Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

In the pool; after last night decided that backing up for a long run this morning was probably not a great idea. A generally reasonable session although calf felt a bit strange (in an about-to-cramp-but-never-quite-did sense) at one point. Had a return of some old company I haven't seen for several months, which meant we were able to jointly not lament the (political) demise of Tony Abbott.

Australia can consider itself fortunate in the lack of competence of its would-be terrorists, although the latest one to hit the news does get a few points for imagination.

Street-O at Gardiners Bend. Two hours before the start I wasn't sure this event would be happening; as many of you will have seen, a severe thunderstorm unloaded on the Geelong area in spectacular style (54mm in 30 minutes at Avalon) with major flash flooding, and it wasn't certain whether Melbourne was in the firing line. We did get some rain in the hour before that start, but probably only one-tenth of that amount, and it was easing off by the 7pm start.

The main discovery tonight is that, even if the distances are relatively short, I'm clearly not currently up to running hard five days in a row. Never got into stride, and any hint of a recovery was scuttled mentally when I made a mess of a control about halfway through (went in one street too early and lost maybe 1-1.5 minutes), although my route was a dud anyway. At least I got it all out of the way in the same night. Fading alarmingly in the last 5-10 minutes.

Last day of Sprint Canberra at ANU South - an end of the campus I know less well. Probably my best run of the four urban sprints, reflected in being not quite as far off the pace as on previous day (although that may also be because a hard weekend of training has brought the squad people back to the field a bit). A little slow at the start and Tate had more or less caught me a minute by 5; later Duncan and Andrew Barnett (2 and 3 minutes respectively) also got through me, but pulled me along a little in the second half. Fairly clean with only a minor hesitation on 10 where I wasn't sure what was or wasn't olive green. Definitely a fun few days, even if this isn't really my most favoured form of racing.

Took a somewhat original route choice home - across the Brindabellas to Tumut, then through Tumbarumba and Jingellic to Hume Weir. (It's actually slightly shorter in distance, although about 45 minutes longer in time). I last went this way in 1976, which means I don't remember very much about it (although I did do the Brindabella Mountain part en route to a rogaine in 1991). Certainly a change of scene from endless hours on the freeway. There's still about 45km of dirt between Tumut and Canberra; I notice from some googling that the idea of sealing it is in the news again, but to do it would require some pretty serious engineering work on the Brindabella Mountain section, which at the top is a single-lane track across a very steep slope.

Saw an impressive variety of wildlife dead and alive; more dead than alive, but alive forms crossing the road included an echidna (coming out of Batlow), a goanna (along the upper Murray) and a kangaroo well within the Benalla town limits.

C • Kangaroo 5

Didn't see much in the way of potential orienteering terrain on my route. Uriarra Forest has never had much in the way of orienteering (much of it steep gully-spur with lots of blackberries), although Dad and I did set a rogaine there in the early 1990s which I remember chiefly for a stolen control in the middle of nowhere - something which may or may not have had something to do with a nearby marijuana plot. Also lots of blackberries in the pines on the NSW side. Ti Tree Gully (used for the 1986 Australian Schools) has regrown enough to be a viable orienteering forest, but also looks to have major blackberry issues near the road - not sure what it's like further in.

Sprint relay at Stromlo, in the bush (most of the interesting bits around the main erosion gully). The idea here was supposed to be one person from each of the four elite classes, but due to a bloke surplus I was deemed to be a junior girl for the purposes of today - part of a lineup of Marina, Ewan Barnett and Peter Bray.

The other three all had decent runs and I went out in third together with Phoebe Dent, about 3 minutes down on Ella Johnson and 2 on Zac Needham, and well ahead of anyone else. Zac was the one out of these I thought could be a potential threat because he's fast enough to stick with me if we had a common split (and do me in the sprint), but I never saw him (turned out I went through him early). Decided to stay out of the gully as much as I could and go round the tops; went in a bit early on 3 but didn't lose much time, and saw Ella there so knew I was in a good position. Dropped 15 seconds or so coming into 5 a bit wide, but otherwise pretty clean and knew I was well clear at the spectator control. From there it was just a case of not doing anything stupid.

Trying to remember the last time I've brought a team home to win a relay - I normally run second leg (including in all five of our M21 Australian Relays wins). Maybe a Victorian club relays in the mid-1990s? Looking at the results we won because we were one of only a couple of teams to put four good legs together, and also because I was running out of my division a bit - the best junior girls are faster than me on urban sprints these days (as Tara, Lanita, Anna and Caroline demonstrated in the afternoon), but none of them got within three minutes on a moderately technical forest course. Pretty happy with this as a run, though, and nice to be navigating properly in the bush again.

C • Shame 1

Backing up for a late afternoon sprint at ANU, although I had no excuse for not being properly warmed up, having downloaded an old start list and reaching the start line to be told that, no, it wasn't my start time and I should come back in 30 minutes. (I'd been at work in the Canberra office in between, but it wasn't the most strenuous of workdays, my major accomplishment being to recruit my successor as editor for the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal over a flat white at the Coffee Grounds).

The big disappointment of the day was to fall into the main trap (despite being warned about it, at least in general terms, by Bruce before I started) - not seeing the building near 7 which was mostly buried under the control circle. I then compounded the error by planning my plan B route as if I was starting from 6 instead of from where I was and thus dropped another 30 seconds by going left rather than right, for a total loss of a minute or so. OK technically after that, only losing a couple of seconds on an original error - running to a reflection of a control in a window rather than the real thing - but not running terribly fast. (I had no excuse for getting the route from 11 to 12 wrong, having travelled it many hundreds of times - the geography department had most of its lectures in the vicinity of 11 and maths in the vicinity of 12).

It wouldn't be a series of sprints without a mapping controversy, and this one involved a possible route to the last control (used by a few people) which crossed a wall which I think was meant to be uncrossable but the line was well below regulation width.

I'm impressed that Sprint Canberra was deemed worthy of an Air Force fly-past. (OK, so it was probably for the Australian of the Year festivities on the other side of the lake). More noise was provided by a brief but intense thunderstorm, but we were well out of the place by the time it hit.

Again a morning session, this time on the tracks around Aranda Hill and the lower part of Black Mountain with Bruce. Steady if not sparkling. Got somewhat waylaid coming past the Bluett-Jones residence on the way back.

Sprint at Radford. Slightly iffy start in the bush overshooting 2 a little, then into the buildings. The first few legs in the buildings were fairly straightforward (managed to stay on my feet in this section this year), but that was lulling us into a false sense of security with some terrific legs in mid-course. Hesitated a bit going into 13; Jules (3 minutes) caught me there, which wasn't a surprise, as did Paul Cuthbert (1 minute), which was perhaps slightly less expected. Was chasing Paul the rest of the way which pushed me along a bit (him being a little faster); felt like I was running OK on the second session but perhaps dropping away a bit on pace judging by the splits. Lots of fun; a fairly similar result to yesterday. Managed to achieve one objective of not being last finisher (something which required defending 5 minutes on Patrick, something managed without a great deal to spare), and knocked off Martin Dent again, although it would probably be more accurate to say that Martin beat himself.

Whilst on the Cuthbert theme, I spotted Ella using someone's head as a stretching prop. I presume it was someone she knows.

Morning terrain run from the back of the Aranda residence - going a different way to usual once on the Black Mountain side. Doing this off an early IOF teleconference but not too sleepy. Stiff and tight early, got going fairly well after the first few minutes although limited uphill strength. Didn't notice how humid it was until I realised how soaked I was afterwards.

First time for ages I've run twice in a day - wanted more volume than the sprints alone will give me, plus the convenient terrain was too good to pass up.

First stage of Sprint Canberra at Bruce. In the bush for the first few controls and felt OK, although a bit wide at 4 (as a lot of people were). A bit scrappy once in the buildings and felt as if my pace was dropping a bit at the end. Lost a bit of time at the last, which meant that Warren got me by a second (although it would have been far more had he not made a major mistake). Finished about 10 off the bottom.

A bit of right knee soreness in the warm-up but didn't notice it once racing.

This was my first go at using SI-Air - don't think I'm quite taking proper advantage of the touch-free nature of the punching, but still nice to give it a try. A few people had trouble being registered at the finish - enough to make me glad that we decided not to use for the Australian Sprint Championships and instead gave it its first test here, where if things go per-shaped it doesn't really matter that much.

Felt very ordinary for much of this run. Back still a bit tight without being as awkward as yesterday, but that wasn't the main issue - just very sleepy and sluggish (although did manage to cope with the hill across Kew better than I thought I would). Had originally had thoughts of longer but an hour was plenty today (although I improved a bit in the last 10 minutes); the shorter duration did mean not getting drenched.

Hit the road up to Canberra this afternoon - a trip where it often threatened rain but didn't often produce it. Lots of low cloud by the standards of a summer afternoon inland. Not exactly feeling in sprint shape, but sometimes a day's a long time.

Back didn't feel great this morning so I decided to do a session swap (making it rather early for a pool session because I'd got up at long-run time). Wasn't brilliant in the pool either, so may have been as well that I didn't try to run for two hours on it.

Street-O at Camelot Rise. I've often run well here (one night in the summer of 1998, the gauntlet thrown down by a young Simon Goddard in the first couple of kilometres, was just about as fast as I've ever run anywhere), and was hoping to give it a crack tonight, but it was apparent in the first couple of controls that I wasn't quite ready to do so. Cruised round from there, not always comfortable but settled reasonably well by the last quarter. Think I made the most of the route choice, not that it really mattered.

The demographics here have changed in the last 20 years; the real estate board across the street from the start was in Chinese as well as English. (Coincidentally, the Age ran an article today about how would-be purchasers can identify houses with lousy feng shui so as to minimise the competition from Chinese buyers).

It was a bit disturbing to learn today that bushranging still happens in Victorian bush. These 21st century wannabes, however, were about as epically unsuccessful as Captain Melville, because the vehicle whose occupants they invited to stand and deliver in Canadian Forest turned out to be an unmarked police car. (Sharp-eyed observers will also have noted that the photos in the article were definitely not taken today).

Quads still sore and tight when I got up and very much in shuffle mode when I started the run, but loosened up surprisingly quickly and I was running more or less normally within 500 metres - although this wasn't exactly the most demanding of courses (up Darebin Creek, back through Bellfield). Better than I expected, all things considered. Still sore, though, when I got up from sitting down during the day, so will probably take a little bit of sorting out yet.

Not sure I'll be up to trying to run hard tomorrow, but we'll see how we go.

Definitely knew I'd been for a long run - quads not quite as wrecked as they were after the Six Foot Track, but still sore enough to send a very clear message that any attempt to run would be a shuffle at best. By tomorrow I should be at the stage where that will do me more good than harm but for now I was quite content to spend my time in the water - proceeding rather slowly as you might expect. Lots of people in the water, although nowhere near as many as there would have been later in the afternoon.

Two Bays. Pretty tough day's work on a wildly fluctuating run. Twice in the first hour I thought I was in serious trouble, first with a back spasm on the small climb around 5k (which turned out to be the only time it surfaced), and once when my quads had reached the point where I couldn't really use them to control my descent on the short sharp drop at 9k. The first half in general felt pretty ordinary, but then hit a good stretch through Greens Bush, making up quite a bit of ground and starting to think that I might be in with a chance of getting close to my target time (2.35). Suddenly hit a brick wall in the last kilometre before the road crossing, got a second wind there (the consumption of a gel may have helped) which took me through to the Bushrangers Bay stairs, but couldn't finish it off and was counting every 100 metres in the final section. Ended up about 30 seconds outside my 2014 time, which given that I considered my 2014 run to be poor doesn't say a great deal for this year.

Perhaps a bit underdone; I've only gone significantly beyond 2 hours twice in the last few months (and one of those was in the snow in Switzerland which isn't massively relevant). The only thing in my plans in the early months of 2016 which will be remotely as long as this is the Ultralong in SA (if I run M21E), but I'd still like my endurance to be in a better state than this.

C • Sounds not unlike 8

Nice morning for a run, even though I went out a bit later than usual for a summer morning - humidity was pretty low. Felt reasonable but pretty slow on the singletrack sections along the river (which are somewhat representative of what I'll face tomorrow), faster later on. A bit of Achilles soreness from time to time but nothing too serious.

Standard session at Fitzroy. Water seemed a little cooler than usual but I didn't see any numbers to prove it. Felt pretty smooth for the most part.

Back in 1900, there was such a thing as the Anti-Sweating League. They appear to have been an eminently worthy organisation and had some committee members who went on to bigger and better things. (In the light of some revelations of recent months, perhaps it could do with a revival).

A shorter midweek long run than usual; I'm treating the weekend with a bit more respect than I sometimes have in the last. Out through Heidelberg and then back along the river. A run which promised a bit early on but never really caught alight; slow throughout. Having to pull my shorts up several times every kilometre in the second half (a combination of failed elastic and rain) was an annoyance, although the rain itself was welcome.

C • I know nothing 6

Woke to the news that someone from Ambulance Victoria had advised people, among other things, not to run today. I took this advice as applying to those times of the day when it was going to be near or above 40 and not to the early morning, when it was still a comparatively pleasant 18.

Ended up as a pretty decent session; perhaps not quite as good as the equivalent two weeks ago, but definitely better than last week. I think I got a bit of confidence out of the last couple of kilometres last night.

One day I'll probably have an issue with dogs in this session (All Nations is a popular venue from them, and as with most places, at least 50% of the owners don't think the on-leash area signs apply to them), but it hasn't happened yet.

Warm-up and down. Had a sense it was going to go OK once moving (even if a bit sleepy beforehand).

Street-O at Altona - switched to Tuesday night because of the prospect of a 40-degree night tomorrow night (and the knowledge that last time I took one of those on I wiped myself out for a couple of days, not something I want ahead of the weekend).

Again, didn't feel too brilliant; settled into a pace over the first few controls, but hit a bad patch in the middle (around the inevitable control on the jetty). Ted came through me around this time. Got a bit of a second wind heading into the last quarter, but then struck trouble at a control and lost 45 seconds - thrown a bit by a new fenced enclosure not on the map and an old one not on the ground, but if I'd been properly on the ball that wouldn't have mattered. That cost me my first sub-5 of the season (baby steps....), but felt as if I was making a bit of progress - although on a dead flat area and with reasonably benign conditions.

Of course, there was another sport which was rather more in the news today. I was a little surprised by the result - mainly because I can't recall a previous case where WADA had successfully appealed an insufficient-evidence finding (their successful appeals I'm aware of had involved inadequate penalties for guilty verdicts, or inadequate explanations for positive tests). That said, it's the result we've got; surely the message has got through by now for no-one to try something like this again (and I would be reasonably confident that Essendon were by no means the only club pushing boundaries in this area). A wooden-spoon season is something I think most Essendon supporters can live with if that's the end of the matter, but you'd have to wonder where the legal side of this will end.

Definitely a morning run this Monday - even had it not been forecast to be mid-30s later in the day, there was a lunch on at work (for a colleague who's moving to join his girlfriend in rural Louisiana; it was remarked that we'll know he's assimilated if we see him posting a picture online of himself with a gun), and a post-work massage which I expected to be (and was) pretty brutal.

The run was reasonably standard Monday fare on a reasonably standard Monday route. A lot more people are back at work today, but they still think no-one else is on the roads which leads people to do things like park trucks in clearways (because clearways don't apply in January, right?).

The swim component of a Monday. Pretty slow.

Sunday long run with Bruce for the first time in a long time. Our speed has diverged a bit in that time, and this was a little faster than I would normally do a long run on a day when I was feeling a bit indifferent, which meant it ended up being a bit shorter than I'd originally planned on - started similar to Friday's run but didn't pick up in the way that Friday's did (perhaps trying to do two long runs two days apart was a bit of a stretch?). Certainly left behind on the hills and stairs. Not very energetic in the remainder of the day.

Something of a classic run from here - the two Yarra bend footbridges with the Kew hills in between. Didn't really feel like it setting out but ended up not feeling too bad considering I was coming up after a long run yesterday, but definitely on the slow side. Hills a bit of an incremental improvement on recent days without being close to my best.

Got back to see a truck out the front - the people who were delivering a new couch/sofa bed had arrived an hour earlier than scheduled (unsurprisingly there were messages to this effect on the phone I hadn't taken with me).

Off-field incidents in the sporting arena have been in the news a bit this week (although I wonder if the Chris Gayle matter would have generated quite the reaction it did had it not fallen on ground already made fertile by events in the political arena). This isn't something we normally have to worry about, although this week's denouement in the Inverness courts of some post-WOC drunken misadventure was considered newsworthy enough to make the (UK) Daily Telegraph. Probably still won't unleash a Something Must Be Done media frenzy though....

C • post woc 13

C • Also making the news of sorts... 7

Long run shifted to Friday as described yesterday. Started from Fishermans Bend, something which would normally be the precursor to spending a fair bit of money (normally if I'm doing that it's because I'm getting something done to my car; today, it was because I was heading down to Geelong after work). First section along the river as far as Como Park, feeling fairly ordinary but maintaining a reasonable pace, then cut south/southwest towards St. Kilda (with numerous road crossings, this bit is definitely best suited to early January) before coming back along the water, past a rather chaotic Station Pier due to the near-simultaneous arrival of the Spirit of Tasmania and a cruise ship and the non-existence of trams (not running due to trackwork). Gradually built into the run as it went on and pretty good in the last half-hour, where at times I was even in danger of enjoying myself; the handful of hills were still hard work, though.

Passed something at the end signposted as a "Duck Education Centre". As this was part of the Luv-A-Duck factory I presume that this is not about educating ducks and is about educating people about how to cook ducks.

The Geelong trip was for what turned out to be a rather crazy game between Melbourne Victory and Central Coast (Victory came from 3-0 down to draw 3-3) - went down partly to see what Kardinia Park is like, given that Essendon will probably never play there again, having last done so in 1992. (Geelong play four of their home games each year in Melbourne, and those four are always against the higher-drawing Melbourne clubs). The ground seemed surprisingly limited in advertising until I realised that that was because all the Ford logos, which are here in great abundance, had been covered up because Hyundai are the A-League's major sponsor. Geelong's association with Ford (which goes back to the 1920s and was allegedly founded on the principle that Ford noticed they got better productivity in their factory on Monday if Geelong won on Saturday) is apparently the world's longest-running sporting sponsorship.

After last night I decided to defer the long run to Friday (it fits a bit better with Friday's logistics in any case). The way I felt immediately before, and in the first 10 minutes of, this session did nothing to disabuse me of the thought that trying to go long today wouldn't have ended well. Got a bit better after that (and felt better during the rest of the day).

C • Run or crawl? 2

Street-O at "Blackburn North" (actually mostly on the north side of the freeway in south Doncaster). About the only thing that can be said for tonight is that it wasn't quite as much of a debacle as last week - felt reasonable for the first 20 minutes or so, which is 19 1/2 more than I lasted last Wednesday, but then my quads went (whether this is an after-effect of Sunday or not is unclear) and I couldn't do much up the hills, of which there were a few. Got the route right (I think) but that was only of limited relevance.

It was annual climate statement day: it's always a bit strange when you're listening to yourself on the radio on the way to the event. (If I'd chosen the right station I could have done it going home, too).

Will want to run myself back into some sort of form soon, though I'm not sure a 35-degree day at Croydon Hills is going to be the place to do it.

C • Radio National 3

All Nations intervals. Definitely not as sharp or strong as I was last week, especially on the uphill reps, but no niggles at least (once Achilles, always tight early, was warmed up).

Warm-up and down from the intervals session.

Took two mornings cycling in Melbourne in 2016 before being on the end of my first f-word for the year. (Oddly enough, it came from another cyclist who didn't seem to quite grasp the idea that if you want people to give way to you on a pedestrian crossing you need to be a pedestrian).

Had thoughts initially of doing both a run and swim early, but didn't sleep well and was too tempted by the snooze button when the alarm went off (first day back at work today), so the swim was the morning part of the operation. Felt somewhat flat and lacking in fluency, although a nice morning to be in the water.

Lunchtime around the Tan. Normally this wouldn't be the most challenging of sessions but today it was about as much as I could have managed, suggesting all may not be quite right. (Quads seem to suffered a bit from the descent yesterday, too, although other niggles were OK). Felt hot at the end; it was a bit warm (25) and a bit humid, but certainly nothing which should have caused too many dramas.

Bridgewater-Mount Lofty and returning via Aldgate, with a largish group of locals covering an impressively large age range (a couple of M14s included, although they only did half of it). Cool morning - foggy on the top. Had a reasonable idea of what to expect from doing the same climb in 2012 the day after Jenny's wedding, but that doesn't make the last bit of the climb any less ferocious....

Hips were tight when I started (and for much of the run, in fact). This concerned me since it's often a precursor to back trouble, but wasn't today - kept within myself though. Quads feeling it a bit coming down as well, but reasonably happy to get through on a day when the body didn't really want to play ball (think I would have struggled with one tentative plan of a couple of weeks ago, 32km worth of Summit to Sea) - had quite a few regathering stops which helped (all of which featured Simon coming back and forth for long distances - I wouldn't be surprised if he did 5km extra). Not quite as social a run as I thought it might have been (during the run - after was a different story) as I seemed to fall into the hole in the middle of the pack, especially coming down, but did still find time to engage in discussions on matters such as bushfire hazard assessment and the misadventures of the local MP.

Back in Melbourne tonight. Enjoyed the weekend, although perhaps not the flight back so much (thanks mostly to an obese neighbour).

Back to orienteering training for the first time for a while, in a place I haven't been before - Lucky Hit, venue for the 1986 Australian Relays. I haven't been here before, not having run the 1986 Australian Relays - back then the relays were a club affair and my then club, Northside Navigators, suffered from a severe shortage of juniors, or even elites. (Part of the impetus for the 1989 merger which formed Bushflyers was that Michael and James Derlacki wanted to run relays with me, a team which produced a second in M20 in 1990).

The section we were running on was about a 1 sq km section of mature pine forest, without a lot on the ground apart from some areas of pine regrowth (and, in a definite asset for a summer training venue, no grass seeds). We were running 12-year-old courses on a 30-year-old map, with a lot of small earthworks and rocks, many of which probably wouldn't be mapped today (and 30 years of erosion had put paid to some of the earthworks), but navigation was still perfectly feasible; the good visibility helped. (I don't think it was as good 30 years ago, and recall some suggestions at the time that the name of the map was apt).

Took a while to get myself back into the terrain, and my back was a bit iffy at times, but still nice to get out there. Quite a cool morning by recent standards. Did a certain amount of back-road exploring in the Adelaide Hills on the way home.

C • Runnability 10

Shaking out some New Year cobwebs (having made it to midnight - just) by being taken into some bits of near-suburban hills which will be very well known to Adelaide readers but were hitherto unknown to me - on this occasion Brown Hill being the venue, up via Yurebilla and back more directly. Initial sharp climb was a bit of a shock to the system but then the climb was more gradual, but my trail-running legs were clearly not at their best because I managed one face-plant and two other near-misses. Jenny did promise good views, and good views there were.

We were out quite early given the heat, although as it turned out an early seabreeze meant the temperature didn't shift much all day on the coast. Even at 8.30 the sun was reasonably fierce. Heading down we saw a family heading in the opposite direction, in which the kids looked much more energetic than the parents (probably having made less of a mess of themselves the night before). Adjourned afterwards to the water, a pleasant temperature and enough waves to make it interesting, although it was a bit disconcerting to look up and see a low-flying plane marked 'SHARK PATROL'. (As it happened, the water on its own was quite enough to cause trouble without needing assistance from any of its inhabitants - two kids drowned later in the day a few hundred metres up the beach).

As for goals this year, they're a bit fuzzier than in some previous years. I'm now officially older, but am not yet sure whether or not I'll get to WMOC; one clear goal is to win the Australian M45 Long. (Not sure what sort of field I'll face - Eric is the standout of those who are actually between 45 and 49, but there are also those who are older but still more than capable of being competitive at this level, and who may well run up one or more age groups - Warren seems happy now to be an M55, but Jock and Greg have both been known to run up). On the organisational front, what I'd most like to see is to begin to see some serious flowthrough into the younger age groups at 'normal' events from our schools programs, something which has already happened in Victoria in the form of the 30-odd 10s and 12s at the Victorian Sprint Championships who came via the Primary Schools Championships.

Those who went on the 2004 APOC trip (or were there a couple of years ago for ski-O) may be interested to know that one of the items listed in a round-up in the Guardian of obscure laws in various parts of the world which come into effect on 1 January was that in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan, drivers will no longer be legally required to give way to unaccompanied dogs on pedestrian crossings.