Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Not as good as yesterday but better than Thursday, after an ordinary night's sleep (again) and a very early start. Took a while to get going, but then at its best on a couple of big climbs from 6k to 9k before the turnaround point (I didn't have quite enough time in reserve to complete a loop). Struggled a bit on a rollercoaster of steep, short climbs and descents around 13-15k and faded a bit in the last 10 minutes, which reminded me that I'm still not 100% well.

This run started well before sunrise (I needed the head torch for the first 25 minutes, although it kept slipping on downhills - needs some new elastic). There are benefits to this - running up hills is easier when you can't see how big (or steep) they are. There was also some meteorological exploration; a strong warm northerly had developed on the high ground but had not yet mixed down into the valleys, and I think it dropped about 8 degrees in 50 metres coming back; it felt like stepping into an airconditioned building on a hot day.

A lot about this run reminded me of Winchester 1989 (the straightish country lane with lots of ups and downs, the distinctive smell of dairy cattle, starting in the dark, and the topographic influence on temperature), although Winchester temperature inversions (at times of year when I was running in the dark) more often involved going from +4 to -4 in a hurry than 22 to 14 in a hurry.

C • where did you run? nice place Nerrim South 2

This was more like it. I'm going through the standard cycle for a cold - sounding worse but feeling better (my running is usually at its worst around the point where I first start to notice other symptoms). I wasn't expecting much today after a poor night's sleep, but it ended up being a fairly standard run, getting to the outright nice stage in the middle sections across the top of the hills.

It's a nice setting for a run; early on there's a 4km stretch on a gravel road snaking through the farms up to the top of the range - it's almost continuously uphill but never terribly steep (probably 4-6% for the most part). I usually enjoy this and today was no exception (it was certainly vastly better than Thursday when even a couple of contours felt like a struggle). Climbing into the low cloud in a few spots. A 6.48 start was just late enough to be able to get away without a headlamp, but I certainly won't be able to do that tomorrow.

A swim at Warragul after the end of field days proceedings. Again not feeling brilliant but OK once in the water. Just as well I didn't commit myself to a pool running session - the maximum depth is 1.4m.

Like Benalla, this is run by the YMCA, but I didn't see any Bruce Arthur posters here.

Had our first oddball of the week so far today; I suspect he may have been a creationist as he was going on about how the level of helium in the atmosphere was allegedly too low to be consistent with the Earth's age.

And oxymoron of the day: the sign outside Warragul Primary School proudly announcing the forthcoming arrival of their 'new heritage fence'.

C • Appears to have been logged as a run, all the same! 2

Run from Neerim South after the end of the day at the field days. The original plan was to be dropped off some way short of Neerim South and run the rest, but this came unstuck when it transpired that the colleague I was travelling with hadn't ever driven a manual.

There was still just enough light to get one in leaving from where we were staying. I've had some lovely runs from here but this wasn't one of them, partly because I'm not in the shape I usually am (and I think I'm fighting off a cold at present), partly because it was about 15-20 degrees warmer than it often has been for my runs here. The hills - and there were some big ones - were hard work (a 1k one at 12% 7k in just about flattened me), but apart from that it wasn't dreadful, and it was less slow than some of my semi-hilly long runs of late.

I feared the worst when the semi-remote forest track I spent some time on was signposted as a trailbike route, but didn't see any. Probably not a good place for a Sunday long run though (although my Sunday long run will most likely be over before the trailbike riders are awake).

So far so good at the field days, and I think our new webpage which allows you to pull up a 7-day forecast for any point (only operating in Victoria so far, but will be rolled out in the other states over the next couple of years) gained a lot of converts (hopefully more converts than the Church of Scientology stand down the road).

C • Forecasting and probability distributions 4

Felt a bit out of sorts this morning; better by evening, but my performance on the run suggested that something still wasn't right - dismally weak on any sort of hill. The rest was vaguely decent but this won't go down as a run to remember. Got the route more or less right, but so did plenty of others so I spent a lot of time chasing.

Sounds like we did well to go to Wilsons Prom two weeks ago and not last week; five men took the (probably well-trodden) trip to Moe Magistrates' Court yesterday on charges of illegal hunting in the national park after being arrested there last week.

Off to Warragul in the morning for the Gippsland Field Days. For the first time I can remember, it looks like being reasonably hot, which will make a late afternoon run tomorrow a bit more challenging than it might otherwise have been.

8x400 on a 2.5 minute cycle. Still pathetically slow, but significantly less pathetically slow than it was two weeks away - 81-87 this time, about 2-3 seconds faster for each rep than the equivalent one last time. Another 4 seconds off this and I'll be starting to think I might be back in business (more or less). Drifted away a bit on the last rep which was a bit disappointing. (For those unfamiliar with the way I tend to do these, I normally drop about a second per rep for the first five and then do the last three or four in about the same time).

Warm up and down from the intervals session. Pushing it a bit harder coming back because I was running late for a massage, but the masseur was running later.

Those familiar with the Australian vernacular will have been amused to read today that Tiger Woods apparently intends to get back to his old roots at Augusta.

Lunchtime session around the Tan on a somewhat logistically challenging day (starting out with a 6.30 flight back from Canberra to Melbourne, and ending up with hauling myself, a pack and a bike home on the train). I thought the day might be a struggle after falling asleep on the plane, but it turned out to be a fairly reasonable session, albeit a little stiff early on.

Also good news from a physio session later in the day, confirming the progress my Achilles has made in the last three or four weeks (and I even got some good advice about strengthening my not-especially-strong quads). With Easter only two weeks away I'm not going to ramp the training up significantly between now and then, but the plan is to go back into more or less normal late autumn training once Easter is over.