Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Still pretty sore this morning but thought a bit of time in the pool might help. It probably did (if only at the margins), but at least it didn't hurt while I was in the water. Fairly tired too after a late return last night.

Must have been helpful-cyclists day today; saw one lot helping a scooter rider who'd gone down on Heidelberg Road, and another one applying some muscle power to the wheel nuts of someone with a flat tyre. (My good-deed moment was to come on the way out of work, removing a traffic bollard which for some reason had ended up in the middle of the road on Peel Street).

This might be just about a record-short Monday night session. I started it thinking that it might be a record short one by a long way, but was sufficiently happy with how my sore bits were feeling (i.e. they still hurt but had no tightness) after the first few minutes to keep going on a Princes Park circuit with Ilka and Ezy. (Did feel a little bit of numbness above the knee at one point, which I'll take as another symptom of the same issue until proven otherwise). Main highlight of the run was seeing the new lights on the bike path down to the zoo, which have motion-sensitive detectors so they get brighter when you pass beneath them - this is strongly suspected of being the product of a last-week-of-June spend-up (something known and loved by anyone who's spent much time in the public sector).

The day's other events attracted some discussion; one of the things which gives one nightmares as President is the thought of one day having to do the sort of press conference that the Port Adelaide chief executive did this afternoon.

Event: NSW Long Champs
 

SA Championships at Barossa Range - 2010 Australian Long Championships map (although we used the southern section, i.e. not the most challenging steep bushy slopes). Unlike last year, there was no doing a Bradbury today; it was an entirely predictable set of results (a big win to Simon, and me a couple of minutes ahead of Jim for second), with the only mild surprise being that Rory McComb got closer to the placings than expected - chasing me around a chunk of the course wouldn't have hurt.

Took a bit of time to get into gear and was a little awkward on the steep side slopes at 1 and 2 (the steepest terrain on the course as it turned out), but settled down after the big climb at 4. A lot of the course after that was pretty easy; lots of paddock running, sometimes with tricky controls at the end of it, sometimes not, and not particularly steep. It was very enjoyable running but not especially challenging. The last part of the course got steeper and more technical (though still in the yellow). I made an annoying 30-seconder in the circle at 24, then pushed hard on the next leg (a 12-contour climb) because I thought it was my best chance of getting a split off Simon (I didn't).

There was a bit of post-event grumbling about the courses, but I think the women had more cause to do it than we did; assuming that there was a reason not to use the northern section, the main improvement to ours would have been to make more use of the rocky areas, perhaps through a second map, rather than nothing legs in the paddocks to get the distance in.

A reasonably solid run and 11 minutes down on Simon is probably about a par result. No injury issues during the race, but it was a different story going home - my intermittent sitting-down lower back-hamstring soreness flared up almost immediately on leaving the event area, whereupon I knew it was going to be a long 750 kilometres. (Naturally, I was totally shocked to find other orienteers at a bakery in close proximity to the venue after the event).

Event: NSW Middle Champs
 

Across in Adelaide for SA Championships weekend (to Nhill last night, the rest this morning), and Jenny took me to see Morialta, a place I've read plenty about on various South Australian AP logs over the years. A nice scenic run, certainly not the fastest 10k I'll ever do. Most of the climbing in the first third, handled better than Thursday would have indicated, although Achilles suffered a bit on the steeper parts.

One thing I got reacquainted with last night is that traffic rules do not apply to trucks after dark between Horsham and Tailem Bend; I certainly didn't appreciate being aggressively tailgated for the last 10k into Nhill. Not sure why the Western Highway is particularly bad for this; it wasn't something that I remember happening much on the Hume, even in pre-freeway days.

And a couple of statements of the obvious when you thought about it a bit: one sign on the highway 'Experimental Road Treatment - Authorised Maintenance Only' (so unauthorised maintenance is allowed on all the other bits of the highway?) and another one seen in a few places around the Adelaide Hills 'Penalties All Year For Illegal Burning' (if they hadn't put the signs out, maybe people would have thought that they were allowed to burn illegally at certain times of year?). Perhaps I should also nominate the sign which said that the Onkaparinga River was in the Onkaparinga River catchment.

C • Next time you come I will t... 1

Under the roof at Richmond (as I had to pick something up from Kirsten's place afterwards). Didn't feel as if I was flowing that well but got the session under my belt.

Off to Adelaide for the SA Championships tonight. Don't expect to do a Bradbury this time.

A run which lurched from high points to low - a real grind up the hill to start, good for a while after that, a really bad patch around 40 minutes which I managed to fight my way out of (with the help of a flat section), a decent second half and then a bit sore climbing at the end. The sound of chainsaws was much in evidence after last night's storm, and there were a few fallen trees around (although not enough to cause me any real problems).

Run from Clifton Hill out along the river and then back through Kew and past the Studley boathouse. This was forecast to be a wild morning and to some extent was, although the wind only really made its presence felt in a big way on higher exposed ground (which was an incentive to stay near the river as long as possible, especially when going north). Had only one really hard into-the-wind section, across the Eastern Freeway footbridge. Felt rather sleepy again at the start and thought it might have been a slower run than it was, although you always think wind is slowing you down a lot on a run when it doesn't actually slow you down that much. Exhibit A in that department was an out-and-back run Ecmo and I did in Kazakhstan on a gully-winds-on-steroids day when the winds were probably gusting over 100 km/h - we did something like 30 with the wind and 33 into it. (There is a limit, though, and I hit it in western Ireland in 1989 when I turned a corner and couldn't move - I think the peak gust that morning was in the 140s).

There was then a very nice tailwind for the ride into work (and not too much of a headwind going home because it had shifted a bit). One colleague was brave enough to ride in from Sandringham. The red shirts of the Australian Education Union were much in evidence in the CBD; I must be getting older because I couldn't help noticing how young many of the teachers looked.

Felt pretty asleep when I started after a late night plotting the socialist revolution (well, actually doing the minutes and newsletter for the next branch meeting). Didn't feel that much more awake once I actually started running, but did manage to find a bit more pace than last week which is progress of a sort. A bit of a change to have a warm morning for this, and a light one too.