Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Down on the Mornington Peninsula for a cousin's 40th last night (recovery from which was assisted by the bonus hour). The route for this run took a familiar theme - initially out along from front of the peninsula, back along the back beaches - although in a different form to usual, as high tides and big surf ruled out the section along Portsea beach and I thus only went as far as Sorrento (with a longer section at the other end to compensate).

The first half-hour wasn't great but after that it built well, reasonably strong on the numerous dune climbs along the back beach track (although Achilles continues to be touchy) and settling into a nice groove in the final hour for my best run since returning home. Still had plenty in me in the closing stages. An encouraging session (and shows that I can have a decent long run without doing it on snow).

Saturday morning run from my place (it's reasonably unusual for me to have a Saturday morning at my place - although I couldn't possibly spend the whole day in town :-). Ventured onto the Banyule flats for the first time since getting back (i.e. the first time since the floods) - still muddy in patches (particularly on the bits that get a bit of mountain bike traffic) but otherwise OK.

Rather tight and sore in the first half - Achilles definitely feels as if a calf massage is overdue - but loosened up a bit later on. Also retired my shoes after this run, something which was rather overdue.

Pool running session at the non-ideal location of Ivanhoe, although there weren't crowds in the small area that's deep enough so it wasn't too much of a drama. A fairly casual session, deep in thought for much of it as I wrestled with a scientific problem (and felt enough on top of it by the end to make some very good progress in the rest of the day - although I would have preferred to finish a bit earlier than 9.45...).

A different location - from Essendon because I was picking my parents up from out that way this evening. I thought this might be better than recent Thursday runs because it wasn't coming off a Wednesday night race, but in fact it wasn't too different - although reasonably happy with the way I handled some of the steeper hills in the second half. Ended up going around Essendon Airport and out into Keilor East before dropping down to the river. Cut it a few minutes shorter than planned in the name of making the 8.24 train - I needn't have bothered because it was 10 minutes late. (This is something of which Essendon has a proud history - in the early 80s the Public Transport Users Association caused a certain amount of political embarrassment by getting the 8.08 from Essendon listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's most frequently late train).

Transport issues of another sort were the subject of much work conversation today because quite a few of my colleagues are going to a conference in Cairns next week, and Jetstar cancelled the 4pm Sunday flight and rebooked them all on the 6am flight without bothering to tell them about it (sound familiar?). Not sure if one of them was terribly impressed when I suggested he should look on the bright side because (a) 6am Sunday is really 7am because of the end of daylight saving and (b) his 18-month-old son will probably have woken him up at 3am anyway.

It hasn't always been the most comfortable month of training, but it has been my biggest month since August 2009. Hopefully it will do me some good.

Fartlek session on the usual loop, if not the usual day. Promising start but gradually drifted out of it; not one of my better efforts in the end. Being a Wednesday, spotted the bunch returning from the Tour de Eltham on my way back home.

A bit of reshuffling this week, running street-O on Tuesday rather than Wednesday, which meant a morning run from the inner north, starting on Arden Street and going north around the top of Moonee Valley racecourse. Definitely grinding the gears for the first 15 minutes - wouldn't have wanted to be doing speedwork this morning - but gradually got into it a bit more. Handling climbs reasonably. Achilles a bit sorer than usual and didn't really settle.

Heard one of the better scrutineering stories I've come across for a while, from Saturday's NSW election. A would-be informal voter (a commodity probably not in short supply on Saturday) left the ballot paper blank, except for scrawling a word referring to a certain part of the male anatomy across the name of the Labor candidate. However, the way it was done the 'I' landed in the box, and it was counted as a valid vote for Labor. I'm guessing this wasn't the voter's intention.

C • Don't think it would have changed the result 7

Street-O at Kensington, across the road from Flemington racecourse and starting outside the Marathon dim sim factory (now we know where the slow horses end up). The newer part of this would make a decent sprint area although I'm not sure how we'd go with permissions.

The area is on the small side which means doing something a little unusual to keep people out for something close to the full quota. This time round it was having two maps, but in a score event there was no reason why you couldn't leave some controls from the first map and pick the second one up early. I left two controls from the first map to get later. Schweppes took that strategy further and went more or less straight to the map change, only to find that the maps hadn't got there yet. He lost a bit of time there but it was more or less cancelled out by stumbling across two controls from the second map before he actually had it (he ended up doing 90 metres longer than me and beat me by 1.40).

With a lot of controls to punch and a few stairs and other bits of awkwardness, this was slower than recent weeks but felt like a decent run (the margin to Matt suggests that too). Blew 30 seconds or so when I had trouble pinpointing 10. Quite a warm night although 27 at 7pm feels much less hot than 27 at 11am. Achilles better than it was this morning.

C • Kensington Stockyards 2

Slept better last night - in fact so well that I didn't really feel like getting up with the 5.59 alarm and used the snooze button for once, so this swim was a bit later than usual. A bit of stiffness to work out (most noticeably in my back when I ran across Alexandra Parade to catch the last of the green pedestrian light) but otherwise OK, if slow.

And my pool running belt was where I thought it might have been - safely retrieved now.

It's a long time since I've run at lunchtime - mainly because the main reason why I might do a Monday run at lunchtime is because of having a Labor policy committee meeting on Monday evening, and there hasn't been one since the start of last year's federal election campaign. This meant it's the first time I've been on the Tan for a while (thus ascertaining that this isn't a good year for running a fast time, thanks to building works), and also the first time that I've had to dodge the Arts Centre building works too.

The run wasn't as bad as I'd feared in the morning, although still felt like it was reasonably hard work for a recovery run (it was somewhat faster than an MFR Monday night which makes a difference). I'd also thought that going at lunchtime might be useful for warm-weather acclimatisation but it didn't warm up until after lunch. Maybe tomorrow.

One of the new sights on Southbank was something called The Ludlow Formation, which turned out to be a restaurant. This reminded me of one of the more memorable discussions in the Sydney Morning Herald's Column 8, which was about which piece of NSW road infrastructure would make the best title for a Robert Ludlum novel. Their initial suggestion was 'The Calga Interchange', I liked someone's suggestion of the tale of a Perth drug lord, 'The Western Distributor', but Victoria can surely outdo anything in NSW with 'The Arcadia Duplication' (a new bit of freeway on the way to Shepparton).