Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Event: #Eurovision Melbourne Sprint Weekend
 

First race of the Melbourne Sprint weekend, at RMIT Bundoora. Like a few of this weekend's other venues, others have been here before but I haven't (by virtue of having been away for all of the 2014 and most of the 2015 sprint series). A bit apprehensive before the start because my Achilles, which has been pretty sore on getting up from a period of inactivity over the first couple of days, took its time warming up, but it was a non-issue once racing.

Fairly straightforward start but some good legs in the last two-thirds of the course (was happy not to fall into the trap many did at 13). Not great on the pace with John catching me by 9. Only time loss of consequence was at 7 where I overshot a bit and lost 15 seconds or so.

Almost had a head-on with Zoe Melhuish at 6. I suspect she would have come off second best from such a collision had it taken place.

And Geoff Lawford got me by 1 second, demonstrating that if I can stay at this speed for the next 15 years I potentially have what it takes to win an M60 WMOC sprint gold in 2031.

Second and biggest race of the Melbourne Sprint weekend, at the University of Melbourne. People seemed to assume that I would have a home-ground advantage here, but in fact the School of Earth Sciences where I was based when on campus (which wasn't that much of the time - I spent probably 70-80% of my time at the Bureau) is across the road from the main campus, and it was the best part of 20 years ago anyway. More recently my excursions onto the main campus have mostly been to play CSIRO at soccer, something which will hopefully still be possible this time next year.

Felt decent in the warm-up but struggled a bit for a top gear in the race. Had a first-ever annoyance - losing my control description sheet when it fell out of the holder on the way to 3 - but otherwise unrattled through the first half of the course. Ended up making one error of consequence, dropping 20 seconds or so through failing to notice that my exit direction from 14 did not in fact have an exit (a conclusion assisted by seeing a 'NO EXIT' sign, without which I would have dropped another 20-30 seconds). Did the garden section at the end OK, but had some ego-battering at the end when I was comprehensively walloped in the finish chute by Sophie Arthur.

Despite the seedings, I did not beat Ralph (and neither did anyone else).

1 - Splits

A pleasant enough session in the pool (which felt a bit cooler than normal). Achilles feels particularly tight when getting up from sitting down at the moment - hopefully that won't be an issue over the weekend. (I did quite a lot of sitting down today, in the process of getting our report on the recent/current heatwave out the door - have certainly had a bit of practice writing reports about extreme weather in the last few months).

Not exactly super-fast and a bit of a grind at times, but definitely my best run this week - even felt like I was enjoying it some of the time, particularly in the middle. A bit cooler with hints of rain at times. Shorter than normal for a Thursday given the racing ahead this weekend, but felt as if I probably had something left in me.

I've been doing a bit more media of late than had been the case for a while (partly because of the abundance of interesting weather, partly because we're not trying to make ourselves such a small target on climate issues since the change of leadership, partly because I'm picking things up for a couple of absent colleagues in the regional offices). Yesterday's one for ABC News 24 was a bit awkward, not because they asked any difficult questions but because the earpiece sound was very loud and a bit distorted and no-one could work out how to do anything about it. I could sympathise a bit with Brian Johnson, who's now had it medically proven that rock n'roll is indeed noise pollution.

Felt horribly sluggish and a bit tight and decided to turn this into a jog; there were moments when I thought I might have cut it short altogether but didn't think I could stomach two DNFs in successive weeks. Finally started to come good in the last 10 minutes. Not sure what the issue has been this week; surely it's not just the humidity (humidity which would be tame in Brisbane in the summer, or Darwin most of the year) getting to me?

Heyington Heights is a place prone to route-choice epic fails. I thought I'd made a decent job of it given that the course-setter's estimate was 9.8k, but Bruce went a kilometre shorter to disabuse me of that notion. It also takes one past some vastly expensive real estate for a taste of how the other 0.01% live, with the sounds of what I assume was a Toorak society party coming from behind one of the hedges between 1 and 14.

The assembly area was at the Kevin Bartlett Reserve. Not only was this named while he was still alive (something you wouldn't see happen in Canberra), it was named while he was still playing - the plaque from 1980 somewhat optimistically says "he has played in five premiership teams to date". (As AFL fans will know, Richmond haven't won one since). They must have been confident that he wouldn't disgrace himself in a nightclub incident.

All Nations intervals, a good deal slower than the person I saw doing intervals in Alphington yesterday. Never caught alight but a better session than I had expected after a very sluggish warm-up. Rather humid morning, although that was a lot better than the searing heat later in the day would have been.

Warm-up and down. Felt very sluggish indeed on the way there, as previously noted.

Put in a long day at work today (there will be a couple more coming, given the interestingness of the weather this week). Normally mid-evening public transport works reasonably smoothly, but tonight the loop was closed because of trackwork, the connecting train to Flinders Street was 10 minutes late, and then I missed the connection by 30 seconds and had to wait 30 minutes for the next one. Not the ideal way to do things at 9.30 on a 34-degree night (but at least it gave me the chance to properly read the latest Australian Orienteer).

C • You could have walked? 3

Felt like a womble even by my usual swimming standards. Eventually picked up a little in the last couple of laps, but this was never a particularly good session.

This run was a bit of a moveable feast. I originally had thoughts of doing it in the morning as a run/swim double but then didn't feel like getting up as early as that would have required after the trip home last night, then made plans to do it at lunchtime but forgot that there was a union meeting then (the fact that our union meetings happen at lunchtime gives you an idea as to our level of militancy; one of our decisions was to agree in principle to a productivity-enhancing form of industrial action, a 48-hour ban on going to meetings or responding to e-mails).

Eventually ended up doing this from home in the evening. This gave me the chance to explore a few pockets of the local area I haven't previously been to, on both sides of the lower Darebin Creek. The southeast corner of Alphington featured someone doing intervals much, much faster than I'll be doing them tomorrow. Felt pretty sluggish most of the way but no more than I'd expect on a Monday.

ACT Middle Championships at Honeysuckle Creek. I was last here in 2007, at which stage I thought it was getting thick to the point of unuseability, but Craney picked the best bits of it for some good courses in manageable, though tough, terrain. (We might have to wait a while for it to become nice again - it took about 40 years for Orroral to thin out after the 1952 fire, so if history repeats itself - and it doesn't burn again in the interim - the north end of the map might be ripe for something sometime in the 2040s).

Rather hesitant on 1, a not-as-distinct-as-it-looked-on-the-map gully in a section of the map which has been a Bermuda Triangle for me in the past, but the 20 seconds or so lost there proved to be my biggest loss of the race. Settled in reasonably well and caught Martin Dent 6 minutes at 4. We were in contact with each other until 14 (unsurprisingly he was running faster - although not by the margin you might expect - but making more mistakes), a decent section for me with only small wobbles at 6 and 7. 14 was a tough uphill leg into low-vis bush - Mark Gregson caught me there but we dropped Martin. Mark then got a better line than me on 18 and got away, but I finished reasonably cleanly.

On a course like this avoiding disaster gets you a long way, and I claimed some scalps I haven't claimed in a long time (Hoggster, Andrew Barnett and Matt Doyle, and almost Grant). Ended up 7th overall, just under 10 minutes behind Leon, and probably 3-4 minutes better relative to the field than I've been used to in middle races in this type of field in the last year or two. Repeating the result in less technical terrain may be somewhat more of a challenge.

C • Some scalps? 4

Course 1 MIDDLE - Splits