Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Woke up feeling rather the worse for wear with what seemed like a recurrence of my cold from a couple of weeks ago. In a sense this was reassuring as it meant there was a reason for yesterday's debacle, but it didn't encourage me when it came to my prospects of getting through a long, physical race. The warm-up wasn't any more encouraging, but I thought I'd at least start and see how it went. It wasn't as bad in the terrain as I'd feared, but anything above a jog on the flat was still a major effort - I probably could have got around by walking the big hills and jogging the rest and done something like 130-140, but there didn't seem a lot of point to doing so - my main target race of the next few months is six weeks away and potentially wiping out a week of training in pursuit of a bad result wasn't really worth it (especially as the Nuggets almost certainly weren't going to need me). Cut across from 2 to 21. Was definitely fading by 40 minutes. The area was nicer than I was expecting - will be good to get back sometime on a better day.

My total haul from the weekend: nul points, as they would put it at Eurovision. Can't possibly have another weekend as bad as that this year. My confidence for long races, though, is in a pretty low state at the moment - really need to get a couple of good ones under my belt at some stage.

The trip back was a bit less eventful than the trip there (the plane was only 15 minutes late, for a start). We went back round the north coast and dropped into the cafe at Barnbougle Dunes golf course - with the bonus that they had showers. (The course itself, as those with an interest in golf will know, is widely rated in the world's top 50, and is one of the few in that bracket that can be played by common mortals with a spare $100 - it's a pity that its remoteness means there almost certainly won't ever be a significant tournament played there).

One for the glad it's them and not me department: behind me on the plane from Launceston was a woman travelling with five children under 10. Melbourne wasn't the end of the line for her, though - they were connecting onto the 1.45am flight to Darwin.

And today set records in both Hobart (22.0) and Canberra (20.8) for the warmest days ever so late in autumn.

I won't add any more detail to Bruce's extended write-up of our meteorological issues in attempting to get to Launceston. Instead, I'll relate the story of an exchange some years ago between our Launceston Airport observing office and our main Tasmanian office in Hobart, after Launceston had reported fog:

Hobart: Do you really have fog? There's a 20-knot wind and the humidity is only 60%.
Launceston: Visibility is below 1000 metres - I can't see the lights of Evandale.

(a few minutes later)

Hobart: It's not surprising you can't see the lights of Evandale - there's been a power failure.

NOL Sprint at UTas Launceston. I had one of the later starts so had more preparation time than many (i.e. I arrived at the event a whole 20 minutes before my start). Once I started running I was navigating OK in some of the more intricate buildings and didn't really do anything wrong, except perhaps my route to 7, but couldn't make my legs move - something I put down at the time to the limited preparation, but it turned out to be a foretaste of things to come. Failed to trouble the NOL scorers.

I was somewhat surprised to ask the locals and discover that the building at control 16 was not known locally as the Pac-Man building.

NOL Middle at Diddleum. I thought this was my best chance for the weekend but it turned out to be a shocker, one of the worst physical races I've run for a very long time. Felt weak and light-headed throughout, dismal up hills and not too fluent on the flats either - couldn't even attempt to stay with Murray and Prong as they went through me. Was struggling with concentration too, and was probably lucky to get out of it with only three 30-second errors. The result was truly embarrassing - came third-last in M21E, which is at least an improvement on the stone motherless that my time would have got me in the juniors.

I thought something had to be wrong, and within a few hours following it became apparent that something was wrong.

1 - Splits

1 - Splits

A fairly relaxed session in Fitzroy, working fairly well by the end (or so the fellow occupant of the lane told me, although she did have the significant disadvantage of only having one leg). Trying to prepare my mind for the challenges ahead this weekend, at least when I wasn't cursing the National Australia Bank, having thought that they'd blocked my credit card without telling me because I'd booked flight tickets earlier this week with TDH in Hong Kong. (A couple of phone calls later, it turned out that the problem was an airline website with problems which was throwing up misleading error messages).

One thing it won't be in Tasmania is excessively cold; in fact a few latest-ever-20-in-autumn records might go tomorrow.

And, against stiff competition, I think the campaign in certain quarters of the media against the carbon tax has reached new heights (or perhaps depths):

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2011/05/19/o...

C • Terry 2

First long(ish) run since Easter, and first taste of starting in proper darkness since then. Headed east as far as Ruffeys Lake before returning along Koonung Creek. Not a run to get too excited about and found the hilly second quarter hard going at times, but did manage to last the distance. Sunday certainly won't be any easier. Bruising from the weekend, which had been troubling me a little on steep downhills, seems to be settling down.

Traffic on Bulleen Road seems to be getting heavier every month. A few truck horns were in action this morning, at least one of them entirely justified (directed at someone who took advantage of said truck's lack of uphill acceleration to jump in front of a kilometre-long queue).

Started out very promisingly in the first 10 minutes. Didn't continue as strongly as that, but mostly fairly smooth - a little shorter than planned as I was running late for an appointment at 8.

Went to Wednesday night street-O as a training run, something I occasionally do in the winter. On the Tunstall Junction map at Doncaster East, a hilly map cut in two by the freeway which means a 60-minute score usually is a real score event and not just a get-all-20-as-efficiently-as-possible. As it was a training run, though, I just set about collecting controls until I looked like running out of time and didn't worry too much about strategy (had I done so I could have got a couple of extra points by dropping lower-scoring controls). Probably needed another 3-4 minutes to get them all.

A reasonably smooth run once early back stiffness disappeared; a bit of rough stuff which was a challenge in the dark (with no torch). Not great uphill but reasonable otherwise.

Seem to have taken a bit of a turn for the worse again - coughing a fair bit this morning (although not deeply) and felt a bit lethargic when starting out. Not a disastrous session, though, with broadly similar times to those I was doing in the lead-up to Easter.

Saw something in the paper today about how Optus was going to improve its coverage in Tasmania. This wouldn't be hard. (For those unversed in the ways of St. Helens, the only thing non-Telstra mobiles are useful for in that part of the world is as an alarm clock).

C • phones 5

First swim for a while, at Fitzroy. Didn't feel especially awake (perhaps the product of a latish night last night, finalising the results for the VOA newsletter and watching Eurovision) but not the worst session I've ever done.

I've also noted that there are apparently predictions getting some publicity in US religious circles that the Rapture is coming on 21 May 2011. I'm not sure what the implications of this are for the Tasmanian NOL event, although I doubt if any of us will be uplifted - presumably regularly competing on the Sabbath is sufficiently blasphemous to ensure this. (Someone in Washington D.C. apparently has a thriving business promising, in exchange for a small fee, to look after your pets in the event of your being uplifted).

MFR Monday night from the latest abode of the nomadic Clare, currently housesitting at Nicola's parents place. Nice group to run with, although I felt flat as a tack - presumably left over from the weekend, although there wasn't a lot of stiffness there. (Maybe it was just left over from spending the day crunching out several thousand words of reasonably turgid prose). Also left over from the weekend was a fairly spectacular bruise, although it doesn't feel as bad as it looks.