Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Hobart has lots of interesting places to run but all of them involved more vertical than I felt up to this morning, so instead I found a not very interesting (if mostly traffic-free) place to run, along the bikeway as far north as Derwent Park. Felt sluggish (but uninjured) most of the way, but picked up a bit in the last 15 minutes and handled the climb back to where I was staying reasonably well.

(Scored nicely in respect of places to stay - I'd planned to move out from the three-bedroom apartment where the nine of us into a one-bedroom one, but the owners were quite happy for me to stay in the original one at a $50 discount to what I would have paid for the one-bedroom - I guess getting the cleaners in on a Tuesday rather than a public holiday Monday saved them a fair bit of money).

Spent the day in the Hobart office before coming back to Melbourne in the evening (writing this as I wait for a delayed flight in Hobart).

Coming up on three days in a row was a bit beyond me at this stage - struggling badly with the running today, and might not have spent much time out had I not thought that the technical training would be valuable even at relatively low speed.

David Poland caught me at 5 (or, to be more precise, recaught me after losing a fair bit of time at 4). After the initial shock of realising he was outrunning me today wore off, this was actually very useful training - trying to stay ahead of someone who's faster than you, but not as precise, in technical terrain places a premium on eliminating the 5-10 second wobbles that are easy to accept but add up to a fair bit over a course with a lot of controls. That side of things, at least, I was happy with, with the only time loss (apart from some hesitation on 1) being a 15-seconder at the second-last.

This wasn't a day where anyone was going flat out. Fastest time when I left was 27 (Stefano), but I expect Matt Crane will have gone into the low 20s.

The occasional backdrop of aircraft noise might have been an annoyance to some but it's what's saved Pittwater for orienteering. Some of you will know that we (mostly OT, but OA provided support where it could) were doing some fairly vigorous lobbying three or four years back over a proposal to build a golf course which would have wiped out most of the good orienteering parts of the peninsula. As it turned out, the golf course was approved, but the associated residential development was not (largely because the airport successfully argued that it would jeopardise its curfew-free status), and without the residential development the golf course almost certainly isn't financially viable.

Despite the results, I do take a fair bit of encouragement from this weekend - getting through it was the first step, and I also feel as if I've got some confidence back about navigating in dunes that had been shredded in NZ last year, which will do no harm in a few weeks' time.

NOL long race at Pittwater. I had one basic objective for this - to get through it - and this mission was accomplished (in fact I lasted the distance a good deal better than I thought I was going to). Not competitive for pace but I knew that before I started. Happy with the race technically, too; a bit unsure of myself on 4 on the third loop (once again being reminded that packs of juniors should be treated with extreme caution in this sort of terrain) without much time loss, but nothing bigger than 15 seconds on any other control.

This was a mass-start race but that was always likely to be of fairly academic importance for me as I fell off the pack immediately, but there were a few reasonable head-to-heads at various stages. Actually ended up winning a sprint finish, the victim being Matthew Cohen, which was enough to get me on the NOL scoreboard for season 2017 (just).

Hopefully a few solid weeks of training will get me back into some sort of shape, but this weekend is a good starting point, with the added bonus of getting some sand-dune confidence back.

Event: NOL 2017 Round 1, race 1 - Middle Distance Pittwater / NOL 2017
 

NOL Middle at Pittwater. The good news was that I handled most of the yellow at the end of the peninsula OK - a terrain type I lost confidence in totally in NZ last year - and that I got through the course, including uphills on soft sand which I thought might be a test for the hamstring, with no injury issues. Slow, but I expected that. The frustration was, having been reasonably clean through the rest of the course, I had two significant errors - 2.5-3 minutes at 14 where I must have gone within a few metres of the control, and a minute pulling up short at 7. In the former case I was in amongst a group of juniors and I think we led each other astray (I got the control before they did, but they recaught me a few controls later). Should have been around 47, although that would have only gained me a couple of extra places. Pittwater a pretty special area, as always.

I may or may not have mentioned here before that Patrick and Tristan Miller's uncle (who lives in Hobart) was in my year at school. His orienteering debut was definitely jumping in at the deep end - an M45A course at Pittwater. I'll be very impressed if he found all the controls (we left before he was back).

No back issues today but not exactly sparkling - struggled round an early morning run up the Darebin Creek. Not exactly the ideal preparation for the opening of the National League season, although at least having technically difficult terrain to deal with might slow the others down (a bit). Heading down to Hobart tonight.

Still feeling a bit tight this morning so decided to swap today's session with tomorrow's and headed for the pool. Didn't feel as if I was really loosening up in the pool either, but got through a session so can't be too upset about that.

There was a film shoot of some kind happening on the other side of the pool, featuring a couple of people with swimming costumes of very limited extent. The Fitzroy pool has a distinguished cinematic history (although that one wasn't actually shot there), but this looked to be a considerably lower-budget exercise.

One of my newer colleagues got a call on a wrong number today, which provided an opportunity to pull out our wrong-number stories. Another colleague once had a number which differed by one digit from that of a well-known Melbourne house of ill repute, and got quite a number of "interesting" calls. Once someone asked him "what services do your girls perform" and got the response straight off the bat "well, one of them prepares the Climate Monitoring Bulletin, and another one manages our agricultural services....".

C • Close numbers 1

Clearly there's something about the way I'm sitting at work which my body is not coping with - I haven't had a trace of back trouble on morning runs for ages, but this is the second successive week when it's simply refused to function in the evening after a day at work. Doesn't seem to happen after sitting in other places (even running after a couple of hours of driving in Portugal, it was fine, although there were a few other body parts which weren't at their best on that occasion). Will have to try the standing desk next week (and perhaps a new chair at my regular spot as well, if I can convince the powers that be to replace the somewhat ancient incumbent).

As always, the Scotch/Heyington event is an opportunity to see how the other 0.1% live - a new science building and underground car park are the additions since we were last here.

C • Chair 4