Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Hills have not been especially kind to me of late, but it would be hard to find a flatter route than the one I took this morning - exploring the Mitchell River silt jetties (8km long silt banks where the river runs into the Gippsland Lakes), which are apparently the second longest in the world after the Mississippi's. There's a dirt road out along the south bank so did an out and back along that (feeling a bit out of place because I didn't have a boat or a fishing rod).

Felt a bit creaky at times and it always seemed like hard work, but reasonably happy with the output. Significantly less slow than most of my training runs this year, sitting around 5.30s for most of it (this often seems to happen on rural roads, which may or may not indicate not getting full value from the GPS in the city?).

Spent much of the rest of the day exploring. Paynesville, where I'd originally planned to stay but couldn't find anything affordable (turned out there was a classic boat festival in town), is pretty suburban, but Raymond Island, just across the water, was worth going to, not least for its koala population (I think the last time I saw one in the wild was when doing WMOC 2002 preparations at Glenluce). Also went through a corner of the fire area northeast of Bairnsdale, where there's already a fair bit of new growth (mostly bracken); most of the houses near the road seem to have survived.

Dinner at the Metung pub, which must have one of the best views of any such establishment in the state.

C • Koala 2

At Fitzroy. Nothing much to say about this session, really.

Heading to Gippsland for the weekend (for no particular reason other than that it seemed a good idea, and it's the last orienteering-free weekend for a while). So far so good, once I was through the how-do-people-do-this-every-day freeway traffic out of the city.

C • How do people do this every day? 2

Uncertain start, but some stretching at a traffic stop a few minutes in was enough to get things going, and while I was never exactly flowing it was a distinct improvement from my last few runs (or attempts thereof). A morning with a definite first-day-of-autumn sense about it.

Perhaps it was as well for my mood in this run that I didn't know until after it happened that an MP had got stuck into my work (not naming names, which is a small mercy) under parliamentary privilege yesterday. Said MP, and definitely a lot of the people who inhabit his Facebook page, would probably do well to take note of Pope Francis, who has called on people to give up social media trolling for Lent. (Personally, I would have thought that social media trolling was a sin at any time of year, but renouncing it for 40 days is a start).

C • Social media 5

A day riddled with minor annoyances, starting with things going slightly pear-shaped with my plan to drive over in the morning to near tonight's venue at Scotch - first the garage door opener stopped working and, by the time I gave up on trying to get it working (something I was able to do in a few minutes this evening once I'd actually downloaded and read the instructions) and opened it manually, I'd lost enough time to put myself into the worst of the traffic (and you really don't want to be driving anywhere near Melbourne's private school belt at anything resembling drop-off time).

The minor annoyances continued into the evening, with a cancelled train, a crush load on the next one, and then the first time for a while that a Wednesday night has been a lost cause inside the first couple of minutes, although I continued for a few more before convincing myself it wasn't going to get any better. (Possibly standing in an awkward position on the train may have contributed to this). This was particularly annoying because I'd identified what I think was a really good (and non-obvious) route on a map where the good routes are often non-obvious.

I did, however, manage to successfully negotiate the Scotch car park without getting squashed, and managed to restrain myself from making any comments to the person in the next parking spot who was (a) parked well over the line and (b) idling their engine continuously for the whole time I was there. (It was also a very productive day at work in between these misadventures).

Felt rather strange on attempting to run so switched to the pool. That wasn't super-energetic either, but at least got through it without too much drama.

Noticed in the course of looking for Easter accommodation at Orange that there's a house on AirBNB for which the owners somewhat optimistically want $31,000 (and a companion property which is a steal at $20,000). I would speculate that they don't actually want to rent the places out but are pretending they do for tax reasons.

First proper session with the new program. Seemed easier the second time round, as I thought it might.

Headed out after the Pilates session. Not great by any stretch of the imagination, and the small bumps in and out of the creek (or back up through Clifton Hill) seemed like mountains, but probably an improvement on the last couple of runs. Even started to feel reasonably good after a traffic stop, but by then there were only a few minutes to go.

Felt a bit tired on the ride in, but at least I was tired because I'd done a reasonable amount (at least by recent standards, if not the standards of a past life).

Plan A was to get out early in the morning before going out to check matters sprint-related. Plan A was a fairly immediate failure, plan B (try again in the afternoon) was a bit closer to success but still not quite there, so plan C was to get on the bike instead, for the Yarra Boulevard session. Didn't feel crash-hot early on the bike either (quad was uncomfortable on the climbs), but was going at a reasonable pace (by my standards) and improved as it went on. Reasonably hot (low 30s) which is a bit easier to handle on a bike than running, too.

The sprint has the perennial headache of construction sites which may or may not stay stable, but is otherwise looking good. Paid close attention to the minimum size of mapped features, something which has not been the subject of any controversy at any event in which I've been involved in the recent past.

Fairly similar to yesterday - felt pretty tight when I woke up, managed to get running, but never really got flowing on the run. Probably didn't feel quite as fatigued as I did yesterday but body still threw a wobbly as soon as it hit a climb of any size. Nice morning to be out.

Spent some of the rest of the day at the OV strategy day, a reasonably worthwhile discussion even if there wasn't much specific decided. One interesting insight came from a round-the-table at the start where we each said how we started orienteering - almost everyone was introduced to it by someone they knew (either family or friend).

Given how tight my back was when I got up I wasn't confident of being able to do anything, but walking a few minutes was enough to get it loose enough to function, so getting something on the board was a bonus. The run itself, though, could best be described as marginally functioning - really struggling for fitness at the moment even when injuries aren't getting in the way, which isn't surprising given the training I haven't been doing.

Getting set up for a new program. Seems like harder work than the old program, but I guess it always does the first time.

At Fitzroy - in the evening which is somewhat unusual (definitely not hot-day crowds today in what's become a rather cool February). Never really felt as if I was getting going.

My historical wanderings today took me to January 1941 floods in South Australia. There was a certain amount of distraction on offer from accounts of Adelaide's petty offenders - no offence was too petty for the Advertiser, which is how I know that one Harold Frederick Brown of King William Street was fined five shillings for "exceeding parking time limit". (It wasn't as if there was a shortage of news, either - the Allies had just taken Tobruk, something which attracted a certain amount of gloating from the headline-writers). I did, however, enjoy the account heard by the Port Adelaide Magistrates' Court of a high-speed bicycle chase:

"Constable Ryan said he chased Parsons "at racing pace" until the chain came off Parsons' bicycle. Then defendant ran 25 yards into a vacant block, threw the bicycle down, and hid behind a bush another 25 yards away before Ryan found him".

He was fined 15 shillings for riding without lights, and another 15 for failing to stop when directed. I also feel sorry for the partner of the woman who, given a bond for obtaining goods under false pretences, was ordered to "abstain from entering any shops in the city for 12 months, unless accompanied by her husband".

Naturally there was some non-farsighted punditry, the highlight being a column by the Asian correspondent of Australian Associated Press, who published a column opining that the Japanese really wanted to be friends and, being bogged down as they were in China, definitely wouldn't be interested in starting any more wars.

And people were still complaining about the trains...

C • Cool 1

Another attempt at street-O, much as the last few weeks, although I didn't walk quite as many hills as last time (but perhaps didn't feel as free running on the non-hills either). Thought I'd made a reasonable job of the route - the fiddly nature of the streets on the north side of the Koonung pedestrian bridge was familiar to me from the tail end of plenty of long runs in Heidelberg days - but others did better. Decent running conditions at least.

Probably as well that Heyington's next week and not this week - we might have tripped over all the TV cameras outside St. Kevin's.

Stiff when getting up this morning, too; tried walking around for a while before attempting to start running but didn't do enough of that to be successful.

Found myself on occasional historical wanderings today, looking at papers from 1909. Clearly not a lot has changed in 111 years because amongst the things I encountered was a letter to the editor from someone complaining about overcrowding on suburban railway lines.

Rather more recent media news was the word that the Press Council has found that a story in Woman's Day about the alleged split of Harry and Meghan had misled readers and breached accuracy standards. I would have thought it was quite hard to find a front cover of such magazines that did not mislead readers or breach accuracy standards. Something I learned early in my travels in Europe was that, even in countries which had perfectly good royal families of their own, the British royal family had an outsize presence in gossip magazines, although I once arrived in Geneva to see Simone Niggli and then-newborn twins on the front cover of one (whether the magazine in question had reported the pregnancy on 158 different occasions before it actually happened is unknown).

Pilates session. Back quite stiff this morning; I think I would have struggled to run today, but eventually loosened up through this workout.

Found myself today looking through data sets to examine the frequency of days with average temperatures below -10 in Tabriz, Iran. (In case you're wondering, the context was reports of extreme cold and snow in refugee camps in places like northern Iraq and Syria, and Iran has decent data, which the aforementioned countries don't, so I thought Tabriz would be a good place to use to assess how unusual the last week has been - the answer being that it's probably an event you'd expect to see once every 2-3 years on average).

Moved on to the Fitzroy pool. Didn't expect a lot of this session but it actually turned out to be reasonably good. Would have been a bit more crowded in the afternoon.

The speed limit on part of La Trobe Street has been lowered to 30 km/h. I wonder if cyclists will have to watch their speed? (it's downhill going west, although anyone going flat out in that section is asking for trouble - it's prone to pedestrians paying more attention to their phones than to their surroundings).

C • 30kph 5

Not quite as abortive as my last attempt at Banyule Flats but still not what I would have hoped for today - back not too bad, but quad not at its best and was getting a bit worse as I run. Took a brief pause to admire the sign with the Walter Withers painting in the hope that that might settle it down, but it did so briefly and I thus settled for minimum-viable-session territory.

Doing some reading on my recent destination was a reminder that not all those honoured by having things named after them in Australia were especially honourable; Fremantle, like Wakefield, headed for the colonies leaving behind him scandal involving (allegedly) doing things he shouldn't have (even by 19th century standards) with underage girls.

C • Naming rights 13

On a somewhat later timetable this morning - still readjusting to eastern states time - and learned in the process that crossing roads in the inner north is more awkward on a late Saturday morning than it is at 7-something on a weekday morning (there aren't as many cars but they're usually moving faster and with fewer gaps). This made for a somewhat interrupted run, but otherwise not too bad, with the body functioning more or less as it was supposed to.

Orienteering-related science news - a series of studies have looked at navigational capacities across large populations (using a computer game designed for the purpose). Navigational ability tended to be correlated with country income (which surprises me a little bit, given the skills that I would have thought would develop in the rabbit-warren slums of many developing-world cities), and gender differences (or lack thereof) in navigation skills tended to mirror gender differences in society as a whole. Also interesting is that those who grew up in rural areas tended to have better navigational skills and that this gap was greatest in countries (like the US) where urban street patterns tend to be simple grids, and somewhat to my surprise, that skills peak in one's early 20s and decline progressively thereafter, although I do wonder whether the use of a computer game as the platform might have something to do with that.

Still not quite right to run (I won't blame the message that came through before I started that my 2pm flight was cancelled and to await further developments), but with no conference sessions I had time to head to the pool instead. Not as energetic as Monday but still not a bad place to be on a day which eventually surpassed 40.

The timing of the swim might not have been ideal as I got out of the water to see a "call us to confirm time of your new flight" text from 30 minutes earlier, and by the time I called the 3.15 flight was full, so the 4.55 it was, which meant getting home after midnight (and a lot of time hanging out in the lounge at the airport). Unsurprisingly there were a few familiar faces on the plane, although not as many as the equivalent flight out of Darwin last year.

Amidst various weighty orienteering issues we're currently resolving (most of them to do with getting a draft new OA constitution finalised in time to get it out to the states with the required notice before the AGM), a smaller one being sorted out is that there is only one Toby Cooper in IOF Eventor (no doubt those of you familiar with British football are singing something to yourself at this point) but two of them in Victoria in reality (one in BK, one in Eureka). I've had this issue a few times with the consolidated Australian Championships results; normally age class and club is enough to distinguish people with identical names, the greatest challenge probably being the two Richard Morrises (of broadly similar age and both having run for multiple NSW clubs).

Had a go but didn't last long - OK for the opening minutes but going down a flight of stairs was enough to set me off, and battled through another few minutes before pulling the pin. Somewhat frustrating (although I suspect it's partly through trying to do things sooner after getting up than I normally would).

Today's talk went better than the run (at least if Twitter was anything to go by). I thought Vanessa's went pretty well too, even if to my knowledge nobody tweeted about it. (I suspect our current fields are too far apart for a Round and Trewin paper to be likely in the near future, but I'm prepared to be proven wrong). Nice to have some people willing to come to my support in the outside world, too.

C • It must be hard 2

Back no good this morning. Had to happen sometime. Felt like it had loosened up by lunchtime but doing a lunchtime run from the conference wasn't really an option (even Nick Earl, an outside chance for the British marathon team for Tokyo when he's not doing climate science, hasn't been doing that).

Again a bit of a nothing run - back OK but various other bits tight or creaky, and was happy to get it over with. Headed out from where I'm staying in East Fremantle roughly along the south bank of the Swan (discovering in the process that part of this is occupied by a military base that doesn't show up on Google Maps), far enough to see that there's some fairly extravagant real estate on both sides of the river if you go a bit further up. I'll try to explore further on Thursday.

It's been a fairly exhausting couple of days - there's something I want to go to in almost every timeslot (the one vacant timeslot was occupied with a chat with Kate Doyle, coming soon to your local ABC), and a lunchtime workshop too so we were going almost continuously from 8.45 until after 6.

C • Leeuwin 5

Adding a new pool to my list, in Fremantle - a pleasant outdoor 50-metre pool (even if the local interpretation of what constitutes a "slow" lane clearly differs somewhat from what I'm used to, judging by the speed at which I was getting regularly overtaken). A decent session on the whole. A bit of soreness at the front of my right foot, hopefully no great drama.

Also a good day at the conference, although long and rather exhausting by the end; one talk and one poster down, one of each to go. Vanessa's also here and has got the slot no-one really wants, last one of the final session (although the one time I got it I'd had laryngitis for most of the conference and wouldn't have confident of being able to speak until the final afternoon anyway).

C • Conference 1

Headed down to Cape Leeuwin early (partly because I thought it might get busy, with a 10am service to mark the 75th anniversary of a naval misadventure offshore - lots of Navy people in town last night), with a view to running the southernmost end of the Cape to Cape track. Had hoped for an hour but quad was still a bit troublesome so thought it best not to commit myself to that. As expected, this was a bit of an adventure at times with a few beaches and some rockhopping, but the scenery was scenic, and I got out to a logical turnaround spot at Skippy Rocks (no skippies to be seen). Probably only fair in terms of running performance but full marks as a tourist experience.

Whilst nothing's been much longer than 40 minutes, this week I've been able to string a few days together, which I take as a positive sign.

Made my way back to Perth through the rest of the day via a few places of indulgence and a few places of scenery (the accelerator foot was making its presence felt at times, although not at the end). Discovered in the process of a visit to Hamelin Bay that my niece shares her name with a ship, although perhaps we'd better not tell her what happened to it (let's just say that there's normally only one reason why ships become noteworthy features of local history in small coastal settlements).

(Seems like quite a storm, actually - will have to do some more research on it).

Perhaps fortunate not to have been added to the list of local maritime misadventures were the parasailers I mentioned yesterday - they got into difficulties when the front hit about 15 minutes after I left and seem to have had quite a bit of trouble getting back safely to shore. (They were staying in the same place I was, so I got to hear the war stories).

Bunbury may not be flattered by the approach from the southeast along its main road, but it's a different story once you go a little to the west, and the ocean beach path was a nice spot for a morning run. (Given it was 8am on a Saturday, I was half-expecting to encounter a parkrun, but if there's one in Bunbury it must be somewhere else). Back OK today but quads struggling at times, and didn't get the sense that I had an undiscovered two-hour session lurking inside me somewhere.

Headed south today, roughly speaking, via an inland route (will come back closer to the coast tomorrow). Being voted in 1994 as Australia's ugliest town evidently caused enough civic embarrassment in Donnybrook that something was done about it (it looks quite nice now), the Blackwood River valley is pleasant although the river itself, barely trickling at Nannup, is even more waterless than I expected at this time of year, and I ventured underground for a bit before finishing the day at Augusta - a pleasant enough place, if slightly lacking in eating places.

Spent a bit of the late afternoon watching parasailers near a passage that doesn't exist on local maps, although Google is up with the times - I was wondering if a Blackwood River flood had cut a new channel to the sea, but in fact the council dug it (to less than universal approval) in 2012. (Local papers are good for finding out about this sort of thing, although I probably could have done without reading the climate change denialist letters).

C • O event in Bunbury 7

You learn something new every day: according to Open StreetMap, there are 10,845,867 dead ends and cul-de-sacs in the world.

C • 1

C • Does that include courts an... 6

After a promising start to the week, back again troublesome today. Heading across to a conference in Perth next week and flew out this evening, so a long day - ending up in Bunbury (I'm spending the weekend in the southwest), though it went smoothly - can't complain when at the time you're supposed to be landing you're on the road out of the airport.

Felt a bit sleepy and stiff and think I might have struggled with a run today (which isn't a huge surprise after going out three days in a row, a rarity for me recently), but reasonably energetic once in the water. Going into the sun for half the time was a bit annoying, a reminder that we're starting to get into the part of the year with late sunrises (although that moment will be postponed for me for a week because I'm heading for WA).

Street-O at Yarran Dheran. I think the last time I was here was on a hot humid Wednesday night in early February 2009, at which I was telling anyone who would listen that the forthcoming Saturday was looking pretty scary.

This was a rare colour map, although I discovered quickly that some of the yellow bore no resemblance to yellow as it is commonly understood (and that includes yellow on central European maps in August). It's a hilly area and I thought, correctly, that I would struggle to run some of the hills, but managed to keep my back under control on the rest and think I would have got through it properly on a flatter area. Nice to get into some patches of bush, although the section of cross-country bush-bashing (through alleged yellow) on the way to the last control was a bit of a surprise.

When I enter "list of" into Google, the first item on the auto-complete is currently "list of Townsville drug dealers" (and before you start making comments about my browsing history, I've heard reports from three others saying the same thing).

C • Lists 13

Actually got through something approximating to a normal morning session without anything going significantly wrong (apart from being unfit). Perhaps the nice running conditions helped, although they often haven't in the past. Taking this as a positive sign after an ordinary week of training last week.

Set a new PB for the ride from the office to Attack of the Killer Physio, too (although that probably owed more to a favourable wind and a favourable run of traffic lights than it did to my riding).

Monday morning pilates, with heavier loads on a couple of the exercises than previously. Seemed to go OK, and even a bit more awake than I've sometimes been for this session (notwithstanding staying up into the fifth set of the tennis last night).

Got out for a run after the Pilates session. Not entirely convincing but worked out better than the last time I tried doing this, with the back not giving any problems. Instead giving trouble was my GPS, unless you think I ran the first kilometre of this in 47 seconds.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there are a reasonable number of face masks on show in central Melbourne. I even saw one on a food delivery rider on a bike, although the way he was riding I was starting to wonder if he'd placed the mask over his eyes rather than his mouth.

C • Masks 1

Seem to be struggling to manage consecutive days at the moment, even with going out later in the morning. Had the plans of exploring some of my old haunts (starting from the Heidelberg oval) but only got far enough to ascertain that that part of the Main Yarra Trail has been paved since I was last out that way, and that a parkrun's starting out there in a couple of weeks.

Take two was on the bike in the afternoon, essentially an out-and-back as far as Box Hill. Reasonable session (if having to go around a number of recreational riders, as you'd expect on a fine summer afternoon), but more tired afterwards than I really should be.

Do you think this sounds like a good location for a new observation site?

C • Observation site 2

With an exceptionally humid morning (some of the highest dewpoints on record in Melbourne) and a change expected about lunchtime, I decided to head out in the afternoon - as it turned out into reasonably solid rain. Had initial thoughts of doing the Darebin Bridge loop but was feeling fairly marginal early on (plus the creek was rapidly rising) so headed through Alphington again. Never smooth, but started to improve a bit in the second half.

I wasn't aware that we'd had a project funded under the now-infamous Community Sports Infrastructure program (a.k.a. "sports rorts"). Anyone know what it was? (National bodies couldn't bid for these, but states or clubs could).

Turns out the orienteering name on the list is Eureka, who got some money for a permanent course in Daylesford (which isn't even in a marginal seat). Didn't see any other orienteering names on the list, assuming that the Breeza Progress Association is a reference to the small NSW town and not Bryan Keely.