Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Having had a couple of runs this week where it took a long time to warm up (and wanting to do a bit more than 20 minutes today), I decided to do something before the Carlton Gardens sprint started. I expected not to be moving smoothly after yesterday and my expectations were met; even the faintest slope was a struggle and only in the last few minutes did things ease up at all.

Went around the north side of Carlton - I've been riding through here most days for the last 24 years (apart from the last two) but was coming at it from a different angle to usual, which revealed a few new sights (I didn't know the Carlton Baths had an outdoor pool, for instance). Also found out about a potential post-event destination in the form of the Johnston Street Fiesta (a Spanish/Latin American festival), although this turned out to be a bit of a fizzer at the time I went there - I guess you don't expect much action before noon at a Spanish/Latin American festival.

Carlton Gardens sprint. After the unpromising prelude, my expectations for this were low, but in fact I slotted into a nice rhythm by the second leg and it ended up as the best 20(ish) minutes of running I've had this year, at least in terms of how I felt - actually felt like I was (sort of) competing and not just running to finish. A technically straightforward course apart from #9, which was a bit hard to see in bushes near the wall it was notionally on.

Happy with the run and the results suggest I was running a minute or so better than last time relative to others, although the benchmark of youngest person to have beaten me has been shifted down another couple of years - for a long time it's been Pat (as an M14) but today Matthew Layton, who I think's 12 this year, got me (by 7 seconds). James took a break from new-fatherhood responsibilities to win with something in the lower 13s.

(A benchmark which has been shifted slightly in a more positive direction is that of longest week since 2018 - hopefully weekly distances which start with a 5 will become a bit more frequent from here, and it's also the first time for a while that I've strung together six days without undue difficulty).

Calves pretty tight afterwards, although not an issue on the run.

Running on each of the first 100 maps of the Melbourne street directory may not be quite as impressive a target as climbing every peak over 1100m in Tasmania, but I did tick off one more of them today. 62 was today's number, and it was a longer one than usual, because with a sprint event tomorrow I thought I'd have a go at doing a Saturday long(ish) run, something I haven't done for a long time.

Forest Hill was the venue - I've done plenty of street-Os here but haven't been here for a few years. (The thought did cross my mind on the way here that the Springvale Road-Maroondah Highway intersection - not the most attractive place in Australia - which was a regular feature of my life pre-Eastlink, is something I've barely seen in the last few years). Decided I'd stay on the street-O map, if only so I knew where I was going, and followed a fairly convoluted route with the aim of 75 minutes, perhaps more if it went well. That didn't seem likely in the first few minutes, but it settled down OK and ended up a reasonable run, tiring a bit at the end as might be expected. Hopefully this is another step in getting well past the hour mark more consistently. Lots of small undulations but no big hills.

This run set a PB for most streets collected in a single run, which isn't surprising given that (a) it's in my top 10 longest runs since I started tracking (b) it's the only one of those 10 which was on "virgin territory" (again, since I started tracking) and (c) I was actively seeking out small streets to add to the distance without going off an A4 map sheet. The most pressing question raised was, when I saw them opposite each other, why is it North Court but Southern Court? (at least the latter was south of the former). It was also close to this spot that a house was flying a Ukrainian flag. The newish development with small streets in the middle made me think that it might have once been a closed factory or a Jeffed school, but the only obviously defunct feature shown on the 1990 Melway was a Pizza Hut on Springvale Road.

A bit tired after this, and a bit more tired after going onwards in fairly short order to another engagement walking the streets of Reservoir in the name of democracy.

Trying again to string together six days of running in a week when things have gone better (so far) than in my previous attempts. This was short but quite decent once I got going - even managed without the usual stretch-out-the-back stop around 8-10 minutes in (which may have something to do with the complete absence of anything resembling a hill). A bit less humid than I was expecting. Drew a few new lines on the map in the Carlton North area (mostly north-south ones this time); normally at this time of day you'd see a few commuter pelotons on Canning Street but I suspect we're still a couple of weeks away from that.

Fitzroy Pool was the next stop. A bit of a mixed bag - on the one hand felt like I was moving pretty well through the water, on the other hand my calves were threatening to cramp for most of the second half, without actually doing it. Hopefully the last time I need to bring a mask to walk 10 metres through the entrance.

I was somewhat sceptical that the new school campus on the old gasworks site would open at the start of this year as promised, and hadn't seen anyone much there (which may or may not have something to do with the fact that my visits to these parts are usually outside school hours), but I saw pictures earlier this week of Dan Andrews officially opening it so I guess it's open.

Pretty hard going this morning but managed to get through what I was hoping to get through, somewhat unconvincingly. Something of a slog through the first part through the west Ivanhoe parklands but got some confidence from making a reasonable job of the Banksia Street climb. Spent the next part in Eaglemont, getting reminded from time to time of the relevance of the "mont" bit but not doing too badly. Hit a flat spot after the downhills from there, but managed to pull out a reasonable last 15 minutes. A bit of right foot soreness at the end but it doesn't seem to have persisted post-run.

It was one of those humid cloudy mornings where it doesn't feel warm until you start trying to do something and produce lots of sweat in the process. Didn't seem to cause me too much trouble though (which is as well because I think the humidity is with us for the next week).

Definitely a run of two halves. Started out with the intention of doing intervals, struggled through the warm-up, tightened up again as soon as I tried to run fast and scrubbed that idea. It turned out that I just hadn't left myself long enough to warm up, because after executing plan B of trying to at least get a respectable-length slower run in, things started feeling good from about 20 minutes onwards (although still pretty slow). Gives me a bit more confidence in my plans for tomorrow.

Went past Jayne and James's place and saw Stanley sitting in the pram outside. I assumed (correctly) this meant that one or both parents were going to emerge very shortly (I didn't suggest trying to keep up with James on his run even if he was pushing some extra weight).

C • In case anyone is wondering... 4

Street-O Championships at Jacks Magazine, an area which straddles both sides of the Maribyrnong at Ascot Vale/Edgewater - my previous outing here was going for a run before a Covid vaccination at the Showgrounds. The river adds an extra element to route choice and it was quite challenging to decide what to leave out (more so on B, where I was, than on A), but I don't think I did too badly on the route. Running was not brilliant but probably a bit better than average for evenings this season. Think I ended up 3rd in 45s in the championship itself, but a fair way back.

A bit of foot discomfort still during the day, but it wasn't an issue on the run.

In an e-mail discussion at work today about Perth's hot summer, someone mentioned a modelling experiment where one of my colleagues had removed Australia's topography. Perhaps I should have given her a call before the steep bit around the top of the old magazine. (You can do things in modelling experiments that you can't do in the real world - Andy Hogg has been known to demolish New Zealand).

Monday morning Pilates. Felt as if I was doing things more efficiently than usual but took about the same amount of time as usual. Also went through one of the periodic phases where the instructor decides I'm finding one of the exercises too easy and does something to make it harder (no doubt a good thing in the longer term).

The top-of-foot soreness from a couple of weeks ago has resurfaced, but this time on the left foot rather than the right. It's less severe than last time (particularly with shoes on) and will hopefully disappear as quickly.

Onwards to the pool. The diurnal cycle in my swimming performance was again evident (with some bonus feeling-inadequate points from the news that a friend's 12-year-old did his first sub-30 50m last weekend). A bit of back tightness today although not as pronounced as a couple of weeks ago.

Annoyance of the day is that my house's alarm system (installed by the previous owners and never used by myself) has spontaneously decided to turn itself on and I don't have a means to turn it off (fortunately it only manifests as annoying beeps, not sirens). Looks like a service call may be in order tomorrow. At least I had less time to be annoyed by it than on a normal Monday as I spent the later part of the afternoon checking out one of the venues for the knockout sprint (which I'm controlling) for Melbourne Sprint Weekend.