Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

I'd forgotten until I came in on Friday evening that the western suburbs of Brisbane are seriously hilly (especially in places where the street pattern doesn't follow the topography). This run was from Ben and Michelle's place in Bardon, but most of the run itself was in the Mount Coot-tha forest, mostly on rough tracks with a fair bit of climbing, especially in the first half. You'd get pretty strong training in this part of Brisbane (as I know many readers do). Came up better from yesterday than I expected, and no sign of the groin twinge so that looks like a one-off.

Most of the rest of the day was spent in the hills behind the Gold Coast, after traversing various examples of questionable urban planning to get there. It's a bit scary to realise that I'm only 12 years away from being eligible for the various "mature living" developments being advertised (although somehow I suspect the only 50-year-olds to be found anywhere near such places are the models in the advertisements). Springbrook had its spectacular moments, although a lot of the walking tracks are still closed from landslides after the May rains. The area in general was somewhat afflicted by weekend-getaway-close-to-major-city syndrome, with Tamborine Mountain being particularly overrun. Finished the day through the upper Tweed valley, which is gorgeous, especially on a clear winter day like this one.

C • Seniors advertising 1

Binna Burra to O'Reillys via the Coomera River extension. This was one I'd been looking forward to for a while, the longest (and best) of four successive runs largely on national park tracks. It was also a good group run (more or less required by the logistics of a route where the two ends are 70km apart by road). We had two bunches heading in opposite directions, with my company being Mark Gregson, Olly Mitchell and James Sheldon. I haven't been here since walking the track (in the opposite direction) as a 15-year-old (by which stage I had already more or less grown out of Surfers and looked forward to our then-regular Gold Coast trips mainly for the mountains).

Most of the climbing was in the first half. This also featured the roughest part of the track (with quite a bit of rock-hopping and several creek crossings), and most of the best scenery, along the waterfalls of the upper Coomera Valley. (A later lookout from the divide down into northern NSW was pretty spectacular too, though). The gradients were never steep, and the last 7km was all gently downhill.

It was a steady run, although I had a bit of a scare with a twinge in my groin about 10km from home - it's a long way out from there had it packed up. (It didn't - was tight after finishing but seems fine now). The pace definitely picked up on the final downhill with the later sections well under 5 min/km - James went off the front but drifted back again towards the end.

A very enjoyable day; thanks to everyone else for helping to make it happen.

(And I obviously missed the news that the Australian Grand Prix was rescheduled to take place on the road up to O'Reillys today).

I thought I might go for a swim somewhere on the Sunshine Coast, but when I drove past the Maryborough pool and saw that it was open I thought it best to take the opportunity while it was there. The sign promised a heated pool. The 50-metre pool was deserted and had no lane ropes, and I dipped a leg in to determine that it wasn't heated (probably 17-18 degrees, which I could have coped with), then I saw that everyone was in the 25-metre pool around the corner. Quite a nice session once underway.

The next move was the road less travelled to the Sunshine Coast, taking in Rainbow Beach, the back road which misses Gympie (and features that great Australian tradition, the few kilometres of dirt straddling a council boundary) and, in a "thank you to our sponsors" moment, the Laminex factory (my grandfather was one of the principals of the original business), as well as the weather station at Tewantin. (My tally is now 80 out of 103 and will most likely end up at 82 or 83; compared with my original plans, I visited Camooweal which I hadn't originally planned to, but missed Victoria River Downs, Burketown, Palmerville and Weipa).

Noosa was very much a return to the tourist mainstream. This has its pluses (not being considered dangerously deviant if you want lunch after 1 - or dinner after 6.30, or coffee after 3, or hot chocolate at any time), but also its minuses (not being able to find a park easily). I was surprised how busy it was on a weekday in winter outside school holidays.

The plan was to run in Noosa National Park. The options were a bit limited because most of the park was closed due to burning off, but the coast track was still open. This had a bit too much pedestrian traffic for comfort at the Noosa end but took in some nice scenery. Got as far as Alexandria Beach on the east side before returning. Never really got going physically but a nice place to be.

Heading into Brisbane I saw my first traffic jam for a long time. Fortunately it was in the other direction.

Onto the lower sections of Mt. Archer from Scott and Gayle's place in the northern part of Rockhampton. It was 4.5k across the university and the suburbs to get to the base, then the rest was on a track, ultimately destined for the summit, up a valley. The track was a bit rougher than Scott had led me to believe (no bad thing), although it was apparent looking up that there was still a lot more climbing to be done between the turnaround point and the summit. The run itself was at its best in the middle, and turned into a bit of a slog later on, particularly the last 20 minutes through the suburbs.

Central Queensland University does not have anything that I saw named after Russ Hinze, but it does have a road named after one Glenister Shiel. Keen students of Australian political history may recall that former Senator Shiel has the dubious distinction of the shortest ministerial career in Australian political history - he was sacked before he was sworn in for pronouncing in his first interview "the world has missed a shining example of harmony and separate development by failing to recognise the virtues of South Africa's apartheid system". (This would be a questionable career move under any circumstances, but especially so when your leader is Malcolm Fraser, who took race issues very seriously even in the late 1970's).

With no real time pressure I didn't return from this run until mid-morning and didn't leave town until midday, heading south via Gladstone (industrial, but a more attractive town centre than I was expecting), Agnes Water/1770 and Bundaberg. Ended the day in Childers, mainly because it happened to be where I was when night fell.

A bit of a taster for Saturday at Binna Burra - a run on one of the walking tracks at Eungella National Park, from Broken River back towards Eungella. This is at the top of a high escarpment and was mostly single-track through rainforest, never too steep - a lovely place to run (especially on a crisp sunny morning). Unsurprisingly it was a very enjoyable session.

I don't think the Garmin coped too well with a winding track in mountainous rainforest - there's no way I was doing 6.5 minutes/km. I've assumed 5.4, the same as on a track of similar roughness last Saturday.

With less time pressure now I then did some more exploring around the area and the Finch Hatton Gorge. Heading down to Rockhampton this afternoon.

C • Rockhampton 3

Those who follow my training closely will know that I would normally do a second session on this day. I was a little later leaving the Finch Hatton area than I'd planned on and therefore found myself presented with the following options:

(a) do something en route and drive the last hour to Rockhampton in the dark (I didn't expect to miss any interesting scenery, but suspected, correctly, that it was roo country).
(b) do something in the dark once I got to Rockhampton.
(c) shift the session to Friday and do it in Noosa.

I chose option (c), and I suspect most of you would have too. I was particularly pleased to have done so because had I chosen option (a) I would have done it in St. Lawrence, which turned out to be a landscape of decrepit desolation the likes of which I haven't seen this side of the Lower Ninth in New Orleans. The town is clearly several decades past its best and only about one block in five seems to be occupied.

Also got to hear some familiar voices on the ABC during the day - one of my work colleagues (talking about climate change) and my 1984 school captain (now a Griffith Uni law professor, talking about the adequacy, or lack thereof, of whistleblowing protection laws).

Intervals session on the Bingil Bay beach, the fairly standard 10x1 minute session (although more like 65 seconds downwind, 68 upwind). This setting could have come straight out of a Queensland tourism brochure - beach backed by rainforest, sunny morning, young couple embracing in the shallows. Hard to have a bad one in a place like this.

Something I was again reminded of last night is that at YHAs in the remoter parts of Australia it is very much 'spot the Aussie' - apparently 90%+ of their business is from overseas.

This ended up as another long day, but should be the last of them as I am now more or less back on my original schedule. Visited the impressive Wallaman Falls west of Ingham (one of the highest single-drop falls in Australia), then most of the afternoon was on the road (largely covering ground from 2007) down to the Mackay area.

I stayed in the pub at Finch Hatton, west of Mackay. This location has the distinction of Australia's second-highest daily rainfall (something not disputed by me). It turned out Olly's parents (who have a property in the area) were also staying there so I had some dinner company. In an interesting coincidence, their vehicle is identical to mine (model and colour), and was purchased for essentially the same reason - their last vehicle entering water that was too deep for it (although in their case the Ipswich flash flood last November was responsible).

Getting to/from the beach. Nice uphill pinch in the last 200 metres back to the hostel.

Morning session in Georgetown, down the Forsayth road from 'town' (such as it is). Slept better than I was expecting to; still felt a little out of sorts on the run but legs started to move pretty well in the second half, particularly in the last 10 minutes.

There's some nice granite around Georgetown (and scattered through the region), although without much definition to the contours a map would just be random scattered black dots. Didn't see any cattle on the run, although they were grazing almost to the town boundary on the way in last night.

This was a shorter day for distance (although I still used virtually all the daylight), mainly because quite a bit of it was spent visiting the Undara lava tubes - definitely an interesting place. After that it was onwards to hit the east coast via the Atherton Tableland, ending up at Mission Beach. It was definitely a bit of a shock to the system to see:

(a) green grass other than on sprinklers
(b) signposts to the next town with two-digit numbers on them
(c) traffic

Mount Surprise was just about the last outback settlement of the trip. They are celebrating 100 years of law and order in the district this year. I'm now sure exactly how one celebrates this - perhaps with a drunken brawl, or a historical re-enactment, although the latter may lack authenticity as shooting Aborigines is frowned on these days.

It also occurred to me, as the iPod shuffle came up with '(What's The Story) Morning Glory' in Innisfail instead of Normanton, that if the iPhone is intelligent enough to tell that you've crossed a time zone boundary and change the clock, it should be intelligent enough to have a mode where it picks out geographically appropriate songs. (The reason why that particular song is geographically appropriate to Normanton may be lost on non-meteorologists). One would, however, need to have some sort of override on it, otherwise on a visit to the Top End one might be continually subjected to Bill and Boyd's 'Santa Never Made It Into Darwin', which I assume was well-intentioned (a Cyclone Tracy appeal fundraiser?) but got a well-earned place on a JJJ all-time Coldest 100 some years back.

And, in the light of yesterday's log, guess who the admin building at the Innisfail showgrounds is named after?