Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

A dose of reality after yesterday on the steep slopes of Mount Beckworth. This was a two-loop race with one horrendously steep loop and one much flatter one (half the field did in one order, the other half in the other). I had the steep loop first; out on the course I thought this was an advantage but the results suggest otherwise. (I suspect it didn't make a lot of difference).

This was a scrappy run, sometimes more than scrappy as when I lost 2 minutes at 18. Also lost time at both the 'first controls' after the pivot controls and various other bits, probably 4-5 minutes in all, and dropped 3 more minutes with an awful route choice on the mountainous 8 when I made the mistake of committing myself to a final approach through heavy bracken, and compounded it by failing to cut my losses and drop down out of the thick stuff. Felt OK physically in the first half but tired in the second; on the point of cramp several times later in, even on the token hills at 26 and 27. David Brownridge, who I'd gone through at 12, recaught me after my mistake at 18 and we were together until 27 when he fell off on the last hill. It was a career-best result for him so I guess I at least did something useful for someone.

Ended up 8th; a good time for me would have been 97-98, which wouldn't have gained me many more places but would have felt a lot better. Glad to get through a long race on another hot day but that's the only real positive to draw from the day (apart from clocking up 1500 career events). Fastest Victorian again, but that says more about everyone else than it does about me.

This weekend told us a few things about the 2008 WOC team (namely that Shep's still got it and Simon will be there), but no-one really made a compelling case that they're going to be taking a grip on the fringe places. Maybe it will be one of the ones who wasn't here who ends up going to WOC.

The most agility I displayed on the day was when I got home - my front door lock stuck and the key snapped off trying to open it (and the locksmith I rang helpfully suggested that he might be able to make it round by Thursday), and getting into the back courtyard involves going via the neighbour's fence, over a trellis and down a tree. Haven't heard from the police yet so obviously no-one saw it.

And - can someone explain to me under exactly which criteria Melton won Victorian Sustainable City 2007? (as their sign proudly boasted - at least it's an improvement on the last one which proclaimed 'MELTON CONTROLS WEEDS'). The very existence of Melton and places like it as a significant population centre is a symbol of the unsustainable way in which Melbourne is sprawling. At least in Casey most of the people are employed reasonably locally.

Event: NOL event 1 & 2
 

National League relays at Spring Gully. I didn't see this one coming. As noted earlier I wasn't at all confident about my speed going into this, and when it came to selecting the teams I didn't think I was up to running in the first team and said so. (Part of my reason for thinking this was that I'd struggled to outpace Kathryn in recent weeks, but her results this weekend suggest that this says more about her than it did about me).

Ran second leg in the second team with Toph and Warren. I took over in 3rd place, a couple of minutes behind the other Victorian team and 7 down on SA. Started a bit slowly, drifted a bit wide on 2 without major time loss, lost a minute avoiding some green that didn't need to be avoided on 3, and by 4 Rob Walter had swallowed me. The surprise was what happened next; I expected him to blow me away but it didn't happen, and if anything (with the help of a couple of lucky lines in rough stuff and one decent route choice) I was leading more than trailing through the middle section of the course. He finally pulled away in the last quarter; by then we'd caught Evan, and by the end Rob had gone through Reuben too, which I almost but not quite matched. Rob Preston almost got us at the end too.

As it turned out it was a day when speed wasn't at a premium; the course was technical and the heat meant it was a tougher proposition than a 50-minuter normally would. Shep blew everyone away on the last leg with 45, Simon did 48; my splits after 4 were competitive with everyone except those two, which was a big surprise. We ended up third because Evan mispunched (Victoria 1 were a couple of minutes ahead of us across the line), and I had the fastest Victorian time - obviously the selector responsible for the decision to put me in the second team is a poor judge and should resign forthwith from all selection positions :-)

A very pleasing start to the season personally; as one gets older the fear at the start of every season is that the pack will leave you behind in the dust, but perhaps the day is still some way away.

C • Have you always used girls ... 3

Swim session at Richmond. Felt pretty energetic on the bike on the way there, but not so much once I actually got into the pool.

Up before 5.30 for the last time in a while (even if the start times on Sunday get brought forward). Starting to ease back on the Thursday distance but still reasonably long. The first two-thirds was a reasonably hilly route through Ivanhoe, Eaglemont and Heidelberg dropping off the branch newsletters, then finished off going up into Macleod and back along the high road (imaginatively named Mountain View). It was a run which felt iffy from the start, lacking in energy at times, but picked up every time it looked like it was about to fall apart.

It started to warm up a bit by the end, but still nothing in comparison to the mid-30s we'll see this weekend. These days anything that increases the degree of difficulty is normally to my advantage, but apart from two weeks at New Year there hasn't been a lot of extreme heat (and I've spent lots of summer in cold places anyway), so my preparation may not be as good as I would like. (Looking back at my records, I've only done two runs in temperatures over 30 this summer, both of them relatively short fartlek/interval sessions). With no break likely in the heat away from the coast until at least the end of next week, I'm starting to wonder if it's going to be another 1986 when a nondescript summer (at least in southeastern Australia) was followed by a very warm March and early April. Orienteers of sufficient vintage may remember the very hot first day of Easter at Kooyoora that year; more notable in my mind was running our school cross-country the following Friday on Canberra's hottest April day ever, and seeing the leader of the age group above me staggering across the oval to the finish line, his lead shrunk from 200 metres as he stepped onto the oval to 3 metres at the finish. Not exactly what you want to see when you're a few minutes from racing yourself....

Clueless driver watch: the person who was driving in heavy traffic along Rosanna Road as I ran past, with both hands clutching a copy of a magazine ('New Woman' for the record) and neither discernably on the steering wheel. Reminded me a bit of an episode many years ago when an American orienteer, whose name I have forgotten, got booked for reading a map while he was driving and successfully got the charge overturned in court on the grounds that if he could successfully read a map while running in rough terrain then he could certainly do it while sitting in a car.

The usual fartlek loop from home on a slightly unusual day (this meant that the hose-wielders were on the right side of the street instead of the left like they usually are). Not disastrous but would want to be faster than this at this stage of my preparation - fastest loop 9.21 when I would have hoped to be sub-9.10 at this point. A lovely cool autumn morning, which won't be especially relevant to this weekend.

Ran from near work down to the waterfront and then to St. Kilda. A reasonably mundane run which was a little longer than I'd planned on. Found a few back streets in Middle Park I hadn't previously been in, which is a bit of a surprise given that I lived in the area for four years.

Street-O at Kensington. The west end of this map would make an excellent sprint area (although the residents probably wouldn't like it) with a maze of small laneways and a few parks thrown in. Last night's course didn't make the best of this part of the map but was otherwise enjoyable. I was expecting it to be short - the map is too small to set a 10km+ scatter course on - but yesterday was a bit longer than it usually is here.

I was with Bryan Ackerly most of the way - got a bit of a jump on him on a route choice early on but he had hauled me in again by halfway and we were more or less together for the rest. He was keeping a bit in reserve and chose not to contest the finish sprint - understandable from his point of view (he's doing the Six Foot Track this weekend) but a bit frustrating from mine, because I needed the race preparation more than I needed the result and would have appreciated having to contest a sprint even though I would almost certainly have lost it.

As with a few recent faster runs, I felt reasonably good going at slightly under 4 mins/km pace but lacked an extra gear to do anything faster. This may be a good thing for the Canberra Marathon but probably not for the other races I'm running in the next month.

Related piece of trivia: according to a survey which came out yesterday, the public housing estate we went through between 14 and 20 is the most disadvantaged Census collection district in Victoria. (The same survey reported that "Corio" was the least disadvantaged, which sounded bizarre at first glance, until you took a closer look at the result and saw that the CCD in question is the bit of Corio on the eastern side of the highway whose population, I suspect, consists almost entirely of Geelong Grammar boarders).

C • Social disadvantage 4

A morning session at MSAC. Had forgotten that it's the lead-up to the Grand Prix and anything at Albert Park is therefore a little challenging to get to. A nice swim on the whole, with sunglare a bit of an issue at times in the outdoor pool. Speed seemed to be changing quite a bit during the course of the swim but the clock didn't really bear that out.

Monday night from Susannah's, which usually means a trip around the Tan and did again tonight. After a hot day the change came through just as we were waiting on the corner for Morten to arrive. Morten obviously doesn't have much experience of Monday nights as he and Simon took off at high speed once we hit the Tan - I thought a 4.00 kilometre was pretty quick for a Monday but they must have been down around 3.40. Felt pretty good in the second half, including on the hill.

A name from the past was spotted on the Tan, one Shura Jones.

Discussion at the end turned to Rosie Dalheim's upcoming campaign in the election for captain of Westgarth Primary (a full bells-and-whistles affair, complete with the AEC running the show). We now have a graphic designer (Dion), a marketing person (Torgeir), a strategy consultant and preference deal adviser (me) and perhaps most importantly a campaign finance coordinator (Nicola). Simon offered to be chief dirt-digger but I suspect none of the rival candidates have visited a strip club or had any meetings with Brian Burke.

C • Do preps get a vote? 2

C • Shura 2