Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Psuedo ultra-long at Nerrina. I say pseudo because I chickened out; my running form hasn't been great the last couple of months and I decided two weeks ago that I wasn't up to taking on the elite challenge this year. (I do want to finish one of these before I retire properly from elites, but think next year will be a better prospect if I'm coming off a good summer).

I ran the longest "public" course. This meant I was potentially spending my morning chasing teenage girls around Nerrina (some mirth was provoked by posting on Facebook to this effect) - we were running the same course as W20, starting 15 minutes after them. There were a few decent competitors on my course, led by Warren and with Craig Feuerherdt and Peter Hobbs also in the mix, but the splitting was such that I was never with anyone for very long.

The course necessitated lots of wide options to take tracks or gaps through dark green gullies (a few tried to crash them and mostly lived to regret this) - given the overnight drizzle and clay base some of these were very slippery indeed. Never very energetic or very fast, but only two small misses - one at 6 where I got led astray by a split and came in under it on a short leg, dropping 30 seconds, and then a small drift on the first control of the second loop. (I'd started the second loop with Warren; he had a long split on the first loop, but I'm still surprised how much he ended up pulling away). Starting to fade in the final kilometre and was definitely pleased that I didn't have to do another 13k.

Went through four of the eight junior girls as it turned out, although I only saw two of them. Caught Tara with five controls to go and thought we might have been dicing for the rest of the way - she can run (better than I can in short races) - but the distance seemed to have got the better of her by then.

Event: Victorian Ultra Long Weekend (NOL Round 4)
 

NOL sprint qualifier at Damascus College - fairly limited area of buildings, quite a bit of bush (especially on the first loop) and pretty straightforward technically. Only error was on 3, where I went in too early into what turned out to be an unmapped gap in the blackberries, but probably didn't lose time here. Not fast at any stage, and found it hard to get much drive up the hills (especially on the big climb out of 10, where Peter Hobbs ran away from me).

As expected, didn't get especially close to qualifying (the cut was 19.40). The one positive to draw here was that things were all good on the injury front.

Went out after the heat with Aislinn (and Jenny) to have a look at the proposed arena for the Schools sprint, at the institution previously known as the University of Ballarat. I've previously noted that its new name makes for a somewhat unfortunate acronym, so was somewhat taken aback to discover that the campus creche is the Federation University Children's Centre.

Sprint final - in the B race as you'd expect - at Ballarat Grammar. This has been used before but I wasn't there, so it was the first time I've run there (we stayed in the boarding house there on a Schools trip which took place before the M/W20 field today was born). Much better area than the morning, with a bit of complexity and lots of challenging route choices, especially on legs 4 and 5 (lost a little time on the former after not seeing a gate behind a rubbish skip; also lost a few seconds in a dead end at 1), but still no speed and had probably a worse result than the morning. Peter Collins caught me at 5, and we were dicing for most of the rest of the course (he was running faster, I was running cleaner) until he ran away towards the end.

The Nuggets edged a bit closer in the mens National League (no thanks to me).

A fairly casual run through North Melbourne and Kensington (in the name of evening logistics). Pretty tight early on, then got going better in the second half. Still a little bit of a twinge in the hamstring area but significantly improved on other days this week, so hopefully will be OK for some sprint work in Ballarat this weekend (although I'm still not upset to be doing 9km this weekend and not 22km).

The Border Farce affair certainly provided us with plenty of entertainment during the day.

Spotted in this morning's Age: "Embattled Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has cancelled a speech at the world's top anti-corruption conference as he refuses to explain US$700 million in his personal bank account". (I've had a bit of exposure to this scandal - a Malaysian whom I went to school with is now active in the opposition there, and has been posting copiously about it on Facebook for some time).

Hamstring still not quite right, although better than Tuesday (and didn't get worse as it went on, unlike Tuesday). Originally had thoughts of 90 minutes but decided to be reasonably conservative, on a day (one of many to come, no doubt) where I strung together familiar territory in an unfamiliar way (through Kew this time). Steady light rain throughout, which became heavier during the day.

Feeling a bit less tight this morning but still thought that it would be asking for trouble to try doing something fast, so headed for the water instead (running on Friday also suits that day's logistics better). A reasonably routine session as these things go.

A campaign has been launched to get rid of the numerous billboards that you can find at Canberra Airport advertising assorted weaponry. Quite apart from any moral aspects, I would hope that Australian defence procurement is done on a slightly more rigorous basis than "I bought that submarine because it looked good on the billboard at the airport" (then again, given the less than glorious history of such, maybe it isn't).

Still didn't feel as if the hamstring was quite right but thought I'd at least start and see what I could do. It was OK for the first part but had a bad patch around the middle - bad enough that I'd initially decided to come back early, but settled down enough that I ended up spending the last 10 minutes circling my house in ever-decreasing spirals and getting to almost the intended length. Came up reasonably post-run too, although will need to see how I wake up before deciding whether to do anything harder tomorrow.

Didn't sleep terribly well, and thought that it might have been a long day (it wasn't, really, although I'm sort of hitting the wall now). Headed for the pool as per usual on a Monday morning, started off reasonably well, but rather faded in the second half (one particularly slow lap for no obvious reason). Hamstring a bit tight getting out of the pool.

A standard lunchtime run around the Tan (my plans for the day having been slightly upended because I'd forgotten that I had an environment policy committee meeting in the evening). Felt lively at times on a decent lunchtime for running. Hamstring got a little tighter as the run went on - not enough to be an impediment (and didn't seem too bad afterwards) but will need to manage this reasonably carefully this week, I think.