Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Event: Australian Championships 2012
 

My sequence of middle championships top-10s ended after a disappointing day in some of the more challenging terrain the St. Helens mining has to offer. Too many mistakes but the biggest problem was the running - couldn't get into any sort of a rhythm in the rough stuff, and then had no speed or strength once it opened up at the end.

Missed about 2 minutes on 10, just not seeing it in the circle; also 30 seconds or so at 16, and horrible routes on 18 and (especially) 19, trying too hard to stay out of heavy erosion.

Had a day of frustration in dicing with Ecmo, someone I've been dicing with for over 20 years. He started two minutes ahead of me and I was almost onto him at 9, but Craney went through us and pulled him clear; then at 16, I'd almost caught him again and this time it was Bryan who did the honours. He eventually beat me by one second.

The kilometre rates today make me a little worried about the winning times for next Saturday, although it's not as continuously intense as today was, and I have test-run the women's course so it shouldn't be horribly wrong.

Middle Course 1 - Splits

A pool session at the new(ish) Launceston aquatic centre (sufficiently new that it was a building site the last time I tried to swim here, in late 2008). Thought it might have been an interrupted session when what could best be described as an inflatable obstacle course was lowered into the pool (for the benefit of the Launceston school holiday crowd) but there was still enough space left for me to do my thing.

This was part of a reasonably relaxed trip across from Devonport to St. Helens in generally miserable weather (even some sea fog on the coast around Scamander), employing a slightly unusual route choice through the middle (via Mathinna) and taking a side trip up Ben Lomond, which was above the first layer of cloud but was wet enough and windy enough to give a taste of what might be in store on a bad day on the Overland Track. My car has plenty of mud to show for this excursion.

In Port Melbourne/Albert Park as pre-positioning for catching the boat to Tasmania tonight. Very creaky indeed in the first few minutes, loosened up somewhat after that; never a brilliant run but became more or less respectable in the second half.

Seemed to be packing an awful lot - an indicator of the theory that luggage expands to fill the space available to carry it (and also that this trip combines orienteering, highland bushwalking, and work, the latter coming in the form of a meeting in Hobart midweek next week).

Fairly similar to yesterday, nothing really going wrong but not feeling particularly lively. Will want to be sharper than this on Saturday if I want to be competitive, in what has been my best distance at national level in recent years (I've got five straight top-tens in the middle, whereas you have to go back to 2007 for my last top-10 in the long).

Running totally counter to my normal practice, I actually started packing for Tasmania more than 24 hours ahead of time. In case you're wondering what's come over me, this occurred only because the paper was late in coming this morning and I had 15 minutes to fill which I wasn't expecting.

In the news yesterday was a proposal to build separated bike lanes on Wellington Street in Collingwood, a regular commuting route of mine. This featured the requisite whinge from the owner of a business on the street who claimed that his business would be sent into ruin because there would be nowhere for the "60 to 80 trucks per day" to park outside and do deliveries (strangely I don't ever recall seeing a truck outside that business - and in any case they have a loading bay). Anyway, there was a demonstration of the case for separated bike lanes this morning when the person riding in front of me was sideswiped by a van which had gone into the bike lane to go past a car waiting to turn right (no real damage done).

It's also been a good week on the political front, and the exit of Cory Bernardi (to "spend more time with his pets" as someone on Twitter put it) has made it a better one. Should he ever become our responsible minister the Oslo/Utrecht/Asheville option would be starting to look very attractive; the probability of such a thing is still not zero, but it's a lot lower than it was this time last week.

Difficult to have a bad run on a misty morning along the Yarra Flats. This wasn't a bad run, although I don't exactly feel as if I'm reaching a peak of sharpness ahead of a national championships week. At least all body parts were functioning more or less as they should today (and in particular there was no recurrence of the knee issues from last week).

I'm currently doing some trawling of the lists of rainfall sites looking for good long-term locations (and have located some names which will be familiar to orienteers, such as Burra (Worlds End) and Bungonia (Inverary Park)). One of the more unfortunate names I've come across was a short-lived 1930s site at a place in northern NSW by the name of Dum Dum Public School.

C • School names 1

The best that could be said for this session was that it was a good way to get rid of various sore spots from the weekend. Very slow even by my usual standards.

My argument with the blackberries on Saturday left some impressive bodyart on my right arm (you could describe it as orienteering tattoos), which I was quite happy to show off today.

Monday night from Jasmine's new place in Northcote, although unsurprisingly minus the on-run presence of our host (the crutches outside the front door were a giveaway). With everyone coming off a big day yesterday it was a pretty easy run, and again a short one. Not exactly energetic but not really hurting.

This would have been a decent race for me if it had started at the second control. Unfortunately, races don't start at the second control, and a debacle there meant that the rest of the day was about salvaging what I could.

2 was an oh-my-god-there-must-be-an-easier-way-of-doing-this-no-there-isn't-so-just-go-straight leg. I seemed to find a route which got stuck a lot in really nasty green (as opposed to moderately nasty green - you can push through dense cypress pine when it's standing but not when it's fallen over and leaning on a 45-degree angle). That wasn't the problem though - the problem was that I came in a bit low, convinced myself I was one gully too early and spent probably four minutes looking fruitlessly in the next gully, and another four getting myself back to where I was supposed to have been.

Settled into an OK run after that, hitting 3 and 4 well although a little slowly (and going through Morten and Aaron in the process), missing 5 a bit and getting onto the back of Andy, whom I suspected had caught me a fair bit (10 minutes, as it turned out). 6 was a very long leg almost across the map, but anyone who remembered Tash and the 1997 Blodslitet (and plenty who didn't) knew that the southern track was the only realistic option. Andy ran away from me a bit on the track, and the knee started to feel a bit funny (the only time all weekend that it did). Shep and Kez then caught me coming into 6, but obviously weren't convinced that I knew what I was doing (with some basis given earlier events) and stopped one terrace too early, giving me the chance to get away again.

Andy was stopped at 7 in the company of an injured Jasmine, but told me to keep going. 8 and 9 were nice legs on the southwestern plateau before dropping off it for good on a long leg to 10. Shep and Kez went through me again at 8, but I must have found a better route to 10 because we were together again there before they dropped me for good. This was about 80% distance despite being only half the number of controls. After a good section I then dropped an annoying minute on 13, a short leg in the green, but managed to nail the scary downhill diagonal lots-of-small-features-in-low-visibility 16 and finished off OK, although a bit hesitant into 19.

The positives to draw from this, such as they were, were that I got through a long race without injury issues, and without tiring badly. It might be next year before those positives can be drawn on much, though, as I only have one more long-distance race left this year (the Tasmanian Championships). Without 2 I would have been in the low 110s, which wouldn't have gained me that many places (7th instead of 9th, I think) but would have been respectable. Rob Walter won in 97.

Post-event excitement was a leaking gas cylinder which caught fire in reasonably spectacular fashion. There wasn't much that could be done except get everyone clear and wait for it to burn itself out (which took about 10 or 15 minutes, with lots of whooshes but no bangs), but it was as well that the vegetation was too wet to catch alight.

President's Bouquet of the day #1: to Andy and Mace for abandoning their own races to help Jasmine (stick through the foot) out.

Collecting controls 3, 4 and 5 from our course. Lost less time on 5 second time around but still didn't spike it. President's Bouquet of the Day #2: to my fellow M21E competitors for leaving their gel wrappers close to the drinks control, making it easy to clean up (perhaps they all read the AP thread on the subject a few weeks back?).

Didn't end up getting away until after 4 because I had to wait for some control units which I'm taking to Tasmania. Eating places on the way home which are still open at that time on a Sunday are very limited in number, which is why I found myself resorting to a well-known Scottish restaurant.