Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Day 2 of Easter. Much improved on yesterday, with only minor wobbles, and probably feeling better than yesterday too, though I faded out a little at the end. Not great lines on 2 and 4 and perhaps dropped 30 seconds on each, but then settled down pretty well through the middle stages of the course. Matt Sherlock caught me two minutes at 7 (along with Graham Braid, whom I'd gone through early on) and we were sort of in contact through until 16 - I was running slower but more accurately. They eventually dropped me properly to 17, a leg where I lacked confidence (in a part of the map where I had trouble yesterday, too), but hit the control in the end.

Grant blitzed everyone again. I was 7th on the day but have moved up to 6th overall and will probably stay there, with 5+ minute gaps on either side of me.

Kingaroy and Nanango were even quieter today than over the rest of the weekend. I did note that Kingaroy has a Burke and Wills Motel, but I'm not sure why given that they didn't come within 800km of the place.

C • Maidenwell 1

Day 2 Course 6 - Splits

A pretty disappointing start to Easter proper. In country which was a bit vague - the contours aren't as much help as usual in granite country - I often lacked confidence in reading the rock and dropped around 4 minutes in total. 2-2.5 of these were at #12, where I misunderstood a double form line and didn't work out which side of the spur the control was on, but a lot of the rest was sketchy too. Not at the top end of my running form either.

Grant blew us all away as expected (28). I'm in 7th, probably one place lower than I expected to be in this field - behind Shane Doyle, but ahead of Matt Sherlock (who didn't pick a good place to have a compass bubble and might yet come from behind, although he wasn't running super-fast either).

The M45s had the same course; perhaps my most interesting result of the day was the dead-heat with Ben Schulz.

It's hard to get a good read on Kingaroy as a town; there's new housing development happening so presumably there is growth, but the town centre looks to be struggling badly (a mall has sucked some of the life out of it but that doesn't seem to be the only explanation). There wasn't much to see on afternoon explorations, although one thing I wasn't expecting to see was a sign against coal mining on the gate of the Bjelke-Petersen family property.

C • Double form-line 30

Day 1 Course 6 - Splits

Easter prologue, an opportunity to get a bit of rust out of the system. Having seen that Brodie and Aston had gone low 13s I was aiming for under 22 (70% down is about par for me these days), and with a good run I might have achieved that, but this was not at the better end of my body-doing-what-it's-told days and the first half was a bit of a struggle. Second half was better. Missed 4 a little bit above (the 20 seconds the splits printout said is probably about right), and a couple of other minor wobbles. Not a bad area for it with plenty of rocks around, and contrary to expectations grass seeds were almost non-existent (we'll see if that holds up for the duration).

Prologue 1 - Hard 1 - Splits

A travel day without an enormous amount of travelling. I thought I'd get a swim out of the way before getting too far away from Brisbane (remembering from last time Easter was here that Queensland country pools are often closed for the season by now, although Kilcoy's was open) and stopped in Caboolture. This was a pleasant pool under the Queensland sun, if looking slightly run down (perhaps surprising in a place which is ideally positioned to benefit from marginal seat slush funds at both national and state level). Session was also pleasant enough but dragged on a bit.

Excursions en route included the Glass House Mountains (and the steep climb of Mount Beerburrum, although there are definitely steeper options around if you wanted them), and a waterfall/swimming hole around Maleny which showed abundant evidence that there was a flood not that long ago. Ended up at Kilcoy for the night.

Election sign watch: a reasonable number of Liberal signs in the safe Liberal seat of Fisher, but not many on either side in the marginals closer to Brisbane. Not many sightings of the yellow peril either.

C • Election 6

C • Malaney waterhole 1

Did this one from the office before work in the name of later logistics, and headed for the Tan - once a regular lunchtime haunt of mine but this is the first time I've been here since 2019. The track is still the same but the performances are not - according to the sign at the start, the number of women who have gone sub-12 has quadrupled (from 2 to 8) since I was last here, led by Linden Hall's 11.35, which probably says something about the strength of Australian female middle-distance running at the moment. (I've never gone sub-12 myself, with a PB of 12.15; would probably do well to get within 50% of that at the moment).

Somewhat against my expectations, this run was excellent. The first few minutes were a struggle as always but by 10 minutes it had the sense of something that was going to flow OK, and handling Anderson Street comfortably was a good sign, but the best was later; for the last 20 minutes I was definitely in don't-want-this-to-stop mode, a rarity in recent times. Will give me some good confidence for Easter.

Today's number is 1872, which, as I was reminded in an e-mail today, was the founding year of Essendon FC. The number would have been a couple higher but for the eccentricities of the GPS in the big city, eccentricities which also include a 12-metre hill (according to Strava) on the path outside Crown Casino. By coincidence, 12 metres is also the approximate average daily net amount lost (pre-pandemic) by gamblers at Crown, if represented as a stack of $100 notes.

At the airport now ready to head to Brisbane. The airport was a good deal less visibly chaotic than I had been led to expect (although it remains to be seen whether the bits dealing with the processing of luggage work as smoothly).

C • Luggage 4

The bits dealing with the processing of luggage didn't go smoothly - our flight ended up being delayed by 90 minutes because there was no-one to unload the incoming flight. Ended up not getting to Brisbane until 11 (at least the luggage worked smoothly at that end).

Had hoped to do something longer and more ambitious this morning but it was fairly clear fairly quickly that that wasn't happening - tight and feeling sluggish too - so settled for a less challenging session in flatter areas around Bellfield (will have another go tomorrow). Finally started to get going in the last 10 minutes which gave me a bit more confidence.

Monday morning Pilates. Slightly distracted by wondering if I was going to be able to get my car out afterwards after roadworks started nearby (worked OK in the end). Right Achilles a bit sore this morning but OK once warmed up, otherwise a decent session.

Slight session swap today as I don't want to take the pool running gear to Queensland. The first of the "it's nice once you're in" mornings - cool with occasional drizzle. Seemed to go on for a while but got the session done reasonably well (and overall haven't come up too badly after the weekend).

Might be a late start to the Finnish orienteering season this year: Helsinki Airport is still reporting 38cm snow depth, a combination of a very dry March (= no rain to disturb the cover already there) and fresh falls in early April (although not as extreme as nearby - one site in the Tampere area had its heaviest snowfall on record a week or so back). The snow cover, dry conditions and lengthening spring days have also made for some unusual temperatures - there was one day in mid-March where Helsinki had a max/min of 13/-9, a combination I can't remember seeing before at a lowland Nordic site (although not unusual around this time of year in Alaska, or in May in Siberia).

C • Snow 2