting so will need watching.

Slept through my alarm this morning, which I take as an indication that I needed the sleep, but it meant I was heading out a bit sooner after getting out of bed than I would have, and was consequently not terribly awake when I set out. The run ended up as being what by normal standards was a pretty poor one - also still suffering a bit from the cold - but only the slightest hint of hamstring trouble so a big positive there.

Felt pretty awful on the trip home last night (certainly coming up the long flights of stairs from the bus stop to the top of the Old Town at 12.20am was at the upper limits of my capabilities at the time). I hoped, without much expectation, that a reasonable night's sleep would be enough to make me feel better. It more or less worked, but the time which a night's sleep needed to extend to to be classified as "reasonable" wasn't going to leave sufficient time for a run before work, so I decided to have a rest day from running today rather than tomorrow. Hopefully I'm through the worst of this and should be able to train reasonably well through the rest of the week.

I think Zurich-Geneva (24 minutes from take-off to touchdown) is the shortest flight I've been on this side of Gabo Island. It took about the same time as it took my bus this evening to travel less than 3km - a reminder of the awfulness of Geneva's traffic (partly absent last week because of school holidays).

Jim had been out skiing early and reported that it was very icy (a legacy of freezing drizzle yesterday afternoon and evening) on the ski tracks and that there was 'blood on the tracks', but also said it would probably be OK to run, and it was, at least on the higher ground. Once I got to a low enough elevation for ice to become part of the mix, I decided I didn't really need to do this and turned around to stay at higher elevations, which meant some rather convoluted routes in the last few minutes to get to the 40 minutes I wanted. The longer climbs were a grind but almost no trace of hamstring issues.

Good to catch up with the family, and I think I'm gradually connecting with Max and Esten (not so easy when you only see them once a year and English is their second language - which means I can't really appreciate how they interact with each other). Went downhill pretty quickly in the afternoon, though; I was feeling a bit of a throat tickle on Friday night so I don't think I can blame this on something brought home from childcare. Hopefully a reasonable amount of sleeping tonight and/or the plane will help.

Got into Oslo a bit after midnight; we were 20 minutes late to Copenhagen but the outgoing flight was also late (there were enough connecting passengers that I think they would have held it in any case), and the flights were at near-adjacent gates so I didn't have to run the length of the airport this time.

I stayed at an airport hotel rather than trying to make my way to Baerums Verk at that hour (which I presume would have required spending the GDP of a small African country on a taxi), and did a session on a stationary bike in the hotel gym. Stationary bikes are exceedingly boring (possibly even more boring than swimming), so Norwegian Saturday morning children's TV was a useful distraction, including Katten Med Hatten (which was definitely around in book form, at least, when I was that age) and Brännmann Sam. Not super-energetic (possibly through not eating first), but not too bad.

Moved on from there, although not before having to call for assistance because I got to the toy shop and realised that I didn't have a clue what the item on the boys' birthday wishlist looked like.

A milestone - first proper run (well, in as much as something as short as this can be considered a proper run, but at least it was continuous). Had a rather interrupted sleep thanks to the curse of the distant timezone - the middle-of-the-night phone call (one at 1am and one at 4.30am, both from telemarketers, which is bizarre as I wouldn't average one telemarketing call a month on my mobile at home). That didn't seem to get in the way of the run, which went roughly as I expected it to - feeling slight twinges at times but nothing to get in the way too much, and better in the last 10 minutes.

A bit longer than I planned as I went out to the riverside run at Bout-du-Monde, but I'm not totally upset about that. Also spotted something I'll probably see a bit more of next weekend, a plaque commemorating the 1974 Portuguese revolution. (Geneva has a substantial population of Portuguese origin, most of whom have been here since the 1960s/1970s or are descendants of those, and I imagine a fair proportion of the original migrants were fleeing the Salazar dictatorship).

Heading to Oslo for the weekend. I've learned my lesson from last time and am only taking hand luggage (there's a 30-minute connection in Copenhagen), but the incoming flight is showing on time and there are no weather issues of consequence in any of Geneva, Copenhagen or Oslo so I'm reasonably confident that I'll make it (late) tonight as scheduled.

C • Telemarketers 2

Back in the pool this morning after a couple of false starts getting out of the houses (and realising that I'd left things behind). Ended up as a decent session. There's plenty of people in the pool but the lanes are wide enough that they mostly don't get in each other's way, which helps. Another nice day - my Geneva rain-repelling properties are evidently working as well as they have on all my other trips.

A 4 on/1 off session this morning, on a clear morning with temperatures around zero - nice day to be out (at least if you've grown up with Canberra winters). Quite a promising day - only the faintest of twinges, and also felt reasonably good on the running parts, in marked contrast to the last couple of days I've been out. Possibly getting my sleep patterns into a normal enough pattern that I slept until my alarm helped - after drifting off several times while watching the football last night (although I was probably no less awake during that period than most of Barcelona's team).

Staying in a new place means some new routes. Although some of today took me into familiar territory from 2011-12, there were bits I hadn't been into before, featuring a plaque for the former Jonction velodrome and its hosting of the 1906 World Championships. I had thought this was a very drawn-out affair (albeit not so drawn out for its time - the 1900 and 1904 Olympics both spanned several months) because the plaque said it ran from 29 July to 25 August, but it seems 5 August was the correct finishing date.

Speaking of sport in Geneva, Switzerland may have a reputation for stability but it doesn't seem to extend to football: Servette, the main local team, has had 22 changes of coach this century, and 40 in the last 30 years. (They've also been bankrupt twice, and currently play in the second division).

The pool near WMO is closed for maintenance, but that isn't such a bad thing - the other major pool in Geneva (Vernets) is about 15 minutes' walk away from where I'm staying and is a better pool and somewhat less crowded. Was made to feel a bit inadequate by some of the others there, but ended up as a fairly decent session.

Today's leftover referendum poster was one which didn't need much translation, referring to "pillage de la caisse federale". The voters, however, decided that they didn't mind seeing the federal coffers pillaged if the money was going to be spent on roads.

Another session of similar format to yesterday, but along the lakefront this time. Still pretty gloomy when I headed out - sunrise is a bit later than I thought it would be (although we're at the stage of the year when the days start getting longer quite rapidly). Felt better than yesterday but a bit more soreness than yesterday (and a bit more afterwards).

Saw some leftover posters from Switzerland's most recent date with democracy on the weekend, trying to work out what the issues being voted on were (not much doubt what the Socialists thought of a corporate tax reform measure that they described as a "hold-up fiscale"). One of the proposals on the ballot was to make it easier for (hold the excitement) third-generation Swiss residents to get citizenship. The Swiss People's Party, not noted for subtlety in political advertising, had a poster featuring a woman in a niqab, but for once in a Western country in recent years, the voters declined an invitation to vote against Muslims (never mind that virtually none of the beneficiaries will be Muslims) and approved the proposal.

C • but for once 1

Fairly reasonable flight to Geneva via Dubai, the most unusual feature of which was that it was raining (lightly) in Dubai (the back side of this storm had dumped enough snow to give western Iran a somewhat unusual look, although Iran and, even more so, eastern Turkey, have much colder winters than most people think they do). Had a dilemma on the first leg in that my seat wasn't reclining properly, but I had an empty seat next to me, and decided that the extra space was worth it and that asking to move wasn't. Took my time getting to sleep but managed it eventually.

My temporary digs are in a different place this time - right in the core of the old town - a nice spot but a longer commute than I usually have here (probably 30 minutes walk or 15-20 on the bus). The commercial parts of town were as dead as they always are on Sunday, but the parks and cafes had a first-day-of-spring feel to them, with lots of people enjoying the 10-degree sunshine after a fairly dismal couple of months. (There were two separate stretches, one in December and the other in January, of a couple of weeks of near-unbroken freezing fog).

On the first day of arrival I tend to go in waves. As it turned out, the run was definitely done in a trough rather than a peak and felt dismal from a running perspective (almost felt like I was falling asleep on my feet at times). The good news was that there wasn't really a hint of trouble from the 'main' injury, although some other parts of my body were tight (not surprising after the long trip). 3/1 was a step up so this was encouraging.

After the ride I was talking with Jo while being waiting to be picked up, and Lewie (who is still sufficiently excited about having started pre-school that he was wearing his uniform on a Saturday morning) asked us what we were talking about. I thought that explaining how the National Electricity Market works (or more accurately, doesn't work) to a four-year-old was beyond my capabilities.

C • 4 year olds 3

Nice ride from Aranda out to Uriarra Crossing via Coppins, then back to Shep and Jo's place to drop the bike off. Went out early to miss the worst of the heat but still seemed to be towards the later end of the cyclists, who were out in abundance, in numbers ranging from ones and twos to a 30-strong, identically-dressed peloton. Saw Shep and Ian Prosser on the way. Still didn't have the confidence on this bike to let myself go on the downhills, but pretty solid for the rest of it, including the climbing.

This used to be familiar territory but not for a long time - I think the last time I was down at Uriarra Crossing was for a school camp at the old Camp Sturt (which wasn't rebuilt after the 2003 fires). Also not rebuilt after the 2003 fires was the western side of the Stromlo forest, where I spent a lot of time mapping in the early 1990s (before deciding that mapping wasn't really my thing) - this forest had quite low visibility and was a lot of fun. Slightly odd was the appearance of signs for 1-hour parking and a bus stop kilometres from the nearest bus route, opposite the old Bluetts Pines - my guess is that that's where some shops are going to be built and they decided to put the signs up early.

Left Canberra this afternoon, stepping onto the tarmac at almost the precise moment that Canberra reached its equal second highest temperature (41.6). I then went home for more or less long enough to swap summer clothes for winter ones and am now on my way to Geneva for a couple of weeks.

C • Geneva 4

Stepped it up a little to 2 on/1 off, getting out before it got too hot and heading into Cook and around the base of Mount Painter. Probably didn't feel quite as good as Wednesday, but managed OK, including a couple of reasonably sharp short climbs.

This run took me past the residence of one of our regular antagonists (whose address I know through his abundant correspondence and FOI applications). I resisted any temptation to moon the premises or throw any eggs at any motor vehicles parked in the vicinity (disappointingly from a stereotyping perspective, none of said vehicles were gas-guzzling 4WDs or bore any redneck bumper stickers).

It was probably appropriate that we were talking about heatwaves this afternoon. (The last speaker, in the spot that nobody wants - unless you had laryngitis for the middle days of the conference like I did in Edinburgh in 2010 - embraced her situation by putting a 'X minutes until weekend' countdown on each of her slides). Lots of exciting climate science work being done at the moment, although a bit less of it will be done soon because three of the main players are about to go on maternity leave. There was also a good session on renewable energy, and the occasional opening of the doors may just possibly have allowed some facts on the subject to have escaped into the wider world, where they have been in severely short supply of late.

C • Nah. 1

Circuit of the lake in the morning. Took a few kilometres to get the feel of the borrowed bike (in particular it's got drop bars which I'm not used to), but once I was comfortable with it this went quite well. Evidence of how much better this bike was than the last one I did this loop on is that I was 11 minutes faster this time round. Starting to feel warm by the end, although nothing compared to what we have to look forward to on the next two days.

Another busy day at the conference, although my main talk is still to come tomorrow.

C • Warm 3

Around the flatter parts of Aranda. Definitely an improvement on Monday - a bit of discomfort but much less than two days ago (and more diffuse, which is interesting), and even managed to handle a couple of small climbs with no noticeable difference. I'm starting to wonder if the different chairs at the conference might be a contributing factor? (in which case I'll be looking for a new one once back in Melbourne).

Another point from yesterday's health talk I didn't mention was that one of the case studies they cited was one which looked at rates of gastro in Gothenburg, classified by the number of consecutive wet or dry days. I presume the "5 or more consecutive dry days" statistics were drawn from a very small sample of events.

C • Chairs 1

Down at CISAC, which had become a 25-metre pool this morning. Didn't feel like a particularly good swim but less slow than I thought it would be (unless their measurement of 25 metres was imprecise, which is entirely possible).

First conference day today: not having to do anything except listen was more relaxed than most recent days. (I'm speaking on each of the next three days, although only Friday's is a full-scale talk - the other two are brief introductions to posters). One slide which grabbed my attention was in the keynote on climate change and health, featuring the potential for climate change to affect the occurrences of various diseases in Europe. High on the list were two which will be of interest to many readers: Lyme disease and tick-borne encephalitis.

First attempt to head out for a couple of weeks (1 on/1 off). Can't say I was terribly happy with the results - I can run (at least on the flat - didn't try anything more ambitious), but it didn't feel a great deal better than it did a couple of weeks ago. Looking increasingly like it will be a slow road back.

I took the opportunity to check out the assembly area for the Victorian Relays at Darebin Parklands to see how it coped with the heavy overnight rain, the answer being well. (I'm controller for these, with Aston Key and Max Dalheim as setters).

Now up in Canberra for a conference for the rest of the week. Any Canberra readers (especially nearby ones) have a bike I could borrow for a couple of sessions later in the week? (Dad's old one is in the cellar, but from past experience it struggles to cope with Black Mountain Peninsula, let alone Black Mountain).

C • What sort... 5

Figuring this would be my last opportunity for such a session for a while, I headed to Northcote as soon as possible after opening time this morning. (I'm certainly hoping that restarting running works out - the logistics of doing anything else whilst away will be fairly challenging). Fairly reasonable as a session if not terribly exciting.

What's becoming a bit of a standard Saturday session before what's also becoming a standard Saturday of crunching numbers. A bit better than last week for the most part. Definitely appreciated having had a proper night's sleep. Hamstring a little sore afterwards, which is a bit of a step back from yesterday.

Even by my standards of this week today was particularly epic (although not in a training sense). Started the day, so to speak, with a teleconference from 2-3am (one upside of this timing was that I was then able to call Max for his 6th birthday while he was still up). I didn't really get back to sleep properly, and in any case needed to be at work earlier than usual because I had an interview booked in for 9am and you don't really want to give the media a chance to attach your name to a "lazy public servant" story.

I felt half-asleep for the first hour after getting out of bed and suspect a run wouldn't have been pretty in such circumstances, but getting into the pool was exactly the right thing to do (some coffee afterwards helped, too - I'd asked all the new parents out there, who have to do for months on end what I was doing for one day, for advice on how to cope and coffee featured prominently). Certainly felt better for this session.

And then I kept going, and going, and going, and didn't eventually pull up stumps until close to 10pm, feeling better than I was expecting to except at the very end and during a flat spot around 2.30. As the tangible outcome for this day's work I now have updated and cleaned-up data sets for New England, the NSW North Coast and the Hunter (Bathurst and Dubbo come tomorrow).

One positive from today - my hamstring seems to have improved significantly over the last 24 hours. Given the injury's history I'll be cautious with it, but if it continues to improve I'll probably try starting to run on it on Sunday or Monday.

Training fail today - plan was to ride to work via the Yarra Boulevard and Capital City Trail (and it would have been a nice morning for such activities), but struck trouble with a loose brake shoe and didn't have anything with me to fix it with, so returned home in a somewhat impeded manner. Didn't have enough time once I returned home to try anything else.

Main (non-work) activity today was organising the street-O, on a map which straddled the Eastern Freeway at Doncaster/Mont Albert North. The course design seemed to be well-received but I'm really annoyed with myself for putting a control in the wrong spot - two identically configured track junctions 40 metres apart with seats in the same position (and even with the same plaque). That will teach me to put controls out from a different direction to that from which I originally checked the sites. Didn't seem to upset too many people, perhaps because most approached it from the direction where they came to the control on the way to where it was supposed to be.

There are a lot of power poles in this part of the world which are showing their age - almost every one seemed to have some extra supporting structures (which in turn makes it harder to get a cable around them for the controls). Perhaps it was appropriate that in between putting out controls my ABC listening consisted of people talking about allegedly inadequate electricity infrastructure in South Australia. I guess once Hazelwood closes Victorians, too, can look forward to a conga line of conservatives blaming renewable energy for the blackout every time someone prangs a car into a power pole.