Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Victorian Long Championships on the fast gully-spur of Joyces Creek, on a very long course (expected given the terrain). Had trouble focusing on the race beforehand, probably through the demands of yesterday, but was fine once I picked up a map - at which point the problem was not being fast enough.

Nevertheless, the run was going fairly smoothly through the first third, although Bryan was through me by 4. At 9 the knee issues from last Sunday returned, but this time with 70 minutes remaining rather than 15. I think it's probably a pinched nerve or something like it - there's numbness and a lack of stability, but no pain, and even a brief stop (or walk) loosens it up.

In the second half the priority was to nurse the knee home. There were two points, at 16 and 20, where I might well have pulled the pin had I been anywhere near the finish. Rob had caught me at 16 and I was in sight for a bit, but dropped away in the next bad patch. The very long 22nd was a struggle but after that the finish was in sight (metaphorically speaking) and the knee was improving a little. My concentration was becoming increasingly ragged though, and it was no real surprise that this eventually resulted in a mistake, a 30-seconder at 26 which cost me a spot. I think I was 5th although there wasn't a recent update of results on the board - certainly couldn't have matched the 93-94 that the three leaders did, but on a better day might have managed a 98 or 99.

So ends the season, one which never reached any great heights. A new injury is a bit of a worry although my feeling is that it's not especially serious, and the usual quiet couple of post-championship weeks will hopefully sort it out. Then again, I felt the same way about my Achilles this time last year. (That injury, by the way, has been basically fine in the last couple of weeks).

A less relaxing morning than I had anticipated because of having the last 15 controls to put out (see yesterday's entry). It turned out that I'd taped one of them in the wrong spot and the controller hadn't noticed - goes to show that you can never have too many checks. (I think this was a drawing mistake rather than a navigation one, as the knoll the tape was on was (a) not plausibly confusable with the one it was supposed to be on and (b) was a much nicer feature).

Once this was done, there was time to do what I'd thought might be my main activity for the morning - running around the controls I'd put out yesterday to check that they were still there and turn the SI units on. Felt reasonably smooth, and stronger than other days this week.

The event seemed to go pretty well; it's a good area, although the green is not particularly stable (in general, the gorse has thinned, the blackberry has spread), and new tracks seem to pop up every time we go out there. A good M21 race too with five within 90 seconds of the lead.

Didn't have time to get to the pool this morning, with a lunchtime departure from work to go up and put controls out for tomorrow. There was a minor mishap with this which meant the job didn't get finished today - we'd organised for a drop of control stands in the middle of the map but when we got to what we thought was the appointed spot it became apparent that the person doing the drop had another appointed spot in mind. By the time we sorted out what had happened the light was going to run out; thankful for the 11.30 start tomorrow.

Knee a little sore walking in the rough ground.

Today was a definite improvement on the last two days, not that that would be hard. Still feeling a bit weak uphill but improved a bit over the final third. Still rather slow, partly through this being a newsletter delivery run, but seem to be through the worst of the slump.

Question of the day: apart from being (male) orienteers, what do Alex Massey, David Colls, Jason McCrae, Morten Neve, Oliver Crosato, Karl Bicevskis and Kasimir Gregory have in common?

C • in common 2

Perhaps it wasn't the lack of sleep: I got a decent night of it last night and felt every bit as bad running as I did yesterday (in fact it was probably a bit worse), weak and light-headed with no real energy. (Felt fine when not running, though). Suspect I may be just in one of my periodic flat spots - normally I work through these in three or four days and hopefully the same timing will apply this time round.

C • Bright for cup weekend 1

I'm not sure how new parents cope with several months of very limited sleep; I was battling to manage two nights of it. (This time it was due to a teleconference for the international data sets project I'm involved with; now that daylight saving has started it was from 11-12.30. Once daylight saving ends in North America it will be midnight-1.30).

I didn't expect much of this run, based on the Yarra, so I wasn't particularly disappointed with probably my worst run of the year, sluggish throughout. Also a bit of knee numbness again towards the end. Not sure what useful training purpose this served (other than of the HTFU variety).

Had a few moments afterwards too - first having a pedal come off in the middle of an intersection, then initially putting my bike lock around a post and neglecting to note that I hadn't put it around any part of the bike. With that sort of start I was expecting a horror day at work, but strangely ended up feeling OK after mid-morning. (My section is full of new parents so I wasn't expecting a lot of sympathy for sleep deprivation).

Epic fail of the day: the 'Australian', who had obviously pre-prepared two stories about today's interest rate decision, posted the wrong one and thus reported on an interest rate rise which didn't exist. (A dishonourable mention to Terry McCrann of the Herald-Sun for writing a column attacking the Government for their policies which led to the non-existent interest rate rise).

C • HS 1

No MFR Monday night run this week so I did the morning run/swim combination instead from Ivanhoe, with limited sleep having made it home at 11.45 last night. (At least a 9am meeting with the OA auditors gave me an excuse to start a little later). Very stiff in the first couple of minutes but otherwise not too bad for a recovery run; wouldn't have wanted to be working much harder, though.

Spring has definitely arrived in my absence; there was some residual cool air in the valleys but a warm morning everywhere else.

This was about rolling the arms over and very little else. Ivanhoe as much of a sauna as it always is.