Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Sergeant Frogga in the spotlight (in a good way).

A longer run today, mercifully feeling considerably better than yesterday after a decent night's sleep. (Made it through to 9.45 last night, with some help from the Winter Olympics, and slept until about 7, with only one interruption from the crowd disgorging from a nearby nightclub).

The forecast had been for light rain, but forecasting rain/snow boundaries in complex topography is tricky so I wasn't totally surprised to be heading out into snow - rather wet snow (occasionally mixed with sleet) which wasn't settling on anything except grass and parked cars. The first 45 minutes, much of which was gently uphill (and into the wind), was a bit of a slog but nothing in particular went wrong. That took me into some rural areas out the back of Bernex, before dropping down to the Aire "river" (in reality not much more than a drain). The path along the Aire should have been the nicest part of the run, but it was during this section that my back started to act up a bit - unusual for this to happen well into a run, and even more so for it to happen on flat ground - and I decided to head straight home rather than push it out beyond 2 hours. Picked up a bit later on, and got to see a Sunday market I hadn't known about (a place which I made a return visit to at lunch).

Not much happens in Geneva on Sunday (apart from the aforementioned market), and my planned trip up the La Saleve cablecar would have been a waste of time becuase of low cloud, so I spent most of the rest of the day on the couch in front of the Winter Olympics (unsurprisingly getting blanket coverage on Swiss TV).

It's referendum time coming up and the posters are out in force, mostly for local ballots. There's a poster which says "no to the destruction of the festivals of Geneva", which makes you wonder who is in favour of the destruction of the festivals of Geneva. (Given that the posters come from a right-wing populist outfit, I suspect the answer is "nobody", and that this is another piece of culture-war virtue-signalling of a sort which will be familiar to anyone who's recently experienced Australia Day).

Probably the best that can be said for this run is that it wasn't as bad as the last time I tried to do a run straight off the plane in Geneva (the fact that it was 25 degrees colder this time possibly had something to do with this). Don't think the Garmin was giving me full value in the old town - I'm staying in the same apartment as this time last year - but even on the lakefront I was only doing 5.45s at best. Did enough walking before starting the run to shake off post-flight Achilles syndrome, but still feeling very tight in both calves on the run.

The flight itself - via Doha, this time - was unusually turbulent on both legs, but otherwise uneventful. Sydney-Doha is probably just about the longest leg I've ever flown, with some help from headwinds and the detour required through having to avoid Saudi and UAE airspace (a consequence of a neighbours' tiff). Geneva is just about the last of the wave of morning flights out of Doha, so the airport was busy when I arrived but almost deserted by the time I left.

Running conditions were quite pleasant - cloudy, dry and about +3. January was very wet and very mild (which meant massive snowfalls in areas high enough to be above the main snowline, 1500m or so - as the signs put it, risque avalanche maximale), but it's turned colder over the last week. The snowline looks like it's around 600-700m (the city itself is at 375).

Finally took properly to a section of the coast (although only a smallish one, from Bronte to a bit past Clovelly), after going up through Queens Park. Thought I'd run out of time to get as far around as Coogee. Certainly an improvement on Wednesday, although the climb back from the coast was still fairly hard work; no sign of injury trouble though. More humid than it has been, and got to see some evidence of the June 2016 storm - having to divert up through the cemetery because the track below it was taken out by a landslide.

This will be the last humid run I do for a while, because I'm off to foreign fields again - Geneva (with a bit of Spain and Norway on the side). Flying out of Sydney tonight, assuming the light show currently visible doesn't throw a spanner in the works.

I'm also indebted to Claire Davill for sharing with us a selection of the names which were used exactly once for South Australian babies last year. I'm not sure which parent(s) is/are the ones most likely to come to the attention of child protection authorities - those who called their daughter Fizza, those who called their son Meth, or those (presumably not of Vietnamese origin) who called their daughter Khe-Sanh.

C • A regular run 1

Plan A was to go to Wylie's Baths, an oceanside sea-water pool at Coogee. I've had a somewhat cursed experience with this pool and it was to strike again: my 2012 attempt to swim here was scuttled by a storm and in 2015 it didn't open in time. This time it was a new one - I arrived to learn the pool was full of stingers. (Don't think a run this morning would have gone well - felt sleepy for a long time, which might well have been trying to get up early the morning after the conference dinner).

Not feeling especially like being stung, I switched to plan B, which was the rather less scenic surrounds of the UNSW aquatic centre after the end of the day's conference proceedings. The swim itself was reasonably routine, but had a couple of short-lived episodes of knee soreness later in the swim - not sure why.

Definitely not one of my better running days. Started out towards Maroubra with the intention of coming back along the coast and aiming for 90 minutes, but felt pretty awful from the start, even on the downhill sections, and by the time I got to the beach settled for coming more or less straight back. Felt a bit better after a bit of a break before coming up from the water, although it was still one of those days where the traffic stops were a blessing rather than a curse. Suspect I'm fighting off an illness of some kind - have been feeling a bit congested although without a lot of other symptoms.

My route did take me past the scene of yesterday morning's incident. Looks like the errant driver drove straight through the end of a T-intersection and through the wall.

10x1 minute on/1 minute off down at Centennial Park. Felt a bit out of sorts when I started - and I don't think I can blame this on being nauseated by being exposed to 10 minutes of someone from the IPA talking on ABC News Breakfast - and pretty sluggish through the session as a whole, but picked up a little bit in the later reps. Calf tightness not an issue during the session, but again appeared a bit during the afternoon.

Nick Earl (aka the World's Fastest Climate Scientist - he's done mid-29s for 10k) was doing a supposedly identical session just down the road, but I suspect his 'off' minutes were faster than my 'on' ones.

Warm-up and down. Coped with the steep bit of the climb back better than I thought I would.

A bit of excitement in the neighbourhood this morning - someone managed to drive/roll their car into the Randwick cemetery. You will not be surprised to hear that a breath test (allegedly) returned a positive result.

C • Headline 2

Given how tight my calf was yesterday afternoon/evening I was in two minds about whether I should go out (it was still a bit tight this morning), but there were no issues once running. Headed for the flattest option available in the local area, essentially a lap of Centennial Park, which was perfectly satisfactory, and did manage to handle a sharpish climb back to base without any dramas. Not humid by Sydney February standards.

The conference sessions today weren't on my specific areas (that's tomorrow and Wednesday) so I was able to go around talks and focus on whatever looked interesting. The last time I was in this part of the UNSW campus was in the vicinity of control 14 at the NOL race in 2015, and I was able to put my navigational skills to good use in the morning in identifying the fastest route from conference room to coffee (it was conference coffee so nothing to get too excited about, but at least I didn't have to wait for too long in a queue for it).