let the chaffing begin!

Harriette is a new stage in human development, a baby who seems to need little sleep and seems to assume her parents have a similar aversion to shut-eye. So last night she was up at about midnight, one, three until about four and then I got up a bit before six. Happy days. Sal does far worse than I do on limited sleep, so I'd had (barely) enough and was ready for a run.

I'd managed to rehydrate from yesterday - it was nine hours between wees - and wanted to avoid more of the same today. I knew it was on the way to a top that might reach 30C so when Sal got up at 7ish I hit the road for the stock loop to Manly Beach and back. It was a pleasant 21C when I head out, legs feeling heavy and nipples feeling chaffed. I'd had a bit of rubbing yesterday and forgot to lube up this morning. But as I was running to the beach, and as it was already warm and there were few people about I took my singlet off and did the run weekend-warrior/bit-of-a-hero style. I'm not proud of it, but it beats he hell out of beating the hell out of my nipples.

Oh, an aside...the new Garmin seems to not be holding a charge, so I once again borrowed my brothers. The GPS gods are not smiling on me and I hope it is because it is new and I need to give the battery a proper charge-up before using it. Not a happy camper though. Let's get all the gear news done - the Nike are really impressing me with there comfort and need for no breaking-in. I digress, back to the main feature.

Bit of a navigation fail early on when I saw the harbour and thought to myself odd, don't normally see the water this early. Then I realised I'd forgotten a turn, so a bit of a detour and I was all good again. The 1.6km of beachfront was particularly pleasant. I thought about whipping the shoes off and running on the sand for a nanosecond - I've done a bit of sand running and each time have blistered my feet. I once did the manly Soft Sand Classic, a barefoot half up and down the beach. My feet did not like that. So I stuck to the pavement. As I approached Queensliff I saw someone walking a golden cocker spaniel and briefly wondered if it was Rumpole before snapping back to reality and realising it could not be; you can read about Rumpole in the last couple of posts before Janathon started :-(

And then it was the gentle climb home for a bit over 11km.


Non-running intermission:

Breakfast - sardines, chutney and crusty bread washed down with a large cap. Marvellous!
Pick up Rowlf from his Xmas/NY break at the dog-boarding place, seeing good sized monitor lizard en-route. Take picture of said lizard before it ran away (far faster than I had run this morning...)
Back home, chat to bro and Ellie about tourist options before heading for the shops.

Once I realised I was going to be shopping at Warringah Mall I immediately started thinking about running home from the mall. The run home would pick up the stock loop and reverse it, which I hoped would give me 10km and bring up the equivalent of a half for the day. So before hitting the stores Sal and I had KFC Zinger burgers and chips - I was continuing the "not proud of myself" theme. Mind you, they are fairly nutritionally balanced between protein/fat/carbs. It's all fuel, I don't get too hung up by such things.

So, shopping done we returned to the car, which Sal wisely got into and presumably hit the air-con. I, somewhat less wisely got into my running gear and headed for the beach. The temperature had topped out at around 26C which is plenty hot enough in this part of the word. But my legs did not have the morning heaviness and I felt pretty good.

The beach was pretty much packed and I am amazed that I did not run into a tree as I dodged and weaved between hordes of fit young ladies. Now I realise that this may seem like a sexist comment and apologise for any offence you may take. I am sure there were as many or more beefcake hunks, but they do not please my eyes anywhere near as much. Right, before I dig myself any deeper...

I wanted to make sure I'd get at least 10km from this run so I did a little bit extra at the southern end of the beach, popping around to see Fairy Bower. It looked incredibly inviting, but I didn't want to be out in the heat for too long so resisted the urge to stop. Once I moved away from the water it became a bit of a slog, but I got home from the shops just as I hit 11km. I'm happy with the distance, but not the chafed nutsack.

It could be a long Janathon.