Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

NOL long at Birkenburn. A significantly better run than yesterday both physically and technically, but a significantly worse result (7th), even when you account for the fact that the top three weren't running in the class yesterday. This probably says more about the number of blowouts yesterday than it does about anything that happened today. Two 1-minute mistakes at #6 and #10 which is more than I would be happy with, but otherwise reasonably good navigationally, and body held up reasonably well - walked the big hills but running more small hills than has been the case of late. (Still lacking confidence in areas with fallen timber, though). I think the terrain was thicker than usual - pretty long grass in places - but not to the same extent as yesterday.

I was starting in front of the W21E field (except for Grace) and expected quite a few of them to go through me, but only Caitlin did, towards the end of the long leg (no long Birkenburn event is complete without a long leg along the ridgeline).

The southern end of the area (where the Schools Relays were in 2013) has changed quite a bit and become a commercial cattle stud farm, which is presumably why we can no longer use it (though Birkenburn is a better area anyway). At one point passing by the road through here we had to wait for a flock of chickens to cross the road. It is unclear why they did so.

One novelty today was the 1:15000 map - I didn't notice until I picked the map up. Don't think I've run on one of those for years. Didn't seem to have too much trouble reading things, apart from misreading an indistinct track near 10 as a line of cliffs (but I might well have done that at 1:10000 too).

Day2 Long Course 3 - Splits

NOL middle at the Gib. This was more a mission than a run - it's not the easiest of terrain even under ideal conditions, and on a wet day after a wet summer is not ideal conditions. The course also seemed to pick out more than its share of the rough stuff - even on the flat and downhills it was rarely possible to stretch out (at least for me). That said, I made some major errors too, really struggling to make sense of the most rocky areas; probably 4 minutes at #2, 2 minutes at #4, 2 minutes at #9. Probably says a lot about this performance that Strava's algorithm thinks I wasn't moving for 13 of the 65 minutes of it. (Even Aston was only doing just under 9s here, so I wasn't the only person finding it tough).

The biggest surprise of the day was that I actually ended up in front of my class at the end of the day - it was the first outing of the Sport class in the NOL. Tomorrow's women's line-up is a who's who of 2000s Australian elite orienteering, but today's men's field wasn't at that level (especially with Bruce not running). I don't think I can in any conscience claim this as a third career NOL win (although you'd probably have to go back a few years for the last time I won anything); the 10 points earned, though, were (a) probably four or five more than I would have got in 21E (b) enough to make me a scoring runner for the Vikings and (c) apparently enough to give us a two-point win over the Cockatoos. Considering how bad this run was I'll take this as an outcome.

Course 3 - Splits

Fairly easy day today in the lead-up to the Canberra weekend. Felt OK in the pool (but hard work on the bike afterwards). A rather chilly wind but nice once in the water.

Ran from a base near the Fitzroy pool to suit later-in-the-day logistics - generally I've been doing shorter runs from here so decided I'd take the opportunity to get into Princes Hill in a reasonably significant way. Had also hoped to push the boundaries a bit on distance today but was feeling ordinary in the first 20 minutes as well as being unusually slow (woke up with a stiff neck which was unhelpful). Saw Pat at that point and stopping to talk seemed to do me some good as things improved significantly thereafter, although didn't quicken up as much as I sometimes do and back was a bit tight at times.

Thus ends my longest month of running since December 2017 - another small sign of progress. (Will take a bit to get past December 2017 - would need to average more per week through a month than I've managed in any single week in the last three years).

Another first-for-a-long-time was being drenched in the first five minutes of the ride in (which also reminded me of the number of road users who think road rules don't apply when it's raining).

Today's number was 1848, which was the departure year of the Leichhardt expedition which disappeared into the Queensland outback. One for the you-probably-should-have-thought-this-through-a-bit-more department was the person who e-mailed us some years back wanting the meteorological observations for outback Queensland at the time of the Leichhardt disappearance and seemed rather put out when we said that there weren't any.

Final Wednesday summer event at Ringwood Wilds, across the road from the traditional finishing venue. After last week's promise normal Wednesday night service was resumed tonight (not very good), although I think my route was reasonable within the parameters of the interesting concept Ricky came up with - you had to alternate odd and even controls, which the way the course was meant that at some point you needed to do a long stretch (probably something like 1.2km) with no controls, normally a sign that you've got your route horrendously wrong but not tonight.

The streets tally advanced slightly tonight, to 1835, the year of Melbourne's (European) founding. The novelty of this was that it was one of the few such occasions in that era of Australia of settlers sort of acknowledging that Aboriginal people were there first - the fading of Batman's modern reputation has more to do with his earlier activities in Tasmania. (The fact that our electorate's no longer named after him has deprived us of a few puns; in certain Labor circles a previous MP was nicknamed "Robin" because his fridge magnets said "Martin Ferguson MP: Working For Batman").

First successful intervals session for a few weeks, at lunchtime from the office - not super-convincing but I'll take it. A set of 6, a bit tight on the first, and definitely tiring a bit by the last, but no real issues other than not being very fast.

Warm-up and down. Grinding the gears warming up, better coming back. The GPS track was a bit more realistic than it sometimes is in these parts (i.e. I didn't purport to run through the middle of any tall buildings), but I still didn't collect the few red dots I'd planned to on the way back.

A little left foot discomfort before and after the run, but a non-issue during it.

Sydney reached its wettest first quarter of the year on record this morning, which will come as a surprise to nobody in Sydney. Apart from finding that stat, among my work activities today was looking at the latest version of what is the first paper on which Vanessa and I have been co-authors (we're numbers 3 and 4 on the list so we'll be part of the et al.). Much as it would be fun to do so, I can't see any obvious opportunities for a Round, Brownridge and Trewin paper at the moment now that Clare is working in a different area.

C • Climate change and biodiversity 1

Monday morning Pilates. Felt reasonably good on the whole but the instructor noticed that my right ankle (which hasn't given me any issues for a few weeks) is still less stable than the left. Later in the day the left foot started hurting a little - go figure.

This is the first Monday coming off a six-day week on which I'd felt like trying to run wouldn't be a totally ridiculous proposition (not that I actually did any), which I'll take as progress.

And the pizza place I sometimes frequent in Clifton Hill (although not in the last couple of years) seems to have hit the wall.

Follow-up in the pool. A very slow start but got going in the second half; 1.10 faster for the second half than the first which is a big difference. Shoulder a bit sore early on. Quite a bit of smoke around this morning from planned burns (although it was considerably worse in the outer eastern suburbs).

C • Planned burns 4