Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Another milestone of sorts - my longest non-orienteering run since mid-year, and in somewhat harder terrain than most of my recent non-orienteering runs, with the ups and downs which are part of life in sand-dune country. Started out at Sorrento (after a session scoring for my cousin's son's under-14s cricket team), with the first half on the back beach track as far as Koonya before switching to the front for a while. Hard work at times uphill and a bit of back soreness on a few of the uphills (especially the sandier ones), but the hills never last for long here. Slow in the sandy parts, but once off the sand settled into a strong of kilometres in the 5.30s, and was starting to flow quite nicely before hitting a harder section in the last 2km. Good to get this on the board.

Sprint into Spring at Kurunjang in Melton. I missed out on running here last year at Melbourne Sprint Weekend because I'd got injured in the morning, but remembered a map with a few complex school buildings and route choices involving gates and uncrossable fences. No injury problems this time round - the physio obviously did her magic on the hip flexor that was giving me trouble over the last couple of days - and whilst this was slow, it was definitely a bit less slow than last weekend (i.e. my percentage behind Aston started with a 5 rather than a 6, and I was ahead of some people I was behind last weekend). Quite technical in the first few controls (the splits suggest this was my best section), then opened out into more of a running race after that. Dicing with the similarly-paced Steve Bird from #9 onwards; a couple of times we took different options on route choices, to his slight advantage on 13 and mine on 19. (I think going left on the second-last, as I did, might have been a slightly better option too from the splits, even though all the big guns went right). Only glitch was pausing briefly at a wrong control near 21 before realising and moving on.

Starting early was an advantage; some heavy showers moved through later (although not as heavy as one I encountered on the road post-event around Carrum). Now down on the Peninsula for the rest of the weekend.

Hip flexor was the trouble spot this morning - meaning missing a nice running morning at a time of year when you're conscious that such mornings are fast running out (although I'll be postponing that moment by a month by going to another hemisphere). Physio had a good crack at it this evening so hopefully will be OK for tomorrow's event.

One of my colleagues decided to get poetic on his last day in his current job - since it will disappear from the website by tomorrow morning I'm recording it below for posterity.

Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology
Victoria

Notes on the Weather
Issued at 4:30 pm EDT on Friday 18 October 2019.

Recent Events

A cold unstable airstream blew throughout upon this Thursday last
As a result of this the list of rain reports was rather vast
The highest fall to 9am was at Thompson-Yarra Divide
20.6 millimetres - into their rain gauge it did slide
But most saw less than half that fall, and none in the parched far northwest
Along the Great Dividing Range we saw the falls that beat the rest.

The morning lows were rather cold with many 6 below the norm
As temperatures were wont to dip from clear skies the frost did form
The coldest of this icy bunch were alpine peaks with minus four
But all along the Bass Strait coast were many spots with 9 their score.

After some frosts the day grew mild with cloud increasing from the west
The northwest wind grew somewhat wild putting the trees all to the test
A cold front reached the distant west around the middle afternoon
And showers fell within its wake with cool west winds and cloud and gloom
Rainfall totals to 3pm were nothing much to talk about
The highest score up to this time Portland Airport with 2 tipped out.

The afternoon saw maxima in line with norms for October
The highest in the State today was 28 at Mildura
Most ranged from 17 degrees to low twenties across the south
But in the north the 20s ruled with clear and sun drenched skies about
The southwest was cloudy and cool with 17 the highest score
But on Mount Hotham's snow clad peak the maximum was 2 - no more!

In Melbourne town the start was cold, 7.3, 6:41
And as at 3pm today the city temp was 21
To 9am some rain did fall, just nought point 8 and that was all
And since that time the streets stayed dry as cloud increased with no rainfall.

Explanatory Notes

A high is in the Tasman Sea but it is moving to the east
A cold front over our southwest will soon join it by morn' at least
A deep low passing to our south will bring a cold unstable wind
But as it moves further along the wind will ease by Sunday's end
A new high will arrive next week and bring the sun and lighter wind
And bring some warmth into our State as northerlies bring dry air in.

Hips sore today so swapped out with my planned Friday session. Seemed to be working reasonably well once I was in the water (and dodged most of the showers from above).

Continuing to get things ready for my trip (and scrambling to get everything done that I want to get done before I go away). One item I was attending to was getting some US$ cash (needed for the Laos visa fee). In this process I discovered that my bank - even its main CBD branch - no longer keeps foreign cash unless you order it in advance, but they helpfully pointed me to somewhere which did. I was expecting a rip-off on venturing into one of the old rabbit-warren multi-storey buildings on Swanston Street full of offices for outfits with names like Honest Immigration Services, but in fact the deal I got was unusually good (only a couple of % off the financial-market rate, and no extra fees) - perhaps the lesson is to go where the immigrants go and not the tourists. (If you go to one of the foreign-exchange booths in tourist areas in Australia you will do well to emerge with more than 75% of the money you should have had).

C • Exchage rip-offs 2

In a fit of stubbornness I attempted to go out in the morning (having managed to get back to sleep after hopefully managing to sound intelligent between 3 and 4am), but that didn't work out. A second attempt at lunchtime was better - back to the South Wharf intervals for the first time in a long time. Fairly similar to my other attempts at intervals in recent weeks - started out not too badly but started to go very lactic on the 5th and 6th (I'd hoped to push it out to 8 if I'd felt better). Still, good to chalk this one up.

Warm-up and down, taking me via the same side-of-the-road path we used across the final bridge on Sunday (a fair bit of pedestrian congestion there on a weekday lunchtime). Definitely struggling in the later stages.

Got round which I'll take as a plus - it's more than I've been able to manage for weekday early mornings the last couple of weeks. Not the most energetic run I'll ever have but did manage to finish as intended (in fact did slightly more than intended). Nice morning to be out. My watch told me it will take me until Friday night to recover from this - hopefully it's wrong. No injury issues other than a slight twinge early on.

C • Rest 2

Woke up pretty stiff from a relatively modest run; think I would have struggled to run today, but I'd never planned to. Still managed a worthwhile session here.

The second stage, again sluggish early on but got going eventually. By the end of it I was even reasonably awake (not sure how a 4am start for a teleconference on Wednesday is going to go).

One useful side benefit of Sunday's course was pointing me to eating places tonight - I had a meeting this evening in the vicinity of control 11.

Got into the office to the news that a certain columnist in a certain national newspaper had had a crack at us again. Turned out their claims related to two issues, one of which we dealt with in 2011 and the other of which we dealt with in 2017.