monday bloody monday

Yesterday finished with a monstrous thunderstorm and biblical-flood rain. Very impressive and great for the tourists. However, it meant the humidity did not drop below 95% all night. And inside the house the temperature did not really drop at all. From my spot on the floor of Harrie's bedroom I could see her glow-egg-thermometer thing and it told me the temperature was 26.5C. As a consequence I did not have a great sleep, but at least Harrie only had me up twice and the second time I took her in to sleep with Sal.

I woke up clammy and eurgh. As soon as I moved clammy turned to sweaty. I took Rowlf for a walk and it was a bit misty, the feeling of humidity reinforced by being able to see the humidity hanging in the air. It was very pretty but I was not looking forward to the run to work.

And then I checked twitter and things went from bad to worse.

Last year I threatened to release a puma into the Hampshire countryside in order to stop Gary's epic Janathon progress. He went on to hand me my arse on a plate, throwing down a monstrous 725km and eclipsing the 504km I'd slogged out. If you're looking for a machine then look no further. He's back this year and, for now, playing the role of mere mortal. Then there is Andrew. Through half-asleep eyes the full horror of what I was reading started to dawn upon me. He had thrown down a marathon while I'd been asleep. I felt as if I'd been bitch-slapped with the stinking insoles of my crusty old trainers. Mutha-fu...

I jest. Not only had Andrew gone the full-monty he had done it in 3:23, which after more than six months of running each and every day is awesome. Not awesome in the way a teenage girl thinks Justin Bieber's hair is awesome, but awesome in the way that inspires awe. Proper awesome.

Enough of that, my blog, back to me. Work means commuting, so today was there and back again.

Not a lot to say really. I sweated my ring out on the grind to work and said the word 'fuck' a lot. Fuck it's hot, fuck me, this is a fucking joke, oh for fucks sake, fuck this for a laugh and at the water bubbler fuck, fuck and more fuck. You get my drift. It was a morning for the OCD crew and there were not many runners about. The ones I saw each had the pained expression of those not doing something for fun but rather because it is just what they do.

At this time of year hydration is a killer for me. We don't have aircon at home so there is not much relief at night. You wake up feeling a bit hungover even when you're not. I skull water and OJ before hitting the road. The clammiest part of the day is the early morning; today the humidity hit 97% on the run and as the temperature rose and humidity fell the apparent temperature actually dropped. Very happy to get to work this morning and see the back of another few kilometres. Water would probably have been better than coffee, but first things first. So t was coffee, Berocca and water this morn.

Most of today's lost salts were replaced with Vegemite, although I am not sure they are the same salts. But taste buds ruled the heart-smart mob today. Met with a dear friend a lunchtime, did as little work as I could get away with and then got ready to run home. I'd been drinking a fair amount; by 3pm my pee looked a reasonable colour and by 4.20pm it was pretty normal. I left work at 5pm.

Before I forget...I am trying to run every mile of Janathon on the Nike Pegasus 28 I picked up on New Year's day. Sorry for the ad break...So far they have been great, but by christ they ming. Humidity has the delightful side effect of hardly ever drying your runners. Already they are offending me.

I didn't reset my brothers-old-my-new GPS, got a bit bored waiting for it to lock on from my position between the office blocks and decided to head off anyway and see if it would get me at a slightly more open-to-the-heavens crossroads. So I gifted a few hundred metres to Andrew (generous? stoopid? We'll know in February...) I had a bottle of Gatorade with me, the humidity was down and conditions were soooo much better than the morning. I tucked in behind a runner on the Bridge that I would normally have overtaken. I need to make sure I don't blow up before the month is out.

At North Sydney Oval I stopped to top up the Gatorade bottle at the bubbler that had hosted my some of my "fuck"ing this morning. So to speak. The pipes must sit near the surface because I could feel the bottle warming as the water went in. Ah well, warm-watered-down Gatorade is better than dehydration. From there home is a pretty straightforward run without much to blog about. I just got it done and the GPS stopped at a smidge over 23km for the day.

I could have added* another 19km, probably 20 or maybe ever a million and whatever-Andrew-can-do-infinity-plus-1-my-dads-a-policeman-stinky-pants. But I didn't want to show off.

*by "I could have added..." I mean I was buggered and glad it was over for the day. The second week already goes to Andrew.