Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Caught my foot on a step at the station yesterday afternoon and didn't think anything of it when the resultant soreness in my lower right leg disappeared after a few minutes, but it reappeared during the night, waking me up a couple of times and making for a pretty rough night. That, and general run-downedness, made me apprehensive about going long, but the leg felt OK on getting up and I thought I'd at least try, with a short initial loop to see how it went. No sign of trouble for the first 15 minutes, but then the leg started hurting quite sharply, and while it didn't seem to be impeding me, keeping going in such circumstances is asking for trouble.

The question now is what the problem is; the soreness seems to be around the bone but surely I couldn't have broken anything in such an innocuous incident (and if something was broken I suspect it would have started hurting within 20 seconds, not 20 minutes). Another unappealing possibility is that it might be a stress fracture, but if so it seems strange that the soreness first emerged when walking with no sign of trouble on runs up to yesterday. Hopefully neither of these scenarios comes to pass and it's a deep bruise or something like it that will settle down within days.

C • Guess 2

Didn't feel as if I could quite get myself into a rhythm today, although not the weakness that there was at times in the last couple of weeks, and some good patches in the second half coming back from the Templestowe river crossing. Feeling tired and run-down later in the day though; I've worked past 10.30 the last couple of nights and think I may be pushing myself further than I'm designed to go (and yes, I know Liggo does it just about every day). Main objective at the moment is to hold myself together long enough until I get on the plane on Friday night and flake out.

Random sights of the city: somebody playing a musical instrument by a billabong near the Yarra Trail.

A reasonably relaxing session in Fitzroy Pool, in anticipation of a frantic day which turned out to be a good deal less frantic than I was expecting (partly because the release came out earlier than I expected, which meant in turn that the first wave of media was handled by people in Europe).

It did seem somewhat bizarre that the ABC thought that the geologist Bob Carter, who is the climate science equivalent of "well known to police", was the appropriate local expert to use for comment on the statement.

Felt half-asleep for the first 45 minutes but eventually developed into a reasonable run, which will do something to restore my confidence after last week's debacle. Pretty good in the last half-hour, didn't fall in a heap on the hills and actually finished with something in the tank, which is a bit of a change from the last couple of weeks. Hints of Achilles soreness at a couple of points. A little longer than planned after extending through Greensborough. Slow early but more respectable in the second half.

I'm reasonably familiar with domestic media frenzies but tomorrow has the potential to bring a global media frenzy - the World Meteorological Organization is putting out a statement (in about 30 minutes as I write this) that 2010 was the world's hottest year on record. I'll probably have a fairly significant role in handling this statement, which will be an interesting challenge (especially if Fox News comes calling), although I've also got a bit of apprehension at the back of my mind because, based on the experience of other globally high-profile climate scientists, it will put me on the radar of some deeply unpleasant people. Hopefully there aren't too many death threats.

Street-O at Boronia, a flattish area combining very unscenic industrial estate with Melbourne outer suburbia. Enough route choice to make it interesting (a railway line helps there), but in the end most people seemed to go roughly the same way. Not for the first time this season, I found myself in a scrap with Ian Davies, but at the moment I'm running like a vehicle without a fourth or fifth gear and he was a little bit too fast for me (he did his best to give back that advantage with a couple of errors, but won the sprint finish). Somewhat faster than previous weeks, but flatter terrain and benign conditions (certainly compared with last week's steam-bath) had a fair bit to do with that.

News of last year's election doesn't seem to have reached this far east yet because a sign on the football ground fence still advertised Jason Wood, Federal Member for La Trobe (probably best known in non-political-tragic circles for being the MP whose unfortunate slip of the tongue led him to refer to "genetically modified orgasms" in a speech in Parliament - needless to say, this has been immortalised on YouTube). At one point in the run we passed a sign "Free Wood" and the thought did cross my mind "he only lost the election - he isn't in jail".

I have also noticed in the letters columns of the Financial Review of late contibutions by regular correspondents Des Moore, calling for the building of more dams, and Joseph Toscano, calling for the establishment of more comprehensive early warning systems. I'm not sure which is the more ironic - a representative of the Institute for Private Enterprise advocating the spending of large amounts of government money, or a representative of the Anarchist Media Institute advocating the expansion of a government program (or the establishment of a new one).

(I strongly suspect, by the way, that both of the above organisations consist of one person, a computer and a fax machine).

Woke up with quads tighter than they had been on Sunday or yesterday. Felt fine once I was out running, but the stopwatch doesn't lie....

Kooyoora could be another area which looks interesting at the moment - it was pretty much at ground zero of the most exceptional rain. (Wedderburn, Inglewood and Dunolly have all already broken records for their wettest month ever).

Swim at Fitzroy, ironing various creases out of the body (this time without having been for a run first). It took a while to iron said creases out but it worked out OK in the end. Water warmer than usual (and it's amazing how different 28-degree water feels to 27-degree water).

First MFR Monday night run of the year, with a decent turnout, around the Tan from Simon's temporary (architecturally interesting) abode in South Yarra. Stiff early but improved a bit after the first 10 minutes (and my quads didn't totally freak when presented with going down the Anderson Street hill, which is good news).

I spent quite a bit of the day collating (more) records. Perhaps the most impressive is that Victoria has already had its wettest January on record and the month's only just over half over. The total water content of the atmosphere over Melbourne on Thursday also broke the previous record by more than 20%, with values which would be high even for Darwin in the wet season.