Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

A somewhat nondescript run - too long a Saturday race to have a full Sunday long run on the agenda, but not big enough to scrub Sunday altogether. The performance was somewhat nondescript as well, though was probably better in the last quarter of the run than elsewhere. Feeling rather drained afterwards, though, and sleepy through some parts of the rest of the day.

Collected a couple more for the streets list - Almeida Ct, Bundoora and Altona St, Heidelberg Heights.

This was a wildly erratic race - not particularly large errors but lots of them, especially early on - I didn't hit any of the first seven cleanly. Settled a bit after that but rarely navigating with much confidence, and lost further chunks of time on 21 and 24. In the case of 21, I went the ridge route which was the best option in principle, but the control was lower relative to the next cliff than the map suggested and bashing from one to the other was a challenging exercise at best. (Getting off that slope and onto the flats heading to 22 was like going from a narrow Italian mountain road onto the autostrada). By the end, the extent of my ambitions was a kilometre rate in single digits, something which was achieved (just) with some help from Bryan over the last couple.

1 - Splits

In the pool at Fitzroy, which hasn't changed a lot since I left. It was a rather wintry morning, with a couple of blustery showers (one of which generated a spectacular rainbow). Not too bad a session and not too bad a day, physically, despite not having slept terribly well last night.

There was a lot to think about this morning; like many readers, I've flown over the eastern Ukraine on many occasions - at least until recently, it was the standard route from many places in western or central Europe to the likes of Singapore, Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur (Hong Kong flights go further north to pass north, rather than south, of the Himalayas and Tibet). There was also a classic "fair and balanced" front page of the Herald-Sun on the subject of the carbon tax, of the sort that only News Limited can do.

Slept for about the right amount of time at about the right time, but this didn't seem to make a lot of difference to the run, which wasn't much better than yesterday's - stiff and sore early (a long-overdue massage tonight will help), and lethargic throughout. Light a bit earlier than it was when I left town, which makes the mornings a little easier. Took a bit of a tumble at one stage, taking a bit of skin off and covering myself with ample quantities of mud, but no lasting damage.

You'd expect our workplace to pay more attention than most to the weather forecast, which is probably why the bike shed had only about two-thirds its usual number of occupants today. (It turned out that both morning and evening commutes were dry, with most of the moisture-related action in Melbourne coming around lunchtime).

No sooner am I back from one trip that I've booked the next one (I would have done this weeks ago, except that what I was doing was sufficiently exotic that it turned out I'd unearthed a bug on the Oneworld booking website, and by the time this was sorted out, I was overseas and thought that putting $5500 on my credit card on an internet site from an Italian IP address might be thought suspicious enough for the bank to block my card, not something you want to happen when away). The plan is to go from the nationals in WA to New York (via Qatar), spend a couple of weeks in the US and Canada including the North American Championships, then onwards to Rio as a prelude to WMOC. Once WMOC is done, I plan to get as far south as I can before coming back from Punta Arenas and spend the last few days in central Chile, returning home in mid-December.

C • Patagonia 2

The last part of the flight wasn't as smooth as I'd hoped. I was in the second row of economy, presumably a result of being a gold frequent flyer, but had thought it might have been the equivalent of the (possibly apocryphal) stories about South African car hire companies offering customers they really don't like a free upgrade to a BMW. It turned out it wasn't the babies that kept me awake, it was the somewhat-older-than-I-am couple who talked incessantly in the seat in front (and the Singapore-Melbourne leg doesn't have that long a window for sleeping anyway). It then took more than an hour for the luggage to arrive in Melbourne, putting the airport bus into the worst of the peak-hour traffic: all a reminder of Australian infrastructure at its not-so-finest.

I had no expectations for this run and those expectations were matched - I think this is probably a PW for my Tan loop. The most positive thing to emerge was that my Achilles, which was more than usually tight coming off the flight, did loosen up more or less OK (eventually).

Had some pretty rough patches during the day but seem to have made it to a reasonable hour in the evening.

Life's little mysteries: why does 12 degrees on a winter evening in Melbourne feel so much colder than 12 degrees on a summer evening in Lavarone?

C • 12 deg? 3

Helsinki-Singapore-Melbourne. Had harboured thoughts of trying to do a session in Singapore airport (and had brought gear for the purpose), but a gym seems to be one of the few facilities it doesn't have (except in an expensive lounge).

Helsinki airport was very different on Monday evening to Sunday afternoon - when I arrived I was almost the only person in the place. (The fact that no flights leave between 9 and 11, before a cluster of long-hauls between 11 and 12, has something to do with this). This did mean that bored security guards with nothing better to do decided to pull my bag apart.

Random encounters time: in front of me entering the Qantas lounge in Singapore was none other than my uncle (with various other members of the extended family inside).

C • I managed a treadmill sessi... 1

Biggest dilemma here was the timing. I was staying at a very nice hotel in central Helsinki - turns out it was the one BJ and Leea stayed at on their wedding night. (I'm guessing that it costs a fair bit more than the 94 euros I paid if it's a Tuesday night in October; you can often get some very good deals at hotels in Nordic cities on weekends, especially in summer). I wanted to take full advantage of the breakfast (so didn't want to run after it), but also didn't want to get up super-early because of the late night last night. This all ended up as a 7am wakeup and running without eating anything, unusual for me.

The plan was to head north into "Central Park" (actually a strip of forest running north-south which extends to within about 3km of the city centre). I didn't quite get my direction right heading out but reoriented myself, not for the first time on a Helsinki run, using the public transport map on a bus shelter. This run was another bit of progress towards normality, though faded a bit later on, probably because of the aforementioned non-eating (whether this would have been an issue had I joined BJ and Gareth in having massive T-bones last night is unknown).

It's definitely holiday time; the amount of traffic in central Helsinki at 8am was at levels I'd consider light for a Sunday morning in Melbourne. Spent the rest of the day doing not terribly much (the "not terribly much" including some relaxing at a local beach in what became a delightfully sunny afternoon). The one post-World Cup sign was two men walking down Esplanadi at lunchtime blowing red, yellow and black vuvuzelas; I suspect it was a different story in Berlin.

Flying out late tonight (via Singapore). Should be home Wednesday morning.