Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Victorian Relays at Brimbank Park, a combination of running race in open parkland and tough slog on steep, long-grassy slopes. As has usually been the case in recent years, I ran first leg for a Yarra Valley team which wasn't going to be competitive for the win but was hoping to be challenging in midfield. At least this year I had a teammate under 60 (Glen White, a relative newcomer to the sport with a couple of highly promising sons of late primary-school age).

The start was part of the running race component and I was rather left behind (seemed worse than it was because there were also course 2 people with shorter splits in the mix). Eventually settled into a contest with Chris Norwood, who was a little faster than me in the open but a little slower in rougher country. We both missed the first really rough control, 11, a bit (maybe 30 seconds for me, a bit more for him). The next couple of legs across the steep river slope reminded me of some of the hard-to-stand-up slopes in Switzerland and were slow going. Open out again after that and we caught Belinda just before the spectator leg. Chris then got away from me a bit on a short split on the final loop, while I lost contact with Belinda when I didn't read my descriptions properly at 24 and went to the top of the boulder cluster rather than its foot. Ended up about 20-30 seconds behind them (but 9 minutes behind the lead pack, led by Toph).

Unfortunately Glen missed a control in the easy parkland so we didn't get a result, although I think we would have been down around 8th. MFR won fairly comfortably despite a last-leg flyer from Leon.

This event will probably be best remembered for its high winds. It wasn't as bad at Brimbank as it was in some parts of town which were getting 100 km/h+ gusts, and I didn't see any debris larger than small to medium branches, but still not the most pleasant of days to be out. At one point I saw a map flying off - it was last seen 20 metres in the air and heading towards Sunshine. (If anyone finds a Brimbank Park map in Tasmania over the next couple of days, it's probably that one).

Wouldn't normally go to a Saturday afternoon park/street event but this one had the added purpose of being billed as the 40th anniversary of Melbourne park/street orienteering (although, as I was to discover, the actual date which is being marked is somewhat fuzzy), and given that I didn't have any other commitments I thought I might as well go (a) for somewhere different to run (Garden City, familiar ground in the mid-1990s) and (b) to be presidential if required.

Didn't feel brilliant in the early stages but was moving OK, and ended up as a reasonable run without pushing too hard (particularly as the control procedure took up a bit more time than usual). If this is anything to go by then I shouldn't find going sub-5s as much of a challenge this season as I did last season (although perhaps not the first Summer Series week, which will be three days after a rogaine). Lovely spring day.

C • You mean 4

Back to Fitzroy on a warm blustery morning. The location was living up to its reputation - on the suggestions board there was a comment from someone that the music in the gym was too mainstream for Fitzroy. (Later in the day, I discovered that one method of campaigning for council elections in these parts is to attach your poster to the side of a parked bike). Fairly standard session, a little earlier than usual because I'd been up early to see the second half of the Australia-Saudi Arabia match - just as well the Budgie Nine didn't go to that instead of the Malaysian GP.

Not exactly a classic Thursday of the sort which will hopefully be a regular feature a few weeks from now, but still reasonable enough, taking to the Yarra parklands and surrounding streets whilst avoiding most of the likely muddy spots. A few reasonable hills on the south side which I wasn't super-energetic for, but not moving too badly on the whole, ahead of an intense day at work on a number of fronts (some predictable, some not).

This week is the week of the UK Conservative Party conference. The Prime Minister was boasting about how the UK was the world's 5th largest economy, but the pound fell sufficiently far as a result of what she had to say in her speech that it was only the 6th by the time she'd finished. There was also a minister who said "we're selling wine to the French!" (or words to that effect). An unkind journalist pointed out that last year UK wine exports to France were 940,000 pounds, but UK wine imports from France were 881 million.

First post-championships run, out into the south end of Ivanhoe. Didn't feel too enthusiastic at the start and took a bit of time to get my Achilles going, but felt OK once I got into some hills, then hit a very nice rhythm in the last kilometre just when it was time to finish, which I take as a good sign.

Haven't been game to take to the riverside paths yet - suspect it would be a mudfest. Even a couple of millimetres of rain was enough to get the Darebin and Merri Creeks into full flow, an indication of how saturated the catchments currently are.

Original thought was pool running at Fitzroy, but the appearance on the radar of what one of my colleagues described on the ABC as a "chunky" line of showers convinced me to swim indoors instead (the indoor pool at Northcote is too shallow for pool running). Ended up fairly routine, and the rain had cleared out by the time I finished for the ride into work.

I'm currently working on a report on the extreme rainfalls of the last few months in general and September in particular (highlight so far - Hillston's May-September rainfall broke the previous record by 188 millimetres). I've talked a bit in recent days about 1980s Canberra-Gold Coast road trips and some familiar names (from road signs off to the side of the Newell) popped up in my searching of site lists, including North Star, Come-by-Chance and Terry Hie Hie. A more appropriately named site in the current situation was Forbes (Muddy Water) - won't be holding my breath waiting for a September report from that location, a farm about 15km west of town. (There also is, or rather was - it closed in 1969 - a site called Tin Tin, somewhere between Balranald and Lake Mungo).

A national carnival often brings the emergence of new stars, this year most obviously Angus Haines and Caroline Pigerre (whose Schools run was the most obvious standout, but I was actually more impressed with her Australian Relays run). Three other names to note for future reference, all of them in their first year of orienteering - in fact I believe that for two of them the selection trial was their first bush event - were Haydn Tang, sixth in M14 on Saturday, and Tia and Noelle Chitty in W14 and W12 respectively. The Chitty girls are already scarily fast with 3k times which I would think would be national-class for their age group. Quite a few people introduced Haydn (whose mathematical credentials are also very considerable) to me as the "next Blair", although from what I know about him the next William Hawkins is possibly closer to the mark.

The Australian Championships is not quite as complete an end to the season as it sometimes is; we still have the Victorian Relays next weekend, plus I've (possibly foolhardily) let Jenny talk me into a 24-hour rogaine two weekends from now. Nevertheless, I still plan to have a reasonably easy couple of weeks.

Would have struggled to find time to train today anyway, with the trip back from Brisbane. Certainly wouldn't have found it in Brisbane with a 5.15 wake-up (well, once in my younger days I did go for a run at 3.45 before a 5am departure), and I'm not sure the environment I was in would have been the most inspiring for it - a motel in amongst two racecourses and various airport-related business, in or near the suburb of Hendra whose name is these days probably most closely associated with a deadly disease (which probably doesn't work wonders for local real estate values).