Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

State Series at Spring Gully. It's nice being able to enjoy running again after months of struggle. I can go smoothly across slopes! I can run up eight-contour hills! I can get to the finish line of a long race and feel as if I could go for another half-hour! Still wasn't going all that fast, but now that I know what I can do I'll be a bit more ambitious next time around.

Couldn't have asked for much more from the fine navigation perspective, either - a very slight overshoot on 9 and that was about it. The time losses I did have were through getting stuck in blackberries and having to find alternate routes around (the dark green has grown up more than is on the map, particularly in Spring Gully itself). I think that happened to more or less everyone and was essentially random.

Todd did 79 and Bruce 81; was 6th in a field of 15, and ahead of a few who have been ahead of me for most of this year.

The last three days have left me wondering what's happened - have I crossed a threshold of strength in recovery of the injured bits, or have I been carrying a long-lived virus or some other issue that's finally been shaken off? I'm certainly not complaining - just hope the feeling doesn't disappear as soon as it arrived, or worse, that I pick up a new injury. (I was a bit worried that I'd done exactly that when I felt a twinge in my lower leg coming out of 14, but it seems to have gone away within a leg or two).

First time I've done the Glenluce road for a couple of years (last year I missed a lot of Victorian State Series events). I wonder whether I'll live to see the sealing of the couple of kilometres of dirt that straddles the council boundary? (The 'triangle' intersection for the Vaughan road, however, is no more).

C • Glenluce Road 3

Something seems to have clicked in the last couple of days because this was another good one, particularly considering I was coming off something reasonably long yesterday - settled well after the first few minutes. It's a nice change for running to be a pleasure rather than a battle, as it's been for so much of this year. Once again going consistently under 5.30s once warmed up (except for uphills).

It was the first time for a few weeks I've used the Chandler crossing of the river - I tend to avoid it during the week and haven't been around much on weekends lately - so I was able to see that they've finally begun to dismantle the front of the old paper mill. Perhaps wisely, given that construction - as opposed to deconstruction - doesn't appear to have started yet and there is one working week left in the first half of the year, the fence no longer promises that apartments will be available in 'early 2017'.

(While on the subject of real estate marketing which is a somewhat ambitious interpretation of the truth, I also saw a sign describing a property as "Yarra's edge". The house in question is 600 metres from the river - and that via an access which I suspect will be a casualty of the new Chandler Highway bridge - and on the other side of Heidelberg Road).

Hip was a little sore before and after the run, but fine during it.

C • Marketing 1

This time all parts of the body felt more or less OK and I set out for the run I'd planned to do yesterday. On a clear morning heading northeast into the first hint of light, there was a real sense of running towards the sun, and although the first 3km (dark and largely uphill) were slow, it had the sense that it was going to turn into something better. Onto some old territory in the form of the Hawdon rollercoaster before turning south again, and once on the Yarra Flats it turned into one of my best runs of the year - flowing along nicely and with plenty of confidence, even on the often-troublesome short sharp climb out of Wilsons Reserve. By then, I was sufficiently in the mood that the Alphington railway crossing, instead of being an excuse for a rest, was an opportunity to do a couple of laps of a side street while waiting for two trains. A very positive session by the standards of this year.

A slight sour note to see a large pile of (presumably) illegally dumped rubbish at the entrance to Wilsons Reserve, duly reported to the council later in the day (hopefully complaining to the council about something isn't the first sign of old age). A more unusual litter issue was a trail of jellybeans a couple of hundred metres long on the footpath (and adjacent road) where Heidelberg Road crosses Darebin Creek. Also spotted in this section was a girl in school uniform who was presumably late because she was running down the footpath, although her priorities weren't entirely rearranged because she was still doing something with her phone whilst in motion.

The route also took me past the railway construction site. Some more detailed plans came out during the week, and it seems that, contrary to my expectations, they're not going to need to acquire any properties in my old block (the new track is being built as a second tunnel on the far side of the cutting). Just means those still there will have to deal with regular overnight construction noise for the next couple of years. Glad it's not me.

C • Phone in motion 2

All set for a long(ish) run this morning, slept well, got up early, felt reasonably awake (not always a given at 5.45am in recent years), and then realised that after being more or less OK for a week, my hip was quite significantly sore. Quickly decided it wasn't going to warm up and switched to plan B, which was a session at Fitzroy, fairly unspectacular but no real soreness in the water. The air/water temperature differential probably wasn't too different to that at Davis yesterday but the absolute values of both were about 30 degrees higher...

The hip had settled down by the evening, and my thinking is that I'll have another go tomorrow.

14x45 seconds. A little apprehensive about this given (a) yesterday's shocker, (b) that this was my first attempt to run fast since the hip played up and (c) I'd managed to hurt something in my side yesterday during some vigorous coughing (that one was a non-issue when running), but it worked out more or less OK. A few minor niggles at times but otherwise a decent session once I got going.

Going to/from All Nations. It was the shortest day of the year and the dark, drizzly morning definitely felt like it.

A pretty dismal session - back felt tight throughout, without ever quite throwing the wobbly that would have prompted me to come home (staying on flat ground might have had something to do with that), and feeling rather weak too. Was originally thinking of an hour but this wasn't really a day when my body wanted to cooperate.

I thought I might have missed some local excitement (and an excellent Darwin Awards nomination) on seeing a story from a website called the Cairns Times, which reported that a man had disappeared from a beach in the area after attempting to have sex with a crocodile whilst high on ice. However, the failure of any other media outlet to report the alleged incident (and in particular the failure of the Northern Territory News to report the alleged incident) makes me think that this was probably fake news.

(One ice-crocodile connection which does appear to be genuine came in the form of reports of the Innisfail court appearance of the young man who made the news a few months back when he was attacked by a croc after jumping into a river to impress a girl; it appears he spent most of his exclusive-interview money on the aforementioned substance and allegedly committed assorted crimes whilst under its influence).

C • Fake news... 2

Headed for the warm bath at Northcote for evening logistical reasons. It was even warmer than usual this morning (32.3), and not the most enjoyable of swims - partly because of having to move lanes mid-session, and partly because that put me in a lane with someone who didn't seem to appreciate my presence, although I do have an unfortunate tendency to assume the worst of what people think of me. (It probably has something to do with absorbing 20 years' worth of large slices of the media telling us that "real Australians" hate people like us, even though it probably isn't true).

Having a few days' break was good, but a lot has piled up in my absence.