18 and strife

Clocks went back last night so today's early run was a bit earlier than usual as I passed up on the extra hour in bed. The southerly change had blown through last night and today started cool - I actually felt a bit of a chill as I started out - with the threat, delivered upon, of showers from overcast skies. At last, decent running weather. I'd roughly mapped my run on the appropriately named http://www.mapmyrun.com/ and figured I'd do around 17miles. As it turned out I did 18miles and then had to stop.

The route, that I thought was 18miles may actually have been 19, having justed mapped it again. So I am going to claim 19 but leave the pun title. I felt OK as I went, the left ITB gave me hardly any grief but my inner right thigh down to my right knee were a little off. That said, I made 2hr 49 and I would have made 3hrs and the magic 20miles had a large blister on my left little toe not gone pop in a particularly spectacular and painful way that stopped me in my tracks. I knew the run was likely to be over so stopped the clock and started to walk, favouring the toe. And as I did that I managed to cramp my big toe, so any thoughts of trotting the couple of miles back home went. Still, I was happy with that as I finished with some left in the tank.

Having abandoned Rumpole early I spent the rest of the morning with him and we headed to Cream, a local cafe (sorry, gourmet deli) so I could have two breakfasts and our tart of a puppy could soak up all the adualtion he could get. Everyone seems to love the cocker spaniel pup, and why not, he is damn cute. On the way back, in the rain, we went and played fetch in the local baseball oval before heading home, where we are now, both fairly knackered. Unfortunately the ball did not make it back because I forgot to go collect it when Rumpole lost interest in fetching it because he had found an old sock that was far more fun. I think we found the ball on the oval, so losing it there has a neat symetry I'm at peace with.

Despite being knackered I refuse to sleep when sharks are on the tele, even if they are in a rather low-grade cheesy The 10 Best Places to Swim with Sharks. Number 10 was an aquarium near Liverpool...oh dear. Its got a bit better as it heads inevitably to #1 of South Africa's whites. Rumpole on the other hand is fast asleep and farting.

Football is encouraging me to become an Australian. For fucks sake, a draw with Israel. Would not be so bad if it was a 4-4 draw (well, defensively it would, of course) but we didn't even fucking score. Against Israel. Whereas Australia managed a 2-0 win over China. OK, it was only a friendly and I don't know where China are in the world standings, but lets consider the relative populations of the countries...must count for something. OK, current FIFA world rankings.

• 6 England (how on earth?)
  
• 40 Australia
• 38 Israel
• 75 China

So maybe Australia's result was not too stunning, but England, you suck. Bring on the mighty Andorra (163 so maybe we'll scrape a 1-0. Sigh.)