Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Thought this was going to be another failed morning attempt in the first 10 minutes, and had decided to give it away (after getting a look at the swollen-again creek), but after a couple of minutes walking decided I'd have a go at a restart. It worked fine and the next half-hour passed without incident (if still a bit weak and slow), so maybe I should try this again in future if having trouble?

Lunchtime ride after continuing to struggle with morning running. A bit shorter than some of my rides as I had work to get back to, managing to more or less find the gap between rain periods (it was pouring within 10 minutes of my return). Harder climbing through Ivanhoe this time with the lack of a tail wind, but generally a decent ride. The temperature contrast on the front (which I rode through about 10 minutes from the end) was very noticeable - felt like it dropped about 5 degrees within 100 metres, which the observations would tend to back up.

A German word which definitely needs to be introduced to English - from something I was reading today about recent changes in German traffic laws: "Unnecessary noise and exhaust emissions (known as Autoposing in German) will also carry higher fines - up to 100 euros, instead of 20 euros as previously".

Back still rather troublesome today so I wasn't quite sure how this would work out, but the first set of exercises seemed to mobilise it and things functioned more or less OK from there.

The postponement of the 3-Days at least means a year longer before the risk of a chance encounter with the resident of Orange who was reported as attributing the poor growth of trees in her street on 5G. I wonder if anyone's told her that (a) there's been a drought and (b) 5G has not actually made it to Orange yet?

C • 5G 2

Had hoped that the Pilates session would mobilise my body enough to be able to manage a run and it did, just. Definitely in minimum viable session territory this afternoon.

Just in case you thought that Trump followers had a monopoly on stupidity, it was reported today that several hundred deaths in Iran have been attributed to methanol poisoning amongst people who drank bootleg liquor in the apparent belief that it would cure coronavirus.

Back still not recovered today. Hopefully today's massage (and a subsequent meeting exercise walk with a colleague in the Merri Creek parklands) will help.

On the way home, I spotted a flyer 'Free Antifa and Antigovernment Protesters From Russian Prisons'. I support the sentiment but am sceptical that Vladimir Putin is going to pay a great deal of attention to something stuck on a power pole in Preston. (Meanwhile, numerous flyers, without attribution, have gone up in Station Street attacking the council for planning to spend lots of money on the Northcote pool).

Today's distraction-from-historical-weather-research-by-seeing-court-reports goes to the 1952 appearance before the Canberra magistrates of someone described as a "powder monkey" for creating a public mischief. Given his occupation you probably won't be surprised to learn that the public mischief in question was a bomb hoax. (Those who have seen the forecast for later this week can imagine why I might have taken an interest in the last few days of April 1952).

(Update - looks like that link isn't static so try the map instead.)

C • Powde Monkeys 1

C • last few days of April 1952 5

I guess I was overdue for a bad week, which this one has been. Back not really functioning at all this morning - knew before I tried to start that it wasn't going to work. Hopefully it's an aberration.

Ended up heading out for an afternoon ride after the (virtual) Yarra Valley AGM, out to Bundoora this time, which doesn't have big hills but has lots of rolling ones; unlike my last ride out to the north, this time the tailwind was early and the headwind was late. Felt reasonable, and handling the hills OK.

It seems to have become an AP thing of late for people to run their distance in years on their birthday (I did this once, on my 30th, with 30 degrees (or close to it) for bonus points), but I suspect when the time comes next July I won't be emulating Sarah Connor (Campbell), who ran 50km for her 50th this weekend.

C • Birthday run 13

Back to Darebin Parklands today (a place I'm progressively learning more about), this time for the permanent course. This is mostly fairly easy technically but still good to get out on some map and some patches of terrain. The most oddball spot was #7, which according to the map is on an "island" of sorts between a side channel and the main creek - except that watercourses sometimes have a life of their own and the side channel is now the main creek (which obviously confused someone later today who reported the control missing).

Didn't feel quite right running this morning, but back mostly reasonable except for a bit of a flare-up climbing the hill on the east side.

Run home from the parklands. Felt better than I had for most of the preceding part of the session.

One thing I definitely haven't missed this year is the culture warriors coming out to play on Anzac Day. Can they stay away next year too?

Actually managed to get through a morning run of sorts for the first time this week, but it wasn't a particularly convincing one - definitely in minimum viable session territory and feeling like a brick more generally. One of those days when it was a bit of a disappointment not to have to stop at most of the road crossings (generally thanks to conveniently timed trains stopping such traffic as there was). Still, it's a start.

Discovered in the process that the dodgy track on the south side of the railway west of Dennis station, home to a few "should I really be here" moments at street events, is now a proper footpath.

The 'check in open' function of the Qantas app doesn't appear to notice when your flights are cancelled, which meant that I was getting not especially wanted reminders this morning that I was supposed to be going to Queensland this morning for NOL races this weekend.

C • Cancelled 6

Back sufficiently unpleasant this morning that I didn't even attempt a run, but did manage to get out for a ride at lunchtime on the La Trobe loop. Felt like I was struggling a bit on the climbs (a northerly wind probably had a bit to do with this), but a reasonable pace. More traffic than usual on the first bit, presumably because people were using Heidelberg Road to avoid the freeway (still closed well into today). Back feels somewhat improved by tonight so hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Back continues to be troublesome. Usually if I can get through the warm-up for an intervals session it's OK once I get going, but not so tonight - knew on the first rep that it was going to be a problem. Bit of a setback this week after a decent stretch; perhaps I shouldn't be too greedy (relatively speaking).

Spotted a police helicopter, but I think it reasonable to assume with hindsight that they weren't looking for people sitting on park benches.

Warm-up for this session.

Lunchtime Pilates session. My back had flared up last night (and was uncomfortable going to bed, which is very unusual), which scuttled running this morning although it was somewhat improved. Coped OK with the Pilates though.

Latest historical excavation was Easter 1994. I was involved with setting this one (doing day 3 at Honeysuckle Creek along with John Asker, although on the day itself I fled the country to run a World Cup race in NZ instead). Remember it chiefly because we used the shorter hard-navigation courses to introduce Australian orienteering to what these days would be considered a fairly conventional technical middle-distance course (it seemed a good use of the area, and the older women - which in 1994 meant anything from 45 upwards - had been complaining for years that their courses were too easy and boring). It would be fair to say that some people handled it - Dale Ann Gordon came from 11 minutes down on the last day to win W50 - and some people didn't (a couple of well-known names were over an hour off the pace). Having the W12 leader end up halfway down the mountain wasn't part of the plan, though....

C • John 3

Lunchtime Boulevard loop, having deferred from the morning because of high winds then which had settled by the middle of the day (still a few light showers but nothing to worry about). Took quite a bit of time out of my previous sessions here, which I'd like to attribute to improving bike fitness, but I suspect at least part of the story is that I think I might have had a brake rubbing slightly before fixing the front wheel puncture last week.

The bats were again in the news today: the local MP wants to get rid of them, apparently because some of his constituents think they can transmit viruses (I guess it's progress that they wanted a cull of local bats and not a cull of local Chinese). He's been doing quite a good job this week of demonstrating proof of the saying that it's better to keep your mouth shut and have people think you're a fool than open it and remove all possible doubt (and the Victorian Liberals must be the only political party on the face of the planet who think that governments should still be trying to run a surplus in the current situation).

C • Spreading viruses 2

Was prompted by the US straight-line thread to think about what is the longest straight line (over land) in Australia which does not cross a paved road. Port Augusta to Port Hedland is 2300km in a straight line and I don't think the straight line would cross any paved roads outside the immediate vicinity of either town, unless it intersects one of the few fragments of bitumen on the Great Central Road.

C • Straight line terrain 16

Not quite what I'd hoped for but still something respectable to get into the book. Had enough confidence to set out on one of the old regulars, the Wilsons Reserve loop (with a lengthy stretch on dirt on the Yarra Flats on the Ivanhoe side). Going along OK for the first 30 minutes but quads somewhat troublesome after that; a short pause at the climb past the Kew overpass seemed to settle them for a while, but I was just about ready to stop around 50 minutes before they came good again in the last 10. Still pleased to meet my objectives of getting five runs in the week (which was consequently my longest since June) and to put together four days in a row - hopefully something to build on.

First bit of orienteering for a while (not counting Monday's short-lived attempt) on my local bit of bush, Darebin Parklands (which scored a feature on Gardening Australia during the week for the work that's been done to bring wildlife back to it). As I was planning to do on Monday, ran the course from the 2017 Victorian Relays, although cut the last bit short as 55-60 was longer than I wanted to be doing today.

Body held up more or less OK, but navigation was a bit rusty on some of the trickier controls (some of which were on features sufficiently obscure that I'm not quite sure how I endorsed them as control sites - maybe they've shrunk in the last three years). Terrain legs also need some practice, although I wasn't quite as hopeless on the steeper slopes in the drier conditions (compared with last Monday).

C • 55-60 min 3

Cruise ships haven't had a great press lately, but I missed the story of the one which came to blows with the Venezuelan navy a couple of weeks ago. The Venezuelan navy lost...

All Nations intervals at lunchtime, having bailed on a morning plan after sleeping a bit late (in turn this was because a malfunctioning smoke alarm went off at 1am and it took ages to get back to sleep). Ended up OK, although getting a bit lactic in the last couple of reps. Not as many people in the park this time, probably because it was cool and breezy.

Warm-up and down. The warm-up was interrupted for a certain amount of orienteering business (Carl was coming the other way); there was a time when I wouldn't want a break like that, but current experience is that a traffic stop (or similar) around the 5-minute mark seems to help with getting my back mobile, and so it proved again today.

One of this week's objectives is to take the step up from four to five days of running a week. The first part of the objective (three of the five weekdays) is achieved, now let's see how the weekend goes.

Lunchtime session up along Darebin Creek after a morning false start (seem to be having a few of these lately). Struggling through the first 15 minutes but eventually got into something of a reasonable mode, and got something respectable in the (virtual) book.

My watch seems to have wiped its memory, so it's started telling me that I'm setting 5k PBs and the like. (My actual 5k PB is something like 12 minutes faster than what was showing up after today's effort).

Given the way I felt running last night I wasn't too surprised not to come up in the morning. Plan B was an extended ride home after a physio session. This wasn't anything to get too excited about either, but was starting to go OK when it came to an abrupt halt due to a flat (whose cause is not immediately obvious). At least (a) it wasn't far from home (although I was planning to go out for a small extra loop to take it up to 45-50) and (b) it's a front flat which is a bit easier to fix.

Spotted en route were someone in an Outkast T-shirt who probably wasn't born in 2002, and someone in a Sex Pistols T-shirt who definitely wasn't born in 1977 (and probably not in 2002 either). The former was part of my limited soundtrack - in the form of a box of eight CDs - for one of my great orienteering road trips, to the Yukon and back before APOC 2002 in Alberta (and Ms. Jackson is still fairly close to the top of my list of 21st century songs). Also spotted were some stickers promoting Brian Sanaghan for mayor (presumably these are new ones for this October's election, and not ones left over from 2016) and saying that he "will cut your rates", which seems somewhat incongruous for someone on the far left. (He managed the considerable feat of getting himself booted from the local ALP for persistently disruptive and abusive behaviour, of which I saw a bit, in branch meetings).

And while I think Farmers for Climate Action do lots of good work, I was still a little surprised to see a sign "I'm a farmer for climate action" on the front fence of a house in Thornbury.

Pilates session in the middle of the day (there are advantages to working from home). Didn't feel as quite as good as last time and I clearly wasn't imagining it because the instructor didn't think I had quite as much range as last time either.

No expectations for this one after a morning false start. I thought I'd do well just to be able to run, so was pleasantly surprised when I tried to do so - back was tight but it didn't seem to be impeding progress (such as it was). Not the most comfortable of runs but got round it, which is more than I've managed with the equivalent session for a while.

First time I've been out in the (sort of) dark this winter - as always, you feel like you're going faster than daylight when you're actually going slower. Also a bit more traffic than I was expecting (that's one area where we have been spoilt).

Thought it might have been my first Easter Tuesday run for a very long time, but a check of the records reveals it last happened in 2015 (Jenny convinced me to come out after getting back from Burra).

And a small silver lining to a very dark cloud: apparently it has been the first March since 2002 in the US in which there have been no school shootings. (Meanwhile, the space on which this week's spin of the 2020 Wheel of Misfortune has landed appears to be "bushfire at Chernobyl").

C • 2020 Apocalypse bingo 7

The plan today was to go orienteering, in a fashion, and do climbing as an incidental part of that - doing the 2017 Victorian Relays course at Darebin Parklands (which I was controller for). Four days in a row, though, was more than the body was up for (hopefully it wouldn't have been like that had we been orienteering - I wouldn't have done as much on Friday, so maybe it wouldn't), and I lasted only last enough to discover that the scarp down to the creek gets pretty overgrown when it's been raining.

My quads weren't really functioning on the bike, either, so I gave the hills a miss and focused just on enough of a session to loosen myself up, down to Yarra Bend and up through Clifton Hill in various circles. Wondered why I was going so slowly until I realised that my watch had spontaneously switched itself to miles.

Continuing the Easter challenge, I made my first attempt at some Strava art, drawing a sort of thermometer. The run itself wasn't anything to get greatly excited about; I started thinking I might have a go at stretching my distance further from last week, but felt rather flat (and some quad soreness in the middle) - perhaps not surprising coming off a tougher Saturday than I've done for a while. At one point I thought I might call it a day after finishing the artwork about 40 minutes in, but managed to stretch it out in ever-decreasing spirals to beyond an hour, which I consider a more-or-less respectable long run at the moment.

C • Thermometer 1

Passed on the beep test yesterday (after all, the prologue isn't part of the overall Easter result for M45s), but thought I'd give today's session a go. I haven't done anything like the Mona session for ages. It therefore wasn't surprising that I found it a struggle to get through it, but at least it was a struggle because of fitness - the last few sprints were very lactic - and not because of injury.

Planned my route so that the slight uphill gradient out would offset the tailwind (and vice versa), and finished within 10 metres of my start point. Chose a somewhat unglamorous venue in the name of flatness, lack of traffic and lack of road crossings; the Darebin Creek bike path and then the East Thornbury industrial estate.

Warm-up and down. Given how I felt at the end of the fast bit of the session, the warm-down was better than I expected.

Might be something to this mid-morning thing: after an uncertain start ended up as a fairly reasonable run, with only a slight quad twinge in the middle, and the climb out of the Yarra was a positive rather than a negative. Included the single track on the south side of the river for the first time since it was blocked off for bridge construction around this time last year. Lots of people out, and not always easy to give them space (especially on the pipe bridge). In particular, while the legality of learning to drive may be questionable, there was plenty of learning to ride (perhaps I'd better not say that too loudly in case an overzealous cop somewhere starts booking five-year-olds).

Spotted Bruce on his run while I was going for coffee earlier in the morning.

In the book I mentioned a few days back, I'm now as far as the 1400s. Have seen enough to ascertain that some of the Crusades exhibited about the same degree of competence and planning as the blokes who got picked up on Cape York a few years back with the apparent intent of sailing their tinnie to wage jihad in the Philippines.

Yesterday ended up with a fairly significant back flare-up, so it was the bike today for a lunchtime session on the La Trobe loop - mild and sunny (in marked contrast to some previous outings on this loop). Most of the climbing on this one is early, and went reasonably smoothly; quite relaxed for the remainder.

Had a 4am IOF meeting (no scoops really beyond what they've already posted) which finished earlier than expected, so went back to bed for a couple of hours (without really sleeping) with the plan of running at lunchtime, with the standard All Nations interval session at an unusual time.

As is often the case here, I saw some flagrant law-breaking - not this time in the form of illegally unrestrained dogs (although there were a few of those too), but instead a mother and young daughter peacefully sitting on a park bench eating lunch. Declined the opportunity to call a SWAT team in on them (and not only because I didn't have a phone).

The session itself was pretty ordinary - didn't really push through the ends of reps.

An unusual failure mode this time - getting there was passable (though hardly convincing) but hips flared up on the way back. Hopefully nothing too significant but I pulled up a few minutes short.

Just as well this year's Easter weather wasn't last year's (or 2011's) Easter weather; the forecast for York on Friday and Saturday is 39. (As far as Orange/Molong goes, we're missing out on showers/rain on Friday and dry after that, with fairly cool days - mostly high teens).

C • Temps 3

I'd assumed that Pilates was off the agenda, but discovered when I was in for my physio session last week that they were still doing one-on-one classes for the price of a group session (from their perspective, I guess it's better for them to be making 25% of the money than 0% of the money). This actually went really well - the exercises felt better than on almost any previous occasion (and the instructor thought so too).

No, my back doesn't like evening runs after working at home any more than it does evening runs after working at the office.

C • 10 am 3

Boulevard loop again. Incrementally faster again. Forgot to change my watch from running mode to cycling mode which meant that (a) I was getting kilometre splits rather than 5k ones and (b) my watch thinks I now have 5k and 10k PBs on a par with Mo Farah's. The kilometre splits were more even than I thought they would be - I guess the Boulevard has very few kilometres which are either all uphill or all downhill (and is almost never flat).

C • Awesome splits 3

Another pretty good one by modern standards and ended up being my longest training run since September 2018 (which is a sign of how far things have fallen). Started out by heading down to Dights Falls to check out the state of the river (which had fallen below the bike path by then), then up through Clifton Hill and back through Westgarth. After the first few minutes, felt reasonably comfortable throughout and definitely not struggling with the distance in the way that I was this time last week (although the fact that it was 10 degrees colder might have had something to do with that). Continuing to feel as if I'm making some progress here, even if it's anyone's guess as to how long it will be before I can put that to use in a forest.

Got an e-mail from my MP's office yesterday saying that they were doing everything they could to get me out of India. I assume it was intended for someone else (I replied to the effect that I appreciated their concern but I was actually alive and well in Fairfield).

C • Missing in action? 3

Seems to be something about Saturdays at the moment; this felt as good as any run I've done this year (i.e. it was a reasonably normal run from some time ago), with no sign of trouble. (Perhaps I should take advantage of my current working arrangements to run at this time of day more often). I'll take these where I can find them. Got a good look at the swollen Darebin Creek early on (there was 36mm overnight, following on a similar amount over Thursday-Friday); the colder, damp conditions were a bit of a deterrent to others being out, although there wasn't much rain while I was running.

Went back to an old Saturday morning ritual of mine, the trip to Preston Market (in the name of getting a bit further afield whilst still undertaking legitimate business). It hasn't changed much. One thing I did note is that while on the south side of the hipster-proof fence payment by plastic is strongly encouraged at the moment (and the only form accepted in some places), most of the market business is still done in cash.

Domestic goal of the day achieved: labelling, and arranging in a reasonably coherent manner, all the magazine folders in my study.

Had hoped to get out for a run this morning but woke up with tightness which wasn't really eased by a walk, so instead took to the bike mid-afternoon (one of the benefits of working from home is that it's easier to swap a blank hour in mid-afternoon for an evening teleconference). Not a bad ride, although playing a certain amount of dodgem, as I should have expected on a major path on a sunny Friday afternoon in school holidays (current constraints notwithstanding).

Not altogether convincing and think I would have found anything more demanding a challenge, but got around this, through the top end of Yarra Bend and out to Westgarth. Giving everyone a wide berth; runners haven't had a great press in the letters columns the last couple of days. (One of the less edifying features of recent times is that it's given lots of people carte blanche to publicly unload on anyone else who's Not Like Them, whether it's old people on young people, country people on city people - the Corangamite councillor who referred to Melbourne people as "spreaders of death" was a particular lowlight - or everyone else on the Chinese).

I'm currently making my way through a book on 1001 days that changed the world, and have got as far as the Roman defeat in 9 AD in the Teutoberger Wald in northern Germany. This was commemorated by the construction of a very large statue (a.k.a. "Hermann the German") which will probably be remembered by anyone who was at WOC 1995 (especially the long distance finalists - ranks I didn't quite manage to join - who started next to it).

Knew I couldn't hold it together for too many days in a row and so it proved. After a failed attempt to run in the morning, plan B was a lunchtime ride, which was a good option on a nice day to be out (there have been a lot of nice days to be out lately). Headed out on the La Trobe loop; seem to be getting progressively stronger on the climbs.