Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Fine navigation as good as it was yesterday, but not the strongest run I've ever had - lacking strength on some of the climbs in the second half of the course. Also lost time on a poor route on 12-13 - didn't see the track option to the south (and then compounded it when the bit of sloping bare rock I'd planned to use turned out to be too steep to get down). Probably also insufficently aggressive in the green on the first quarter of the course; Bruce was already 3 minutes up on me by 4. Thought a sub-80 was a possibility and Ben and Bruce delivered. Great to see 14 starters in a state-level long M21 course.

An interesting indicator of how much a good line counts for here: Ben took 1.30 out of me on 14-15 (and I think everyone else was further back still). We went the same way, but the difference was that Ben had come down the corridor through the green on 12-13 and therefore already knew where the gaps were, whereas I had to find them for the first time.

Gave my shin a nasty knock early on - tripped and then scraped it along a branch jutting out - a bit like being raked by the studs in soccer. It was pretty painful at the time, but as there was no referee present to pay a free kick and/or give someone a yellow card, there was no point in writhing on the ground before getting up and running on. The bruise looks impressive but no major swelling or lasting after-effects.

Event: Winter Classic, Kooyoora/Mt Korong
 

First day at Kooyoora. An excellent run for fine navigation - didn't even miss 5 seconds on any control. Did lose a bit of time on the over-the-rocky hill 5-6 through getting a poor line through the heavy rock, an occupational hazard here. Running solidly but too tentative on the bare rock, something I'll want to address before next weekend - lack of confidence on wet rock has always been a problem for me in Scandinavia (perhaps I should hope for a continuation of this week's Scandinavian weather).

A rather up-and-down session, switching from good to bad and back again intermittently for no particularly good reason. At Fitzroy which is a little different from my usual Friday location.

Noted with interest that Tony Mokbel spent six months taking in the serenity at Bonnie Doon before moving on to Greece.

A bit off the boil this morning - thought it was going to be a good one in the first quarter but from then on it was a grind I was glad to see the end of. A bit shorter than in recent weeks because of the multiple races this weekend.

As usual, the compliance rate with the dog-on-leash zone along the Merri Creek bike path was about 50%. Also spotted a mix of the healthy and unhealthy - someone who was out on their bike (good) but had stopped by the side of the path for a smoke (bad).

(Those travelling to central Europe for the first time may be in for a bit of a surprise - I once saw somebody having a smoke in the 3-minutes-to-go box at the pre-start of a Czech 5-Days).

Noticed that Somalia have entered for the World Cup in Norway. I'll believe this when I actually see one of their runners at the event, having previously thought that the Somali OF had been purely a vehicle to facilitate an immigration scam (one of their officials was supposed to go to a regional meeting in South Africa and as far as I know hasn't been heard of since). Reduces the chance that I'll come last :-)

Younger readers may be interested to hear a report that McDonald's in Karratha apparently pays under-18s $21 an hour. The drawback is having to live in Karratha (both because I'm led to believe it's not exactly a brilliant place to live, and because housing is horrifically expensive). Shows just how distorted the economy has become in that part of the world.

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A pretty hilly run around Ivanhoe and Eaglemont (and lots of stops to put things in letterboxes) - certainly jumped in at the deep end by taking on the full Burgundy Street climb (known by cyclists as one of the toughest climbs in the inner/middle suburbs of Melbourne) inside the first kilometre. Promising for the first half but faded in the second half, which may or may not have had something to do with sleeping badly last night.

Noticed that the house next door to my grandparents' old place no longer exists.

Threw three fast kilometres into a session around the Tan (0-1, 1.5-2.5 and last 1 km), jog recovery. Aiming for something close to 10km race pace and got it, with some help from Simon Goddard on the first rep. Handled it reasonably well but felt as if I didn't have a lot of extra pace in hand, which considering this is mid-14s Tan pace is not really a good thing. Right foot/ankle seems a little tender.

Km splits 3.52, 3.46, 3.44. The first one is net uphill (and rather uneven at present) and the last two net downhill so this was a reasonably even effort.

Another session in the fog - this time intervals on the Clifton Hill track for the first time in a while. Not as slow at the start as I have been the last couple of times, and gained pace as I loosened up, although fell away a little on the last couple of repetitions. A reasonably pleasing session on the whole (even if a fair number of you would laugh at the pace).

8 x 400 on a 2.5-minutes cycle. Lap times 82, 81, 80, 78, 77, 76, 77, 77.

C • Gee Blair. That's two days... 5

Warm-up/warm-down for the intervals session.

Quite a few advertisers seem to think that Melburnians would rather be somewhere else at the moment; in the course of this morning I saw posters extolling the virtues of going on holiday to the Whitsundays or the Sunshine Coast (where sunshine is in rather short supply at present), living in Wodonga, working in the health system in Townsville, and driving taxis in Perth. Presumably the last of these involves the WA government trying to tap into the supply of discontented Melbourne taxi drivers who bared (almost) all outside Flinders Street Station a few weeks back (although haven't the WA taxis had recent industrial relations issues too?).

C • WA Taxi 1

Coldest swimming morning of the year so far at Fitzroy but the hard core were still there. It's nice once you're in, honest :-)

My implied prediction about what the Herald-Sun would publish from yesterday's report on policing and crime proved to be one hundred percent correct. Unfortunately my football tipping didn't fare quite so well.

A lunchtime trot around the Tan on a sunny winter's lunchtime (or at least it was as long as you aren't looking too closely at our website, which claims that 0.2mm of rain fell in Melbourne while I was out there). Pretty tight early on, a bit better later but always felt as if I was working into a figurative wind.

C • Blowback 1