Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Sea to Summit. I came here in pursuit of a better Six Foot qualifier than the one I had from Two Bays and that mission was accomplished - 3.14 today equates (according to the calculator) to about 5.04 for Six Foot, which should get me into Wave 2 with a bit to spare. Not sure I'd have fancied another 12.8k by the time I got to the end of this one, mind....

There was a mishap early on - around 3k coming off O'Halloran Hill, I missed a turn in a fog patch (or to be more precise, I followed three people ahead of me who missed said turn). Ended up picking it up further down the hill with a net 150 metres extra - better than it could have been. Once that was sorted out, I settled down reasonably well, managing the big climb into Flinders Uni OK. The next 6k was largely on singletrack - nice as it was, and would have been nicer still had it been less slippery (drizzle was a regular companion, especially on the higher ground).

I then had an excellent patch around 15-21k, from about Blackwood to Echo Tunnel. Through this section I was passing quite a few people (hard to be sure exactly how many, since by now we were in amongst the slower 15k people), Lauren being one of them, and was starting to think that getting close to 3 hours might be possible. The couple of kilometres of rough track beyond Echo Tunnel, and consequent slow splits, quickly disabused me of that notion, and from 23k I was gradually fading away; the big climb on Sheoak Road around 26k was hard work, as were most climbs in the last 5k from Crafers. By then cramp was threatening on the various gate crossings but never quite struck, and I couldn't find enough to run much of the final climb, but even at its worst it was never as bad as the last 5k of the last two Two Bays.

I'd been hoping for sub-3.20 so was pleased with this one, though getting close to 3.10 might have been possible with a better finish. Got a lot of things right that I didn't get right in January, not least eating and drinking (took three gels, which did their job well). Certainly know that I've been for a run now; pretty stiff and drained, though not as drained as after Two Bays, and certainly not the disaster-area quads that followed my last two marathons.

In Adelaide for this weekend for the Sea to Summit - in pursuit of a better Six Foot Track qualifier than my existing one from Two Bays (and because the idea of running from the coast to Mount Lofty is quite appealing, although it may be less appealing somewhere around the three-hour mark tomorrow).

This was a turn-the-legs-over session up through Pasadena, though still with a hefty climb into an area with some mountain bike tracks over the top of the railway line, before coming back through Centennial Park (which, unlike its Sydney namesake, is a cemetery - now that would be a fitting venue for Spooks in the Park). Felt tight through the back and hips for the first couple of (gently uphill) kilometres but grinding away OK on the big climbs, of which there will be a few tomorrow.

Signs of orienteering influence: my younger nephew spoke his first sentence today, "det er den" (there it is), said on sighting a control on the string course. I'm impressed, and I'm guessing our resident linguist might be too.

C • Nice. How old? It's impress... 2

Regular Friday morning session in the pool, a bit earlier than usual ahead of a long day at work. Nothing unusual about this session, either positively or negatively (although I did get an unusually good run with the lights and traffic riding into the city from Fitzroy).

Part of the long day at work was preparing yet another reply to yet another piece of correspondence to the Minister from a climate change sceptic about Australian temperature data - these seem to be coming in almost weekly at the moment (many of them from the same person). Part of me thinks that somehow if I'd done something differently these wouldn't be coming, the more realistic side thinks that the only thing I could have done which would satisfy these people is produce a data set whose trend had a minus sign in front of it. Dealing with this one took most of an evening.

Didn't sleep well last night (got home very late from work, and then my mind was still running too much from work), so I didn't expect a lot from this run and didn't get much - eased back on the distance somewhat as I get ready for this weekend. Started to improve a bit in the last half-hour. Not really reading a lot into this.

Never really got going this morning. As with last night, a little bit of base-of-foot soreness (though nothing on the scale of Six Foot); I've concluded that trail shoes, hard tracks/roads and my feet are not a happy combination so will use my usual runners on Sunday (hopefully I won't live to regret this).

A reminder to myself that I'm not always quite as useless in the pool as last week's session suggested. Could have been forgiven for feeling somewhat nauseous after the coverage of Tony Abbott and Stephen Harper telling each other how fabulous they are, but was actually feeling OK.

C • Nausea 2

After a few false starts, managed to join Rob's night training session at Studley Park - a fartlek session, partly on rough tracks, partly on the road underneath. It's the first time I've run with the light, I think, since the NT National League race in 2012 and I was lacking a bit of confidence on the rougher stuff (which may or may not have had something to do with having put the light onto its lowest setting rather than its highest), so really only stretched out on the road sections. Still feeling better than I expected coming off three days of racing.

Warm-up and down from the session - short warm-down as had to take off immediately afterwards.

Middle day of QB3. Another day where I couldn't quite finish it off technically, spoiling a clean run with a late mistake (45 seconds at 19 this time). Not running quite as well as yesterday (and back wasn't great today); in particular fell away when speed was needed at the end.

Caught Rob Bennett at 4 after he made a mistake there; we were close to each other for the rest of the course, only separating significantly when we traded mistakes after the spectator control (16 for him, 19 for me). Just held onto 4th overall against Greg (by 5 seconds) - this must be the first time in recorded history where I've got a multi-day result by getting a jump on someone in the sprint and getting enough breathing space to survive losses on the middle and long days. Shep won with 36.

The name of today's map was South Central. Unlike its LA namesake, there were no muggings or drive-bys witnessed as far as I know.

Annoying ancillary problem of the day was a pair of underpants whose elastic had gone - eventually got them into a position where they stopped moving. They were subsequently donated to science*.

So ended an enjoyable three days of competition on some great terrain - it was a long haul home (10 hours or so) but definitely worth it.

Random homeward observation #1: some of the signage on the Newell is less than accurate - between West Wyalong and Narrandera the signs take 100 off the distance to Tocumwal, and there's one past Narrandera which gives a distance to Finley which is actually the distance to Jerilderie.

Random homeward observation #2: one could be forgiven for entering the Narrandera-Jerilderie stretch with some apprehension - at one end you will find Poison Waterholes Creek and at the other end Turn Back Jimmy Creek.

(* - i.e. they were dumped in the rubbish bin at the car park of the CSIRO Australia Telescope, a.k.a. The Dish, where I stopped for lunch and a bit of sightseeing).

Day 3 Hard 1 - Splits