Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

The public race was a bit incidental to the day but it still looked like a fun (if physically tough) area to get out on, in a mass start race on a hot day - 33 degrees or so. I started out by taking a wide road route choice on the long first leg, not worth it as it turned out (although I didn't help myself by butchering two fence crossings). Reasonably steady then for the first half, although bailed out of one slope crossing which I didn't think I could manage safely, which cost me a minute or so (and generally didn't do a great job of really steep downhills). The long 10-11 was the killer though - I'd misread felled area as white (the printing wasn't great) and the small track I was counting on was overgrown, so instead of a few hundred metres on a nice shady track it was a long slog through long grass and felled stuff. I think the damage this did was mental as much as physical; in any case, I hit the wall at this point (perhaps not surprising given a lack of hot-weather practice) and walked and jogged in. Small miss at 14.

I knew I wasn't fit leading into this week and today further demonstrated it, although considering that it wasn't that long since I didn't expect to be running this side of March, I'll take the one good result I got.

Event 7 - Course 1 - Splits

As noted yesterday I'd taken the decision some days ago that I wasn't up to racing four days in a row at my current level of fitness (or lack thereof) and that if I was going to miss a day this was the one to sit out. Nothing that happened today gave me any indication that my assessment was wrong - not that it didn't look an interesting area and course, but a full-blown long distance on a hot day (which is what it turned into) isn't what I would have needed at this point in time.

Instead I took to the water earlyish in the morning in the Napier seaside baths, a decent enough session although a bit more pricey than I'm used to (it's a swim/spa/sauna/gym complex and you pay for the lot whether you use them or not). Not pushing as hard as I have in some recent swims.

It may have been warm here (low 30s inland away from the seabreeze) but it was a lot hotter back home; had it been a working day we would have spent a lot of it speculating on whether we'd see a number on the Bureau website with a '5' in front of it. As it turned out we didn't quite make it, peaking at 49.6 at Moomba. In one sense I'm not too upset about this outcome - I have 49.6 in the office sweep.

Oceania Relays. Better than yesterday only in that I didn't make any navigation mistakes, albeit on a fairly simple course (my only time loss was 30 seconds or so on a route choice). Again lacking any sort of hill strength and not all that fast elsewhere, either (and no-one was surprised that the climb was double that advertised).

Went out a couple of minutes ahead of the NZ team but close to a couple of other teams; edged away from those in the first half of the course but dropped behind them later on (Eric went through them on the last leg). The gap to NZ widened a fair bit though - I think Rolf made a fairly big mistake. Good to get the result we needed, although no real thanks to me.

The four Challenge races are now completed. Two weeks ago I would have considered getting to the start line a success, so I can't be too upset, but the last two days have indicated that some hard work is ahead to get competitive again before the start of the Australian season. I'm not hugely surprised by this - the first two or three weeks after a major layoff are always hard going and I've never before tried to do that sort of comeback in a race period. There are still two carnival events to come, but I'll sit out tomorrow - four races in four days is a bit much at this stage.

And we couldn't quite manage to win a Challenge on NZ soil for the first time since 1994, but we did manage to draw one.

Had a feeling today would find my lack of preparation out and so it proved. No strength whatsoever on the many hills (the majority of which I had to walk), and not a lot of speed away from the hills either. As expected for an Oceania long distance in NZ, it was a very physical course (although not the epic that M21E was), with numerous gullies/ravines which were very slow to cross and sometimes called for a bit of scrambling. (The lowlight in that respect was the almost-cliff I pulled myself up using tree roots on the way into the second-last - something I had to do 1 3/4 times because on my first attempt I lost my SI stick 3/4 of the way up).

One annoying mistake, at 7 where I didn't see the flag in the gully, saw an Australian junior (Mary?) a couple of contours higher and thought she was at the control, and headed up there when I'd been almost in the right place to begin with. Dropped a minute or so there; this area had quite enough necessary climb without doing any of the unnecessary variety.

It was frustrating not to be able to make a useful contribution to the team, especially as we lost the class by 50 seconds (although I was several minutes away from being a scoring runner) and had we won it it would have squared the Challenge.

C • Weather 4

Long Champs - 3 - Splits

An event-free day in Wellington. Still a bit sparing in how much running I'm doing - the races will be enough this week - so took to the pool instead, thinking of a few heatwave-analysis ideas while I'm at it. Quite a few people doing the same thing (although not as many as the number of familiar faces that I spotted at Te Papa, the superb national museum, later in the day).

C • Quite a few people doing the same thing.... 1

Oceania Sprint Championships. A bit closer to expectations than Sunday was - lacking strength and speed and generally feeling below par, although avoided any major disaster (and did my main job, which was to beat the members of the NZ team). Ended up 4th (3rd Oceania) in M40, but blown away by the M18s on the same course.

The first three were in the forest on the side of Mount Victoria, with an uphill first which was an early strength test. Got through these OK. Lost a little time on 5, the first major 'you can't get there from here' leg, when I started on an option with no good way out before realising the error of my ways and turning around after a few seconds; also started down a dead end at 10. Maybe 20-30 seconds combined. Nice area and well-used, although (perhaps inevitably) it wasn't quite as epic as the World Cup courses.

Knee was fine in the race but gave a few twinges going to the start through the streets - this is the first time I've run on hard surfaces with it for any length of time so will need to watch this.

Sprint Champs - C4a - Splits

Swim at the Oriental Bay pool - a fairly routine session before the World Cup sprint qualifier. Ended up being a slightly longer stay than I'd planned on because I hadn't worked out that the clutch on the car has two stages and it has to be pressed beyond the first apparent stop before the car would start.

C • New colour, new category 12