Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

A hill session in the parklands alongside the lower end of Walmer Street in Kew, 10 loops on a 2-minute cycle. Felt very ordinary indeed in the warm-up but the repetitions were better; thought I might be struggling when going lactic in the last part of the 4th and 5th uphills but finished off pretty well. Yesterday's soreness is essentially gone - the jarring didn't seem to be a problem.

Part of the real estate sign on the (very incomplete) goods shed renovation next to our office has been covered up. It's the bit which used to say 'Move in 2007'.

Jaw a bit sore after yesterday afternoon (I knew the tooth in question was probably a lost cause, but they had a bugger of a time getting it out) - don't think it would appreciate the jarring of running, and in any case I was advised to take it easy for 24 hours. Hopefully back in action tomorrow.

Rearranging things a bit this week - I'm getting some dental work done this afternoon and, although I don't expect anything too untoward, thought it better not to commit myself to too much tomorrow.

This was a run that sometimes threatened to turn into a very good one, especially in the first half, but ended up a bit of a grind. Still felt considerably better than on my runs in the last two days. A cool morning with a real autumn feel (even a bit of ground mist in low-lying areas).

Running the gauntlet of the Fitness First spruikers in Collins Street at lunchtime, as one sometimes has to, it was very noticeable indeed that one of them was in very serious need of his employer's services. Not sure if it was a wonderful advertisement.

I thought I was following Australian news fairly closely from afar while I was away, but I obviously missed the announcement that trucks are now exempt from clearways.

C • Trucks 1

A pretty nondescript morning run, starting on the Banyule Flats and then through Rosanna and Viewbank. Felt a little weak on the hills (but then I'm a bit out of practice on the hills). Good morning for it, though.

Spotted en route: someone wearing an interesting-looking cycling jersey which turned out to be, not one for one of the pro cycling teams, but instead one for the Magistrates Court of Victoria. I'm assuming they're not into sponsoring cycling teams (although the City of Banyule used to have a team in the Herald-Sun Tour, so anything's possible) - they probably run a team in the Around the Bay or similar. Also spotted was an board advertising 'Rosanna's Landmark Development'.

The Bolte Bolt (as the name implies) is a race which runs from Docklands to the Bolte Bridge and back. I've never run it before because it is normally on Thursdays, but it switched to Tuesdays for a couple of weeks so I thought I'd give it a go (it was a timeslot when I wanted to do something fast in any case).

As it turned out the field was virtually non-existent so it was in effect a time trial. I'm not sure about the measurement of the course, and (despite the lack of hills) it's definitely a slower course than the Tan because of several sharp turns, stairs and some rough gravel, but from the times that other people have done previously I would certainly have wanted to be closer to 16 than 17. Didn't feel too bad (although hints of a stitch at the end), but still struggling to find an extra gear.

The course is a somewhat fluid one - the south bank of the river is an active development area and every year there are new construction sites to go around.

Warm-up and warm-down for the Bolt (the warm-down was pretty cursory). Thought it might have been a truncated warm-up because of a media call just before I was heading out, but the race was later than I thought it was.

Got back in late morning after a brief stopover in Brisbane (and then was held up at the end because my bag had a slightly less brief stopover in Brisbane than I did), and headed out on this one in early afternoon. A strange sort of run with some parallels with the one I did just after returning from the US (although nowhere near as bad as that one was). Felt half-asleep for much of it but faster than it felt (this is a loop I've used many times for recovery sessions and this was a good 2-3 minutes faster than usual). Fairly cool for Melbourne but still felt a bit sticky to me in light of recent experiences.

Never reached the heights of the other two long runs I`ve done here but still a solid morning`s work after an indifferent first half-hour. A stellar morning - no wind, clear and the best visibility yet since I`ve been here (we won`t mention too loudly that it was -9 again, not that that deterred the tennis players by the river).

I took a more adventurous route this time, heading out first to World Cup Staium and then roughly E-SE across town. I wouldn`t have wanted to have been doing it at any busier time than 8 on a Sunday morning, but it was nice to do something different (and to get something bigger than a one-contour hill for the first time this week). I`d hoped to get as far east as the hill the Seoul Tower is on but ran out of time and only got to the National Museum area.

Unlike yesterday afternoon when we went past there, there were no riot police in sight at the World Cup Stadium (or to be more accurate its shopping complex). In the 1980s Koreans were world`s best practice in rioting and street theatre (one incident which sticks in my mind is the person who bit the top off his finger and wrote the name of then-dissident-later-President Kim Dae-Jung in blood on his cream jacket), but on the eivdence of yesterday the standard of politically-motivated rioting in Korea has declined as precipitously in Korea as it has in other developed countries. Apparently it was an industrial dispute over the use of contract labour.

On the way home tonight.

A similar session to the one I did in Geelong a few weeks ago - two sections of around 2.5km at 10km race pace or something like it, interspersed with easier sections. This took the form of laps of Yeouido Park, which has a convenient-length track running inside its perimeter - a nice place to run. Not a bad session, and got into a nice rhythm in the second half of the second fast lap (which was a bit faster than the first). Thought ice might have been a problem after drizzle yesterday evening was followed by below-freezing temperatures (-4 this morning and quite windy), but it had dried out quickly.

Conversation over dinner last night turned at one point to Australia-New Zealand relations, which meant I had the interesting task of explaining the nature and cultural significance of the underarm incident to an audience which consisted of an Italian recently settled in NZ, a Japanese and a Mongolian. Not sure if they understood or not.

Also noticed in yesterday's paper that a poll had found that, in the event of war between the US and North Korea, a majority of South Koreans would support the North Koreans. Illustrates just how much international goodwill the US have squandered in recent years.

Never really got going this morning. Moved away from the river for the first time, doing in essence a loop of the "island" of Yeouido, with a few sidetracks because there aren't paths all the way along the back side (this also meant a few more road crossings than I was really comfortable with). "Island" is perhaps stretching it a bit - the body of water separating Yeouido from the rest of the south bank of the Han River is about the size of Merri Creek. It did have a floodplain associated with it with a few dirt tracks, a rarity in this part of the world.

Today was the first cloudy morning and, not coincidentally, by far the warmest (i.e. it was actually above freezing).

My route took me reasonably close to the National Assembly building. South Korea is currently between governments - like the US, the new President doesn't get inaugurated until a few weeks after the election. The new government has obviously learnt something from Western political practice because they were quoted a couple of days ago blaming the neglect of their predecessors for the fire at Seoul's 600-year-old South Gate a couple of weeks ago. (There are, however, still remnants of more ancient local political traditions - prompted by an amnesty, more than 20 busloads of voters from a small town presented themselves to the local police station to confess to having accepted bribes for their votes in a recent local council election).

C • Sounds like 1

Grant's advice was that Olympic Park was worth running in, and today was the best opportunity to do it. Given the distances involved, this meant getting the subway out there and running back - the 45-minute subway trip did provide some good opportunities to further practice my Korean-alphabet reading skills. (I also discovered in the course of watching last night's game - which was China-Japan; I must have got the dates wrong - that the Korean for "yellow card" is "yellow card", but I don't think I can count this as a new word learnt).

Olympic Park was nice, although only large enough to keep me occupied for 10 minutes, and it was then down to the river trail (a tartan track for the first section), eventually linking up with my route from Sunday. This took me past the Olympic Stadium, which is a few kilometres away from Olympic Park (surprisingly, there isn't a direct subway link between them, which must have made things awkward in 1988), as well as close to the Lotte World theme park. In the best Korean conglomerate tradition, Lotte appear to have fingers in quite a lot of pies, including theme parks, hotels, department stores, soft drinks and electronics. They must have other interests too because when Ecmo and Glenn were here in 2004 (en route to Kazakhstan) they spotted a sign "Lotte: The Pure Natural Freshness".

The run was excellent - definitely my best this year. I'd hit a good rhythm by the 15-minute mark and was flowing beautifully for most of the way, especially in the middle where I was very much in "I don't want this spell to break" mode. It wasn't quite so spcial at the end but still had plenty left, and would have done more had it not been for the small matter of a meeting start time. It was a little warmer than recent days (-5 at the start, 0 at the end), and felt more so because I had a light tailwind almost all the way.

Just checked the IOF calendar: my next trip is to the Netherlands in May, and the weekend before the meeting just happens to include a World Ranking event in Belgium (an added bonus is that I haven't orienteered in Belgium before so it will add another country to my list).

Headed out along the river in the opposite direction, towards the World Cup Stadium. Didn't quite get to the stadium and didn't see much else either, thanks to fog which reduced the visibility to 100-200 metres for much of the way. A little warmer than it has been (probably about -3) but with the moister air quite a bit of ice was accumulating on exposed surfaces - definitely at the outer limits of what I was comfortable in wearing shorts. The run itself was smooth but nothing exceptional.

I noticed yesterday that our hotel has no 4th floor - either Korea shares the Chinese superstition about the number or this hotel gets enough Chinese custom to take it into account. If there's anything in Chinese lucky or unlucky numbers then Orienteering Australia might be in for a financially prosperous year, because I've just finished doing the 2007 accounts and our net assets at the end of the year end in $888.88.

I'm also a bit disappointed that Fidel Castro didn't choose to quit a few weeks ago when I was in Miami. I may not have much time for the political attitudes of Miami's Cubans but I reckon they'd be able to throw a good street party (especially one they've been waiting the best part of 50 years for).

While on the subject of long-lived political enmities, the big football match is on tonight - South Korea against North Korea (in Beijing, I think). Will be worth watching; if something similar was happening in Australia I'd probably be searching out a pub to watch it, but I'm not sure that that's the Korean style (and the area we're staying is a business district without much evening life anyway).

C • The Chinese superstition ab... 4

10x1 minute or thereabouts in the park by the Han River - a fairly standard intervals workout when travelling. Quite sandy ground which was good for me. I'm not sure if -5 is exactly optimal conditions for interval training (although I did do a session in the snow at -12 in Norway a couple of years back), and didn't feel great in the warm-up, but loosened up pretty well and was quite a bit faster from the 3rd repetition onwards.

Update: looked at the observations when I got back and it was actually -9 - I must be acclimatising better than I thought. It is extremely dry (for the meteorologists reading, dewpoints mostly between -15 and -25) with no hint of frost, even on car windscreens.

A fairly easy and straightforward run, initially around a park near the hotel (smallish, but a nice loop for faster sessions later in the week), then along the river and across one of the bridges, mainly to check out for future reference whether it was possible to cross one of the main bridges on foot (the river is about 1km across and, as you might imagine, all of the bridges carry a lot of traffic).

Spent most of the rest of the day on a trip out of Seoul, with the main target a well-known waterfall. (Our meeting doesn't start until tomorrow but we came early because of the flight schedules, in case you're wondering why we're not working). It turned out the waterfall (about 50 metres high) was frozen solid, and was playing host to a group of ice-climbers which is not something I've seen before - they made it look easy but I'm sure it isn't. Nice to have a look at something other than the concrete jungle.

I'm not sure where they're planning to have APOC. The forests I saw looked open (at least in winter) but were almost all very steep - suggesting it might be similar to Japan.

In a return to my roots, I'm gradually trying to learn the Korean alphabet off subway station signs (my parents tell me I originally used road signs for a similar purpose at age three or thereabouts).

C • Ice climbing 8

An excellent run to my considerable surprise, for the first day after a long trip (the lack of a time change obviously helped). Felt good from the start and flowing well through the first half - a bit tougher in the second half but also a bit faster, helped by running with a Russian for several kilometres later on. Tired at the very end.

The run itself was an out-and-back along the Han River bike track (which would be an inline skater`s heaven, 38km of flat traffic-free path). Not a bad place to run although it will be a bit boring by the end of the week if I don`t find other options, and I haven`t seen too many in the immediate vicinity. Cold (-5) but sunny and calm and not unpleasant, and the air quality was better than I was expecting - could see the mountains 20-30km away, which you certainly wouldn`t be able to do in Beijing or Hanoi. The main river wasn`t frozen but some of the areas of slacker water (in bays, near bridge pillars etc.) were.

There was a marathon on today - saw the distance markers for it and then the crowds gathering around the start-finish area (also saw my first Korean traffic jam, consisting of people trying to get into the car park - on the evidence I`ve seen Korean parking is almost as anarchic as Rome`s).

Spent most of the rest of the day doing some pretty heavy-duty sightseeing once we`d got an initial meeting with the local workshop organiser out of the way.

C • Or in LA 1

Made it to Seoul - not the most comfortable of flights (I think the legroom was Korean-sized) but got us there. Looks like a bit of a concrete jungle where we're staying so I'm glad the river is only a couple of hundred metres away.

A bit of reshuffling of the usual program because I'll be spending tomorrow in the air. Was having a massage in Richmond at 7.30 so decided it was a good opportunity to get out onto the Studley Park terrain loop, although the available time window between first light and appointment time was only just long enough; I wouldn't have wanted to be out (without a light) in the terrain even five minutes earlier. Dark morning runs will become somewhat more familiar over the next few weeks.

I felt indifferent, as expected after a tough day yesterday (I wouldn't normally run on a Friday), although it could have been a lot worse, and the hills were pretty good. Lacked fluency in the terrain early (the poor light probably contributed) but improved considerably later on. It's the first time for a few months that I've done the loop, and there have been enough changes to leave me a little confused in places as to exactly where the loop goes. Did 47 minutes which was a little slower than expected for the level of effort.

I leave for Seoul tomorrow morning for a week. Finding somewhere to run won't be a huge problem as we're staying close to the river and its 40km-long bike path, but finding places which are (a) original and (b) not totally overrun by traffic may be harder. -8 or thereabouts on Sunday morning will be a bit of a shock to the system too.

A final session at Richmond after work before going away tomorrow. Felt reasonable for most of it but rather slow. Again troubled by a foot cramp at one stage, which isn't the easiest thing to get rid of when horizontal in the pool - anyone else have problems with this?

C • olympic park 2

C • Foot cramp 5

A promising first 30 minutes but rather faded away through the rest of the run, particularly on the uphill stretches (and there were plenty, especially around Greensborough and Montmorency). Nowhere near as bad as this time last week though.

C • jwoc nominations 4

A pretty routine Wednesday morning, which is another sign of a gradual return to normality. Did this run from Canterbury Gardens where tonight's street-O is, north through the hillier parts of Balwyn. Quite a hilly course and handled the hills reasonably well, although still seemed to be lacking a little bit on the flats.

Saw a headline yesterday, "Nine Fights The Law". They could have added a postscript today: "Nine Fights The Law, And The Law Wins".

C • Different result 1

C • Different message 1

Street-O at Canterbury. In the past this was a rather eccentric map but this time the N-S and E-W scales were the same. Score event, which for us means getting all 20 controls as quickly as possible, but still quite a bit of route choice. Felt reasonable on a lovely running night, but Adam was still quite a bit faster than me - something I got a good look at on several occasions because his route choice meant he was running quite a bit further than me. Happiest with the final section where I was more or less holding ground with Adam, but I had one more control to get (not much extra distance, and my way of getting it was certainly much more efficient than his was earlier, but it put paid to any chance of a sprint finish at the end and he got me by 40 seconds). I'd still like to be faster than this but it was a positive sign.

I missed the apology speech this morning - had hoped to catch it at work but was in too late - but heard it replayed on the radio as I was going home (passing in the process a Bulleen nursery with a sign outside 'SORRY'). It's taken a long time but it is good to see that it has finally happened, and some of the things detailed in Kevin Rudd's speech were eye-opening as to exactly what was going on - which was worse than I'd imagined, having only paid passing attention to the original Stolen Generations report.

One unmentioned positive of the recent events is that Andrew Bolt has been far too distracted by the Big Sorry to notice that January was the world's coolest month for 13 years (although still just above the long-term average).

A fartlek session on the usual loop. Normally I wouldn't be getting excited about a 9.28 loop but today's run did have the feel of having turned the corner after a difficult week. Lacking zip, but feeling reasonably strong, and particularly pleased with the way that I was able to attack the steeply uphill second-last sprint (in marked contrast to the last few days when I've gone lactic at the first hint of a contour).

Fitzroy on a gorgeous crisp, cool morning which seemed more Canberra than Melbourne. A similar session to last Friday, taking a long time to get going but better once I found a rhythm.

Monday night from my place. As usual for the outer suburbs the turnout was reasonably small, but a faster-moving group than is the norm for Monday night. Headed for the Banyule flats and didn't see any snakes, which didn't disappoint the group. (I've never seen a snake in the area but it has the feel of an area where one might).

Felt more or less as per normal for a Monday night, which means it was an improvement on the last few days.

Some technical training at Nerrina set up by Roch. I was keen to get to this as I'll be away for the next two weekends. Rob and Kathryn came up with me. First (and longest) part was a pairs relocation course with Rob, then a bit of map-memory stuff before a short course.

Technically it was quite reasonable once I got the feel of reading the map again. Physically, I was OK while in cruise mode (and I wasn't trying to run too hard on the course generally), but struggling with anything harder, such as up hills (and Nerrina is hillier than it looks) - suggesting I'm still not 100% well. It was a good session for me to do on such a day - otherwise I'd probably have tried to go 2 hours plus and probably done myself some damage in the process.

One definite change to the terrain: the gorse is thinning out significantly (probably because of the drought), and some areas mapped as medium/dark green are now quite passable. Normally this would be an unreservedly good thing, although at Nerrina the green contributes to setting up good route-choice legs.

From the intensity point of view this week has been pretty much a write-off at a stage when I could have done without writing off weeks. This, in turn, now makes it important for me to get some quality training done when in Seoul next week, as I can't really afford to lose another week. Not sure how conducive the environment in Seoul will be to quality training (apart from the issue of finding good places to run, I'm expecting most of my runs, at least for the first few days, to be in temperatures between -5 and -10) but I guess we'll find out.

Spent most of the rest of the day at the cricket - an interesting game if not quite in the form we're used to. One lingering question: surely at least one of the other 49,000 present would be interested in eating something healthy at the MCG? Finding something at the ground which has some semblance of nutritional value is definitely a greater challenge than finding a pit in the middle of gorse at Nerrina. I would have thought there would be some sort of market for something different to pies, chips and burgers (if nothing else, with large numbers of Indians present one would expect a decent market for mass-produced curry), but obviously whoever has the catering contract is severely lacking in imagination. I headed outside in search of other options and found them in Bridge Road (after first discovering that none of the eight eating establishments on Wellington Parade near the ground considered it worthwhile to open on a match-day Sunday), but was only able to do that because Australia's dismal batting extended the break between innings by 25 minutes over its usual duration.

Took advantage of a lunchtime BBQ at Mount Macedon to go for a terrain run on the Macedon map - first time I've been out in the Australian bush for about three months (unless you count Studley Park). Definitely nice to be out in the terrain again, and once I got the feel of running on rough ground and through fallen timber again - which took about 10 minutes - it was a fairly good run, definitely my best of the week (although that isn't saying much). Excellent running conditions too, even if it was on the cool side for most other activities.

Felt better this morning than I have for a few days, but still didn't want to push it too hard. A decent night's sleep helped (with one brief interruption when a possum fried itself on the power lines outside, something which happens a couple of times a year). Slow early but picked up a bit later on. Back a little tight at times.

On the way home last night I went past Melbourne's version of Super Tuesday - polling for the Democrats Abroad primary (American expats elect a small number of delegates - 20 or so, I think). Somewhat incongruously, it was taking place in a Carlton pub, with the 'U.S. Presidential Primary - Vote Here' signs along those advertising 'Thursday $12 Parma Night'. (At least you can't accuse the local American community of failing to integrate with the Australian culture!). I'm not sure whether the greatest number of votes was achieved by Hillary, Barack or the $12 parmas. I also presume that there are rules to stop the supporters of Hillary or Barack adopting student election traditions by offering free beer to potential voters.

(My one contribution of note to student politics in my ANU days was an unsuccessful attempt to ban alcohol from Students Association meetings. This was nothing to do with any moral position - it was because the Liberals had more money than us and we wanted to stop them using free beer to woo people to meetings).

Another poor run in a week which is turning into a write-off, and I did something which happens once in a blue moon (and probably should happen more often than it does) - cut short a run because I was feeling terrible (I was aiming for 2 hours). I tend to view doing such a thing as a sign of failure above the shoulders, and can be too bloody-minded for my own good. It's a consequence of having made relentlessness the defining feature of my career.

The run itself started poorly, settled into a grind in its middle stages along the Yarra - not brilliant but not horrible - but fell apart around the 90-minute mark. At times I thought I might have to start walking but at least avoided that. I'm hoping that all this is a temporary consequence of having a cold (not a particularly bad one in terms of cold-like symptoms) and beign run-down from an overloaded schedule in recent weeks. A rest day from running tomorrow should help.

One pity of it was that I wasted as nice a morning for running as you'll find in a Melbourne February these days.

C • 4.40m/k 3

Feeling a bit better than yesterday, although still lacking somewhat in energy. Improved considerably in the last 20 minutes. Another humid day, but the end of that is in sight (and nothing over 25 is in the forecast, which is about as good as one can hope for as a runner in February - even if it isn't doing wonders for acclimatisation to potential conditions in Dubbo).

First street-O for a month (Valley Reserve). This was supposed to be the start of a switch to speed but that's not the way things are working out this week, and instead it was another token effort, especially up the hills. About the only time I had the advantage was on the first leg when I took the dangerously radical step of reading my map in detail and ended up with a (quickly swallowed) lead as everyone else hit dead ends.

An excellent course - the top five went five different ways, none of which were optimal. The closest approach to the optimal route was by Rachel Johnson, and she was rewarded by claiming my scalp for the first time. She's been running decently on the track (10.40 for 3000) but I should still be doing a fair bit faster (and hopefully will be once I'm 100% healthy again). Adam and Bryan were about 90 seconds ahead, which given the way I was running suggests their routes were worse.

This hardly qualified as a speedwork session - something of a token effort, especially on the second lap. Fastest loop 9.45 (ouch!), although I had the feeling that I was relatively slower, compared to usual, in the rest sections than the sprints (and the uphill ones felt OK). Generally feeling pretty run-down, even though the cold symptoms have eased; might have to ease back a little on what I had planned for the next few days.

On other matters, someone who appears to be a few boulders short of a full cluster has discovered the apparently magical alignment of boulders in central NSW granite country and is putting it up as "evidence" of prehistoric Stonehenge-like structures in Australia. If you feel like it, you can read more (much more) at http://www.rexgilroy.com/uru_chapter7.html.

Strictly a recovery session, although muscle stiffness not as bad as I'd feared. Nice to be at Fitzroy again, although more crowded than usual in the morning (a warm morning will do this). Foot cramps made their presence felt at times, which partially explains why it was slow even by my usual standards. Hints of cold from the last few days have developed a bit more today but nothing too drastic.

I had plenty of reason to expect this to be a shocker:

(a) it was hot and humid
(b) I ran three hours yesterday
(c) I wasn't 100% well
(d) I realised at 6.20 that I'd forgotten to eat lunch - and by then the ants had invaded my lunchbox

(there are probably a few other excuses too, but that will do)

It wasn't a brilliant run by any stretch of the imagination, and I certainly wouldn't have wanted to be going faster, longer or hillier, but it wasn't as awful as I'd feared. The typical MFR Monday night pace (it was the first of these I'd been to for a month) helped - very slow early and picking up a bit later on. Horribly stiff in the first couple of minutes but OK thereafter, although calves tight afterwards.

There was what looked like a film or music video shoot happening on the bridge over the freeway at Kew. Not sure if we're about to become stars (or at least passing scenery). Perhaps we should ask Clare to keep her eyes open.

My tradition of a first-Sunday-in-February epic started in the early 90s more or less by accident, after I'd noticed that I'd done my longest run of the year that day in two successive years. After a hiatus for several years (mostly through being injured at inopportune times), I resumed this practice in 2006 and have continued it through this year.

This was a multiple-loop run from the Fairfield boathouse, starting with a loop northwest through Northcote, then joining Bruce, Reuben and Dion up the Yarra on both sides as far as Eaglemont, before a final loop on my own to Darebin Parklands. Never a sparkling run, but the time passed reasonably quickly through the middle of the bunch, especially on the single-track sections (which slowed the pace a little). Had company from 40 minutes to 2.15, and appreciated it (although Bruce pushed the pace a little more around 1.40-2.00 than I was planning on), especially once the company was gone in the later stages. The last 30 minutes, and especially the last 10, was in survival mode; I'd started with thoughts of going to 3.05 or 3.10, but in the end was pleased just to be able to summon the energy for the lap of the playground that took me from 2.59 to 3.00.

A humid morning, if not excessively hot. Bruce seemed a little perturbed when he saw the spreading patch of blood on my singlet (a chafed nipple that occasionally makes its presence felt on humid days, but doesn't cause any real trouble).

Unsurprisingly very tired afterwards; the trip from the car to the shop to get some sports drink was a struggle, and once home it took me 90 minutes to summon the energy to get off the bed and have a shower.

Will be shifting the emphasis to speed and technique more from this week.

Event: Waitangi Summer Carnival
 

Again wasn't feeling brilliant before (or after) the run but fine while it was in progress, which suggests that if there's anything wrong with me it can't be too serious. Hillier than recent weeks (the competition in this department is not particularly tough - the elevation difference between my front door and the letterbox is greater than that which exists within the city limits of either New Orleans or Miami), but handled the hills with some comfort. A little on the humid side.

We've become used to seeing lots of Easter eggs on display very early, but today I saw the unusual sight of someone actually buying them.

A session in the pool at Kardinia Park, a pleasant outdoor pool (although maybe not for much longer - I saw a car parked outside with a 'Roof Kardinia Pool Now' sticker - presumably it's closed in winter at present). Definitely knew I was back in Australia from the gum leaves on the bottom of the pool. The session itself was reasonably mundane. I feel as if I'm trying to shake off a cold (not surprising given everything I've been doing the last three weeks) but whatever it is doesn't seem to be affecting my training (yet). Being woken up by the garbage truck at 4.50 this morning was unhelpful.

I now spend two (or more) consecutive nights at home for the first time since early January - in fact I'm home for a whole two weeks before my next excursion (to Korea).