Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

On arriving yesterday to discover that our apartment overlooked a construction site next door, my main concern was that we'd get wake-up calls earlier than wanted. It turned out things this morning were considerably more dramatic. (I didn't actually see it happen - was looking the other way at the time - but certainly felt the shaking). By the time we left for the event the full emergency services trifecta was on the scene and we wondered how bad it was, so the eventual outcome (one person with a broken leg but not life-threatening injuries) was one for the 'could have been worse' department.

(Presumably there won't be any more early-morning wake-ups while we're here - the combined forces of the workplace safety authorities and the CFMEU, to say nothing of the need to replace the damaged equipment, means the site won't be restarting in a hurry).

Once at the Spit, I fairly quickly discovered that, whatever other improvements have occurred in my running in the last 12 months, running in soft sand is still not really within my current capabilities, and this was a struggle from first step to last. The navigational side was fun, once I got into the area - got pushed off line a bit on #6 and #7 and lost some time at both. Late in the course there were two legs along the coast where you could either run on the dunes or on the beach - I did the former on the first, the latter on the second, and both were equally hard work.

There's an observation site on this map, so I know that the dewpoint was 17.3, which is getting up there.

It may come as a surprise to Easter attendees that last weekend the South Burnett council area was still officially drought-declared (although it isn't now).

C • Route choice 1

The Spit - Hard Long - Splits

We were at Kooralbyn last night. This is a golf resort in the middle of not terribly much (about 30km from Beaudesert) and is a rather odd place - for what we were doing it was perfectly acceptable (the room was decent), but hardly anyone was there, and I expect their target market - which probably isn't people spending a couple of days making their way from Toowoomba to the Gold Coast - would expect a bit more in the eating options department than one place with a fairly basic country pub menu (quite a bit of which wasn't available anyway, not the first or last time we've encountered this in Queensland). I suspect they may be in fairly significant financial trouble. (Dad, who played nine holes while I was doing this, says the golf's good, though).

The run was hard work, not surprising coming off Easter. Originally planned a circuit of what appeared to be a road around the outside of the course but this turned into a building site on the east side, so instead headed round the west side, with a fairly solid climb to get on top of a ridge (taking me past the 5th hole which must be the steepest hole I've seen on a course anywhere - a par 3 where the green is probably at least 40 metres below the tee). Found the climbs tough going but did manage all of them. Humid this morning.

Spent some time after this making our way across to the Gold Coast via Beaudesert, Mount Tamborine and Springbrook, with some nice views of waterfalls and other scenery to be had at the last of these (as well as some detours to get around roads which have fallen off the sides of mountains). Seemed to take a while to get through the back of the Gold Coast, leaving me to ponder whether the council had drawn this street name out of a hat, and to be disappointed that this one didn't have two overlapping circles at the end of it.

The street tally has started moving again. Today's number is 1877, known to all historically-inclined cricket fans as the year of the first Test match.

C • Steep golf courses 4

C • More nomenclature 8

Added another to my list of pools swum in with an early session in Toowoomba. Definitely felt as if I needed the recovery session, but the swim itself went OK. The pool itself is a bit funny, feeling as if they retrofitted a 25-metre lap pool into part of an irregularly shaped recreational one (the 50-metre outdoor one closed for the season yesterday).

A reasonably quiet day today as we spend a couple of days making our way down to the Gold Coast. Queen Mary Falls has more water after a wet summer than it does in September in a drought year, and somewhat to my surprise the road from there down to Boonah hasn't fallen off the side of a mountain in the last couple of months (although a couple of potential routes we might have used tomorrow have met that fate).

Toowoomba has a hotel named after Burke and Wills too (and they didn't get any closer to there than they did to Kingaroy), although someone pointed out that Tamworth has a motel named after Abraham Lincoln, who presumably stayed even further away from there than Burke and Wills. (The one US President who spent significant time in Australia was Herbert Hoover, who was a major player in the establishment of the WA mining industry in the early 20th century, amongst various other achievements which have all been forgotten because he happened to be President when the Depression started).

Stayed opposite Toowoomba Grammar last night. Does it have a sprint map?

C • Motel nomenclature 3

Final day of Easter. The word on the street before I started (I had a late start today) was that it was physically tough and thick. Didn't really feel sharp at the beginning and made a pretty slow start (as evidenced by Shane catching me 2 minutes on the long leg to 3, before promptly losing it again on 4). Doing a lot of walking in the rough stuff but started to get into a bit more of a flow on the 5-6-7 section, and reasonably happy with my second half. No major technical issues, a bit hesitant into 4 and maybe 15-second misses on 7 and 12.

As expected my place remained unchanged, with the gaps widening on both sides of me. Coming higher overall (6th) than on any individual day - three straight 7ths - is something which should be a Blair result from central casting, although I think I've only actually done it once before in a multi-day (at a Czech 5-Days in the 1990s).

Definitely knew I'd been for a run afterwards but not as totally drained as I sometimes am at the end of Easter (had I had any involvement in the presentation, one of the more efficient that I've seen, I presumably wouldn't have got a major cramp in the middle of it, which has been known to happen previously). In Toowoomba tonight via the Bunya Mountains.

Day 3 Course 6 - Splits

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