Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Monday morning Pilates. Woke up pretty stiff and tight this morning (especially in the calves) but OK once I was exercising. Not getting any lighter.

I suspected it would be a busy day at work (albeit a truncated one because I was committed to checking sprint weekend venues in the afternoon), once I saw on getting up that some sites 'rain since 9am' was in the 600s. Makes for an interesting backdrop for the release of the latest IPCC report (on impacts and adaptation) tonight, although I suspect the head of the Russian delegation condemning the war during the final approval meeting will get more coverage than anything in the report will.

On to the pool. Not quite as slow as recent morning swims, although felt as if I was fading a bit in the second half.

Another pretty solid month in February - comfortably over 25 hours despite being a shortened month.

Having had a couple of runs this week where it took a long time to warm up (and wanting to do a bit more than 20 minutes today), I decided to do something before the Carlton Gardens sprint started. I expected not to be moving smoothly after yesterday and my expectations were met; even the faintest slope was a struggle and only in the last few minutes did things ease up at all.

Went around the north side of Carlton - I've been riding through here most days for the last 24 years (apart from the last two) but was coming at it from a different angle to usual, which revealed a few new sights (I didn't know the Carlton Baths had an outdoor pool, for instance). Also found out about a potential post-event destination in the form of the Johnston Street Fiesta (a Spanish/Latin American festival), although this turned out to be a bit of a fizzer at the time I went there - I guess you don't expect much action before noon at a Spanish/Latin American festival.

Carlton Gardens sprint. After the unpromising prelude, my expectations for this were low, but in fact I slotted into a nice rhythm by the second leg and it ended up as the best 20(ish) minutes of running I've had this year, at least in terms of how I felt - actually felt like I was (sort of) competing and not just running to finish. A technically straightforward course apart from #9, which was a bit hard to see in bushes near the wall it was notionally on.

Happy with the run and the results suggest I was running a minute or so better than last time relative to others, although the benchmark of youngest person to have beaten me has been shifted down another couple of years - for a long time it's been Pat (as an M14) but today Matthew Layton, who I think's 12 this year, got me (by 7 seconds). James took a break from new-fatherhood responsibilities to win with something in the lower 13s.

(A benchmark which has been shifted slightly in a more positive direction is that of longest week since 2018 - hopefully weekly distances which start with a 5 will become a bit more frequent from here, and it's also the first time for a while that I've strung together six days without undue difficulty).

Calves pretty tight afterwards, although not an issue on the run.

Running on each of the first 100 maps of the Melbourne street directory may not be quite as impressive a target as climbing every peak over 1100m in Tasmania, but I did tick off one more of them today. 62 was today's number, and it was a longer one than usual, because with a sprint event tomorrow I thought I'd have a go at doing a Saturday long(ish) run, something I haven't done for a long time.

Forest Hill was the venue - I've done plenty of street-Os here but haven't been here for a few years. (The thought did cross my mind on the way here that the Springvale Road-Maroondah Highway intersection - not the most attractive place in Australia - which was a regular feature of my life pre-Eastlink, is something I've barely seen in the last few years). Decided I'd stay on the street-O map, if only so I knew where I was going, and followed a fairly convoluted route with the aim of 75 minutes, perhaps more if it went well. That didn't seem likely in the first few minutes, but it settled down OK and ended up a reasonable run, tiring a bit at the end as might be expected. Hopefully this is another step in getting well past the hour mark more consistently. Lots of small undulations but no big hills.

This run set a PB for most streets collected in a single run, which isn't surprising given that (a) it's in my top 10 longest runs since I started tracking (b) it's the only one of those 10 which was on "virgin territory" (again, since I started tracking) and (c) I was actively seeking out small streets to add to the distance without going off an A4 map sheet. The most pressing question raised was, when I saw them opposite each other, why is it North Court but Southern Court? (at least the latter was south of the former). It was also close to this spot that a house was flying a Ukrainian flag. The newish development with small streets in the middle made me think that it might have once been a closed factory or a Jeffed school, but the only obviously defunct feature shown on the 1990 Melway was a Pizza Hut on Springvale Road.

A bit tired after this, and a bit more tired after going onwards in fairly short order to another engagement walking the streets of Reservoir in the name of democracy.

Trying again to string together six days of running in a week when things have gone better (so far) than in my previous attempts. This was short but quite decent once I got going - even managed without the usual stretch-out-the-back stop around 8-10 minutes in (which may have something to do with the complete absence of anything resembling a hill). A bit less humid than I was expecting. Drew a few new lines on the map in the Carlton North area (mostly north-south ones this time); normally at this time of day you'd see a few commuter pelotons on Canning Street but I suspect we're still a couple of weeks away from that.

Fitzroy Pool was the next stop. A bit of a mixed bag - on the one hand felt like I was moving pretty well through the water, on the other hand my calves were threatening to cramp for most of the second half, without actually doing it. Hopefully the last time I need to bring a mask to walk 10 metres through the entrance.

I was somewhat sceptical that the new school campus on the old gasworks site would open at the start of this year as promised, and hadn't seen anyone much there (which may or may not have something to do with the fact that my visits to these parts are usually outside school hours), but I saw pictures earlier this week of Dan Andrews officially opening it so I guess it's open.

Pretty hard going this morning but managed to get through what I was hoping to get through, somewhat unconvincingly. Something of a slog through the first part through the west Ivanhoe parklands but got some confidence from making a reasonable job of the Banksia Street climb. Spent the next part in Eaglemont, getting reminded from time to time of the relevance of the "mont" bit but not doing too badly. Hit a flat spot after the downhills from there, but managed to pull out a reasonable last 15 minutes. A bit of right foot soreness at the end but it doesn't seem to have persisted post-run.

It was one of those humid cloudy mornings where it doesn't feel warm until you start trying to do something and produce lots of sweat in the process. Didn't seem to cause me too much trouble though (which is as well because I think the humidity is with us for the next week).

Definitely a run of two halves. Started out with the intention of doing intervals, struggled through the warm-up, tightened up again as soon as I tried to run fast and scrubbed that idea. It turned out that I just hadn't left myself long enough to warm up, because after executing plan B of trying to at least get a respectable-length slower run in, things started feeling good from about 20 minutes onwards (although still pretty slow). Gives me a bit more confidence in my plans for tomorrow.

Went past Jayne and James's place and saw Stanley sitting in the pram outside. I assumed (correctly) this meant that one or both parents were going to emerge very shortly (I didn't suggest trying to keep up with James on his run even if he was pushing some extra weight).

C • In case anyone is wondering... 4

Street-O Championships at Jacks Magazine, an area which straddles both sides of the Maribyrnong at Ascot Vale/Edgewater - my previous outing here was going for a run before a Covid vaccination at the Showgrounds. The river adds an extra element to route choice and it was quite challenging to decide what to leave out (more so on B, where I was, than on A), but I don't think I did too badly on the route. Running was not brilliant but probably a bit better than average for evenings this season. Think I ended up 3rd in 45s in the championship itself, but a fair way back.

A bit of foot discomfort still during the day, but it wasn't an issue on the run.

In an e-mail discussion at work today about Perth's hot summer, someone mentioned a modelling experiment where one of my colleagues had removed Australia's topography. Perhaps I should have given her a call before the steep bit around the top of the old magazine. (You can do things in modelling experiments that you can't do in the real world - Andy Hogg has been known to demolish New Zealand).

Monday morning Pilates. Felt as if I was doing things more efficiently than usual but took about the same amount of time as usual. Also went through one of the periodic phases where the instructor decides I'm finding one of the exercises too easy and does something to make it harder (no doubt a good thing in the longer term).

The top-of-foot soreness from a couple of weeks ago has resurfaced, but this time on the left foot rather than the right. It's less severe than last time (particularly with shoes on) and will hopefully disappear as quickly.

Onwards to the pool. The diurnal cycle in my swimming performance was again evident (with some bonus feeling-inadequate points from the news that a friend's 12-year-old did his first sub-30 50m last weekend). A bit of back tightness today although not as pronounced as a couple of weeks ago.

Annoyance of the day is that my house's alarm system (installed by the previous owners and never used by myself) has spontaneously decided to turn itself on and I don't have a means to turn it off (fortunately it only manifests as annoying beeps, not sirens). Looks like a service call may be in order tomorrow. At least I had less time to be annoyed by it than on a normal Monday as I spent the later part of the afternoon checking out one of the venues for the knockout sprint (which I'm controlling) for Melbourne Sprint Weekend.

Bendigo long day at Sedgwick. After a reasonably consistent summer of training I'd decided on entering that it was about time to test myself (also with a mind to the 9.something long day at Easter) - it's not since 2017 that I've completed a 10km+ course.

The mission this time was to finish rather than to race. Back was a bit iffy early and I quickly decided to be fairly conservative and not attempt to run significant hills, but it did feel like it was going to loosen rather than tighten as things went on, and did. (I'd also seen that the steep early part of the course became a bit less steep later). Kept plugging away and maintained a generally steady pace, was generally fairly clean technically, and was pleased to get to the finish line without falling away significantly.

Unfortunately, I still haven't completed a 10km+ course since 2017 because it turned out that I'd punched the wrong first control on the third loop - evidently my control description routine isn't quite up to scratch yet. A wrong-control mispunch is about a once-a-decade event for me so hopefully I've used up my quota for the 2020s.

Despite the result (or absence thereof), I came out of this with more positives than negatives, but I'm definitely still slow - perhaps most strikingly demonstrated by being 10 minutes down on Tim Hatley (although I think Tim's in pretty good shape at the moment).

Sprint of the Bendigo weekend at Rosalind Park (and adjacent schools), a course with abundant traps which I avoided falling into to any significant degree. Not fast by any means - the 50% behind benchmark I used to set in sprints is definitely a fair way away now (of course this is only because Aston has got better) - but body was functioning better than it usually does in the evenings. Quite a warm night but humidity low.

We went up to Kooyoora during the day - Jenny did some running, I did some walking in the name of saving myself for later. Had been having an increasing amount of difficulty over the last couple of days with an overgrown toenail (especially when going downhill). Scissors more commonly used for cutting ankle tape were probably suboptimal for an improvised pedicure but they achieved the objective of stopping it from hurting (and no-one sees them when you have shoes on anyway).

Regular session, albeit a bit later in the day than usual after a post-midnight meeting. Felt fairly routine but no worse for being so. Fairly quiet at the pool, perhaps influenced by the odd passing shower. Didn't try to run beforehand today - keeping a bit in reserve for the weekend (at least that's the plan).

A confidence-builder on a couple of counts: first for being able to back up for a long(ish) run after street-O the previous night (and with an earlier start than usual because of an 8.15 conference talk), and secondly because of the steepest hills I've taken on for a while, clearing a section of Kew near the river based on Yarra Street and Yarravale Road. (The fact that the first 15 minutes of this down to Studley Boathouse is flat or gently downhill helps with the warm-up). The hills themselves were hard work, as you'd expect, but felt pretty reasonable after them and finished off more strongly than I often do from this direction.

Probably only need two more runs to complete the 3km radius from home now.

Street-O at Belmore Parklands. Back felt pretty bad after a day sitting and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to run at all. As it turned out, it was better than last week on flats but still struggled somewhat on hills. Course had a lot of similarities with last year so not too many new lines drawn on the map; reasonably happy with the route I selected, with it being clear early on that it was going to be a fair bit shorter than the advertised 7.2.

An early start this morning to get back for an 8.15 conference talk. I suspected this would be suboptimal for running fast and it was, a bit, in that I was a bit slower than last time (59-65), but got through the session OK which I was happy with. Starting to get a bit tight in the hip flexors on the last couple.

Warm-up and down. grinding the gears at the start but not too bad on the whole.

Monday morning Pilates. No more awake than usual at the start, but got things done and was generally feeling reasonably good doing it.

News came this morning of a white supremacist arrested while trying to get to the anti-vax protests in Wellington (which turned on its second-wettest day on record for them), whose considerable list of priors included offences relating to livestreaming the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks. According to Wikipedia he ran a "Nazi-themed insulation company". The mind boggles.

Did my swimming at the end of the day today, in the name of being hospitable while Tracy and Paul were still around in the morning. This meant battling the late afternoon summer crowds even though a change of sorts had come through by then (getting into the pool was more of a hassle than negotiating the water once there). I'm obviously more energetic (for swimming purposes at least) in the afternoon because this was the best part of three minutes faster than anything I've done in the morning lately, for no other obvious reason.

I was doing another round of looking at updated 2021 national climate reports today. Pakistan's included some maps which showed an area as "Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu And Kashmir". Don't think I'll be using those in the WMO statement.

Sort of managed to string six days together but didn't do what I'd hoped to - the back held up pretty well but I was just tired. That will hopefully resolve itself with some more work. Perhaps I was a bit ambitious taking on the Koonya track (with numerous steep climbs up dunes, though reasonably firm underfoot) at the start. Had its OK patches after that but never felt especially energetic.

Back was pretty sore for a while after yesterday evening's run and I thought it might be difficult to come up again this morning. Not the most energetic run I've ever had, but the back turned out to be better than on any of the previous three days (must be something to be said for heading out in the morning).

Filled in a few more spaces on the Blairgowrie map (including the last remaining street on the ocean side of Melbourne Road between here and Canterbery Jetty). One place I won't be in a rush to come back to is the house which was displaying a United Australia Party poster (although perhaps I'd trade seeing a few posters for not having to see any more of their TV ads).

The afternoon was devoted to my much-delayed "50th" (actually ended up being closer to my 51st) - a good session with a range of friends. Nicer weather for it than it would have been in July, too.

C • UAP 16

This was - different. The morning was a false start (which I sort of expected, going out first thing to get back for a conference talk), but I really wasn't sure if the afternoon plan B would work out. Cut back on the degree of difficulty and, instead of the relatively hilly route I'd planned, used the 'keep in back pocket for marginal day' one - clearing a block of the industrial area in Preston, between Northland and Bell Street. Started out thinking I'd settle for anything much over 30 minutes but with the hope of reaching the hour; never felt particularly comfortable, but did manage to keep plugging away and was at its best (or least worst) in the last 15 minutes. Suspect this is the first time I've gone past the hour in an evening run for a long time.

Now to see if I can come up tomorrow morning...

It was cool but sunny and windy - I obviously still need to learn which parks have taps after six years in the area because I drew blanks at the two I went past for that purpose. (I've remembered to pack my water-carrying pack for this weekend; Sunday will be warm).

Having another go at trying to put together six days in a week. This was once again coming off a long day of conferencing (albeit not quite as long as yesterday) and felt only marginally better than yesterday, but because there were no hills of any consequence I was able to manage to keep plodding along. Started to make progress on a largely new area (the strip of North Carlton between Lygon and Nicholson), and cleared the last annoying outstanding node in Fitzroy North by going to the tram stop at the top end of Smith Street.

The conferencing itself upheld Murphy's Law - my power went out a couple of minutes before I was due to present (not for long, but long enough to make my internet reboot, a process which takes several minutes). Fortunately for this one we recorded backup videos. (Also noticed, appropriately for a conference that he's also at, that on the camera angle I'm using, directly above my head on the wall is a photo of Andy and myself on the 1998 Australian Long Championships podium).

Into the water after the short(ish) running session. Took a long time for my back to feel as if it was vaguely normal but it eventually got there; hopefully this will do me some good for tomorrow. Generally a decent session once it got going. Lower legs threatening to cramp a few times but never quite did so.

Street-O at Heyington Heights. In the midst of a run which was a metaphorical car crash - a product of a very long day sitting down in front of online conferences - the most memorable feature of the night was seeing an actual one (thanks to someone who took the corner near Heyington station too fast and ended up "beached as, bro" on top of a concrete bollard; the existence of the bollards suggests that isn't the first time someone has done that). Perhaps it was appropriate given that my route to the event took me past the scene of the Tim! The Stop Sign! incident.

I did get the route reasonably right, I think; the key decision point on this map is whether you need to go to Toorak, and once it was clear that the answer on B was "yes", once you're over there you might as well get most of them. (Posh suburbs are usually nice places to run, but it helps if you're having a day when you can actually run up hills).

As always, the Scotch event is a chance to see how the other 0.1% lives. The grass on the ovals was the most manicured I've seen anywhere in a long time, and that's speaking as someone who did a press conference on the MCG a few days before Boxing Day.

Wasn't sure beforehand if I would be up for this - back was a bit stiff this morning, though not as bad as yesterday - but things were OK once I was running, just enough tightness on the last couple to discourage me from trying to push the number of reps out further. Fairly typical pace for recent times (59-61 down, 63-64 up).

The route has acquired a new feature - a collection of shopping trolleys. I expect this is a common occurrence on the other side of All Nations Park but it took some effort to get them this far.

Warm-up and down. One advantage of being slightly later into summer is that it doesn't warm up as early, so it was still pleasant for this session. (The lower humidity helps, too).

Monday morning Pilates. Seemed to be fairly hard work this morning compared to usual, though got through everything.

Onwards to the pool. Not quite as slow as last week but still not exactly a stellar session. Back quite sore at times (notably pushing off on the turns) - I don't normally notice it in the water so maybe it's as well that I wasn't attempting to run today. (Hopefully it will settle down for tomorrow).

Acronym of the day: the Chequamegon Heterogeneous Ecosystem Energy-balance Study Enabled by a High-density Extensive Array of Detectors. Those who know their American football will not be surprised to learn that the paper's lead author is from the University of Wisconsin.

Not one of my better days. Went out with ambitions of doing 80-90 minutes but in the end it was a bit like three weeks ago, realising early on that this was a salvage operation and settling for half that on a fairly flat route. Back troublesome throughout and wasn't really coping even with half-contour bumps. Ended up as a bit of a social run, with encounters with Pat and with a Melbourne Uni colleague.

Spent most of the rest of the day at the cricket (a good day, although clearly the organisers didn't expect that many people, meaning long queues for anything).

Working on reports about significant global climate events does take you to interesting places (virtually speaking). I now know that there are such things as the Tomato News and the Olive Oil Times (I encountered both in search of information about agricultural impacts from last April's frosts in western and central Europe).

Today's destination was to the northwest: the number which came up was 3, which took me to Sydenham and Hillside (which isn't very hilly, and perhaps shows the perils of letting land developers name suburbs). This looks very barren from the freeway, and I thought it would be a tough place to be in the middle of the day (the late start being because I'd been helping out at the sprint at Princes Park beforehand). Once into the suburbs it's a bit more vegetated, without getting a sense that the City of Brimbank is anywhere near its 30% urban tree cover by 2045 target (I believe they're currently at 6%) - has a similar feel to, say, the south end of Tuggeranong which is of a similar (1990s/early 2000s) vintage.

The run started quite promisingly and the back was functioning reasonably well (despite being a bit uncomfortable when standing at the event start), but I faded a bit in the second half - it wasn't especially hot (mid-20s) but I think the midday sun still got to me a bit. Did manage to add two new local government areas, Brimbank and Melton, to my list of streets collected (hopefully the days are behind us where getting foot on the wrong side of a council boundary could land you two weeks in the sin bin).

With this having taken me to the northwest side of town, I did a bit more exploring a bit further out between Gisborne and Wallan, checked out where Mickleham Road eventually ends up, and for the first time went up Mount Ridley on the north edge of Craigieburn. (This has a view over most of metropolitan Melbourne, and I suspect is a popular vantage point for the Melbourne storm-watching fraternity).

Woke up at 5am or so with a painful lower left leg, something that's happened to me once before a year or so back (so it was less scary this time) - I'm guessing a cramp, or perhaps having slept with weight on top of it (not sure how?). Went away after a few minutes of standing up, though the leg still didn't feel quite right at the event - was fine by the time I was running though.

This morning started with a big plus (the coolest morning for more than a month) and a couple of minuses (backing up from an evening run yesterday, going out earlier than usual because I needed to be back for an 8.45 meeting). For the first few minutes it looked like the minuses might prevail, but from there it settled down well, and handled things surprisingly well once it got hilly from about 20 minutes onwards. Not really any major signs of tiring either, and having been slightly ambitious in my route, I was happy to carry on and clock up the longest midweek session since 2018 (admittedly not the highest of bars to clear, but it's progress).

Filled in another space on the map - have now completed all of East Ivanhoe west of Burke Road - and made some headway in Eaglemont too, having decided that if I'd gone to the trouble of gaining the elevation involved in reaching the Maltravers roundabout I might as well put it to good use. (I suspect Eaglemont will become something of an autumn project).

C • Nonplussed 4

Street-O at Viewbank, once very familiar territory but I don't think I've run here since I moved away from Heidelberg (the hills certainly haven't got any smaller since I was last here). The ankle recovered quickly and was a non-issue today. Not sure I got the route quite right. Running a bit better than on most recent evenings, and even ran a reasonable number of the hills (though by no means all of them). Feeling quite good at times on the flatter bits.

You learn something new every day: there is such a thing as a Tropical Livestock Unit. (I read about this in a World Food Program report on east Africa, and think it is a way to compare the food value of different animals). On this scale, a camel is equivalent to 110 chickens.

The running conditions were good, and as I feared last night, I wasn't able to take advantage of them. The ankle was fine in the water, though, for a session at the end of the day, in conditions (16 degrees, occasional showers) that meant the numbers at the pool were a bit lower than this time last week (though there were still enough around to make me wonder if the man who was sufficiently paranoid to be wearing a surgical mask over the top of an N95 mask while outside would appreciate me getting anywhere near his kids in the same lane).

The injury itself, generalised soreness at the front of the right ankle, feels a bit like the "driving overuse" injury I had a few times in the late 2000s/early 2010s, though that clearly isn't the cause this time. On those occasions it resolved within a few days so hopefully that's the case here too, and in fact it's improved enough during the second half of the day (including post-session) to give me some hope of being able to get out tomorrow.

C • 105% protection! 4

Headed out at lunchtime, thinking the conditions would be better than they had been in the morning (a mid-morning front cleared some of the humidity out). Had hoped to do intervals but back wasn't quite up to that; it did, however, handle a step down in pace without undue difficulty. A bit of a nothing session but still good to get it on the board (and a shift from spending a morning going down various rabbit holes relating to early 2010s rainfall in Adelaide).

Although I didn't notice it on the run, I developed some fairly generalised soreness around the front of the right ankle in the afternoon. Certainly hope it isn't anything significant - not least because I don't want to pass up the opportunity of the running conditions to be found the next couple of days.