now where was I?

Friday went a lot like this.

 Is there a minimum required sleep required to be able to say you had a night's sleep? If there is I am fairly sure I didn't make it. Harrie gave me a bit of a workout last night. I do the nightshift once the kids are off the boob. If Alex or Harrie wake up before midnight Sal is on duty and after midnight it is me. This, of course, is a stupid deal to enter into. The kids rarely - if ever - wake when bellies are full and they're knackered from the day. But once dinner has settled and they've had a rest...well, by then the clock has struck midnight. Add to the mix the two teeth Harrie has and that she has never got into the sleeping-through routine. Alex was waaaaay better.

So, for the time being I am sleeping on a foam mattress in Harrie's room. I wake easily when she wakes. Laying next to the cot I can distinguish the murmur from the approaching scream. If trouble is brewing I do a quick commando roll from my spot on the floor, gently pat her and she quickly nods off to sleep again. Reverse the roll and I'm asleep again in next to no time. Usually. In fact usually she'll wake twice and I have an interrupted sleep but lose no more than 30mins of my night.

Not so last night. I lost most sleep between 1 and 3; she would not settle. Roll, pat, snooze, roll back. Rinse and repeat. I tried picking her up, talking to her. Nope, last night was not a good night. At around 4:15 Alex piped up asking for milk and waking me from my maybe an hour. I got her back to sleep. She woke again an hour later; I relented on the milk thing and got up to walk Rowlf. (For the record, and in case anyone is interested, I do this mostly to make sure Sal gets a good sleep. I reckon sleep is the key to not going mad when you have babies and small kids. I can get by on far less sleep than Sal and am prepared to push it until I pretty much collapse in a heap. Running, I find, helps give me more energy to cope. I think. I'll probably fall apart in a heap this evening now i've said that. I digress.)

And so started janathon day 6.

I still hadn't given up on the Garmin but it was getting close. Switch on...nothing. Again...nothing...third time...wait...and we're on. And it switched itself off. Bollocks. Another couple of attempts and it seemed to get its act together. At the dog park I threw a ball for Rowlf with my garmin hand and it powered off. I powered it back on and tried again. Same thing happened. I switched it back on and then unclipped it from my right wrist, causing it to switch itself off again. Last night I had done a couple of device resets and had reinstalled the software. It was looking a lot like a hardware fault at this point. I put it back on my wrist, powered it on and it stayed that way until the dog and I got home.

Game for a laugh, I decided to use it on the way to work. An overcast and windy start to the day with the wind coming up from the south as I headed south. Somehow I was protected from the wind all the way to the deck of the bridge. I'd run exactly the same route as yesterday in case the Garmin decided to give up en route, but at the Bridge it was still happy. Not wishing to push my luck I didn't hit the lap button. in fact I didn't hit any buttons. At about half way a guy passed me. He was not running much quicker than me so, despite what I said yesterday about not entering the Commuter Olympics I stuck with him. He didn't seem to be racing, so I stayed with him unti near the end and then put my foot down, easily out-pacing him and maintaining my unbeaten record across the Bridge since moving to the new house. The Garmin was still ticking over, it was a coolish morning. I thought sod it, I'll grab another couple of easy kilometres. Instead of heading straight to the office I doubled back under the Bridge (Red Hot Chilli Peppers anyone?) and then head along Barangaroo, Sydney's developers playground in the making. I copped a full-on headwind as I did that kilometre or so. I wonder if that, plus the backpack with a change of clothes, will come back to haunt me later? I stopped the Garmin at a little over 14km.

And then I decided to check my pace. I hit one of the screen change buttons and the thing went bonkers, rapidly flicking through the three data screens I'd setup. Eccentric no more, the thing is clearly fucked beyond hope. I took a quick video of the disco inferno screen and switched it off. Showered and changed I went to grab a coffe. I ordered and while waiting I tried to power the thing on. No luck. I put it in the top pocket of my backpack. About five minutes later, coffee and toast in hand and in the lift up to my desk i heard the familiar beep of a Garmin Forerunner 305 powering up. My first phone call of the day was to Garmin support. Now, where is that receipt?

 

In happier Janathin GPS news my brother offered to leave his device with me and take mine back to the UK from whence it came, so it looks like I will be GPS equipped for the rest of the month and maybe not condemned to run the exact same route over and again.

At home time the Garmin seemed to limp into life so I fired it up again and headed home. To be on the safe side I ran the exact route I know and have mapped. Good job too, as the thing crapped itself around 500m from home. That was after it started doing it's disco inferno trick while I was running - no button pressing required. I put it on charge and it started to beep angrily at me. It really is not at all well.

The run home was borderline miserable. Chaffing again and I stopped to lube up. I was incredibly tired. When I got home my modem had died, I was on my last legs and the wheels of my week felt as if they were falling off. I stayed awake as long as I could and then that was it, bed time. Sal stepped on on the graveyard shift and I got a sort of reasonable night's sleep.