Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

The trip to New Caledonia went reasonably smoothly, although Brisbane's rain demonstrated that my pack isn't particularly waterproof (better to find out now than on the Overland Track in October), and we had a bit of a delay on arrival because the brand-new aerobridge at Noumea Airport wasn't working and it took them 20 minutes to find some stairs.

I'm staying at Anse Vata, a beachside suburb a few kilometres south of the city centre, and seemingly one of the more upmarket areas. There is a decently-sized hill nearby which I will take on at some stage during the week, but not today. Instead I headed out along the waterfront to the east for what was basically an out-and-back (with a bit of a shortcut coming back); quite nice on the whole although the niceness was starting to peter out towards the turnaround. Felt somewhat better than yesterday despite coming off a long day yesterday, though the humidity started to make its presence felt in the later stages.

The rest of the day wasn't quite as planned because a car booking turned out not to be a booking (it seems I was gazumped courtesy of a cruise ship stopover), so I didn't get out of town as planned and had to explore around town instead. Central Noumea is nothing to get excited about (particularly on a Sunday morning when nobody is there, although central Canberra is hardly any different on that score), but the cultural centre/museum is a very impressive building and had some interesting things inside too. (Apart from the more traditional Pacific artworks, I did like the person who had turned an intricate contour map into a work of art).

An unusual early Saturday morning for me before heading off to New Caledonia. It would have been earlier still if I'd used public transport but I decided an extra 30 minutes of sleep was worth an extra $30 (normally this wouldn't be an issue, but it is definitely not a good week for a public servant to be asking for Cabcharges, so the taxi fare will be added to my long list of expenses unclaimed because they might look bad if they ever ended up on the front page of the Herald-Sun).

It was fiddly early on through some newsletter delivery (at least that's my excuse for why the first half was so slow). Kept plugging away, a bit tired at the end as one might expect for my longest (non-race) run for a bit (and not sleeping much the last two nights wouldn't have helped). Also continuing to battle with the Achilles which is at stable/tolerable/but not comfortable levels, and right calf a bit tight in the last few minutes. (Must be getting old).

Spelling fail of the day: the Viewbank kindergarten offers "occassional care".

C • Keep a log of the unclaimed expenses 1

C • Achilles 6

As usual just before going away, I'm pushing things close to the edge in the sleep department. This was a rather early run and a somewhat mediocre one, out to Darebin Creek and then north almost to Northland. Soreness looks to be settling down, though.

The latest stage in a slightly reshuffled week - felt a bit strange not to be going long on a Thursday. Generally a fairly routine session; it's feeling warmer in the Fitzroy pool (which is another way of saying that it's getting cooler outside).

Continuing a gradual return to something like normal; still intermittently sore but actually felt like I could run more or less properly, and still felt as if I had something left at the end. Not having the usual very early start probably helped (that will come on Saturday, in order to get a decently long run in before heading for Noumea).

Had a false start when I decided I didn't want to be drenched right from the beginning (knowing it was inevitable that it would happen at some stage during the run, on a morning with widespread heavy showers) and waited out a downpour for a few minutes. Ended up heading through Watsonia and Greensborough, in amongst the steady stream of people heading for the Watsonia RSL (one of them a man with one arm who, I would guess from his age, lost the other one in Vietnam). A lot of Australians will have their own connections to this day (ours is the great-grandfather who fought at Gallipoli).

C • Weather 3

First attempt to run fast since Easter (apart from the State Series, and that barely counted), trying to get it in ahead of an advancing rainband. Thought this might be horrible but it ended up as probably the least worst run since Easter, still not great but similar pace to what was typical over the last few months, and less soreness than in recent days.

Keen NBA fans will know that Ron Artest changed his name to World Peace a while back. Today he was sent off for elbowing an opponent, which will provide some fun for the headline writers; I look forward to the follow-up headlines which say something along the lines of "World Peace suspended for 4 weeks".

C • World Peace suspended for 7 matches 3

The local Aboriginal calendar divides the year into six or seven seasons rather than our conventional four, and today certainly had the feel of the last day of early autumn and the first of late autumn (following the lunchtime front). For the morning it was a warm northwest wind. (Continuing the theme, towards the end of the run I spotted a battered ute with Queensland plates and a sticker "You Can Kiss My Yasi").

Achilles getting a bit better but otherwise pretty similar to runs of last week, never feeling especially comfortable. Hopefully I'll break out of this mode soon.

A fairly standard Monday morning swim with a pretty even pace (or lack thereof).

The traffic coming into work this morning was dire - definitely glad to have been on two wheels rather than four. The credit for this goes to the fact that Elizabeth Street was closed for tram works (which was well advertised), as were the streets which crossed it (which wasn't). The chaos spread for kilometres around.

And, thanks to a letter-writer to the travel section of Saturday's Age, we know that it costs less to park a (small) plane at Adelaide Airport for a day than it does to park a car there (and Adelaide is by no means the most expensive airport in Australia to park a car at).