Training Log: blairtrewin

Last session before Easter, at Northcote. Started this early enough to be in only a faint glimmer of light even though it was a mostly clear morning (having slept fairly poorly because of a sore shoulder from a vaccination yesterday). Not too bad in the water although a bit of left foot soreness later for no obvious reason (not really evident when I was walking on it subsequently, so hopefully not indicative of trouble).

For quite a bit of this I was sharing the far lane with a flock of seagulls, which might have given me a relevant earworm had it not been for the background music from the aqua aerobics on the other side of the pool. (One thing I came across more or less by accident yesterday was that although in Australia, A Flock Of Seagulls are regarded as the quintessential one-hit-wonder, in their native UK it wasn't a significant hit and others were).

Heading down to Launceston this evening. Hopefully I'll actually get through the four days this year,

Run from the office before work, after getting an early train in to avoid the outages mentioned yesterday. Headed down into the southeast corner of South Melbourne to clear up a few bits. A fairly similar run to yesterday (i.e. not very good) though with fewer hills to trigger anything. Quite warm when the sun was out.

I arrived back to hear the fire alarm going off, but this turned out to be an alarm test (as opposed to a full fire drill, or an actual fire).

Into winter mode for a work-from-home day (swapped from tomorrow because, in what is probably coincidence rather than coordination, there are both power and internet outages at my place tomorrow), heading to Malahang Reserve as a base to do some colouring in on the east side of Reservoir. (Observant readers will have noticed that the Summer Series hasn't actually ended yet but I have a clashing meeting tomorrow).

The good news is that I was moving less slowly than in most recent runs when I was actually running (including a rare sub-6 first kilometre). The bad news is that I was struggling with my back (and occasionally hip too) and couldn't do it for more than 3-4 minutes at a time (less if it was uphill). Still, I got through it and don't seem to have come up too horribly.

While I didn't get everything done that I wanted to get done, it's still my longest month since August.

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Monday morning Pilates. Took a while to get myself going this morning but did manage to get through everything OK (at the same increased loads as last week, where relevant).

Onwards to the pool. A bit of a slog but nowhere near as slow as last week. Achilles felt a bit sore towards the end which was a bit strange, but was fine once out. In general, though, I didn't feel as if my body would have appreciated trying to run, which is a bit of a concern as I'll need to come up the day after a long distance next weekend.

Victorian Series at Mount Tarrengower on a nice day. Didn't feel that great before I started (and often running after a stint helping doesn't work out that well, although in truth running the finish is not the most strenuous of jobs), but OK once I started - didn't run up many hills but otherwise not moving too badly, with both back and Achilles mostly OK. Didn't really make any mistakes (a few hesitations at most), although I got a bit lucky on #5, a control which several others overshot (downhill leg) - I was just starting to think that things weren't quite fitting with what I thought the attack points should look like, then saw a flag. 56 was my target time for a couple of reasons - I thought it was 10 min/km (although the 5.6 on the board at rego was incorrect, it was actually 5.8) and some of the people I'm currently comparing myself against did times in the 56-58 range - so I was pleased to get under it. (Pat did 30, but he definitely doesn't fall into the category of "people I'm currently comparing myself against"). Another point of incremental improvement, I think, although I'm still a long way from getting anywhere near Eddie, who I expect will be the M55 benchmark next weekend.

Some split-comparing reveals that after she'd got an early jump on me up the first hill and then lost time at #5, Clare and I were never more than 30 seconds apart (and often a lot closer). Would make for a good replay on Livelox but unfortunately the men and women are shown as different courses.

And it looks like we'll get one genuinely retro experience at the Australian Relays - native cherry trees are mapped. This was a standard thing (both in ACT and Victoria) when I first started orienteering but stopped being a standard thing when the decision was made not to map them on the maps associated with WOC 1985. I think the last map I ran on anywhere with them was Burra Creek (the ACT one) at the 1997 nationals.

Perhaps we'll need to add to the retro vibe by borrowing the WA relay numbers (these are the ones from long enough ago that they have the logo of Bunnings before anyone outside WA had ever heard of Bunnings).

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33 was today's number, which is essentially the west side of Doncaster and Templestowe. Initial thoughts wandered in the direction of the Westerfolds parkrun but this breaches the rules of this particular game (the northernmost bit of the course goes outside the boundaries of map 33) so instead I headed for Ruffey Lake and surrounds on a damp morning. Although i didn't go out of my way to find them, there are hills. The good news is that nothing hurt too much going up them, the bad news is that I can't do it at present for much more than 60 seconds in one go (but that's something that can be worked on).

Saw a few street-O types with maps (mostly walking), I assume this was some kind of informal training?

When I posted after Wednesday's event I thought I might be on 99 streets in Manningham until next summer, but as it turned out it only took three days. A more substantial milestone also brought up today was 7000 overall. The last 1000 took nine months which is about three months less than the previous 1000, probably not entirely unrelated to doing a quarter of them in three days in Venice.

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