Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

The original plan was to head out for a short run in Kandos before today's controllers' workshop but the top of my foot was sore walking yesterday afternoon and worse this morning (it seems the natural angle at which I fall asleep is an angle it doesn't like), so I thought there was no sense in attempting to go out on it. It's improved somewhat during the day but I think I'll still stick to the water tomorrow (at least). The soreness is somewhat similar - front of the ankle - to the "driving overuse" injury I've had a couple of times after driving long distances without cruise control, but it's the wrong foot for that to be the cause.

Headed back to Sydney (where I'm working for the next couple of days) in the evening, managing to avoid squashing any wildlife on the way across the Blue Mountains, or either of the lightless cyclists (one of whom was on the wrong side of the road) in the Richmond area. Northwestern Sydney (under no circumstances to be confused with western Sydney) is not an area I know especially well, but going up (or perhaps down?) the Windsor Road reminded me of one of the many chapters in the long and glorious history of NSW political scandal. This one concerned one Tony Packard, who in his pre-political life selling used cars was (in)famous for late-night TV ads screeching "come up the Windsor Road to Baulkham Hills and let me do it right for you!". Not too many years into his political career it was abruptly terminated after he was sprung engaging in some used-car dealer dodginess (illegally recording conversations between his staff and his customers, if I recall correctly), whereupon one of his opponents sent him on his way with the doorstop grab "now that Mr. Packard has disappeared back up the Windsor Road, the people of New South Wales can finally say that he's done it right for us".

Also featuring on the way in was a street, and associated stop on the busway, named after Samantha Riley (always a bit of a risk naming things after living people, although I have no reason to believe that she's likely to fall into disrepute). I guess having a bus stop named after you is one form of immortality.

Last day of Easter, with a fairly similar result to yesterday - moved up two places in the overall standings thanks to DNFs ahead of me, to a final position of 28th.

I felt less tired and stiff beforehand than has been typical of recent Easters, but knew this would be a more physical final day than most recent Easters. The soreness at the top of my left foot was also a concern, although settled down after the first 15 minutes or so. Got the critical route choice, the low option to 2, right, and then kept plugging away through the heavy sandstone sections, not really getting anything wrong but not displaying a great deal of strength either. That was demonstrated in no uncertain terms by the climb out of 21, the last control in the sandstone - I was with Anna, I was running (or attempting thereof), she was walking, and we were moving at roughly the same speed. Found the last loop a struggle and missed 30 seconds or so on the third-last; obviously my finish was very slow too, because Andy Hill got me to the tune of 16 seconds to 26 to finish 3 seconds ahead of me on the day.

Being as far down the list as I was this weekend, even on the days when I was running well, was another reminder that I'm no longer really competitive at this level (and with the fields having become as large as they have, even getting into the National League points is a rarity now). I'll still probably run 21E in WA as I doubt many of those who ran M40 this weekend will travel, but next Easter might well be time to make the move.

Today was an excellent arena and in general it was a very well-organised four days of competition. I would, though, welcome ideas for making presentation ceremonies more efficient - 75 minutes is definitely too long. (At one stage it was a particularly agonising experience for me - not sure how many of you noticed, but when I got up in anticipation of doing my bit of the presentations, I got a fairly spectacular cramp in my quads and was hopping around the field for a couple of minutes trying to get rid of it).

C • presentations 23

Day 3 1 Hard (1) - Splits

A considerably better performance today, with just three small wobbles costing maybe 15 seconds apiece, two at the set-compass-and-pray 14 and 15 in flat country, the other an annoying one going in one gully too soon at 20. Most pleasing aspect was endurance - the Six Foot Track training may have been useless for Six Foot Track but it's definitely served me well in long orienteering races this year. The last 30 minutes were the best I've felt at the equivalent stage of a long race for at least a couple of years (it's possibly indicative that my best split of the race was the king-of-the-mountain 17). I'm still slow, though....

Expected there to be steep stuff early and there was; got through it, not running that well but not missing anything. Lachlan (6 minutes) took longer to go through me than I expected (it turned out he'd lost time at 2). On the very long 5-6 (hard to see a plausible route other than right) I caught up a couple of Hong Kong runners, which reminded me of Jase's commentary classic from JWOC 2007 (for those who weren't there, four Hong Kong runners came through the spectator control together and were described as the "throng from Hong Kong"). Steve Todkill was around for most of 6-12 before pulling away. After coming out of a brief second excursion into the steep country, I took a wider route than I needed to into 18 - I'd made the decision much earlier in the course, expecting to be in worse shape than I turned out to be.

Simon did 86; a bit closer in percentage terms than I was at Kangaroo Crossing, but still outside the National League points.

The OA AGM went reasonably smoothly, considering how much there was on the agenda, as did the dinner. Managed not to hit any wildlife on the way back to Mudgee (on the way out of Mudgee in the morning, notable features included a number of fog patches and being behind two Comancheros in full regalia and with (probably illegally) noisy motorbikes.

Day 2 Course 1 - Splits

Yesterday was encouraging but today was very ordinary indeed. The lowlight was committing the cardinal sandstone sin, going for what I thought was a gap in a cliff line at 13 that didn't exist and spending about 2-2.5 minutes going around (in fact this run in general was an exercise in forgetting all of the advice I'd given the juniors on Monday night). I'd lost plenty of time before then, though; a minute apiece on 3 and 8, then a couple of minutes looking up blind alleys on the cliff lines at 12. (3 was perhaps a little unlucky; I came across the top, not realising that the 30 metres beyond the end of the cliff was occupied by almost-cliff which was mapped as rocky ground, but 8 and 12 were just careless). Running was so-so, particularly on the last few steep climbs, but I think some of that may have been my poor navigation going to my head.

I had been third start, and one objective was to come in with the clubhouse overall lead for Easter - to do this I needed to defend 8 minutes on Josh, which I didn't quite do (the fact that it was close suggested that he had a poor run too). There were 51 people in this field - which I think is probably the largest M21 field in Australia since the first half of the 1980s - and I only finished ahead of nine of them. Hoping for something better tomorrow.

Course 1 day1 - Splits

Event: Easter 2014
 

Easter prologue. A smooth, if not super-fast, run,, with only one trivial wobble of a few seconds at the second-last. Not too bad on hills either - in general consistent (which was reflected in having a straight-line splits graph). Saw the field passing by, including Lachlan, who eventually won the race (Rob Baker and Steve Todkill also went through me in the 10-11-12 sector). Ended up 4.08 down on Lachlan, which is a little better than par for me in a sprint in the last 12 months, but the Friday is only a trivial part of an Easter. Feeling a little sore on top of the left ankle but hopefully this is merely a symptom of the drive and will disappear.

The rest of the day seemed to disappear without anything much happening. I'd come up from Cowra in the morning; you know you're converging on a major event when you come up behind a Victorian car with L-plates and you can narrow down the list of potential drivers to about three names. There was also a bit of a case of history repeating itself when spotting one of our number (who shall remain nameless, but is the same age now as I was in 1991) in deep and meaningful conversation with the Ilford law, it turned out for not displaying P-plates after being stopped for a random breath test. My one and only encounter with the forces of justice came the last time Easter was in Mudgee, when I was fined the somewhat underwhelming sum of $42 for parking nose in instead of rear in on a back street at 9pm on a Sunday night.

At Fitzroy at the start of a long day (heading up to NSW after lunch). A nice morning to be out; the balloonists thought so too, with a flock of them out, including the Skywhale (aka the Hindenboob). Felt reasonable during the session, though difficult to read too much into this.

Easing off in the run-in to Easter, although my life schedule is still somewhat demanding - the combination of a late-night teleconference (although at least at this time of year it's 11pm and not 1am) and a 9am meeting at work. Still, off limited sleep, this one had a promising start - one of the better starts I've had in a while - but faded away a bit once it started to get hilly. Probably at around my high point of the last month, so hopefully can carry that through (or better).

It was certainly an interesting political day in the state we're heading to tomorrow. It will be no secret to anyone here that my leanings are not with the current NSW government, but if you're going to have a Liberal government you could do a lot worse than having Barry O'Farrell in charge of it. I was also interested to hear Andrew Constance, whom I know through being a few years below me at school, mentioned in speculation of possible replacements (although realistically he's only a chance if the two frontrunners turn out to have their own skeletons in the closet - I doubt he has any himself, if only because it's hard to imagine it being worth anyone's while to try to bribe a minister for disability services, his job until recently). If he does run he won't have any excuse for not being able to count his numbers - I tutored him in maths for a while when he was in Year 11.