Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Club event at Boundary Creek. Tougher going than I was expecting - used the east side of the map (three loops) which is pretty steep and has its share of regrowth (unlike most of the areas in this region where the only thing that slows you down is the steepness).

Not all that happy with the way I was running - lacked a bit of confidence attacking the terrain, particularly downhill. Hopefully a few more weeks of practice will sort this out. Not much zip either after yesterday, which suggests that the work I've been doing over summer to make myself better at coming up on successive days hasn't had much effect yet.

There were two suspect controls - one in the wrong place and one master map error. Probably lost about 1.5 minutes on each from the splits. Apart from that navigation was OK with only a couple of minor wobbles, although many of the controls were very visible which made things easier.

Not sure what all the results were, but Kathryn did a very respectable 76.

A good solid run, my best for a couple of weeks. Felt smooth throughout. Most of it was pretty flat along various parts of the Yarra between Ivanhoe and Templestowe, but finished off with some hills and handled it OK. Out of bed a bit earlier than I would have liked for a Saturday morning (courtesy of a 36-degree forecast), but that didn't seem to cause too many troubles.

Fairly standard swim at Richmond. Felt very tired last night but much better after a decent night's sleep.

The end of a pretty tough sequence of runs. Had some unwanted distractions in the form of a couple of pitstops in the first 10k - obviously ate something that didn't quite agree with me last night - but otherwise a steady if unspectacular run, south as far as Camberwell and back through North Balwyn and the pipeline track in Bulleen - so rolling hills most of the way. Humid again (this is getting boring), but looks like a significant change on the way early next week - we might even be in danger of getting a sub-15 night!

The equinox and the tail end of daylight saving are approaching, which meant doing the first 40 minutes in the dark - good practice for winter. Being up at 5.30 did mean being able to ring Norway at a reasonable time for them (it was Cassie's 30th yesterday).

First crack at the Tan this year and it was very ordinary indeed - felt OK in the warm-up, but had no speed at all and knew I was in for a long day when Bruce was 50 metres up inside the first 300 (instead of his more usual 20 or 30). Got baulked a couple of times early on by walkers or pram-pushers but that was worth 5 seconds at most. Felt better in the second half but it didn't come through in the splits. Hopefully this is a flat spot I work out of. Only 14 seconds faster than what I did during the time trial last week, and that was with no-one to pace me and an extra 1.17k to run afterwards.

KM splits: 3.35, 3.43 (uphill), 3.35, 3.35 (last two slightly overlap).

Street-O at Canterbury. A couple of times a year I have this combination when the Corporate Cup and Summer Series seasons overlap. Expected it to be awful after lunchtime's mediocre performance, but got going nicely in the warm-up and held this through most of the run.

Last Sunday introduced us to map scale quirks but this one was bizarre - somehow the map's compressed east-west, so it's 1:16500 in the west-east direction and 1:11000 north-south. The pack stayed together early on - Adam got an early jump but lost it when he hit an unmapped uncrossable fence and lost 50 metres. He and Bryan Ackerly then got a break of 50 metres or so on me as I was resolving a difficult route-choice problem, but it proved to be time well spent because we split shortly afterwards and my route was the shorter one (also no bad thing to be a bit behind at the split point, so the opposition doesn't get second thoughts). I ended up with a break of 100 metres on Bryan going towards the last control, but lost nearly all of it because it was misplaced by 40 metres and I overshot it. The gap was about 20 metres leaving the control, which I didn't expect to hold but did. Quite a pleasing run - and perhaps an indicator that I wasn't trying hard enough at lunchtime.

Peter Hobbs (who went the same way as me) also slipped in ahead of Adam, which gives me some hope of winning overall, but as I'm not running next week he's still in the box seat - if he wins next week he'll get a tie at worst, even if I win the last round.

C • Where is it next week? 5

Jog to/from the Tan.

I've felt as if I've been a bit flat for a few days now, possibly fighting off a cold (had a hint of a sore throat over the weekend), and today was the objective evidence - a disappointingly weak and slow session (9.20 fastest loop). Felt a bit better on the second loop but no faster.

Spotted a newspaper poster that I suspect they keep permanently stored in the word processor - 'FOOTY STAR DISGRACE'. We'll know orienteering has made it as a sport when we start seeing "nightclub incidents" amongst our number making the headlines, not that we've had a decent "nightclub incident" since the 1994 World Cup in Ballarat. Since then we've had to settle for the Great Isosport Bust at the 1999 Australian Championships (where the Inspectors Clouseau of the Goulburn police detained a carload of orienteers, thinking their bags of white powder were drugs), or the Wagga Arm Wrestle at QB3 in 1994.

In the finest tradition of Nordic inter-country sledging, I bring you the following news report (on a heavy snowfall that blocked roads in south-western Norway):

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Newspaper Aftenposten pointed out that Swedish highway officials managed to keep their roads open through the same storm, while their Norwegian counterparts failed miserably. Officials in Vest-Agder County even had to call out the Red Cross and use snowmobiles to evacuate motorists stranded overnight in their cars on the major highway along the southern coast.

"The situation in Norway is incredible," Roland Andersson of the Swedish highway agency Vägverket told Aftenposten. "With all the oil revenues Norway has, the Norwegians should have managed to cope."

Swimming at Northcote. No-one else in the lane, not quite sure why but it made life a bit easier.

C • Attire 1

Got more of a warm-up for Monday night than I counted on, getting a flat on the way to Bruce's place, which left me having to run the last 3k there (with reasonably heavy backpack). Slow but harmless.

Did most of the Yarra Bend terrain loop. Bruce was keen on intervals but I wasn't (I'm doing speedwork tomorrow and then racing twice on Wednesday, which will be a tough enough combination as it is). Dion was the only other one keen on that so I joined Jasmine, Ilka and Nicola on a steady run. Was prepared to do the lot but saw Bruce and Dion and they said they weren't doing the outer loop so I bailed too (in any case the light was starting to run out). Run was pleasant enough without pushing myself too hard, although the humidity is starting to make a comeback; this week doesn't look much easier than last week. The end of summer can't come soon enough. (At least we're not in Marble Bar, which looks like it's about to score Australia's first-ever 45+ average monthly maximum temperature - the coolest day so far this month has been 42.6).