Terry Hills and the goanna

The plan for today was to run in the evening once the kids were asleep. Knock off the Manly Beach loop and that would be it. Slight change of plan when we decided to go and take a look at cubby houses at Terry Hills. Before I go on; I know Terry Hills is a suburb but I cannot get over it sounding like a non-league football manager's name, the sort of wide boy that dresses a bit like Robert Palmer. Ye-gods I'm rambling early.

Soooo...I had a shit night's sleep but not as shit as Sal; her shit experience was literal. At about 5am Sal  came and got Harriette from me. The details are still sketchy but involve our bed and dairrhea. I can assure you the run suff was Harrie's. I'll go with anecdotal over empirical when it comes to teething and runny shit, admittedly based on a rather small sample size of 2. With Sal in a foul mood I did what I could to help. Actually that's a lie, I took Rowlf out for a walk and swim, meeting Sal and the girls at the Belaroma Coffee roastery for breakfast a bit later. Nice it was too. It was once we got home we decided to go to Terry Hills and I, of course, checked the distance. According to the internet it was 15.8km. That was at the very outer limit of what I'd be prepared to run...in other words, the perfect distance. I dressed in running gear and we went to take a look at the cubby houses. Very nice, but a tad pricey in case you're interested.

The late morning was overcast and muggy and at Terry Hils the sun tried to come out and muggy became muggy and quite horribly hot. Figuring a run would give me a decent(ish) rest until tomorrow's morning commute I head off anyway. It was a good time to run politically if not physically; the kids slep at around midday so it does not abandon the missus - home alone and cursing me.

As it turned out I did not feel too bad. Yes, it was sweaty, and yes it was batshit-boring running along - actually in the hard-shoulder of - a busy main road. On one of the stretches where the verge was runnable I hopped up on it and found myself running uphill in hot, muggy weather with no shade and mud underfoot. How do I do it? How do I discover these conditions? But the Ks ticked over quite nicely. As I approached 6km I saw a petrol station and decided to stop for a fresh Gatorade having pretty much finished my homebrew. I knew there was a bubbler at 10k so figured I'd be able to top up there for free. I stopped the GPS and went to get a drink.

I head off again and when I approached an intersection glanced at the distance. I was surprised to see it was a bit under 6k. With a bit over 6k to go I wondered how the internet had got the distance so wrong. Weird. Looked like I'd be doing about 12km, which was fine.

Across a couple of roads and I refilled the bottle at the bubbler. As I set off I looked at the GPS and it showed a little under 6k. Arsechunks, thought I. I'd not restarted after the petrol station. I hit start and ran on. Rather than run along the Wakehurst Parkway's somewhat-too-skinny hard shoulder I took the fire trail or bush track that runs parallel. Glad I did. As the trail narrowed I disturbed something in the brush. I looked in the direction of the sound and saw what I first thought was a possum scooting up a tree. Almost immediately I recognised my possum as a good sized goanna, including tail he was maybe 3ft long. I watched as he climbed up into the top of the tree and waited until a few bushwalkers I'd passed earlier caught up so I could point it out and they could photograph it. Alas I was travelling light - no camera.

It was only a couple of K home and then I was home. I checked to see how far I'd missed - 2.8km - and did the maths to work out that the run home from Terry Hills was 14km, still 1.8km under what whereis.com.au had told me it was to drive. Ho-hum.

I guess week 2 has started then.