Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

A perfectly routine morning run, and it's a while since I've had one of those. It's half the distance of what I'd ideally like to be doing on a Sunday, but what was put on the board was a continued sign of progress. Feeling a bit sluggish at times - I'm a little clogged up with what I think is the remnants of a cold - but no real soreness or tightness for the first time in a while. A few hills (though not too many), and managed these without too much difficulty. Nice to get down to Yarra Bend again, too (although it looks like one of the riverside singletracks is blocked off, I guess because of a slip somewhere).

Bill Posters is starting to put in an appearance in the election campaign, with a defunct milk bar on a corner near Dennis station plastered on one side with Labor posters and another side with Greens ones. Interestingly, the latter were not green.

C • Blocked off 1

Latest round of Sprint Into Spring at St. Albans - not the most complex of campuses, but enough irregularly-shaped buildings to make for some interesting which-side route choices (and nothing out into the paddocks, unlike some events here). Felt a little better than I have the last couple of weeks and got a slightly better result, although still far off the pace. Only hint of a wobble was misreading my code number at 24 and hesitating for a couple of seconds. As with yesterday, good to string a few runs together even if they're relatively short, without anything hurting (too much). Didn't quite manage to get within 50% of the lead (which is my current target).

One thing noted this afternoon is that the ground out in St. Albans is already rock-hard. If it's like this in October, one wonders what it's going to be like in February.

Early start today before some station-based electioneering. Didn't feel especially awake, and the run was a bit of a struggle - took until the fourth kilometre to get under 6 minutes/km. OK from an injury perspective, though. Not doing a lot of distance yet but am at least starting to string a few sessions together, which I think is a positive.

For the third time this week, my watch told me that it had recorded a new VO2 max (I assume it draws this from the heart rate). Since nothing I've done this week should be remotely consistent with a new VO2 max (even in the lifetime in this watch), presumably this means that function has only just started working.

Running was never in the plans today but hamstrings were a bit sore this morning so might have struggled to do any regardless. OK once I was in the water, though, and this was a reasonable session.

Noticed on the ride in that large numbers of portaloos were being delivered to the stadium in Docklands. They've obviously realised that the demographic mix of the crowd for a Taylor Swift concert differs somewhat from that for the football.

Street-O at Mont Albert. It wasn't the most convincing of runs and not the optimal route, but the main thing about tonight was that I got around a Wednesday evening scatter A course for the first time in almost a year - be grateful for small mercies. Hard going for the first kilometre (mostly uphill), but I was hoping that I'd loosen up over the next couple of downhill kilometres and that's how it worked out, more or less. Decent over the last couple of kilometres. Maybe next time I'll be in a position to try running this harder, but happy tonight to get around (and happy just to be awake after the combination of an OA Board meeting finishing after 10 last night and an IOF meeting starting at 5.30 this morning).

Tonight was a Tim Dent tribute - we re-ran a course he originally set on this area in 2005. This brought quite a lot of people out of the woodwork, both inside and outside Yarra Valley (first time for years I've seen Alex Randall, and first time I can remember seeing Geoff Lawford at a street-O).

Woke up feeling a bit clogged up and was wondering how today would go, especially when the first kilometre felt much as the last few runs did, but this run was one which eventually came good. Even felt like I was enjoying myself in the last couple of kilometres and taking the (small) hills in my stride, which is a definite step up on anything else in the last couple of weeks.

Monday morning pilates. Thought I might be a bit stiff at the start of this but loosened up OK, and stronger than I have been on a couple of the more difficult exercises.

It's become a bit of a trend of late for bills in Parliament to be given more descriptive titles. One example, put up by the cross-benchers today, was the Energy and Greenhouse Reporting Amendment (Timely Reporting of Emissions) Bill 2018. This one's about putting a stop to the practice of issuing figures on Australia's failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions when they're less likely to be noticed (like Christmas Eve or the day before the Grand Final). That title's intention may be obvious to those in the know, but it's not as obvious as another bill introduced by the crossbench today, the Migration Amendment (Kids Off Nauru) Bill 2018.

Next stop was the pool - doing this in the morning rather than the evening this week. I wasn't sure how this would work out but ended up getting going quite nicely, and finished off well. Fastest (or least slow) I've been for a while.