Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Hit the single tracks of Yarra Bend this morning, a bit slower than the roads but nice to be out there. A bit of a struggle this morning though - I had a bit of hamstring soreness (although not tightness) sitting down yesterday and it persisted into the morning, didn't impede me but remained a bit sore. Not flowing that well.

First foray into street-O since my return. Not as warm as my December comeback, for which I was thankful (although it was still the warmest on this date for 12 years :-).

Last time the Eastern Series was run on this date, in 1996 (in those days it was on Wednesdays and Thursdays), there was a 'leap control' which got you a bonus point - something which came in useful because at that stage of the season I needed 501 points from five rounds to stand a chance of winning. (As it happened I got 401 of them before falling at the last hurdle). Nothing as oddball today, but still a decent course at Blind Creek - not excessively hilly.

The hamstring was annoying in the first 500 metres, which was pretty slow (as evidenced by Bruce, who missed the start by 20 seconds or so, coming through me within two controls). Settled OK after that, never feeling that brilliant but staying sort of in contact with the lead group for the first seven controls (helped when they lost a bit of time on the questionably placed 13). We split after that (I dropped 11 and 7); from there I held a decent if unspectacular pace for the rest of the way. Didn't speed up as I have in the second half of some other Wednesdays - felt like I was tailing off a bit, as was the case yesterday - but still OK. Got outsprinted by someone at the end.

There's got to be something auspicious about the fact that Rachel Johnson did 8.88km on the leap year day.

8x400 on 2.5 minute cycle at the Clifton Hill track. Got a good start, perhaps a product of being awake for a bit longer than I normally am before this session, and ended up as the "fastest" I've done this session in the last year, although didn't quite get into the 70s. Started to go a bit lactic in the last couple and tailed off a little time-wise, although it had started to rain again by then. (The heavy overnight rain didn't have much impact on the track with only a couple of easily missable puddles). I also did a fast speed session the Tuesday after coming home from Europe last time - hopefully the parallels don't continue because on that occasion the Wednesday night street-O was a shocker (although tomorrow will be much cooler than that was).

This is the first time I've tried to run fast since the calf trouble last week - no sign of any issues.

Jog to/from the track.

It's remarkable how many clothes you generate to wash when running and cycling in the wet - assisted by taking spares to handle engagements during the day (in today's case, riding up to Moonee Ponds at lunchtime because NAB had inconveniently sent my new credit card there).

Rain is a bit of a novelty for me - if you want to start a drought there then the best way to do it is to send me to Geneva. In four visits covering about 3 months, I've experienced less than 5 millimetres of rain (although about 40 millimetres of precipitation thanks to the big snow dump in December 2010). This time round there were only a few snow flurries (amounting to 0.4mm) in three weeks. Will be awaiting rain developments in Canberra and surrounds over the next couple of days with interest.

Not at all surprised to wake up before the alarm.

Headed out in the morning because I had two meetings tonight (as it turned out the first of them failed to reach quorum and was all over in 25 minutes), running first and swimming after. Held the start of this for a few minutes until the first downpour of the morning passed through, then set off in humid but decent conditions through Yarra Bend. Felt pretty good on this run although pace nothing special.

Swimming really isn't that exciting.

There were moments during this swim what it was almost as wet out of the pool as it was in it.

C • Jaded much? 1

This was always going to be a bit of a challenge. I've done 2+ hour runs before coming off the plane when returning on a Sunday morning, but definitely not with this sort of temperature contrast, and was happy to settle for something like one hour today. Also thought about delaying it to later in the day to give myself more time to rehydrate from the flight, but in the end decided that (slightly) cooler weather and still being reasonably awake was worth giving it a go in the morning.

It wasn't the most pleasant of runs, but I got through it, which was the main thing. A reasonable pace in the first half - not having ice to contend with has its advantages - but understandably tailed off in the second half. A bit of high cloud in the last 20 minutes helped. I've got two weeks to regain heat tolerance before the NOL races. (This morning's conditions, 28/16, is pretty much what I would expect for the long day of Easter).

Something I noticed on the Yarra Flats is that a lot of dead trees seem to have fallen into the river - perhaps a legacy of the various floods of the last 18 months? The northeast wind would have been enough to potentially topple wobbly trees, but that's about the only way in which Melbourne northeasterlies resemble Geneva northeasterlies.

Next challenge will be to stay awake to a reasonable hour. I'm managing so far, but it's only noon...

Event: BendiGo ToDay
 

In transit. Everything went smoothly (and my luggage didn't even manage to get mislaid this time).

Backed off a little bit on what I'd originally planned for today after pulling up a little tight yesterday, but it ended up OK. Took the first proper opportunity to go along the lake - still extensive areas of ice in splash zones, but they've retreated enough to be able to go around them. After leaving the lake shore there was a scenically-unpleasant 15 minutes to be endured along a main road with major roadworks complicating things, but that set up a nice section on deserted lanes through the hills behind the lake, before coming back into the city for the last 20 minutes. A moderate run but still a reasonably solid one to get under my belt.

The record of every run here being done in a temperature below freezing was not broken, but it's warmed up during the day to the point of reaching double figures (still some way short of the 18.7 in Birmingham yesterday, a degree short of the British record for February).

I start the long haul home in a few hours. After being a regular visitor here in the last year and a bit it feels a bit odd that I won't be back in the near future (for work at least - I might find myself passing through around the time of WOC). The position rotates around the regions every two years but I'm not sure what I'll be doing when Oceania's turn next comes up, in 2022.

C • Hobart 5

Felt up to hitting the streets again this morning. Very slow to start with, but eventually settled down after the first 15 minutes or so. The first half took me through Onex, the sort of district of widely-spaced tower blocks that seems to work here (and in Scandinavia) but turns into a ghetto in Paris or London or Melbourne, then I dropped down to the stream-side track that was a regular haunt of mine in November but has only become ice-free enough to run in the last day or two this time.

The calf was basically fine on the run except for a little bit of a twinge on the one steep downhill, but pulled up a little tight later in the day - a day that was largely spent sitting down, with two major reports (one here, one back home) finalised and submitted - definitely a big day on that front.

-4 didn't feel in the least bit cold, which is a bit of a worry in the context of trying to handle something close to 40 degrees warmer on Sunday.

And I seem to have misplaced my coat. I won't need one again myself any time soon, so hopefully it ends up in the hands of someone who needs it.

Calf improved today but thought I'd give it one more day, so instead headed for the water, at the pool near where I'm staying rather than the one near work (which is closed this week) - its 7.30 opening time provides just enough time to be able to get to work at a reasonable hour.

This pool doesn't have lanes so staying out of the way of other people wasn't always easy (on the positive side it meant I didn't have to remember to swim on the right rather than the left). Swim went OK, if slowly, but foot cramps surfaced a couple of times. Also, oddly enough, my Achilles is worse (walking) after a couple of days of not running than it has been with lots of running.

Something to occupy my mind while in the pool was thinking of possible plan Bs for getting home after hearing of a strike by ground controllers at Frankfurt Airport (by the afternoon the strike had been called off). I would have had my mind occupied somewhat more had I heard of a Washington press conference which was taking place as I stepped out the door. For the moment I'll settle for the government holding together (under whoever) for long enough to get through the queue of things awaiting the Senate, and from a more selfish point of view, for me to have moved into the less politically fraught area of rainfall, as is likely to happen later in the year.

Left calf feeling much the same, or a bit worse, today on waking up than it did yesterday. As mentioned yesterday I can run with this if I need to, but will give it a bit of rest to try to get it right as quickly as I can.

Felt some tightness in my left calf yesterday - seemed to tweak something in the last few minutes yesterday - and it was more evident this morning. It's at a level where I can run on it, but not entirely smoothly, and I'll be hesitant to run hard on it as it stands, but it also feels like something which shouldn't hang around for long.

Otherwise a fairly standard Monday run. The snow and ice are almost gone from the city but are still around in places in parks and on the riverside paths, which continues to slow things down a bit. (The soil is still frozen and pretty rough underfoot too, although it will probably turn to mud once it thaws). Didn't seem to be a lot of drivers paying attention to pedestrian crossings today.

The local headlines were about the successes of Geneva's sporting teams on the weekend - both the ice hockey and football teams won. The ice hockey team are two points outside the possible relegation zone with two games left, the footballers are in mid-table, although Swiss football this year is turning into a bit of a last-team-standing affair - of the 10 teams which started this season, Sion are on minus 4 points after being docked a lot of points for transfer irregularities, while Neuchatel have stopped playing (although they're still listed in the table) after their Chechen oligarch/warlord owner got locked up for something or other (I was thinking 'probably tax fraud', and then realised that it's quite difficult to get yourself locked up for tax fraud in this part of the world).

When choosing Interlaken as a base for the weekend I was guided partly by hoping to find somewhere below the snowline for the Sunday run, but that wasn't to be the case. There would be some excellent runs from here in the warmer months (or in less cold winter months for that matter), but the conditions made them a non-starter. (In particular the path up the valley to Lauterbrunnen, which forms the early stages of the Jungfrau Marathon, was under heavy snow, and the road was out of the question given the ski traffic).

Started out along the tracks towards the Brienzersee but these became increasingly icy and then were blocked altogether by forestry work, so I bailed out to the road on the north side of the lake. This turned out to be pretty good with a decent (and almost ice-free) footpath and almost no traffic at 7-something on a Sunday morning. Kept going until the footpath ran out and then turned around, which left about 40 minutes to be added once back in Interlaken, something done by heading out on the south side of the lake this time. Ran again into difficult ice for a section towards the end - there hasn't been much new snow for three weeks so what's there has been heavily compressed anywhere that gets any foot traffic.

As for the run, this was one of the better ones I've had since I've been here - no real muscle stiffness after yesterday - flowing pretty well when the going underfoot would allow me to do so, no real issues with the heel, and finishing off better than I have on the last couple of long runs.

Quite an interesting morning meteorologically - Interlaken was right on the rain/snow boundary and going up or down 20 metres was often enough to make the difference between light rain and wet snow, although nothing was accumulating. The snow was to be more annoying looking around Lucerne later in the day (although some of the costumes in sight were as interesting as the old town - Lucerne takes Carnival seriously, although the real action is tomorrow and Tuesday).

One oddity I saw in the hotel in Interlaken was the fire procedure - the designated assembly point was the petrol station just down the road. I don't know about you but a petrol station isn't the place I'd choose to hang out if there was a fire anywhere in the vicinity. (I'm guessing there is at least one fire in the hotel's history, as it claims a history going back to the 15th century but the building certainly isn't that old).

And spotted in Lucerne: a sign in the window of a souvenir shop which advised that the tourist tax refund scheme doesn't apply to chocolate. To qualify for the scheme the goods exported have to be worth at least 300 francs, which would be an awful lot of money to spend on chocolate even if it was included in the scheme (especially as chocolate is one of the few things that is relatively cheap in Switzerland).

Skiing in the Jungfrau region, on the north side of the Grindelwald valley in the morning then moving across to the Kleine Scheidegg ridge in the afternoon, finishing up in Wengen. It would be hard to imagine a better day for skiing than this - heaps of snow (the latest top-up two days ago), sunny, no wind, and not particularly cold (about 0) but not warm enough to start generating slush. The only drawback was that a fairly substantial part of the Swiss population had also noticed that it was a good day to ski, but even then it didn't feel anywhere near as crowded as it did last year (probably because where I was last year the conditions were very ordinary and everyone was cramming onto the handful of runs with vaguely reasonable snow).

The highlights were two top-to-bottom runs into the Grindelwald valley, one from each side, on either side of lunch, both with well over 1000 metres of vertical - you definitely won't find that at Hotham or Thredbo. (Something else you won't find at Hotham or Thredbo is three-quarter-buried farmhouses or the fragrance that comes from lots of cows in close proximity, although the Victorian government is doing its best to address the latter).

Also managed to avoid any crashes this time (but then I wasn't pushing the limit of my capabilities as hard as I was last time). Quads a bit sore at times early but better in the afternoon; will be interesting to see how I come up tomorrow.

Something lost in the translation department: on sale in Grindelwald was an anti-fog treatment for goggles, by the name of "Cat Crap". I think 'crap' means something (other than what it means in English) in the Romansch language spoken in the southeast mountains of Switzerland.

C • cat crap 2

It's a bit unusual for me to be backing up from a Thursday with another run (something done because the plan is to spend tomorrow on the ski slopes). Didn't expect a lot but didn't feel too bad on the whole - one point of worry when heel became pretty sore about 15 minutes in but that disappeared as quickly as it started. Ice again an issue today, on what was a crystal-clear frosty morning (a slightly colder version of Canberra in July; a sunny +6 at lunchtime feels warm now, which makes me hope for something not too hot on my return); not as treacherous as yesterday though.

A run which will definitely be remembered for its conditions - some of the most challenging ground conditions I've encountered on a run, as yesterday's limited melting refroze in places overnight, resulting in widespread black ice. Once it became obvious that it really was widespread I thought I'd put my microclimatic knowledge to good use and headed for higher ground and more urbanised areas, but the conditions were so marginal for ice (the airport hovered between -0.5 and +0.5 all night) that it was almost impossible to pick where it would and wouldn't form - often the ground would be covered with ice in one place but 50 metres away in a not-obviously-different location there was nothing. I did manage to stay upright for the full distance, not something which was a given, but it was understandably pretty slow going - becoming a bit easier once it got light after 45 minutes or so, and I could make a reasonable attempt at seeing what I was dealing with.

The original plan was to head along the lake for a while but that was too icy to be feasible, so instead much of this run was on the ridge east of the lake, coming back along a creekside path (where the old, crusty snow in places was almost a relief). Plugged away for most of the way; left heel became quite sore in the last 15 minutes.

This time I really was able to ditch the thermals (didn't get as far as ditching the gloves, but probably could have). Nothing special in the early stages but became quite nice in the second half. Heel warmed up better than I thought it was going to, which is encouraging.

Once again referendum time is coming up in Switzerland and the posters are out in force. Among the issues that the Genevois will be dealing with when they front up to their neighbourhood local de vote on 11 March are a proposal to increase minimum annual leave from four weeks to six (supported by the unions, opposed by business and trailing in the polls - it seems that racial populism plays well here but economic populism doesn't), one to introduce school on Wednesday mornings (I'm guessing the results of this one would be different if the voting age were 8 instead of 18), a stop-the-world-I-want-to-get-off proposal to reintroduce regulated retail prices for books, and a law to deal with demonstrations which seems to be attracting radically different interpretations from the 'yes' and 'no' campaigns. (This particular poster display spot was next to a monument I'd been wondering about, to 'the victims of 9 November 1932' - some googling revealed that this was the date when the police shot up a socialist/communist demonstration, probably the last time something so dramatic happened on the political scene in Switzerland).

And, since no-one's ventured to guess who it was who won Easter by 20 minutes while winning one split in three days, it was Simon Uppill in M16 in 2002.

Was planning to replicate last Wednesday night's session but couldn't match it exactly, thanks to the builders who have descended on the riverside bike path since yesterday (and detoured cyclists through a mudbath, just in case you thought Swiss builders were more considerate towards cyclists than their Australian counterparts). With some minor tweaking it still ended up pretty similar, three lots of about 1400 metres with a couple of minutes recovery in between. The first one was a bit awkward because of working out what I was going to do (and staying out of the way of a dog which had a stick about 1.5 metres long in its mouth and was waving it around unpredictably), but flowing quite nicely for the second and third.

Warm up and down from the intervals session.

10x1 minute on the bike path again - next week the track should be clear. (It occurs to me I've never seen a proper thaw take place - apart from Canberra snowfalls that are gone within a few hours, at every place I've been to with snow on the ground it's still been there when I left).

So, yesterday wasn't the last really cold run: -8 again this morning, but with no wind that's reasonably comfortable. Took me a long time to get going, though; it wasn't until the last couple of reps that I felt as if I was moving reasonably well.

Update on annoying niggles and sore spots: shoulder and backside still a bit sore on waking up but no problem running, cracked foot soles ditto, heel a bit more of a worry but not beyond the niggle stage at this stage.

Back in Geneva. The northeast wind that's been a constant companion since I arrived was still there last night, but had died away by the morning and probably won't be seen again (at least in the next week). This will most likely be the last seriously cold run; I've also concluded that Oslo snow is much nicer to run than Geneva snow, probably because there's more of it so it doesn't compact to ice quite as readily.

I'd got back pretty late after a late flight from Oslo and hadn't slept that well. The run didn't feel too bad (although climbing was a drag), but nothing to get really excited about either.

Pretty sore in various places through the later part of yesterday after my arse-plant efforts on yesterday's run, but felt better this morning (and the most significantly sore item at rest, the shoulder, was a non-issue running).

Started out with Jim and a clubmate repeating the climb of the local hill from yesterday, but this time via a steeper and shorter route. (I was wondering why I was struggling to get traction in a couple of spots where the others were doing it easily, and then learned they had studs on, which Jim didn't yesterday). Also lacked a bit of confidence descending but a fun first half-hour. After that I peeled off for a big loop around the base of the Kolsas hill. This had some very nice stretches - ten minutes or so on gently downhill snow-covered forest tracks was a particular highlight. Not always at my best on some of the longer climbs in the second half but a reasonably solid day's work, before returning to soup and waffles (and cake for Norweigan Mother's Day) - there are worse ways to refuel after long runs.

Warmest day since I've been in Europe on the higher ground (not far below 0), although it still felt like it was close to -10 in the more sheltered valleys. Felt a bit overdressed in the warmer areas of the run but there was a certain amount of when-in-Rome-do-as-the-Romans-do there. (I'm guessing that the Norwegians are coping with current conditions better than the Romans are, not that Norwegian temperatures have been that far below normal anyway).

I'm not having a brilliant run with flights at the moment: last time I didn't make a connection, this time it was my luggage which didn't (although this was totally expected as the connection in Zurich shrank from an hour to 15 minutes - should have done what I did last year and got the train to Zurich to pick up the flight instead).

I wasn't particularly adventurous in my exploration last time I was here in July because the Achilles was having a bad week and I was trying to avoid hills as best I could, but made up for it today, starting out with the narrow track that I thought was the way you skied out of the area until Jim started running down it. The snowy tracks in the forest up to the top of the hill were certainly not fast to run on and were occasionally a bit hairy, but still a good exploration experience. It wasn't until we came back into the suburbs that I came to grief (it's surprising that it's taken a week for it to happen); didn't manage to bang myself up quite as spectacularly as Cassie (who's recovering reasonably well), but still have a pretty sore shoulder to show for it. Finished with a fairly solid climb, which had the positive spin-off of knowing which way to walk home later in the day when I'd done my shopping (presents for a recently-happened 1st and a soon-to-happen 35th) and Mum and Cassie were still going to be another '30 minutes' (which unsurprisingly proved to be a bit longer than that).

Ranged from -7 up high to perhaps -13 in the valley, but with no wind this felt a lot less cold than most of the Geneva runs have.

Lunchtime swim, having braved the latest instalment of the high winds to get there. I can't say I'll miss this pool (and it will be my last visit there for the foreseeable future - they're closed for maintenance the next two weeks), although today was more civilised than usual - less crowded, and most of the people in the slow lane were actually slow (in Australian pools it tends to be the opposite problem). Seemed to go quicker than swimming sessions normally do.

Out a little earlier than I would otherwise have chosen because of an earlyish media engagement, but my main concern about this, the darkness, was quickly allayed - I had forgotten just how well the semi-distant light of a city reflects off a snow-covered surface. Headed out west along the Bernex ridge, feeling reasonable through the first half-hour before getting a bit more adventurous on snow-covered farm tracks in the not-really-dark. At the hour mark I thought it was going to be a good one, but the second half ended up turning into a bit of a slog. Left heel a bit sore and it feels a bit different to the usual Achilles trouble; will need watching.

The temperature soared to the dizzy heights of -2 this afternoon, but we're back in the bitter cold and high winds tomorrow. Oslo will seem warm.

The aforementioned media engagement was with Eurovision (known in Australia only for their song contest, but in reality a consortium of European broadcasters who pool news material too). The WMO media person who came with me has done some interesting journalism work in various places, and was telling me of one episode she covered a few years ago. There was a G8 summit in Evian (on the French part of the Lake Geneva shore) but the French police wouldn't allow anyone anywhere near the place so the usual suspects decided to have their riot in a small town just across the Swiss border instead (as you do). One of the premises in this town was a private bank which concluded, probably correctly, that the sort of people who turn up to riot at G8 meetings wouldn't be too well-disposed towards private banks either, so they stuck a few toys in the window and put up a sign declaring themselves to be a creche. It sounds about as convincing as the "Baby Milk Factory" signs which appeared during the first Gulf War outside every building that the Americans had just bombed, but it worked.

(A few years later, when the Americans decided to respond to a terrorist attack in Kenya masterminded by an Afghanistan-based Saudi by bombing Sudan, they did manage to mistake a pharmaceuticals factory for a military facility).

Something discovered today which I thought was a bit quirky: January 2012 was the fourth-warmest on record for the US as a whole but was no more than fourth-warmest in any individual state, which strikes me as being the climatic equivalent of winning their class at Easter by 20 minutes whilst winning one split in three days. (Someone who went on to bigger and better things has actually done this - guesses as to their identity are welcome).

As suggested a few days ago the track was unrunnable (for anything fast anyway) so I settled for a set of 10x1 minutes, using the bike path next to the Arve river as the best available stretch which met the criteria of being (a) long enough to run fast for a minute (b) free of traffic and (c) essentially free of ice. Predictably fairly slow in the first couple of reps but better as it went on. Much less windy today (although almost as cold). No trace of yesterday's calf twinge.

Warm-up/down from the intervals session; continuing to take a while to warm up in these conditions.

Saw a piece from someone yesterday who, drawing a rather stretched analogy, liked trends in the frequency of extreme climate events to the performances of an athlete taking drugs (it made more sense if you read the full piece). This prompted me to think that the sort of arguments as to why climate change doesn't exist which can be found repeated ad nauseum at places like Andrew Bolt's blog can be thought of as being about as credible as the "explanations" of various sportspeople as to how they came to have banned substances in their sample. (While Alberto Contador's doped-up Spanish cows is one of the better ones, my personal favourite is Dennis Mitchell, who attributed his positive test for testosterone to the fact that he'd drunk six beers and had sex with his wife four times on the night before the test - although you'd have to wonder about cause and effect here).

C • You missed the punchline 1

Tried my luck again with the session I was planning to do last night, in more favourable conditions and with a more favourable lead-in (i.e. the public transport system actually did what it was supposed to for the first time this week) - three sets of 1.5k at something like street-O pace with a bit of a jog in between. Used the same riverbank as this morning, which is fairly unoriginal but it's the best ice-free footing going. In a sense it was not too different to what I normally do on a Wednesday night, except that it was 40 degrees colder than my last street-O outing and there was no navigation involved. Settled in pretty nicely once the inevitable initial slowness was out of the way and a decent session on the whole.

The day's prize for self-incrimination (from the Guardian):

"Sunderland fan Peter Copeland, 29, has pleaded guilty to posting racist tweets in an argument with a Newcastle fan. "His comment upon arrest was: 'All this because I called Demba Ba a black bastard?'" said prosecutor Peter Anderson."

C • Presumably 2

As promised the wind got up during the night and was gale force near the lake, which was a good reason not to go anywhere near the lake on the run - later in the day the WMO building provided a good view of the surf, and I'm told there's some spectacular icing on the shores where the waves have been breaking, which I'll go and have a look at one lunchtime once the wind's dropped a bit. (There was a picture on the news of a car whose owner made the mistake of parking it near the lake in a splash zone before the winds got going on Saturday - it's now completely covered in ice and also stuck in ice up to its axles).

Even away from the lake the conditions were somewhat daunting, but I told myself that I'd coped with worse in Winnipeg on Christmas morning 1989 (just as windy and -18 instead of -11), and in reality it wasn't too bad in the suburbs. Started with the wind, had some heavy crosswind at times later until I got into the shelter of the lee side of the Rolex factory (not to be confused with the "Rolex" factories to be found in sundry Chinese back streets), and braced myself for a tough slog into the wind but was at the right angle to miss the worst of it. Felt like a fairly smooth run but still rather slow, given that there was no appreciable snow/ice running on this one.

The density of ice floes coming down the river Arve is getting higher each day, and I wonder how far away it is from freezing over altogether.

Like a 43-degree day in Melbourne, today was a day to endure when you needed to be outside and to hope that enough of the city's infrastructure would hold together for long enough to be able to do what you planned to do, more or less. For the second day in a row the failings of the Geneva tram system - which isn't coping too well with the conditions - left me walking a substantial part of the way home (and thinking of the old British joke about how Virgin Trains got their name because they never went all the way).

I got a few twinges in my right calf walking back from the UN building where I'd gone to do a BBC World Service interview. (The BBC World Service radio was my main link to the English-speaking world on numerous late 1980s/1990s trips, so this had more thrill to it than the average interview). The plan tonight was to do a tempo run of sorts, but I wasn't really that enthusiastic, and when I got another twinge a couple of minutes in I didn't need much of an excuse to try my luck again in (hopefully) better conditions tomorrow. I'm hoping it's just a short-term reaction to the cold weather and not a sign of something more substantial.

I'm starting to wonder a bit about the 'hood. Last night I had an encounter with a couple of people I presumed to be pickpockets (I worked out pretty quickly that they were probably up to no good, and there was nothing in the pocket they groped anyway), and today I noticed that Crime Converters have set up business nearby - although to be fair they can also be found in Burgundy Street in Heidelberg.

And one side-effect of the cold weather: Occupy Geneva have packed up and gone home, and so have the Iranians who've been camped outside the UN for about the last 10 months.

Didn't feel too bad by post-long-run Monday standards - no obvious signs of stiffness, but pretty slow (and I don't think I can hold the footing totally responsible for this). Managed to get the run out of the way before the winds got up too much - minus 11 is not unpleasant when there's no wind but quickly becomes unpleasant when there is.

I was, however, to get another opportunity to discover windchill; Geneva's public transport authorities didn't appear to be any better at coping with extreme weather events than their Melbourne counterparts and I ended up walking the first 30 minutes back from work in search of a tram line which was functioning (in the process passing plenty of going-nowhere-fast cars in traffic which was gridlocked even by usual local peak-hour standards). At least it was a tail wind.

As expected it was colder but more pleasant this morning: -11 but with much lighter winds than yesterday. (What wasn't expected was a bit of snow at times, probably lake-effect given that it wasn't moving much, and falling most heavily on the first low hill downwind of the lake).

I'll probably be spending a bit more time near main roads than I'd ordinarily like over the next week or so, those being the areas which are most clear of snow, but on a Sunday morning the first half-hour north-west, past the end of the airport and a certain well-known Swedish business, was pretty quiet. The next stage was on smaller roads out as far as CERN, wondering a bit about the wizardry that was going on underneath, before dropping back down to the Rhone (the backwaters of which are starting to freeze in a fairly significant way), mostly on bike paths. The climb out of there was more challenging as it featured some stretches of deeper snow, and across the top new snow was starting to fall quite heavily, although without much accumulation as yet (I was impressed that the ploughs were already out).

For the first two hours it had been a perfectly routine run, but, not for the first time this season, I found the last half-hour of a long run pretty tough going - certainly happy that it featured no substantial climbs. Also a bit of foot soreness towards the end (which turned out to be nothing more significant than cracked skin), but managed to get 2.30 under my belt, which I guess isn't too bad for my first full day in Europe.

#firstworldproblems department - someone's started a discussion thread on Nopesport about the difficulties of their Porsche bottoming out in event parking fields. I'm expecting some entertaining replies.

And the Swiss transport system doesn't always cope with one-in-20-years weather events any better than ours does - frozen points caused extensive delays on the Geneva-Lausanne line over the weekend.

Most of the trip went very smoothly (with the help of some of Dad's mountain of frequent-flyer points which meant I had my first experience of life up in the top of a 747), but it came unstuck at Frankfurt. A 45-minute immigration queue meant that I missed my connection there, which shouldn't have been too much of a drama - except that it was almost impossible to find someone who might be interested in transferring me to a later flight (mostly because Lufthansa, with whom I was flying on the Frankfurt-Geneva leg, have automated their systems to the point where you generally can't get to a counter without having a boarding pass, but the machines wouldn't give me a boarding pass because I was too late). Once I finally found someone to talk to they told me I had to go to Qantas to rebook (since it was booked as a Qantas ticket). I hauled myself back to the other terminal to find, to my complete lack of surprise, that there was no Qantas counter open (since their flights out of Frankfurt are in the evenings). It was seriously tempting to try to find some way of getting my luggage out of the system and get the train to Geneva instead, but in the end I did manage to find someone at Lufthansa who was actually interested in being helpful, and ended up on the next flight 2 1/2 hours later. (Somewhat ironically, if there hadn't been so much mucking around associated with it, missing the connection wasn't such a bad thing - I was going to have to kill a few hours somewhere because I wasn't going to be able to check in until 1, and Frankfurt Airport is warmer than places I might have ended up in Geneva).

The conditions at Geneva weren't as scary as the numbers suggested. The most recent forecast I'd seen was -12 with 80 km/h winds and I was half-expecting to see full-on blizzard conditions with blowing and drifting snow. It turned out to be a bit warmer than that (-7 by mid-afternoon, although this still makes it their coldest day since 1987), and the city is less exposed than the airport - definitely not a day for running along the lake, though...

Once out, it took me a long time to get going, as expected - although the Achilles, which had been horrible getting off planes, was OK on the run. Quite pleasant out of the wind, sometimes hard work into it but this rarely happened for more than a few minutes at a time. Most streets and paths in the inner suburbs are cleared but there's a fair bit of snow and ice elsewhere, and it's the sort of crusty, drfiting snow where it's difficult to judge what's good for running on and what isn't. (It certainly won't be any easier in the dark during the week). Biggest issue of the run was that of one's internal functions still being on the wrong time zone, but that only emerged in the last 10 minutes saving me from the challenging task of trying to find a public toilet (these are few and far between).

At one point I thought I saw a car in trouble sliding around on an ice-covered car park, but it turned out to be one of the local hoons and the sliding was intentional.

I'm still planning to go long tomorrow; it looks like being slightly colder but less windy. Might have some trouble finding somewhere to do speedwork, though - two lanes of the track have been cleared, but are still icy and useless for running fast.

C • Hope you have a nice warm hat? 2

Originally had thoughts of going to the Coogee oceanside (tidal) baths but a wet day at high tide with heavy surf wasn't exactly ideal conditions for that (I'm not sure whether it would even have been open), so bailed out to the UNSW indoor pool instead. This took some finding after getting caught on the wrong side of a construction site: OK once I made it there, although nothing special.

After a couple of reasonable weeks, the Achilles was a bit sore today. As I know from hobbling through numerous airports in the last couple of years, it doesn't like sitting down for long periods, something I'll be doing for a while as of late this afternoon.

Tomorrow's mountain forecast for western Switzerland: northeast winds of 95 km/h and -22 degrees - anyone for skiing? Geneva (now going for -11 with fresh NE winds, the one direction Geneva isn't sheltered from) will be challenging enough.

Things I never thought I'd see: a taxi driver (in Sydney, of all places) who was rabidly in favour of stronger action on climate change and thinks we should be doing more to speak out against the Alan Joneses of this world.

Not easy to drag myself out of bed at 5.20 after getting into it at midnight but having someone else to meet was an incentive not to let the timetable slip. As with yesterday, joined Andy at the bottom of the Coogee hill, but this time turned south rather than north. This is flatter initially but later got adventurous, including one section where the coastal 'walk' drops onto the coastal rock shelves. On a reasonably rugged day, we eventually decided that it wouldn't be a particularly good look for a climate scientist and an oceangrapher to be washed off the rocks and bailed out back to the road before going on as far as Maroubra. (There was a bit of history repeating itself here - the last time this conference was in Sydney, in 1997, I also had to turn back on a planned running route, although on that occasion the reason was flooding and my companions were Ecmo and Jock).

This is as far as you can go along the coast - a military rifle range gets in the way. (Some might be unkind enough to suggest that on certain occasions the back streets of Maroubra might also constitute a rifle range, but no sign of that today). We turned back at this point. Andy finished up back at Coogee but I kept going, as far as Tamarama before climbing out through the suburbs and getting beyond the two-hour part.

Not an unpleasant run but once again lacking some energy on the hills, which felt very slow (although the stairs and the section of rock scrambling also account for some of the slowness). Did wake up eventually.

Down to Coogee to meet the Hoggster and a companion and then north along the coastline as far as Tamarama; a run which had a fair bit in common with last Thursday in Adelaide, although the stairs were a bit more spread out - not too much flat running to be had in these parts. Felt OK but lacking a bit of strength on the climbs, especially the stair climbing. Nicest running conditions for a while, though, with cool southeast winds and occasional light rain.

It was a bit earlier than I'd planned on (I'd worked backwards from conference starting time without realising that Andy, staying at Coogee, had 20 minutes' more walking to get there than I did), but that's no bad thing as the room I'm in would be impossible to sleep in much past 5.30 anyway (traffic noise).

Squeezed a short session in before the conference dinner. Andy reckons there are only two runs in this area (north along the coast or south along the coast), and from Coogee he's probably right, but from the top of the hill in Randwick Centennial Park is also an option, and that's where I went. A not-overly-inspiring run early but started to come good in the last 10 minutes.

I was last in Centennial Park (along with a fair number of other orienteers) for the 2000 Olympics (mostly the road cycling but also some of the marathon). On that occasion, many of us travelled to and from the event on bikes (in my case I was doing all my training on the bike at the time because of a stress fracture), and with several hundred bikes heading down Oxford Street posy-event, someone asked us 'is there a Critical Mass rally going on'?