Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

The original plan was that I'd try and fit a bit of a run in this morning before going to work. We did make up a bit of time en route (and I then had a fairly smooth passage through the airport) so I got home at 3.30, but still didn't feel like facing an alarm any earlier than 7.30. (The calf doesn't feel too bad, though, so I don't think running would have been a problem from that perspective, just a sleep one).

Thought it might have been a hard day of work to get through but it didn't work out too badly - helped that I was always busy enough that I didn't really get the chance to feel as if I was tired. (Didn't do the amount of media that I thought I might have done either, with the global statement coming out last night - I think their attention was directed more at kids with funny signs).

Headed up tonight to Canberra for the OA conference.

Very smooth to Dubai (and had a row to myself), not so smooth after that. Got onto the connecting plane in Dubai to be told "we have a last-minute technical problem". An hour later, the update was that there was a fuel leak and they couldn't find the location of, so they had to find a new plane. (Recent events in Indonesia demonstrate what can happen when an airline knows a plane is faulty and takes off anyway). Fortunately, this was Emirates in Dubai so they can find another A380 on two hours' notice, and we eventually left about 3.30 late.

This did squeeze the time at the other end to slightly absurd levels; we were due in at 11.20pm, so I hadn't been expecting to get home before 12.30, so with 3.30 added to that I was looking at arriving home around 4am. With that in mind, I was hoping I'd at least sleep well on the plane, but that wasn't really to be either; had a seat next to the galley (so lots of noise and some light) and probably only got about 3 hours' worth.

Had another crack at running this morning. Calf a bit tight early and almost thought about calling it a day after the first few minutes, but kept going and it did improve a bit. (In its present state, it certainly doesn't stop, or even hinder, me running, my concern is to make sure I don't do additional damage). Traffic a bit awkward. The nicest morning I've had so far - could actually see some of the mountains.

On the way home now. It's going to be a pretty frenetic couple of weeks once home - I have three trips to Canberra and two to Sydney in the fortnight after returning.

Back out to the Vernets pool this morning - a bit more crowded than last time because it's the only pool that's open on Tuesday morning, but that didn't seem to be a major problem. Felt pretty similar to last time but a little slower. Thinking I might give running another go tomorrow.

Looks like I'm missing some interesting weather back at home, both in Sydney and in north Queensland. Nothing terribly interesting about Geneva's weather at the moment, although the clouds did lift for long enough to see that the snowline's currently at around 1100m.

C • the snow in Falls Creek was... 5

Still a bit tight in the calf this morning - started out on a run but pulled up quickly. Don't want to take chances with this one. It did seem to settle down later in the day.

Felt a little tight this morning so thought it best to stick to alternate days at this stage. Did do a reasonable amount of walking during the course of the day, spent exploring some of the southern end of the Black Forest. (I thought the day might be a bit of a scenic write-off in the morning when I woke up to fog, but broke out of it 30km or so west of where I was staying).

The country isn't anywhere near as dramatic as the Alps, but still pleasantly scenic, and I finished off the day with a 1000m descent back into the valley near Freiburg (I suspect the cyclists have fun with this road). There was also a certain amount of indulgence during the course of the day.

Running again! And not a bad way to return - exploring the Freiburg old town by means of the sprint course from the 2015 Black Forest 3-Days (courtesy of Clare). Headed out as soon as it was light enough to read the map; went an unnecessarily long way around to 2 through a lack of concentration, but otherwise reading the map OK. Only one control site had turned into a construction site (and another construction site from 2015 was still there), with a second sort of going under the Christmas market. Didn't feel that fast - and definitely tentative on the bit which was going downhill on wet asphalt covered with wet leaves - but the main thing was that the calf was OK on the run, with just a little bit of fatigue towards the end. Cut the course a little short because the finish was in the opposite direction from where I was staying and I didn't want to do too much over 30 on a first run, but happy with this.

The plan for the rest of the day was to position myself by means of 100km north on the Autobahn, and then spend the rest of the day chasing green lines (these denote scenic routes on the Michelin maps) whilst making my way east and south. Lots of nice country with hills and forest, and some decent views, although I've learned that parts of the Black Forest close down as completely in November as the French Alps do (putting paid to thoughts of lunch in a nice mountain Gasthof, but at least I didn't have to sink as low as a petrol station baguette as I did on the aforementioned French occasion).

It was somewhere about this point when I got a text "Labor leading in Brighton with 19 year old" and learned that what was already looking like a decent result when I left Freiburg had turned into a rout. It doesn't look like Labor has won Brighton in the end, but they have won in plenty of other unexpected places; I'm particularly pleased to see Paul Hamer, a friend from Ivanhoe days, elected in Box Hill. Haven't see the booth numbers yet to see how my one piece of campaign advice played out (I suggested a few weeks ago that he put some time into the strongly Liberal Balwyn end of the seat, thinking that, as a middle-class professional - he's an engineer who works in transport planning - he was the sort of Labor candidate who would be well-received there).

It was my first experience of driving on the Autobahn. I wasn't too surprised (once the traffic thinned out enough for it to be possible) to see various BMWs, Audis and Mercs doing 200 or thereabouts in the left lane, but I was rather more surprised to see a Transit van doing 150+ (I didn't know a Transit van could do 150+). 140 was plenty for me, although when you're going with the flow it doesn't actually feel that fast.

Again not the best weather at lunchtime, and again a lunchtime session in the WMO basement. Not pushing it quite as hard as I did last time, and felt a bit more relaxed (it also seemed to go faster).

With no worthwhile events within range, orienteering competition hadn't featured in my plans for this weekend even before I got injured. I've got the train up to southwest Germany and plan to spend time exploring the Black Forest, assuming the weather clears (which it's supposed to).

Went out to the Vernets pool this morning - this time it was open. I prefer this one because it's a bit less frenetic - it's 50 metres rather than 33 and the lanes are wider so there's more room for people to pass. Felt pretty good by the end of this - seemed to be moving along quite nicely. Only the faintest hint of calf tightness post-swim.

A poster campaigning against the Swiss-law-primacy referendum I mentioned yesterday referred to it as "l'initiative Trompeuse". No translation required. (Meanwhile, the person whose name was turned into an adjective in that poster has been tweeting enthusiastically about an, admittedly significant, cold outbreak in the northeastern US).

Had thought of going outside but the weather was miserable (and the colleague's bike I was planning to borrow had some mechanical issues), so instead this was a stationary bike in the basement, something about as exciting as it sounds. Worked decently hard, though - always feel like I'm working a bit harder in a session like this than I am on the road (unless it's particularly hilly). Seemed to warm up progressively through the session.

Victoria isn't the only place going to the polls this weekend; it's referendum time in Switzerland again. The most exotic one, and the one that's most likely to get up, is a proposal for government payments to cows with horns - apparently this is an animal welfare measure to encourage farmers not to cut them off. A proposal to weaken privacy laws to make it easier for investigators for the Swiss equivalent of Centrelink to spy on their clients is somewhat surprisingly in with a chance, while likely to go down is a proposal to give primacy to Swiss judges over international law (which would have probably the effect of forcing Swiss withdrawal from such bodies as the European Court of Human Rights), which is getting support from the sort of groups you'd expect to support something like this. (It's interesting that Swiss voters vote for right-wing populist MPs in numbers greater than almost anywhere else in Europe, but don't usually vote for right-wing populist referenda, unless they involve immigration).

Didn't get the chance to get out for either a swim or a ride today. Might not have been the best day to get out on a bike - would have got fairly snowy outside the inner city (it had melted by morning in the inner city, but cars coming in from the suburbs still had plenty on them).

Needed two attempts to get this one done. Headed out to the Vernets pool in the morning to discover that I'd mixed the two pools up and it was their day not to open until noon (and I wouldn't have been able to get in anyway because the ticket machines are now card-only and I'd brought cash).

Second attempt was lunchtime at Varembe, and it ended up working pretty well. Felt considerably smoother and stronger than Saturday (not that that's an especially high bar to clear), and only got shoved aside once which isn't bad for a lunchtime swim here. Calf tightness post-swim continues to ease, too (only very slight this time), and a short instinctive run for a tram didn't cause it to freak out either, so I think I'm getting closer.

The walk from the office to the pool goes (by one plausible route choice) via the square outside the UN, often a venue for demos and sit-ins (Falun Gong are regular visitors). Today it was occupied by a giant inflatable toilet and various people giving out shirts saying 'THIS IS A T-SHIT'. This was all in the name of promoting World Toilet Day, which for all the piss that gets taken out of it is an eminently worthy initiative aimed at improving sanitation in poor countries.

The snow has come in late today (something I picked about four days before MeteoSwiss did; for some reason they always seem to under-forecast snow in marginal situations here). Not expecting huge accumulations; so far it's settling on cars but not on the road.

Objective number one on the first day is to get a reasonably normal amount of sleep at a reasonably normal time. I thought I might have got this wrong when I needed to get up at 3am (one's internal functions usually don't adjust as quickly as sleep patterns), but got back to sleep without trouble and was still asleep when my alarm went off at 7, so hopefully that mission was accomplished.

Today's adventure was to hire a bike and get out on that. It was described as a "city bike" and was a bit heavier and slower than what I usually use, but worked OK (it had decent gears, which helped). I was never going to take on a col somewhere on this machine, but going along the southern shore of the lake was a decent workout, particularly in the first half with a headwind. A couple of modest climbs but otherwise reasonably level. Continued for a few kilometres into France just because I could, and then turned around to come back (would have preferred to do a loop but didn't see a good way to do it without spending time on the main highway). A few muscles were a bit tired in the second half (and again a hint of cramp at some points - so my system must still be a little unbalanced), but not too bad on the whole.

As expected, this was a good environment for riding - paths and bike lanes for the first few kilometres from the city centre, then a secondary road. In Australia a two-lane road with no verge and a bit of traffic would be a nightmare for cycling (you would probably do well to last five minutes without getting abused or worse), but Europeans - even the Porsche drivers who are commonplace in the lakeside towns of Geneva's outskirts - seem to have worked out that the world is not going to come to an end if you arrive at your destination ten seconds slower because you had to wait for a safe place to pass a cyclist.

Normally, after a long flight, I get out for a not very convincing run. That wasn't an option this time, so instead I went for a not very convincing swim. Probably a bit less crowded than it is at weekday lunchtimes, but I felt like I was floundering like a drunken octopus. Felt as if I was about to cramp several times (mostly in the right leg, not the left), but never quite did.

Inflation is not a feature of Switzerland: the cost of pool entry was 6 francs when I first starting coming here eight years ago, and it still is. (There's inflation if you're an Australian, though - the franc has gone up about 30% against the dollar in that time). Showing that certain types of people have as much contempt for the law in law-abiding Geneva as they do in other places, I saw using a bus/taxi lane a very expensive black car which was definitely not a bus and, unless it was very well disguised, wasn't a taxi either. (No, it didn't have diplomatic plates).

The flight was as routine as they get, and slept a bit on the first leg. Perhaps a positive sign for peace in the Middle East is that Iraq is now considered safe enough to fly over (we went more or less over the top of Baghdad).

Extended commute via Yarra Boulevard and the river - managed to avoid the tacks, which have resurfaced in recent weeks. First sighting was that riding across the pipe bridge (something people have been doing for as long as I've been in Melbourne) is now legal. Got passed by a few people of the Boulevard but settled down once warmed up, until the traffic (of all kinds) got a bit heavier and more awkward in the city.

Now at the airport waiting to head off. Got all my 'want to get this done before leaving' things done at work with a couple of hours to spare, and my Melbourne Airport transit was as efficient as they get - 16 minutes from stepping inside the terminal door to reaching the departure gate.

Not the strongest of swims, but got through it OK. Calf continuing to improve very slowly (but the physio tonight thinks it's still at least a week away, which means I've spent a bit of the evening doing searches for bike hire in Geneva). Quite a chilly wind once out of the water (although, again, not chilly compared to what I'll be looking forward to soon).

Saw something today about a new Australian climate sceptic group, the Saltbush Club, who are trying to portray themselves as a low-budget grassroots group. Prominent amongst their number is that well-known Aussie battler, Hugh Morgan. I once found myself sitting next to Mr. Morgan at an MCG lunch (Dad knew the former chairman of Cricket Australia, which scored us a few invites during his tenure to the chairman's box); thought it in the best interests of diplomacy that the conversation was kept strictly to cricket.

Getting some work done on the car today so an out-and-back from Fishermans Bend down to St. Kilda. Dead flat, but at least there aren't many road crossings (and the headwind on the outward half made up for the lack of hills). Rain had just about cleared out by the time I got under way. Felt reasonable, if a bit sleepy.

Went to Ivanhoe this morning because it fitted in better with a subsequent engagement. My left shoulder didn't particularly enjoy the first few laps (not sure why), but after that it sort of got going. As with last Friday, calf felt fine in the water but a little tight coming out of it (less so than Friday), probably a sign that I'm not quite ready to start running yet - hopefully this will change by the weekend as alternate options aren't quite as accessible in Geneva.

A pilates session, still doing a limited set of exercises to keep pressure off the calf (which is continuing to improve, although slowly).

Did my democratic duty at lunchtime (since I'll be in Europe on election day itself) - it's the third time in a row that I've missed the Victorian election, although the process of voting was a fair bit easier than trying to do it from the back blocks of Patagonia last time. Public service announcement #1: "Labour DLP" are not Labor, the Health Australia Party are anti-vaxxers, and the Transport Matters Party are the taxi lobby trying to ban Uber and stop a rail link to the airport. I was singularly unimpressed by all three attempts at misleading and ranked them almost at the bottom of my ballot paper, ahead only of the Nazi-wannabes at the Australian Liberty Alliance. Public service announcement #2: if you want to be sure your preferences don't spray in a direction you don't want them to (like to any of the aforementioned organisations), vote below the line - unlike the federal Senate, you only need to number a minimum of 5 boxes.

C • Strong competition at the bottom of the ticket 1

Longer ride out onto a circuit I used to do a bit from a Heidelberg base, out along the Koonung Creek trail and back through Doncaster. Felt good to be out for something longer, even if I'd rather have been doing it on my legs. Handled the climbs (there are a few, though relatively short) OK.

It's a while since I've been out in these parts. Wasn't surprised to see signs in the Koonung parklands protesting against the plans to swallow a substantial part of said parklands for a freeway extension; was a little more surprised to see a drive-thru Krispy Kreme in Bulleen (just in case you want to make sure of the most unhealthy outcome possible). The driving in the eastern suburbs is a bit less aggressive than it is in the outer north, but someone (possibly someone coming off a big Saturday night) had obviously had some difficulty with it because I went past a scene with a vehicle on its roof in the middle of the road. Also the first time for a few months I've been past my old place, in a neighbourhood which is progressively getting more dense as remaining single houses get replaced by multi-unit developments (something I regard as a good thing in an area close to a major station and a big hospital, but I'm guessing that some don't agree with me).

Calf was fine on the ride and after it, but was a little sore later on in the day after a lengthy session of walking the streets in the name of democracy (to be specific, distributing a flyer about the planned removal of the Mont Albert level crossing to the area surrounding it - helping out a friend who's the Labor candidate for Box Hill). Will do me good to spend most of the day doing something physical, even if most of it was fairly low-intensity.

C • KK 1

Bike was functional again so decided to ride to and from the sprint event at RMIT Bundoora (where I was working on the finish). Got going reasonably well on the ride after the first few kilometres.

One thing which changes as you get away from the inner city is the attitude of drivers - it's no surprise that far fewer people ride in the outer suburbs. I was on the end of three lots of horn blasts/obscene gestures/abusive language in as many minutes (the worst of them coming from a car with a Liberal campaign sticker on the back).

Coming back, via a slightly different route (trying to avoid as much of Plenty Road as I could after the earlier experience, although there are parts which are difficult to avoid without a long detour as Bundoora has no other reasonably continuous north-south streets). Net downhill but also net headwind, which roughly seemed to cancel out.

The Garmin obviously didn't think I was trying because it thinks my recovery time is 0 hours. Calf gave no trouble either on the ride or afterwards.

First proper exercise for a few days, in the pool. Obviously freshness didn't help very much because this was a lacklustre session (although I think some of the slowness was because I wasn't pushing off on the turns). Calf felt fine while swimming but a bit tight after I got out - eased fairly quickly though.

The plan was then to start commuter rides again, but I had a flat tyre :-(.

Saw reports of a speech today by ardent climate sceptic MP Craig Kelly. Amongst the best of many comedy gems was "CO2 is what turns chardonnay into champagne". (Searching for information on the cold wave in Bangladesh in early January, I found many of the links were to climate sceptic sites; feel like I need a shower after reading some of those).

Physio verdict today: low-grade tear combined with some back-related neural issues. She thinks I'm still at least a week away from running, but has given me the all-clear to swim or ride, so I plan to do exactly that (from tomorrow).

Getting the train today did give me the opportunity to see a few of the sights this evening - Southern Cross station at 6pm on Oaks Day is a good place to see humanity at its most inebriated.

Another day of not much (in the training department at least). This did mean I missed out on being rained on at Summer Series (although it was as well that the event was at Doncaster - about as far north as the Wednesday nights get - as there was a big hailstorm a bit further south).

I spent the afternoon at Melbourne Uni, initially at a seminar and then working from one of the libraries to avoid wasting time travelling back to the office (and also to get some writing done without too many interruptions). I'm quite proud of my self-control - it turned out the spot I'd found for myself was in the same area as the university's map library but I managed to hold myself back from looking at that collection until I was ready to finish for the day.

Not being at the office this afternoon meant I wasn't distracted being asked for my interpretation of the latest American election results, as happens on the Wednesday after the Melbourne Cup every two years (a day otherwise known as Australian Electoral Commission Appreciation Day - although I think Australia is far from the only country which would be embarrassed if it turned out that the person responsible for running the election was also one of the candidates for it, as happened in the race for governor of Georgia).

Seems a pity to have a public holiday and not be able to do anything worthwhile with it (and my horse didn't win, either).

Spent a bit of time today working on the results archive, specifically trying to put full first names to initials from the 1989 Australian Relays results. This was, I suspect, complicated somewhat by some suspected ring-ins for Big Foot in the form of A.Smith (M21) and S.King (W21B) - neither Adam nor Susannah ran for their own clubs, and no-one else with those initials from Big Foot ran in the individual event. (If any Big Feet know differently, or can help with P.Marmara (M21B) or P.Jones (Mixed Senior), feel free to say so). I strongly suspect K.Mart (W21B, Illawarra) is a pseudonym.

Calf continues to feel at nuisance level - can walk on it with minor discomfort. Had a brief chat to the physio this morning (she also takes this pilates class) and she thinks I should go easy on it until seeing her properly on Thursday. Was able to do most of the session, though - just skipping a small proportion of the exercises which place load on that calf.

Whilst passing up a four-day weekend has its negatives, Cup Monday isn't a bad day to get work done - an easy commute and few interruptions (no-one organises a meeting for Cup Monday unless it's really urgent).

A run which started unpromisingly, started to come good and ended abruptly in minor disaster. Down at Blairgowrie for the day and set out to run towards Sorrento (in the process spending a bit of time on the sand and a new track around the point near the Collins settlement). The first half-hour was difficult, although not as bad as yesterday, but was just starting to get into my stride on the way back when my left calf abruptly went on me - not super-painful, but sharp enough for it to be clear that running further was not a realistic option. There probably isn't a good place to do such an injury, but having to walk 4km back to base from near Diamond Bay was definitely a bad place (and to add insult to injury a bird crapped on me in fairly comprehensive style on the way back).

I'm hopeful it's a strain rather than a full tear - I think there would have been more pain (and more difficulty walking back) had it been otherwise. I still think I'll be sidelined for a few days at least, but we'll see what happens. It's not an injury I have any real experience with.

It's an unofficial long weekend in Victoria, and the Blairgowrie and Sorrento shops (and associated traffic) were definitely at Christmas-New Year week levels - quite a bit of pedestrian-dodging had to be done (although I don't think I can blame my injury on that).

Don't think I'll get the prize for the day's most creative sporting injury though.

C • Bird crap 1

Often Saturday morning runs are pretty good (having more time to wake up helps), but this was unexpectedly terrible. Feeling tight throughout (if never quite tight enough to stop), and weak and sluggish too. Just about managed to hold it together for 40 minutes, but certainly wouldn't have wanted to have committed to much more. Not sure what to read into this, if anything.

I suspect that quite a number of the people I saw heading into Fairfield station would have been feeling similarly terrible (albeit for different reasons) after the last race this afternoon, but they were still sober (and well-dressed) at 10am.

An early start. Felt pretty tight early on in the right leg (and the inside of the knee) but loosened up reasonably once I was underway. Still felt as if I was fighting against the current in a place with no current. Lots of people at the pool at 6.30, which probably only had a small amount to do with the fact that it had been 25 degrees at 6.00.

Foot feels better today. Should be fine to run on tomorrow (I hope).

After nearly two weeks of completing every session as intended, today was the day it didn't happen - perhaps a product of an unfamiliar bed? I was a bit annoyed by this as I'd planned to use the Torquay workshop as the chance for some exploration (the coastal track to Bells Beach was the plan). Ended up just walking a lap of the outside of the golf course.

One of the talks today was looking at statistical modelling of fine-scale wind patterns in the fire weather context, in the Flea Creek valley west of Mount Coree in the Brindabellas. I recognised the line of observing sites immediately as the east-west fire trail across the valley, which revisited a part of my childhood - we walked this on my first Scouts camp. This was also the scene of my first good route choice decision - the group split into two, with most going down the creek, while I joined a small group which climbed to the next ridge and then along it (already having enough orienteering experience at 10 to know that trying to go along creeks in Brindabellas bush is usually a Very Bad Idea). I've forgotten exactly how much our group beat the other group to the campsite by, but it was definitely measured in hours.