Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

A fairly standard Tuesday run - no sign of any injury trouble, although rather sluggish until the last couple of kilometres. Based around the Yarra and Merri Creek but a few more short sharp climbs than such routes sometimes have.

It was the first proper cold morning of the year, with some frost in the lower parts (and some frosted windscreens, although I didn't see anyone trying to deal with them). Didn't quite manage to hold out until the end of autumn before turning any heating on.

Off to New Zealand in the morning - spending a couple of days in the northern end of the South Island before moving on to the weekend's events.

C • Our windscreen was frozen, ... 1

A long day which, perhaps inevitably, became longer - I was planning to be up at 5 for a 6.30 flight out of Launceston but in fact woke up sometime before 4 (cross-matching with yesterday's entry will indicate that this means not very much sleep). Expected to feel awful later in the day but didn't.

Had time in the evening for a swim or a run but not both. I'd expected to be flattened by a long race yesterday, which wasn't quite to be, but still settled for a swim (also felt a bit uncomfortable walking after taking a knock on the shin yesterday, although I expect it's bruising which would have been fine running). Went to Northcote, the first time I've been there in the evening - which was a big mistake because almost all of Northcote's indoor and outdoor space is devoted to other activities on a Monday night (be it squads, lessons or water polo), and after getting kicked out of two other lanes, I then attracted the ire of someone who considered me too slow for a medium lane (quite accurately, but as the only remaining public lane I had nowhere else to go). I think I'll head elsewhere the next time I'm doing something after work.

I had not previously been aware until the activities of this charmer that using a carriage service to create offence is actually a crime (at least in NSW). I've got off surprisingly lightly in the online-abuse department but many of my scientific colleagues have not been so fortunate.

NOL Long. Went in thinking this might not be too extreme by long distance standards, given that the course stats were basically those of the World Cup course for which Jules did 89 and Simon 93. Apparent early on that it was quite junky, though, with masses of fallen timber (extra challenging given that it was still wet after the heavy rain a couple of days earlier), and even though the first few controls were mostly contouring or downhill it was tough going. Got the first three OK (not without a certain lack of confidence on 1), but lost significant time on 4, seeing a large boulder and not registering that it might be my control after going into the circle somewhat unsure - dropped 2-3 minutes there. The bad news was still to come, though - on the climb of only a couple of contours into 6 my back threw one of its occasional wobblies. Knew the next few controls were relatively flat and hoped that it would settle down, but it didn't (and in the meantime I'd dropped another minute at 9), and when the two contours into 10 were a struggle, and knowing that (a) 11 was a point of no return (b) nearly all the climb was still to come and (c) a likely finishing time was somewhere north of 2 1/2 hours, I decided that was my day done. Picked up a couple of controls on the way home.

On days like this, I'm reminded that I have made noises at various times in the last couple of years about retiring from elite long distances and maybe it's time to do it properly (although the way things went today I probably wouldn't have found an M45 long distance much easier) - not just yet, though, because I'm entered for one in NZ next weekend (it was advertised as a middle when I first entered it but I'm going to give it a go). I'm staggering towards 300 NOL appearances (currently 289), but my tally at the end of this year looks like being one lower than it might have been because I'll probably be replacing Eric as IOF event adviser for the Australian Sprint Championships. (There are worse fates than a controlling trip to Queensland in winter...).

Surprised the winning time blew out that much (Craney won in 108) - shows how much difference course design makes in an area like this. One key difference is that the really rough stuff (around 12-15) was an area which the World Cup courses traversed downhill on a (very) long leg.

No rest for the wicked: IOF teleconference from 5-11.15 (at least it didn't go to the scheduled midnight).

C • Winning time 6

Event: NOL Round 4, Race 11, / 12 (WRE), St Helens, Tasmania
 

NOL Middle on the north end of Golden Fleece - mostly pretty thick and low-visibility (and the mapped vegetation was somewhat outdated, so what was light green and white on the map wasn't a very good indication of what was what on the ground). A challenging middle distance; found it hard to run in the areas with lots of fallen timber and scrub, but technically mostly reasonable - dropped a minute at 14 in the circle, and some not-great lines. Bit disappointed that Matt Patten (who I'd got away from at 10) and Simon Rouse got through me at 14 (and Matt ended up getting the two minutes back), but did show some craftiness on the second-last by dropping low and stealing a (slight) march on the Simon/Craney train. Probably about a par result in the end, but a lot more points than par results normally get me because the field's pretty thin.

At Northcote - had to do some guesswork as to the time because there is no external clock (apart from a 60-second one). Not too bad as a session once I was in - getting used to the water temperature was OK (at 25, it's lower than normal for a public pool), and I also picked up some nasty chafing walking around in the humidity on Wednesday which was painful on first contact with water but settled down quickly.

Lunchtime run on the Tan in the middle of a day of work in which I didn't seem to get much done other than clear out and respond to a week's worth of accumulated e-mails. Reasonable run in conditions considerably less humid than what I've been used to this week. Lots of people in very old-fashioned white gowns on Southbank near the Arts Centre in what I'm assuming was some performance art of some description.

Headed down to Tasmania tonight.

Full travel day today - left the hotel in Guangzhou at 6am and was in the door at home around 10pm. Long day but everything went smoothly (apart from the roadworks coming out of the airport at the Melbourne end), and the plane was fairly empty (also seemed to be an unusually large amount of legroom so I'm wondering if I scored an upgrade of sorts). Winter has definitely arrived in my absence.

I'm around for about as long as it takes to swap one lot of gear for another (there's not an awful lot of overlap between my gear for Guangzhou and my gear for Tasmania), although I have found enough time to wash the stuff that's come home from Guangzhou - it probably wouldn't smell great by Monday otherwise.

Oddly enough, the text that Bruce sent me on Sunday with the football scores only came through when I landed back in Melbourne. Maybe the Chinese censors were upset about Lin Jong getting reported.

Significantly more humid today (the difference between a dewpoint of 21 and one of 24 is very noticeable), and I thought my original aim of 90 minutes might be a struggle, so decided to commit myself to something like 65-70 and see how I felt. Headed north and then north-west, initially through the city (under a few elevated roadways - the anti-Skyrail people wouldn't cope too well with Guangzhou, although I suspect most of them don't cope too well in general with years which start with a 2) but ending up in a nice park surrounding a lake, meaning an essentially traffic-free middle 20 minutes or so.

Coming back, I was to remind myself that a good way to see a foreign city is to get lost. On this occasion, my navigational misadventure was to hit a road running SW-NE rather than the one that I thought I was hitting, running W-E; I then couldn't make things fit the map (although as it turned out I was running on the other side of the same road I'd been on on Monday), and ended up using a Metro station to relocate. (Another few hundred metres and I'd have reached the zoo, which I certainly would have recognised). That wasn't quite the end of my route choice misadventures, as what looked like a short cut on the way back ended at a boomgate and a sign 'Military Administrative Area'; I beat a hasty retreat. Ended up getting close to the 90 minutes anyway.

Don't think I was quite getting full value for my kilometres from the Garmin in the concrete jungle (or perhaps the green jungle for that matter), but this wasn't a fast run. Held up OK though given the conditions. The extension placed me firmly in the middle of peak hour, with some interesting traffic conditions. Also spotted two people handing out flyers outside a station; if I was at home I'd have a fair idea what they were doing, but I suspect handling out those sorts of leaflets outside a station in this part of the world would quickly result in an invitation to have a deep and meaningful conversation with the Public Security Bureau.

The meeting finished at lunchtime which allowed some time to explore a few neigbourhoods, both in the older part of town (where we stayed in 2004) and the rising centre to the east, none of which existed in 2004 but now plays host to three buildings in the 400+ metre range (one elegant, one reasonably graceful and one spectacularly ugly monolith) - in this part of the world, if it's decided that the CBD is going to move 8km or so to the east, that's what happens. Made some good use of the Metro too, including exercising a certain amount of brute force to get myself off a peak-hour train (when in Rome do as the Romans do....) - having successfully negotiated the Sao Paulo metro with a pack at peak hour this was pretty tame.