Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

A pretty awful run from Aranda after the end of the OA Conference - not surprising after a tough couple of days. Headed around the bottom end of Aranda Hill and through the Black Mountain area, seeing water in places where I can't remember ever having seen water before. At least I didn't have ice to worry about this time.

It was never going to be an especially relaxing trip back, although at least the non-relaxation was for different reasons than the last time I flew Swiss (when the country was swirling with rumours of the airline's imminent collapse - they ended up getting sold to Lufthansa). Got on an earlier Geneva-Zurich flight and it's as well that I did because I don't think I would have made my original connection, but ended up missing my connection in Sydney after that leg was two hours late. (Just to throw European aviation into still more chaos, the Spanish air traffic controllers went out on strike).

Snowing again in Geneva although it seems to be easing off - I tried to cancel the Geneva-Zurich leg and get the train instead but Swiss wouldn't let me.

Assuming I do make it to somewhere in the vicinity of Zurich, it will be tempting to make a rude gesture in the vague general direction of FIFA headquarters. Yesterday's events did remind me somewhat of the old saying in the Labor Party (which I've often found very useful for calming down angry voters at polling booths), "the only person you can ever trust in a ballot is the one who looks you in the eye and says 'I'm not going to vote for you'".

C • Transparency index 2

This was a run I wasn't expecting to happen. I was expecting to be heading to the airport around 5.45 for an early morning flight, but checked the BA website just before leaving the office for the night to get the unwanted news that the Geneva-London flight was cancelled. After some time on the phone we got as far as doing a tentative booking for a flight out of Zurich tonight, but it was this morning before I got confirmation that this had actually happened. I'm glad somebody else is paying for it - I didn't realise that cancelling your flight, refunding the discount fare and then making you rebook at last-minute prices happened on long-haul international routes as well as on the Tigers and Ryanairs of this world. (I'm not yet sure if the 'somebody else' is the Bureau, WMO, the insurance companies of the aforementioned organisations, or BA).

Didn't expect a lot of this run after getting very little sleep (not really the way you want to be heading into a long-haul flight), but it was OK once going. Still icy but not quite as icy as yesterday.

The downside of all of this is that I now get into Sydney Sunday morning rather than Saturday night, which means I won't get a night's sleep pre-OA Conference. (This is assuming I get to the OA Conference, and there are still a few things that could go wrong on that front, starting with a 55-minute connection in Zurich).

The snow stopped yesterday afternoon (final score 31cm, the fourth-largest fall on record here), so this morning was about dealing with the remnants. Snow is generally OK to run on, ice is not, and in the inner city I was searching out snow patches the way an F1 driver on intermediate tyres searches out wet patches on a drying track, but once into the suburbs it became much easier apart from the occasional section of deeper snow. Once again this was slow with the tricky going underfoot. A reasonably solid effort, though, tiring a little in the last 10 minutes as I did on Saturday but otherwise quite OK. Knee again a little iffy in deep snow but OK otherwise.

Apart from the conditions, the most memorable thing about this run was that it crossed an international border, venturing into French territory without medical certification (some would suggest that heading out in the conditions of the last two days warrants certification by another type of health professional). Admittedly the crossing involved a token 100m lap of the old customs post (abandoned since Switzerland joined the Schengen treaty a couple of years ago). Assuming that I'm back to the two-hours-on-Thursday-morning routine by then, I should have opportunities for more extensive cross-border forays in February. It's the first time I've crossed an international border during a run on purpose, although I managed to do it by mistake on the JWOC 1991 training camp (I've also crossed a border which may or may not become an international border at some point in the future, Quebec's, on a run which was otherwise chiefly notable for setting a coldest-run PB at minus 31).

Coming back through the city, I saw a pedestrian end up on his backside, probably because he was paying more attention to his cigarette than the footpath.

Extreme temperature update: on Tuesday morning , where I'd previously mentioned a low of -18.9 at La Chaux-de-Fonds, it reached -31.4 at La Brevine, which is fairly close to (and at a similar elevation to) the WMOC long final area. La Brevine is a famously cold site (it holds the Swiss all-time record of -41); must have very favourable topography. I suspect, but do not know for sure, that this was a November record for Switzerland.

This is what I've been working on for the last two weeks:

http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_release...

The 2010 figure is what will get the headlines (or at least such headlines as are still available after the World Cup announcement - perhaps somebody should have told FIFA about how it reached 50.4 in Doha on 15 July this year). However, I think the very strong recent warming in Africa, parts of Asia and the Arctic is much more significant - the Saharan/Arabian region, East Africa, Central Asia and Greenland/Arctic Canada have all been 0.7 to 0.9 degrees warmer in the last decade than in any previous decade.

I thought from the forecast that this might be an interesting session and it was. 20 centimetres of snow fell overnight, and I woke to news that the airport was closed, the buses weren't running, traffic was expected to be in chaos etc. - just the conditions for a run.

Headed out past the UN complex into the suburbs. It wasn't too bad on the whole once I cleared the slush of the inner city; for the most part the footpaths had been scraped but not salted, and hadn't had enough traffic on them to get wet or slippery. There were only a few places where I spent any significant time running through deep powder. Finished off by swinging across from the UN to Servette, a five-minute run which a talkback caller had claimed, not entirely implausibly, that it had taken him 2 1/2 hours to drive last night.

It wasn't a fast session by any means, and I suspect the novelty would wear off after several months of it, but as a one-off it was a lot of fun. Knee a bit iffy on one of the climbs, but then it was tested more severely today than it has been.

Conditions like this morning's create a bit of a fellowship amongst those who were braving it (including one person who was sensible enough to commute on skis), and many a 'Bonjour' was exchanged. I broke off briefly from the run to join an unsuccessful effort to liberate a van from a snowbank. Later on pedestrian traffic jams were a bit of an issue, as people gave up waiting for the buses and started walking into town.

The snow continued through most of the rest of the day before finally stopping around dusk. Tomorrow could be a bit more challenging, in the inner city at least, if the slush refreezes overnight. If I was leaving tomorrow I'd be pretty apprehensive about getting out, too, but by Friday morning things should be OK.

Having some fun at the moment watching the Europa League game between Young Boys Bern and VfB Stuttgart, live from the Wankdorf (previously mentioned in these pages). On the evidence I've seen it's a lot easier to attack than defend in the snow - I guess defending is challenging when the defenders can't stand up.

WMOC 2010 attendees may be interested to know that it was -18.9 in La Chaux-de-Fonds this morning.

First fast session of the comeback, once again with company (of a sort who's a little slower than me around the Tan but a little faster on sprints, as I was to find out). Did a set of 10 1 min fast/1 min jog through the middle of this. Lacking a bit of sharpness as would be expected, but not bad for a first time.

It dropped to -9 this morning (although, as with Saturday, I don't think it was quite that cold in the city centre), but it dried out enough yesterday for ice not to be a major problem. Tomorrow could be challenging though, with 20-30 centimetres of snow forecast overnight and in the morning.

A reasonably good run along the south side of the lake, a bit less slow than those of last week (despite having to deal with occasional icy bits). Knee a bit sensitive early but no further dramas. Started out a nice morning, but got caught later on in a heavy (and wet) snow shower which wasn't a great deal of fun.