Training Log: jennycas

Not flying out until 8pm but had arranged to visit a friend who lives halfway between Parkville and the airport, post-workshop, so it had to be an early run which unfortunately I didn't enjoy as much as I'd hoped. Perfect morning for a longer one with good company and Darebin Creek's always lovely, but my hip & back were painful all the way along the Yarra (may need to get new running shoes too even though I've only been using these since November) and in the end I headed back from the pipe bridge. Even then I was a bit late for the first session by the time I'd found an on-street parking spot but at least I had better success with Flemington Roundabout than yesterday, when I kept on ending up in a lane which wouldn't let me into the PMCC underground car park!

Staying in Fairfield so decided it was more important to get coffee from Mr Wednesday this morning as it should be possible to run after the ISOPP workshop at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre was over. Well, the sessions ran a bit late (soo much for people to talk about) and the sun was already setting by the time I got out for a run around Royal Park and up past the zoo, plus lower back and hip flexor had become unhappy after a day of sitting (didn't help that last week's Killer Massage was cancelled on me) so this was just enough exercise to pre-emptively work up an appetite for dessert pizza when B & I went for dinner down Station St.

So, it’s four years since I was last down this way and I was looking forward to a run through the dunes as long as I could keep up with Blair. A perfect rain-washed morning to watch the breakers rolling in along the back beach, and our return route was meandering streets past rather fancy houses tucked away in the scrub, so this was an enjoyable exploration although by the end my knees said they’d had enough.

They were ok for wandering around @Point Nepean later on though, and I was fascinated to read the history of the quarantine station there. Rather different from orienteering races’ quarantine, haha. I do wonder how the (presumably for) smallpox vaccine which the potentially-infectious ship’s arrivals were administered, came to be made - and presumably transported all the way from England - back in the 1800s?

Flew into Melbourne not long after 9am but it was nearly 11 by the time I eventually got my hire car from East Coast Rentals in Tullamarine and with a 1pm lunch date and being hopeful of a run around the lake beforehand, I had to drive directly to Lysterfield Lake Park via freeways and tollways and traffic, oh my!

This all worked out ok and the bushland trail circuit was pleasant enough although the only time I really saw the lake was when crossing the dam wall causeway while trying not to get overtaken by the under-10s from a local primary school which was holding cross-country races there. Lunch at Stella’s Kitchen at Montague Orchards right next door, with my mum’s cousin and her daughters, was very nice indeed and by the time I left there it was 4pm and starting to rain so the drive down to Blairgowrie as the sky darkened, was somewhat tedious. The Trewins’ hospitality when I arrived, was superlative, however :)