Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

This felt like a summer training session, brilliant sunshine (first sign of summer: when the application of sunscreen is part of your pre-race preparations) and starting to feel warm - in part because it was a couple of hours later than is usual for a Sunday run. My expectations before the start were limited after a big night* last night but it turned into a decent run down to the Fairfield pipe bridge before coming back along the river. The run threatened to catch alight at times in the middle but didn't quite manage it; still flowing reasonably well on the flats, and OK on the rolling hills of the last 20 minutes too, except for the very last one which was still steep enough to be hard work. Perhaps the heat was starting to make its presence felt by then too; it had risen from 18 at the start to 26 at the finish.

(* - 'big night' doesn't mean a hangover like it will have for a lot of people, but does mean eating too much and not enough sleep).

The reason for the later-than-usual start was a later-than-usual wakeup (combined with watching the Norwich-Liverpool game I'd recorded last night), which in turn was due to going to Tash's 40th and not getting home until 1.45. This was a very celebratory night and much less low-key than my equivalent occasion a few weeks ago, and featured many people dressed for the occasion, including numerous Village People of various degrees of authenticity (although I thought the Village People's 15 minutes of fame had more or less expired by 1 January 1980?), at least half a dozen 'Choose Life' T-shirts, a couple of Freddie Mercurys, a Dermott Brereton and a Warwick Capper (although in the last case the borrowed-from-nine-year-old-son shorts weren't tight enough for true authenticity). As with the last orienteering 80s party I attended I settled for my 1987 Australia-New Zealand Challenge shirt.

Felt like it was going to be a good run at the start but ended up a little less than that, still OK on a damp morning. It's clearly a big day for local real estate - as well as the three houses in my street due for auction which I mentioned a couple of days ago, there was another one I hadn't previously seen, two more just around the corner and five others at various points on the run.

I've seen a couple of cyclists with a death wish this week starting with the one who was going up the Collins Street hill at lunchtime hanging onto the wheel arch of a passing taxi, but he was outdone by the one I saw coming home from the VOA council meeting last night, coming down the Hawdon Street hill on the wrong side of the road with the only discernable light coming from his cigarette. I'm guessing he might have been on a bike only by virtue of being temporarily sans licence.

Pool running at Fitzroy. In steady light rain, as with a few weeks ago, but this time remembered to bring a plastic bag for my towel so it was actually usable when I got out.

We awoke to the news of the demise of Colonel Gaddafi. There was also news of the demise of his son, but as he has already been killed five times this year according to various parts of the media (thanks to the Chaser team for pointing this out) I think I'll wait for confirmation on that one.

The annual Bureau-CSIRO-Melbourne Uni-Monash soccer tournament. It's the first time in three years I've been uninjured at this time of year but there was an abundance of players and a shortage of referees (and the last two years when I've been missing have been the only two years the Bureau has won), so I took up official duties again today. My absence wasn't a good-luck charm this year: we lost all three games and came last. Can't say I was that happy with my performance; not having a whistle didn't help.

Thought I might have been taking my chances by going home through the bottom end of the CBD, but by 6.30 the only riotous disorder on display was in the traffic (as per usual on a Friday evening). That took me on to the VOA Council meeting, which had an extremely young attendee this time - although not as young as Belinda Lawford, who was counted in the attendance for the 1991 Orienteering ACT AGM before she was actually born (we were otherwise one short of a quorum).

Took a few minutes to wake up but then gradually settled down, up past La Trobe and back through Springthorpe. A bit longer than last week. Finished off pretty well. This time in a couple of weeks I should be doing 2.10 on a Thursday morning instead of 1.10 on a Thursday morning (and this time in three weeks the only way it will be 23 degrees for my Thursday morning run will be if they're degrees Fahrenheit).

I like the shoes I currently use for road/path running but one annoyance of them is that they pick up stones in their tread easily. Today was particularly annoying - had to pull stones out three times.

Looks we might not have been the only people to pass comment about the amount of paddock running at our national long distance championships:

http://www.danielhubmann.ch/images/stories/maps/20...

C • paddocks 4

Street-O at Koonung Heights. As bad a run as yesterday was good, although there is an obvious explanation for that - it was our first hot run of the season, I left a water bottle at work, the one I'd left in the car was too hot to be drinkable, there was no tap at the assembly area and thanks to traffic jams I'd left it too late to go look for one. Glad I wasn't trying to race tonight, although did feel a bit better later on in the run.

It was a highly unusual course layout (thanks Katherine), with lots of controls clustered close to the finish and then a few remote ones a long way apart. There was one long leg (and it was a leg - there was basically no other logical order for A grade to take the controls) which was a good route-choice leg and would have been an even better one had the control placement been tweaked a bit.

And I thought my street might have playing host to an excess of real estate action on Saturday morning with three auctions scheduled for then within two blocks of me, but two of them have been cancelled.

One of those cool, clear mornings when it's a joy to be alive. My runs haven't always lived up to such conditions of late but they did today; the run felt faster than it actually was, but still happy with the way this one went - definitely the best I've had since the Oceania carnival. Actually felt as if I had a bit of strength going up hills in the second half and was in a good enough mood to take a detour up the steepish Waldemar to finish off. Carried the energy into the ride in too (and arrived at work to discover that the results my computer had been working hard to produce while I was asleep were ones that made sense, and for a good measure blow a nice big raspberry in the face of a certain individual for whom whole forests have been felled in the name of servicing his FOI applications).

Docklands was a bit devoid of eating places when we first arrived (especially after dark) but from what Vanessa was saying last night Maidstone sounds a lot worse, at least if you want anything remotely healthy. If you want multinational fast food you're in luck. (Bruce tells me that in Torren's circles one of these establishments is referred to as the 'Kids' Fattening Centre' - I'm impressed that a first-grader came up with that).

Swim at Fitzroy; the recovery swim you have when there isn't really anything to recover from. A nice morning when things went pretty smoothly, both in and out of the water.

A Monday night run from Ilka's where I was doing the cooking (on the basis that it had long since been my turn but no-one wants to come all the way out to the distant wilds of Heidelberg). A fairly casual trot around Royal Park; didn't ever feel that brilliant, which is not unusual for a Monday night, but this week there wasn't really a day before. Quite a small group for the run - just Ilka, Dion and myself - although others were present for the eating part of the proceedings.

Parkville is to have some rather grander visitors next week: Her Maj is putting in an appearance to officially open the new Royal Children's Hospital.

C • Invite her to the next run. 4