Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

State Series at Mount Alexander. Starting and finishing at the old oak grove (which used to be, but isn't any more, surrounded by pine plantation). From here, in the immortal words of Yazz and the Plastic Population, the only way is up, and this was one of the more physically brutal courses I've experienced in Australia (at least it was short). There were nearly 200 metres of climb in the first kilometre, and a few sharp ones after that, too. Didn't feel like I had much strength for the hills (and walked a few of the steeper ones), but I doubt I was alone there.

Headed out fairly late after a not-too-demanding session working on a finish with few finishers (I subsequently got to do the biggest hills again, this time collecting controls). I climbed a bit too far on both 2 and 4 (not a mistake you want to make here), but didn't lose too much time doing so. Andrew Rowan caught me (not sure whether it was 1 minute or 2) at 4 and we were more or less together until 11, where I dropped behind him a bit and saw him overshoot the control in some style while I got in and out without his noticing. On my own through the rest of it, and fairly clean (if slow) until a 30-seconder at 19. Ended up fourth, well behind Brodie and quite a bit behind Ben Goonan.

One of the locals turned up seeking signatures for a petition against a proposed mountain bike park in the area. I suspect she didn't get many. (The claim of "no community consultation" seems a bit dubious when I saw a notice in the local store afterwards seeking nominations, due a few weeks ago, for a community consultation committee for the project). Whether or not opponents of the bike park (who've also been spraypainting local trees with some enthusiasm) had anything to do with the disappearance of a course 6 control is unknown.

Names from the past department: Gary Buchan, whom I last encountered as a Tasmanian M16 (a couple of years above me, but we had some good contests in the first half of 1985 when I was running up from 14s to try to make the Australian M16 team). He's been coming regularly this year but this was the first time we'd crossed paths (which says something for my limited attendance at Victorian events this year).

I noted at the store that the old Faraday schoolhouse is on the market, although the ad fails to make any reference (even in real-estate-euphemism style) to the building's somewhat colourful history.

C • Touchy subject 1

Earlier than usual for a Saturday because of another engagement at 9. Wasn't hugely surprised to be in starting-in-the-dark-and-half-awake mode for the first 20-30 minutes, but after a brief revival through the middle section, this run fell away again and ended up being one of the more dismal I've done in the last two or three months. Didn't bother doing anything extra to take me up to the round 90 minutes.

This was familiar ground in an unfamiliar order - past the old place and along the Yarra Flats at the far end rather than early on.

A reasonably solid session which seemed to function fairly well in loosening my body up. My mind needed a bit more loosening up - it's been a sometimes challenging couple of weeks - but made some progress in that respect as well.

Not sure who's been following the US ultra-long thread (which has had a few side-tracks). Strikes me as being a fairly brave decision to schedule an ultra-long in late June for somewhere (Boise, Idaho) which has a similar summer climate to, say, Northam. Last time I looked, the forecast is 41 for both Saturday and Sunday. You don't often see a Canadian forecast (Kamloops) which has a number with a 4 in front of it either (unless there's a minus sign before the 4).

C • ...or it's at the time of the WRC 1998. 7

The Thursday morning long run but not quite as it usually is. For the first time in 17 years in the workforce, I was on strike this morning, along with a fair slice of the rest of the Melbourne-based public service (Canberra had its turn on Tuesday). For those who haven't been following the ongoing saga of government enterprise agreement negotiations, the government has put such tough conditions on any offers that agencies make to their staff that the proposals that have got as far as a vote (mostly involving pay rises of less than 1% per year and major cuts in conditions) have been voted down, most by 90+% margins. We haven't even got as far as getting an offer yet, almost exactly a year after the last agreement expired. (My thinking is that the government has set up a process which is designed to fail, and is quite happy to let things drag on indefinitely, knowing that if no agreement is reached during their term that means a four-year wage freeze - the same strategy the previous Victorian government used with the ambos. Perhaps someone should tell them that the failure to resolve the ambulance dispute is part of the reason why the previous Victorian government is now the previous Victorian government....).

Not being at work this morning did mean I could do my long run without having to get up not long after 5 to do it. I decided to add some relevant themes to this effort, including wearing a red shirt, and planning a route which took in a Liberal electorate office. Melbourne north of the river is a Liberal-free zone (you won't find one until you get to Seymour), so this meant crossing the river, the nearest available destination being the Kooyong office next to Camberwell junction.

The run didn't feel like it was reaching great heights, but the performance was definitely improved on a couple of weeks ago. Being later in the morning helped, and so did not being in the dark.

Being out later in the morning meant a different set of sights to usual, starting with demonstrations of just how bad the driving is outside schools at drop-off time. Also quite a lot of parents (a surprisingly large proportion of whom were dads) and small children out and about in various places.

Copa America update: Chile won their quarter-final against Uruguay 1-0. Uruguay finished with nine men. Neither of the sendings-off involved Luis Suarez, but one of them did involve a Uruguayan player retaliating to someone (allegedly) giving him the treatment made (in)famous by John Hopoate.

Original plan was to do this in the morning but things didn't go quite to plan (albeit not as badly not to plan as if you were getting a train on the Hurstbridge line this morning) and the time window was going to be a bit too narrow to get this in and still be sure of making a meeting at 9, so went for the evening instead - mostly along the Albert Park waterfront ahead of an engagement there this evening. Main focus of this was throwing four faster kilometres in (between 4.17 and 4.28), which went a bit better than I thought it might have done; a bit slower coming back into the wind.

One of the major items of attention today was the extreme cold in New Zealand (particularly the South Island). The elements required for really serious cold in the interior South Island (essentially a big dump of snow followed by several days of clear skies and light winds under high pressure) don't happen often - perhaps only once every 10-20 years - but when they do, you can get some seriously impressive numbers (I've posted here previously about the -25.6 at Ranfurly in 1903 and the work we did on that). Lowest so far in this event is -21.0 at Tara Hills, near Omarama, the lowest in New Zealand since 1995. The cold surface layer did not break down during the day with Tara Hills only reaching a maximum of -9.9 today (it was back down to -17 last time I looked; illustrating how strong the inversion is, Lindis Pass about 40km up the road was only -1). Just to show that Google doesn't know absolutely everything after all, when I put "Tara Hills New Zealand" into Google Maps, it took me to a nursing home near San Francisco.

And even by News Limited standards, photoshopping an ABC logo onto an Islamic State flag is pretty crass. (It's remarkable how many people are very enthusiastic about free speech as long as they agree with it).

Same session as last week, which may be showing a slight lack of imagination (or may not). A little apprehensive about it at the start after a poor warm-up but worked out OK, and started to feel as if I was attacking the last couple of reps which is always a good sign. Dogs are a bit of an occupational hazard here. Much milder than we've seen for a while.

Warm-up and down. Warm-up was very ordinary but it didn't seem to carry through.

Not a great day yesterday for the 'hood (loosely defined), with a stabbing in the Preston Market car park and a drive-by in Northcote.

Marked the winter solstice (which technically fell at something like 2.30 this morning) by going for a swim in an outdoor pool, albeit a reasonably warm one. Coming off a harder day than last week and didn't have as good a swim as this time last week, but not outrageously bad.

They do things differently in South America: the Copa America (the South American football championships) is currently in progress in Chile. I wonder what would happen in the AFL or NRL if someone's star player, in the middle of the finals, crashed their Ferrari while drunk on the way home from a big night at the casino and then got into a punch-up with the police when they turned up? In Chile they get picked for the next game.

(That game, against Bolivia, also suggested that the home supporters can give Australian cricket a run for its money in the sledging department, by singing something after a goal which translated approximately as "if you're not jumping you don't have a coast". This is a reference to Bolivia losing its coastline to Chile in an 1880s war; the Bolivians haven't forgotten and are currently off at the International Court of Justice in the Hague to try to get it back, a quest which I suspect has even less chance of happening than Argentina gaining possession of the Falklands).

Post-work session around the Tan. Felt pretty awful in the first few minutes but then settled into a decent rhythm and finished off acceptably well. Lots of traffic issues in the first 10 minutes, not helped by the presence of police at a couple of the spots where I might have been tempted normally to cross the road without traffic-light assistance.