Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Looks like Naseby's erosion gullies are a bit more eroded than they used to be.

C • yes - it was a bit wet. the... 1

C • naseby 3

1 minute on/1 minute off in an attempt to test out whether I was up to running yet. I can't say this exactly filled me with confidence that I would be up to a continuous run - although strangely the tightness was on the inside of the knee with no hamstring pain - but I did get through it without anything getting worse (and pulled up OK afterwards), so that's a small step forward. Very humid (by Melbourne standards).

Went back to the Eaglemont circuit, although this time, unlike various occasions in August and September, at the end I was trying to push it past an hour rather than trying to get inside an hour (hopefully we won't be back to those days this time next week). Reasonable ride, although this isn't an especially fast route, and less so today because a southwest change pushed through halfway through the ride, which meant headwinds in the second half without corresponding tailwinds in the first half.

Spotted some signs next to the path on the Kew side calling for community input to the Boroondara Climate Action Plan, which reminded me that I'm going to be spending quite a bit of the next few weeks reading such documents. (Next to a bike path probably isn't a bad place to advertise such things).

This evening took me past the tennis centre for the first time in a while; I'd missed the announcement that what used to be Hisense is now John Cain Arena - there's a certain appropriateness to this because it was his government which was responsible for building it. Victoria seems to be quite good at finding fitting things to name after their deceased Premiers (Henry Bolte got a big bit of infrastructure, Rupert Hamer a concert hall and Joan Kirner a hospital); I wonder if, when the time comes, Jeff's Shed will officially become Jeff's Shed?

C • Bike paths and climate messages 1

Going round and round in circles is a bit dull, but at least the view's nice. Hamstring seems to be improving again, but was still struggling a bit with walking on soft sand, which I did later on in the day, while in the process of checking out where the fire was yesterday a kilometre or so down the coast from here. (There was a second, smaller fire later in the day at the end of the next street, which I think tells you everything which needs to be said about the likely cause).

I'm an M50. When did that happen?

Opened my 2021 account with a ride up to Point Nepean (going as far as the quarantine station this time). A decent ride, quite fast at the start but there was a bit of a tailwind (nothing like the 60km/h that South Channel Island was registering at the time, but still a bit). Not too much trouble coming back, either. A bit of hamstring discomfort at the end but less than the last couple of times; will still leave it at least another day before trying another run.

Most of the people out seemed to be in the company of small children (presumably because said small children don't recognise that people like to sleep in on January 1).

C • and i'm a M60 6

Don't seem to be making much injury progress which makes for a somewhat frustrating end to the year (not that it's by any means the only thing that's making the end of 2020 frustrating), but at least I can manage this session OK - this time at Northcote now that I'm back home (briefly).

Normally at this point I'd reflect on the most memorable events of 2020, but there isn't a lot to reflect on this year (especially as I was controller for probably the two most significant events I attended). Probably my best was very early in the year, the Monash indoor-outdoor sprint, although the most memorable moment, not least because it seemed (accurately) certain to be the last for a long time, was the view on the second-last leg from high on the rocks at Melville Caves at Kooyoora. Managed to get more training done than the last two years (although not as much of it was running as I would have liked). At least we've managed to get through 2020 with the sport and its organisations more or less intact, which is not something which was a given in March, although there are still challenges ahead in 2021 (starting with whether we can manage to get Easter off the ground).

My route choice this morning (having decided a run was off the cards) was determined by trying to find the quietest bitumen road out of Mansfield. I figured that anything heading towards the lake was likely to fail on the traffic front (indeed most of the others where I was staying had disappeared by the time I surfaced), so I chose the Tolmie road, and it worked well. Only got as far as the bottom of the climb before turning around (driven partly by checkout time, but as it turned out my hamstring would have struggled with much over an hour anyway), making it a pleasantly rolling ride on a pleasant morning - you know it's been a pretty good day when you hit a downhill going back to town and you're thinking "I don't remember this being as much of a hill coming the other way". I'd rather be running, but this isn't a bad substitute for now.

The rest of the day was making my way home via Jamieson, Woods Point and Warburton (with a few side trips before Jamieson). Mansfield to Jamieson is new territory for me, the rest was done in 2010 (to Matlock) or 2002 (beyond). Some very nice river country along the Howqua and upper Goulburn rivers (the latter, particularly, had tents up at just about every accessible spot along the road), then up into the ranges. The forest between Jamieson and Woods Point has recovered from the 2006-07 fires better than I expected (apart from a small patch about 5km north of Woods Point, the forest looks almost normal), although not much of Gaffneys Creek of the A1 Mine Settlement ever got rebuilt, and most of the area beyond Woods Point hasn't burnt in recent decades, a good thing for Melbourne's water catchments. The road between Jamieson and Woods Point was rougher than I remember, but maybe my view in 2010 was skewed by how bad what we'd just come from was.

C • James is very keen to drive... 4

La Trobe loop. Felt reasonably strong this morning, although having a light tail wind in the uphill sections helped. Not a lot of people around as you'd expect on a de facto holiday.

I'm taking the couple of days I might have spent at the 5-days to do some more exploring within Victoria. This took me to the likes of back roads between Alexandra and Lake Eildon, and Mount Buller, which I haven't previously been to. There wasn't a lot of serenity on display at Bonnie Doon thanks to the presence of large numbers of speedboats (the fact that probably about a kilometre of foreshore is taken up by the campground of the Melbourne Outboard Club suggests that this is not an especially uncommon occurrence), and there certainly wasn't in the hectic main street of Mansfield, but the views from the Mount Buller summit and areas nearby were nice. (The hamstring felt it a bit coming down off the summit).

(The first bit of hecticness I encountered was being in a long convoy of vehicles heading for Yarra Glen, which turned out to be mostly heading for the races. The Yarra Glen races are something I associate chiefly with one of the best newspaper corrections I've seen, when the Age some years ago said "We incorrectly reported that at the Yarra Glen races, (trainer name) referred to the stewards as "imbeciles". In fact, he called them "numbskulls").

My route also took me onto two roads signposted "4WD only" which were nothing of the sort. The first was a narrow and winding but otherwise perfectly normal dirt road (I can only assume the council were trying to discourage people from using it as a short cut to Lake Eildon; not sure if anyone's tried to turn a team of bullocks on it recently), the second was the track from Mount Buller across to the Mount Stirling circuit, which was a bit rocky in spots but nothing most people here haven't seen on the access track to an event assembly area.

Northcote pool, a bit busier than I expected (perhaps because the 9am opening picked up people who would normally be earlier than that). Felt a bit stronger than I have on recent swims, particularly in the second half. Hamstring slightly iffy early on but fine to swim with; also doesn't feel quite right on longer walks so don't think it's quite ready to try running on yet.

As with yesterday, it wasn't a terribly active remainder of the day, although this time I was watching Australia's cricket team perform disappointingly on television rather than in person.