Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

In the (new) lap pool at my aunt's place in Blairgowrie. There isn't a lot of space but it seemed to work out OK. Already a strong sun by mid-morning, although being somewhere with water to the north was a definite plus today; it didn't get above 30 degrees here, compared with 38 (so far) in the city. Would have appreciated it more if I was running, of course.

Ride around the Doncaster loop before heading down the Mornington Peninsula for the weekend. Didn't feel quite as aggressive uphill as last time. Seemed to hit a lot of red lights, although was through early enough to miss the anticipated chaos around Doncaster Shoppingtown. Didn't miss some gratuitous abuse from one of the local truck drivers.

It may not have been on the scale of the 25-kilometre jam at Kempsey, but there was a traffic jam on the way south thanks to a caravan which had gone off the road and disintegrated. A number of people decided they didn't want to stay in the traffic jam and variously either did illegal U-turns on the freeway or drove past the traffic along the grass verge instead (probably the closest your average Portsea 4WD gets to going off-road); to what I suspect was the general satisfaction of everyone else in the jam, those who took the latter option were booked by the police a few hundred metres up the road.

Early session at Ivanhoe. Working reasonably hard and more comfortable than I have been, though as usual feeling a bit cramped by the small area available.

We're used to seeing climate science denial in the Australian but yesterday I saw an even more impressive piece of denial printed there from another field - a letter from the Sri Lankan consul-general in Sydney who claimed that there had been no civil war in Sri Lanka. I suspect this will come as news to Sri Lankans.

C • civil war 1

Morning session at CISAC before a day's work in Canberra. Heading back to Melbourne tonight. Heard someone I didn't recognise in the changerooms talking about how they were going to Beechworth after Christmas to run.

While it wasn't what I was here for, we did organise a meeting with the Sports Commission, which turned out to be extremely well-timed since the call for submissions on high-performance programs came out yesterday (and is due by the start of February). I think we'll do well to keep what we have now.

Swimming at North Melbourne on the way into work (the logistics being a bit different to usual due to the afternoon travels). A reasonable session which seemed to pass quite quickly (even if the reason it passed quite quickly was because I was thinking about a challenging work issue). Some foot cramp issues at the end.

I'm now on a flying (work) visit to Canberra - had planned the flight time so I could run the summer series event but had to settle for the Bushflyers pizza night instead. I did get the chance to catch up with people I hadn't seen in a few weeks (numerous), a year or two (Scotty) and 30+ years (someone who was in my class in Year 4).

Riding into work via the Yarra Boulevard (with a bit of a detour through Kew, trading a kilometre or so of busy road for a difficult road crossing). A steady run which became a bit faster in the later stages, once in amongst the steady stream of cyclists on the Main Yarra Trail (didn't see anyone shooting for the commuter Olympics this time round).

Had an MRI on my knee after work (results still to come), and moved on from there to do a session at Fitzroy - supposedly ground-zero for the inner-city trendies. I missed the opportunity to help in plotting the global socialist revolution, perhaps through not fitting in sufficiently with the crowd - after all, I live in a suburb that doesn't have trams, eat meat, have been known to drink instant coffee and have never voted for the Greens.

(For those for whom this has gone as much over their head as the water at the end with the 'ACQUA PROFONDA' sign, enlightenment can be found here.)

The session itself was reasonable, although I definitely notice the lower intensity compared with riding. Got the message (running to try to catch the green pedestrian light) that running is not a realistic option for the moment, despite some improvement in other respects.

C • Pool 3