Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Australian Middle. Not the big mistake of yesterday but rather scrappy, often not feeling very confident in reading the detail - time losses were in 15-30 second increments but never really felt on top of things. Also felt like I was getting bad lines across the green gullies, but then I'm not sure if there was any such thing as a good line across the green gullies (though the splits on legs like 12 and 15 suggested I fared worse than most). Faded away at the end and generally not feeling as good running as yesterday, and ended up with a fairly similar result to yesterday.

I'll be acting my age next weekend, but so will Bruce and Andy, and on the evidence of today's run I'll need a major improvement to get within cooee of either of them.

Event: 2015 Australian Orienteering Carnival
 

Victorian Middle Championships at Creswick. One disastrous control which turned this into a poor result - came into the general vicinity of 5, didn't see the control, couldn't quite make sense of the features around, bobbled around for a bit, found 6, went in backwards from 6, pulled up short, went back to 6, and finally found it on the third attempt, probably about 5 minutes to the poorer. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, given that it was the third time I'd been there, 6 was one of my faster splits).

The pity was that apart from this it was a fairly reasonable run; a bit hesitant on 12 but fine on everything else. Also running better than I have at any time in the last two or three weeks, which at least gives me some encouragement for tomorrow if I can put things together there. Without 5, I would have been in the (large) bunch at 51-52 minutes which is a result I would have been happy with.

A horrible day for the Nuggets (surprising on home ground) - three of the women mispunched and Tash walked because of flu (and wasn't a scoring runner anyway because she wasn't in team uniform), leaving them to get 2 points while Queensland got 9, and the men were well off the pace too.

In the pool at Fitzroy, on one of those morning when the air is cold but the sun is warm - something I've grown up with in Canberra but doesn't happen so often in Melbourne. Going pretty smoothly this morning. I can only assume that the woman who normally gets in just after 8 is away somewhere, depriving us of the chance to mutually rejoice over recent political events.

The metalwork has finally been taken off the wall at the far end of the pool after the best part of two years, so I assume whatever reinforcing work has to be done has been done, complicated somewhat by the fact that the (incorrectly spelt) Italian sign painted on it is heritage-listed. (Everyone got nervous about freestanding brick walls after the collapse on Swanston Street at Easter 2013).

Now comes the Australian Championships week - doesn't seem quite the same build-up when you're not travelling (much) there, though news was coming through the day of other people's travel, such as the seven-hours-delayed flight from Perth that Boltboi was on. Looking forward to the week, and also looking forward to new benchmarks in live coverage in Australia (although it may be something of a challenge to be appropriately diplomatic on Schools day the first time someone displays a GPS track which indicates that they're a long way from where they're supposed to be).

Woke up this morning to the news that the (former) Prime Minister was taking a personal interest in my work - the implications of which I spent a certain amount of this run digesting. In some ways there wasn't anything in the report which was particularly surprising, but I'd still have been much less relaxed about it had it come out two weeks ago....(Will still be waiting with bated breath on the Australian's response tomorrow, especially as their much-loved ABC is also involved).

The run was, like yesterday, one of small incremental improvements, though still well below strength on such hills as there were (which, given that Merri Creek was the target, wasn't very many). Under no illusions as to my likely performance this weekend.

C • With friends like this . . . 5

Felt a bit better running than I have on most other days for the last week and a half, but still rather slow, especially on the climb out of the east side of Darebin Parklands (at least my back wasn't giving me any trouble). Chilly but fine morning.

Again feeling as if I'm struggling to run well, although my pace isn't really down on the usual for runs of this type (in as much as I can tell because my watch lost satellites part way through). A nice route for it, based largely around the river (including the single track off Walmer Street, one of my favourite tracks in the region).

Got a bit of a wake-up call with a hail shower about 15 minutes from home, although it was short-lived in the traditional cold outbreak style.

Around the Tan at lunchtime (having had a false start in the morning when a planned swim was scuttled by forgetting to pack my swimmers). A bit creaky in the first kilometre, reasonable after that but still hardly suggesting I'm in great racing shape. Saw Bruce (going considerably faster than I was) twice, going in the opposite direction with the Midday Milers.

I was wondering what was going on when it appeared that there were three motionless bodies on the ground in front of the rowing sheds, until they suddenly jumped up and swapped places with the people standing next to them. Still couldn't quite work out whether this was performance art or first-aid training.

My historical wanderings today took me to 1978. There's been a bit of talk online about the good old days but there are at least two areas of Australian life where things have improved a great deal since 1978 - road safety and industrial relations. Since 1978, the number of deaths on Australian roads has dropped by about 70%, and the number of working days lost to industrial action has dropped by 96%.

(One report in that paper which proved to be spectacularly wrong was a McDonald's spokesman saying that the company was leaving Canberra and not coming back - if only :-). You won't be surprised to hear that the (short-lived) exit was a legal manouevre in the name of a cause close to the heart of any fast-food franchise - paying their workers less).

C • The road toll 3