Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

In recent years I've developed a habit of having exactly one good run on Australian Championships weekend - a good individual has meant a bad relay or vice versa. 2008 continued this pattern with a satisfying run, feeling sufficiently comfortable at speed to make me think that I hadn't been trying hard enough yesterday.

The first six or seven all went out on the second leg within a couple of minutes. I went out second, but had the long split on the first control where I also wobbled slightly, then lost a bit of time trying to get across the crrek into 2. This didn't work out badly as it then meant I was attacking the packs from behind (apart from Grant, who slipped through at 1 without my seeing him). On a course with little splitting, I then settled into a nice rhythm while working through packs, first edging clear of Nino Calabro by 6, then pulling in James Bradshaw and Steve Todkill by 10, and getting a little ahead of them when they missed 11 slightly. They were then reasonably close for a while, but dropped back a little over the closing controls (James never dropped off totally, but was far enough back for me to be able to withstand his sprint). By then, though, Ben Rattray came through on a flyer and passed me en route to the last control; I couldn't hold him and neither could anyone else. We ended up fourth after Rob Preston went through Bruce on the last leg.

It was a memorable sprint finish between Rob Walter and Simon Uppill, but the result was decided on the first leg when Lachlan Dow came back with the leaders, a result which should give him a lot of confidence about his ability to compete at this level (we ran exactly the same time, which may or may not end up being a symbolic result), and John Nieuwenhoven was four minutes down when it could easily have been ten and left the Arrows out of range.

"Interesting" trip back home from Queensland. Like, I suspect, a fair number of other readers, I was caught up in the shambles when someone (from the past history of such incidents, probably a clueless pensioner) entered through an exit and therefore caused the entire terminal (and planes, like ours, that were on the tarmac) to be cleared out for re-screening, a process which took a couple of hours. It was a bit disappointing that the assembled multitude didn't get the opportunity to throw rotten tomatoes at the offender...

On returning to Melbourne, I then had the misfortune to have a taxi driver who had been working continuously for 20 hours (one would have thought there was a law against that, but apparently there isn't). He was friendly but clearly exhausted and erratic, and I was seriously tempted to offer to drive it home myself (and probably should have done). He also appeared to be seriously navigationally challenged; I was half-expecting to see him still circling the block this morning after being unable to find his way out of Heidelberg. Eventually made it home in one piece just after midnight.

C • Security Breach 2

A pretty disappointing day in the race that I was building for in the second half of the year. It was particularly disappointing because my problems were more mental than physical - most obviously in my worst mistake in a major Australian event for fifteen years, a four-minute parallel error on 13, but also in thinking that I'd horribly misjudged my pace when in fact I'd probably got it close to right.

I took the first part of the course reasonably conservatively but didn't have any real glitches, other than a fall at 1 when I hit the elbow I broke in 2005, which was fairly painful for a couple of minutes. (It's swelled up quite significantly since; had it been my knee I probably would have struggled to run the relays). The first glitch was at 9, a knoll in the green, which I overran and lost 45 seconds at. It was here that I saw Liggo. This really rattled me. I knew he'd started six minutes after me, and also knew he was in excellent running form; two minutes wouldn't have alarmed me too much, but six? For the rest of the day I was thinking that I was running much too slowly, but couldn't lift my pace much further. (It turned out it wasn't surprising he'd got there six minutes faster than me - he was running a different course).

After the mistake at 13 I spent most of the second half thinking I was on a catastrophic run, when in fact it was merely mediocre. Held the pace OK on a warm morning, and was reasonably smooth for most of the second loop, before blowing another minute or so at 22, something which had a turnover-in-the-backline-when-30-points-down-at-the-27-minute-mark-of-the-last-quarter feel to it.

I ended up 11th; a couple of those ahead of me probably benefited from a train, but this didn't deserve to be a top-ten run and wasn't. I think 105-106 would have been a good time for me; Craig's 102 for third was probably out of reach. Had a reasonable amount in reserve at the end which did give me some optimism for tomorrow, but today was an opportunity lost, and at my age one's conscious that there may not be many more.

The rest of the day was devoted to Grand Final watching, three separate selection meetings, a presentation and dinner and my second-last passage through Maryborough. I still haven't worked out what keeps the place afloat (other than Centrelink) and none of the Queenslanders seem to know either, other than that it's there because it's there and used to be important.

Australian Sprint Championships. I may have done some significant things in sprint races overseas but today was never likely to be a repeat performance except in the unlikely event that somebody had set up a replica of a medieval European town centre at the back of the Maryborough Showgrounds. As it happened I felt very flat and produced a performance which was disappointing even by my sprint standards. Also wobbled and hesitated on the way into 6, a greenish flat gully and the one difficult control on the course. Not a day to be happy with - hopefully I got it all out of the way today and tomorrow will be a fresh start.

Afternoon session at Hervey Bay after the Schools Relays, out along the waterfront to its eastern end, back through the inland. A stiff south-easterly wind, pleasantly cool but hard work to go into on the way out (and with the close proximity of the ocean I'd acquired a bit of salt on my face by the end). As is often the way with mid-afternoon runs, didn't really fall comfortable but kept plugging away steadily.

It wasn't really a beach day but there was still plenty of evidence of school holidays; in a place with Hervey Bay's demographics (and where you could fire the proverbial cannon down the main street at 9 p.m. and not hit a soul) this will probably prompt an outburst of outraged letters to the local paper from that portion of the local citizenry who think that it should be an offence to be under 30 in a public place. The MP for Maryborough (independent, ex-One Nation) has already got in on the act by calling for the reintroduction of corporal punishment in schools.

Wide Bay may have a political reputation as a redneck haven but Gympie even more so, so I was interested to see in today's news that one Ron Owen, the most infamously rabid of Gympie's collection of infamously rabid gun lobbyists (and collector of something like 120 votes in all of Queensland when he ran for the Senate some years back), had been ordered to apologise to the 'homosexual community of Gympie' as a result of an anti-vilification case. I suspect said community is pretty small; it's the sort of place where one could easily imagine anyone known to be a bit queer being run out of town at the hands of a pitchfork-wielding mob.

Finished the day at the Schools presentation dinner (as OA representative). I left before there was time for any potential scandal (there's usually one about every five years and the last one was in 2003). Most memorable moment was seeing a certain prominent South Australian elite orienteer who's a lot closer in age to World Masters than she is to JWOC successfully passing as an under-18 to avoid having to join the signing-in queue at the RSL.

Off to Fraser Island for the day tomorrow.

Not quite up to the level of the weekend races. Schools Tuesday is never an easy one for me to race well on; my focus is on other things for a lot of the day, and the faster terrain wasn't quite as much to my liking as some of the thick stuff on the weekend. My principal objective on this day is to beat all the kids, something I haven't managed since 2001. This time, like last time, I beat all of ours but got beaten by one of the Kiwis.

One 30-second mistake, coming over the top of 11 (which seemed to be very low), and a couple of other minor wobbles, but the big problem today was not being fast enough in an area where that counts for a lot. May not augur well for the weekend as those areas are supposedly also pretty fast.

A body was found in forest near Maryborough on the weekend, but it was nothing to do with us. I also saw a sign on the way into Maryborough "Baby Shoot". They do like their guns in these parts, but I think this particular sign was a reference to photographs.

Didn't expect a lot of this session but it turned out to be a really nice run, flowing along well after initial warm-up. Particularly nice along the Hervey Bay esplanade in the second half of the run (spent the first half inland, partly in the name of exploration). No sign of stiffness from yesterday; only lingering issue is some itchiness where my arm encountered an air-borne nest of fire ants while pushing through some green yesterday.

C • dust storm on radar 2