finishing week 1

Right, a quick summary of the day before I go to bed. Long blog posts are best composed while at work when it is easier to carve out the time.

So, this morning I checked the modem and it was still dead. I may as well give you all a good laugh now...it had been unplugged. We'd had a cleaner in on Friday and they had unplugged it. The reason it had worked briefly on Friday evening was the battery backup was on its last legs. Yes, I did feel stupid. But...the plug in question - the power plug in a powerboard - is not obvious, and anyway, I was kind of glad to be so tired that I'd missed something so simple. It made me feel as though I have been pushing myself. The only competition I am in is with myself, and much of it is mental and not physical. The discipline to carve out running opportunities and then the double discipline of taking them. So in summary - dick head.

I grabbed my brother's Garmin and headed off on the stock Manly beach loop run. As well as being one I knew I could knock over before Darren and Ellie woke up it was also an opportunity to check out a couple of snorkelling spots and see if they were calm or were getting chopped up by the northerly wind. They were both pretty calm. The morning was relatively cool, waves non-existent and it looked as if an ocean swim was about to start as I got to Manly beach. Nice run, and with the extra bit added I decided to walk the last little hill home and stopped the GPS a bit early, just as 12km ticked over.

Back home for a coffee then we walked to Fairlight Beach, snorkelled, walked to Manly, had breakfast and then walked the length of the beach. At North Steyne the shark alarm went off and everyone was told to get out of the sea - very cool timing for my touristing brother and Ellie. By the time we'd wandered to Queenscliff then turned and got back to the sharky spot people were back in the water. Presumably the shark had left of its own accord, been chased off or was now full and no longer a threat.

Back to Manly and I had a pint of stout in the Four Pines before Sal gave us all a lift home. While the others got ready I did the standard Manly Beach Loop, again stopping a little early and walking the few hundred yards uphill to home. Garmin stopped at 11km and that's 23km for the day and, as I'd hoped but not really expected, I had managed to average a half marathon per day for each day of the first week.

It's taken its toll though.

Week 1 - done.

Short day tomorrow methinks.