...musing...

Summer's here and the temperature is not quite right for running in the street

2012-01-30T19:31:00.003+11:00

Woke up a bit late so it was just a short walk for Rowlf. I noticed the clouds moving particularly quickly, from the north. Hmmm, forecast was for a hot one today and that wind suggested a big puddle of hot air was headed our way.

The run to work was the usual sweaty slog but I was feeling pretty good. Nothing new to report, still sticking to the OCD route. I contemplated adding a couple of cheeky extra kilometres but decided against it. No need to do anything silly. I got to work at about 08:30, and considering it is now 13:45 and I have yet to have a piss I think it is fair to say I sweated out more than I thought I had. This summer really does not like me.

Today the forecast top temp was 30C. It has been exceeded - it is currently 32C. I could have a challenging run home. Let's hope it cools off and the wind either swings or drops, because an 11km NNE run into hairdryer is not something I am itching to get started.

So the temp dropped to 31C. Before rising to its current 33C. I leave in about half an hour and I think I'll just stop looking.

OK, I had to look...ooo, it's right down to 32C, I'm off!

What you can't quite make out on that picture, just under the 'RICOH' sign, is where it says 5:38PM and 34C. OK, so the top of a North Sydney office block might not be the most accurate gauge of current temperature, but it certainly felt damn hot. Not really a great deal more than that to say about the run home. Glad to get through 700km. Glad today is done, and now to rehydrate.

Beer is good for that, right? Just a couple...

A short post today, hence the bigger picture. Makes the post look bigger than it really is.

Just one more day, and I suspect I shall not do what I did last Juneathon and Janathon and go uber easy.

The clever money is on me doing the same as I did today; a bit over 25km.

Manly out and back

2012-01-29T19:53:00.000+11:00

I had an awful nights sleep. Rather than toss and turn and keep Sal awake I decamped to the sofa, tossed and turned and kept myself awake. I thought I'd managed to get a bit of sun stroke. I woke up feeling ordinary but the suspected shin splint was fine. Time to walk the dog.

I took Rowlf to the Spit where he could have a swim and I could stand with my legs in the water. I'm not sure it makes much difference physically, but it sure is good for the soul. We got home and I threw down a couple of slices of bread, peanut butter and honey, gave Rowlf a wash (in other words we wrestled for 15minutes) and got ready to head out for a run.

The Spit to Manly walk is 9km and starts 1km from my home. Do that out and back and add a bit in Manly and I'm good. Easy. I gave the Nikes another breather as most of today would be tame trail.

I was keeping it very gentle today, just an idle trot. The weather was being kind to me and was a little overcast as I left - still humid, but no savage bite to the sun. I was also helped by pensioners. Hundreds of them seemed to be doing the walk today, groups of ambling oldies, many of whom did not seem to know or care about getting out of the way of people walking in the other direction. Frustrating though that was, it had the effect of moderating my pace so that by the time I got to Manly wharf and 10km I was feeling ok.

I hugged the shore until I found a dead end, decided today was not a day for exploring and headed to the beach to get a few extra metres. I was pleased enough with the distance and turned for home after slamming down a Gatorade.

At the wharf on the return I stopped for a chat with an oncoming jogger in a 6ft track singlet. Like me she had not secured a spot for this year, but unlike me she is doing the North Face 100 (km, not miles.) we talked shoes and event organization, wished each other well and set off in our different directions.

The return leg was probably a bit slower. I was being super polite and stopping to let most oncoming walkers past, glad to be taking small rests. I figured the energy saved was worth more to me than the annoyance of the stop-start progress and the bigger annoyance of far more than 50% of people not saying thanks. C'est la vie.

I finished at about 22 and bit km which was a little less than I anticipated but a little more than I needed. I knew I was going to struggle this weekend and I'm glad it's behind me. Pretty simple now; I just have to run to work and back twice.

The pics are from earlier trots to Manly. The Gallipoli Steps, the view from the highest point on the course and a random jogger who kept overtaking me - and me her - because I kept stopping to take pictures. And, of course, Rowlf.

So let me get this right next weekend I don't have to go out for a run? But what will I do? :-)

Layne Beachley and the beaches

2012-01-28T18:37:00.000+11:00

It isn't every day you bump into a genuine living legend and I don't think it is overstating it to describe 7 times world surfing champion Layne Beachley that way.

The big toe was fine this morning but I was feeling a bit bleugh; the constant humidity that I am constantly belly-aching about is starting to drain us all. But today was a no-brainer choice. Bryce was turning two and his party was in Newport. Drive there with the family, they drive and I run home along the Northern Beaches. Shouldn't take too much cocking about to turn it into a one way 25km run.

The only downside was that I'd be setting off at around 12:30 by which time it was pretty damn hot and still quite humid, I guess around 80%. I felt reasonably well hydrated, if a little underfed, slapped a load of sunscreen on greased my nipples and crotch and then watched as Sal and the girls drove off in air-conditioned luxury, heading home for a sleep. I must be out of my tiny fucking mind. Oh well.

The idea was to run along Pittwater Road which does not have too many great views. However it soon became apparent that the km were turning over a little too quickly and I'd need to add a couple of kinks. Simple enough, at mona Vale I turned east and ran closer to the ocean. Got some nice views too.

Despite the sunscreen I was a little concerned at the heat and sun and was glad when it clouded over a little. There were a couple of drops of light rain, but nothing that cooled me down. At Dee Why I did the maths and figured that heading back to the beach and the into Manly would get me the distance. I wasn't really enjoying the miles at this poit but I was enjoying the fact that they were ticking over. Hot and with something that felt a bit like a shin splint (left leg) I was glad of the brief rest I awarded myself at Freshwater. I was 17km into the run, on a boardwalk over the rocks by the ocean and I had just passed my Juneathon total. From here on it is uncharted waters.

I rounded the headland to see a surf carnival on Freshwater beach that means I could not run across the hard packed sand but needed to go through the soft stuff - really not at all what I needed and I'm glad "Freshie" is a small beach. I got to the zig-zag steps on the south side and thought sod running these.

A couple of zig zags up I glimpsed a surfer behind me who looked a bit like Layne Beachley. Around the next zig zag I stopped to find that she looked exactly like Layne Beachley. At a sweaty 18-and-some-km in I must have looked pretty as a picture as she trotted up behind me, board under arm. We had a brief chat, I told her I thought she was an inspiration and had done great things for surfing. She said she never tired of getting compliments, wished me well for Janathon and I trotted on, a bit of a spring in my step.

Dropping down to Manly the spring did not last long as I picked up the stock loop in reverse. I cut the corner at the southern end of Manly beach. When I got to the Middle Harbour side I actually felt cold. Oh dear; the reserve tank is empty and I have about 4km left. It was slog home from there, but I made it to the end of my road at 24.5km, which really was enough.

At home I was a bit of a mess. The shoulders looked to have survived the sun but I suspect I made a schoolboy error by not putting sunscreen on top of my head. I was wearing a lightweight running hat all the way, but I'm not convinced of its SPF. I threw down fluids, had an Ikea meatball and branston pickle sarnie and some liquorice. I put a sweatshirt on to deal with the goose bumps.

Looking forward to icing the left leg tonight and getting to tomorrow. All about the numbers now. Monday and Tuesday are no brainers, tomorrow is make or break. Just need to stay on task.

60 songs called Rat Race

2012-01-27T13:58:00.001+11:00

And now for something a little different. Today I ran to work, it is fairly safe to assume I will run home and you can take it as read that I'll run the same course I've been running for the past fortnight; I guess that's my little Janathon OCD. No on lobbed anything at me and I was back t my calm, reasonable self.

So in running summary it was humid, it rained and I didn't really enjoy the run to work. After the standard breakfast of mixed berry smoothie, large cap and turkish toast with vegemite I thought I'd listen to the Boomtown Rats song "Rat Trap." Why I typed "rat race" in to YouTube is a bit of a mystery, but it set me off on a listening odyssey of songs with the title "Rat Race."

So, in order of listening, here goes...have a listen; there is some gold in there, but beware the shite.

Skindred (ska-rock)
The Specials (ska)Bob Marley (Reggae)
Billy Idol (rock)
Impellitteri (Christian Metal)
The hundreds and Thousands (pop I guess, a bit like the cure)
Goft of Gab (hip hop)
Les Double Six (jazz)
Kubla Khan (unsigned pop/rock)
Childs Play (sleaze rock)
The Ruby Tuesdays (Indie pop)
UK Subs (punk)
Kaya (UK Soul/Hip Hip)
Baha Men (poppy movie soundtrack)
Hi Tension (80s soul)
Antibalas - Reggae/Afro Beat
The Righteous Brothers Band (Northern Soul)
Mind Museum (Indie Pop Placedbo and lots of other stuff imitation)
Pal Joey (dance trance)
Chester P (rap, but leave it to Eminem eh?)
Scroobius Pip (spoken word/beat poetry/rap with intelligence)
Idle Warship (80s-esque, er confused pop)
A Broken Silence (melodic hip hop)
Koolant (Jamaican reggae)
Big Wig (indie rock)
Sizzla (roots)
Raine Maida (er, not sure)
Drapht,Ciecmate and Jase (yet more rap)
The Fastbacks (a bit punk)
Kid iD (oo, jazz-pop-avante-garde>)
Papa Fish (er, more jazz-pop-rock...stuff>)
Gino Washington (sweet sould music>)
The Mandators (poppy reggae to mke you ire>)
Biff Naked (pop...a bit eurovision if you ask me>)
The Beat Seekers (MOR, AOR>)
Avantasia (awful rock>)
Dave Jorgenson (country...shudder..>)
Seminal Rats (Australian punk>)
Capleton (more reggae, indistinguishable from most other reggae>)
La Rebla Fam - live (ska>)
Gun (soft rock>)
Skankshot (ska>)
The Unknowns (60s inspired early 80s pop>)
The Gravy Train (folk rock)
Reproach (thrash-hardcor>)
Shaded Red (MOR-AOR I've heard too many times before)
Wolf Down (noisy shout thrash!)
Wet Lev (avant garde nonsense, next!)
Devilfish (dull dance for druggies)
Disfear (screamy almost death noise. YES!)
Todd Evans (hippy with a guitar who can't really sing)
Akir (more rap...haven't we heard this before?)
Skytone (limp, wet pop)
Urban Riot (breakbeat)
Patriot (punk)
Urban Riot (breakbeat)
Patriot (punk)
Silver Stars (rock)
Ralfi Pagan (70s soul)
Race Card (rapcore, apparently. Didn't know that was a genre)
Eric Burdon (white man funk)

Whadya know, I ran home for a total of a bit over 25km today. I also kicked a pyrex pie dish that I'd put on the floor for Rowlf to clean up. Hope my big toe is OK in the morning because I've got 25km to run tomorrow.

Australia Day, some bad language and the threat of violence

2012-01-26T19:59:00.001+11:00

I will try and keep my views on Australia Day to myself - I am, after all, English (despite the second passport.) It is only fair to warn you that I will be dropping the C bomb in his post. It will not, however, be gratuitous. No, in this post I will attempt to accurately record the history of this day, what happened and what it represents. Which is somewhat at odds with the mainstream Australia Day (strike 1! I will try to stop there.)

Today is a public holiday and therefore I had the opportunity to do a single run. And, free from the commute I could hit the local trails. I'd written earlier in a post or a comment that I would run the Manly Dam mountain bike circuit, inspired to do so by recalling that Gary is a mountain bike instructor. I was helped by the weather - it was humid as hell and had been belting down with rain. That plus the fact it was Australia Day should mean the track would be biker-lite. As it turned out it was bike-free. That trail is about 9km, so the plan was to link this with a run along the beach at Manly and then do the Manly to Spit scenic walkway. It was all very Manly (snigger; it's still funny after 12years.)

I left at about 1pm and it was 97% humidity. It is about 1km to the nearest point of the bike circuit, straight up. It was, of course, somewhat wet underfoot. I decided to hop about and avoid as many puddles as possible until the creek crossing; after the rain there was no way I was getting through the water with dry feet. Mind you, the humidity alone meant there was precious little dryness anyway.

I was travelling light, just a $10 note, a tub of vaseline and a bottle of home brew Gatorade. I stopped at the only bubbler on the bike course, in the park where I walk Rowlf each morning. Then it was on to the single track, passing the "no pedestrians" sign as I went. As I said, today I didn't think there would be any bikers that I'd be pissing off. I'll not run the course in good biking conditions. Manly Dam is the most popular of Sydney's relatively few official mountain bike circuits. The heavy traffic it gets and very recent heavy rain had chopped it up quite a bit. So there were plenty of puddles and boulders, but also boards and sections of slippery sandstone. It keeps you thinking.

As I came down the steep section to the creek I passed a couple of lads walking out from a side track. One said something like "hey, jogger!" but I was concentrating on picking out a crossing and paid them no attention. I went around the final bend before the water when a small rock hit the ground near me. Not one I'd displaced but one that had been thrown. "Oi!" I shouted "did you throw something?" The likely lads were about 70m back up the hill from me; as I took a couple of steps back to catch a look at them they look off up a side path. This suggested the answer to my question was yes and I should do some further investigation.

I did the sensible, mature thing and shouted "come here you little CUNT!" and took off after them. They bolted and I surprised myself at how quickly I managed to move considering the conditions and how many miles I've put my legs through this month. I was also surprised at how echoey and menacing my shout had sounded, leaving them in no doubt that a) I meant business and b) I am definitely a Laan-da-na' (Londoner if you must.)

The scrotes were in luck. The adrenaline dropped of quickly and I reminded myself I was 5km into 25km run. A sprint followed by beating the piss out of a...well, I called him a cunt so I may as well stick with that for consistency...a cunt was not an efficient use of my energy. Should the same thing happen in any other month I may make a different decision, who knows? Satisfied that I had at least scared the shit out of them I returned to the main trail, got my feet soaked in the creek and made my way up the hill on the other side.

The rest of the circuit was uneventful fun. I like the boulder-strewn descents around the dam. They are just right for me and I manage to get some pace up by not so much running as falling with a modicum of control. It tends not to happen on many runs. The mountain bike section came and went relatively easily; I was sweating like a racehorse but feeling fine. The next part was a dull road slog down to the beach.

Despite the sun coming out there were not the usual large crowds at the beach. I assumed most people were honouring the day in the traditional manner - gambling and getting pissed off their tits. There was a noticeably greater police presence than you'd expect at a weekend but all seemed good natured enough. I made my way through the flag-heavy corso and picked up the Manly to Spit Scenic Walk.

Most of this trail is not very traily. It is a popular 9km walk and much of it has been sanitised with sandstone steps. Great for walkers but not as much fun for runners. But it is not a road, the views are great and there is still some rough stuff to keep you hopping about. It is a great run to have just down the road - it starts a little of 1km from my home.

Not much to say about it other than I got it done. I knew I'd be sweating buckets so I didn't take a pack and didn't carry my camera(phone), so no pictures of the day until I got home. I managed to not restart my GPS after stopping at a bubbler for a natter so there is a dead-straight and not counted section in the GPS track. It looks over 500m but I claimed it as 500m to give myself a total of 24.5km today and an overall now past 600km.

Still tracking pretty well, even if I do say so myself.

My main problem with Australia Day is that....no, I said I'd be good.

and lo, normal service resumes

2012-01-25T16:17:00.001+11:00

An appropriately dull picture for a dull blog post. Unless you really have nothing better to do you can skip this one. Still there? prepare for one football score and a bit of whinging about the weather.

[this paragraph added after getting home - actually the run home was far better, so if you want to bear with me for a bit]

Yesterday morning felt like a long, long time ago when I hit the road this morning. There had been a little rain yesterday afternoon that had made the afternoon a bit sticky and it just didn't let up. This morning was...well...how shall I phrase this...fucking horrible.

I dropped the girls at daycare and set off for work. Straight away I was struggling. I was sweating profusely, which is the way posh folk say sweating me bollocks off. Almost straight away I was composing today's blog post; I was thinking along the lines of "14km of hell", which meant a couple of things. It meant I had every intention of completing the 14km to work, but also suggested I was preparing myself to struggle the whole way - a mindset that was unlikely to result in a pleasant experience. And so it turned out. Of all the dull runs I've done - which let's face it, is most of them - this was the worst. I am trying to think of something positive about it. In fact I am trying to think about anything to say that doesn't mention the weather...

For the record, what I am whining about is a dead calm start to the day. Overcast with not a breath of wind but 98% humidity. I felt as if I was being poached until I got to the top of Parriwi Road at which point I felt as if my head had been microwaved. By the time I got to the office I looked as if I'd been swimming and felt as if I'd been mugged.

...some time later I wrote...

I now care less about drying my sweat-soaked trainers. Just popped out to grab some lunch and it is pissing down. Any kit dryness will be temporary because, although it is three hours until home time, this rain is not going anywhere. In case you're interested - sushi, mixed bento box. Resisted the temptation to get another coffee and a caramel slice, but with three hours until home time...well, maybe later.

My day took a turn for the better when Andrew's evening took a turn for the worst. I thought AFC Wimbledon were playing "tonight" but was mistaken. I must have got the time difference thing wrong. They played this morning. A random tweet from my brother had me type 'AFC Wimbledon result' into google to discover that the real Wimbledon had recorded a third straight win...this time it was 2-1 at the expense of Macclesfield. Sorry Andrew. If it makes you feel any better I think my run home will be another horror show and I'll go out of my way to not enjoy it. Just for you.

Starting to think about going home. Rain looks more drizzel like at the moment. Really should not have checked the weather. Humidity is still sitting at 92%. Oh well, in for a penny...

OK, home now and that was fun. What I didn't mention before was that I also checked the rain radar and saw that it was raining pretty much everywhere in a 128km radius. I got changed and did the short walk to a gap in the office blocks where I waited for the GPS to lock on. The rain wasn't too bad...

Then I got to the bridge and the heavens opened. Proper downpour. I passed a few other runners and two of them seemed to be having as much fun as me. Hey, it was warm enough and once you're soaked through you can't get any wetter. I stopped to take a couple of pictures of the conditions and then got on with plodding home. The rain dented my pace a bit because I wanted to make sure I'd not turn an ankle.

I got splashed by one car. A couple of roads were underwater and the deepest puddle I went through was well over ankle deep. As I trotted down Parriwi I looked out over the harbour and was rewarded by seeing two pelicans fly by about 20ft below me.

It wasn't a spectacular run, but thanks to some pretty hostile conditions it was thoroughly enjoyable and made up for this morning's horror.

So, the scores on the doors are, as usual, a little over 25km.

MORE COWBELL

2012-01-24T12:03:00.001+11:00

Once again circumstances conspired to rob me of sleep and one might have thought dent my ambitions. Nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, today's run to work was my best for a long time and I felt as strong as I have felt all month.

Last week work stuff went bad and I was up until silly o clock on Thursday night. Friday was a shitty day on the road. The thing that went bad last week was attempted again last night, which meant I was up late working. I finally got to bed at about 02:45, although I had grabbed a couple of cheeky naps in a chair before that. My final joking email of the night said something along the lines of "I'm off to bed for 90minutes." Oh fate how I love to temp you. On the dot of 04:15 Harrie woke up and so did I. I got her back to sleep and went back to AJ's floor where I was sleeping. Alex wakes early and I was positioned to block her path to the parent's room so Sal could get a half-decent sleep before work.

Alex, of course, woke just after 5am. A warm milk bribe got her back to bed until what sounded like a rat or a possum in the roof had us both wide away at about 05:30. Sod it, the bakery opens at 6 and they sell coffee. Sal was awake by now so I grabbed AJ and Rowlf and we did a coffee run. Considering how little sleep I'd had I was feeling OK. Sal left for work and I took the girls to daycare. Time to hit the road.

My car key and the small tin of vaseline I carry in the top pocket of my backpack were banging together and doing a very good impression of a cowbell. This was not even remotely annoying; in fact cowbell is a great sound and motivates runners and cyclists the world over. It probably bugs the shit out of cows, but there you go. An ever so slightly different route to the Spit avoided a couple of small, annoying hills. Parriwi came and went and at the lights in Mosman I almost forgot to crack my bottle of water. I felt good and was running well along Military Road. In fact I was a little concerned and made a conscious effort to slow it down a bit. But I didn't slow down. I relaxed into my running but my average pace kept rising. I wasn't flying along, don't get me wrong. But I was ache free, form was good and I felt as if I could just keep going.

My theory is this. Staying up late meant I was drinking more water last night and I was therefore better hydrated. I must be mentally fatigued; after all I did a day's work in the office, ran home and then worked 5:30 until 02:45. But I think I reached a state of tiredness where the brain does not bother about the body. The body is in good shape and, free from the evil intrusions and tricks of a mind trying to make me stop, it just keeps going. A lot of those niggles and feelings of fatigue are tricks of the mind. Anyway, that's my theory. Not sure it will hold true for the run home, but it certainly worked on the way in.

I took the Bridge steps two at a time and decided, after a little uming and ahing, to grab a couple of cheeky extra km on the way in and do a 10mile commute. Instead of heading for Barangaroo I turned east and around the Opera House. A couple of quick tourist pictures then through the Botanical Gardens, up to Martin Place and then down to King Street Wharf to make sure the garmin clicked over 16km and a bit.

I do wonder if I'll pay for this on the way home, but for now...I feel GREAT.

By midday my feeling of greatness had subsided and I decided to call it a day at 13:30. It looked - and was - oppressive outside. Humid and drizzle, very still. So it was a workmanlike trip home. Legs still felt good and I made good progress, but it was simply the commute home and there isn't much more to say about it.

So there you have it, 27km and a bit in about two and half hours today. Best of all...only a week to go. I'm puling into the home straight.

life the universe and everything

2012-01-23T15:23:00.000+11:00

Today I turn the answer to the ultimate question about life, the universe and everything. Much as I would like to award myself a day off it is unlikely to happen before the month ends. So I ran to work again today. Legs felt OK - but no better. I feel as if I'm fighting a cold; temperature up a bit and my nose is running. Adding to the fun, I found out this morning that I need to work tonight. So all in all a wonderful birthday so far. I did get some new running socks, which slipped into the dry-for-the-first-time-in-a-week Nike Pegasus.

What is there to write about the run to work that has not already been written? Well, nothing much. This does not make for an inspiring weekday blog post. A couple of guys ran up to my shoulder as I trudged up Parriwi and we started to chat. They were interested in what I was training for and I upped the pace a a bit to keep with them, glad to be running a little quicker and keeping up a conversation. They stopped about a third of the way up the hill - lucky bastards - wished me well and I trundled on. On the bridge I saw a guy in front who in any other month I would not have let get away from me. Another guy passed and I held back the urge to bite. My proud record of never being beaten over the bridge since moving to the new house had been meekly surrendered for the greater good. I felt very grown up with that decision and will later beat myself up for being so bloody soft. As I ran along Barangaroo I was glad to see a third different cruise ship berthed. Had it been one I'd already seen I would have sworn I was actually living a groundhog day.

And so starts the working week with a 14km run done in about 1hr 16.

Right, work to do so I can leave early in time to get home to do some more work. Not a fan of this, eats into my bludging - sorry, blogging time. Will update with the full, glorious details of my run home (expect something along the lines of "I ran home) and my totals (expect 25km) a bit later.

I ran home. It was 25 and a bit km in total. That is unlikely to surprise too many people. My overall average pace today was 5.24/km which is not disastrously slow. And now to cyclist. I emphasis the singular as I try to avoid using hate speak, the language of prejudice. Although there are many cyclists who are fucking morons the per capita cycling-population-to-fucking-moron-cyclist ratio is probabaly similar to that for motorists, pedestrains or the general population. Even runners. No, I would like to tell you about a single cyclist whose name I do not know and I shall therefore call "limp cock."

Now, when you are cycling on the pavement beside a road in which others - men, women, young and old - are cycling, how do you, a fully grown apparently able bodied (though possibly retarded) adult male, not catch yourself thinking "hang about, all of these other cyclists are in the road, and there are lots of people on foot on the footpath (the clue really is in the words) maybe, just maybe I should cycle in the road!" It staggers me. More, it really fucking irritates me because it gives me, as a sometimes-cyclist, a bad rap. Most people are not as forgiving as me and see cyclists only as a collective of morons. Mostly because of the likes of limp cock.

The be fair to limpy, he did eventually get on the road. I know that because he fucking near knocked me over as he went through a red light at a crossing where I and a number of others were crossing.

Fucking moron. Grow some and cycle in the road or catch a fucking bus.

Once again, and just to be crystal clear, my spleen is for limpus and limpus alone.

Now where's my fucking cake, and there better be 42 candles.

(the cyclist bit is mainly for comic effect and I have eaten cake already. Twice.)

a token trail run

2012-01-22T20:27:00.001+11:00

To avoid any sibling rivalry in later years today starts with a picture of AJ because, once again, I ran light today and didn't take a camera(phone.)

I thought I'd better do one half decent trail run before the month is out. Had I not been heading out on a trail run when I should have been getting my entry for this year's Six Foot Track submitted I may have done fewer miles but more off road. C'est la vie. My game plan for this weekend was 2 runs with a nice 24hr break between them and more than the weeknight sleep between today's outing and tomorrow's commute. So that meant today I would be running in the heat of the day. While that does suck a bit, the fact is that the middle of the day has the lowest humidity and up to a point I will take heat over humidity. So it was breakfast by the beach, home to cut the lawns, stick around to say hi to a couple of friends who were popping around and then out for a run as the kids went down for the lunchtime snooze.

I'm a bit over all this road running so wanted to get onto a trail. It would make a nice change and I figured the rougher terrain would be better for the legs than pavement pounding. Plan A was to do an old favourite trail that I have done many times before when training for Six Foot. I used to do it from the other end before we moved. Today I thought I could do it out and back. Then I thought that was a bit dull, so I decided to run around to what was the start and do it one way. I'd hit a bit of fire trail on the way out and then have a nice cruisy downhill to the start at Davidson Park. I was giving the Nikes a day off in the hope that they'd be dry tomorrow morning. So it was the Salomons-I-am-not-yet-bonded-with and my North Face shorts that I knew would be soaked and heavy after a few km. I chose them not because I knew they wouldn't chafe but because I knew pretty much everything else had. Vaseline was applied and a small tub slipped in my pocket.

It was pretty warm when I departed and the sun was almost directly overhead. But it wasn't too stuffy and I made reasonable progress along the firetrail and then to the start of the proper trail section. I did the first 10km in a smidge under 54mins which is slow (15mins from my best!) but acceptable all things considered.

I entered the Garrigal National Park just by Roseville Bridge and took the steps up to the trailhead. It seemed more open than I remembered and as though some of the trees had died off. Odd. The air had puddles of humidity but was surprisingly cool (that is a relative) which was a pleasant surprise. I've done this run a few times when the valleys between the climbs have been really quite oppressive. It was quiet on the trail. I passed a family of three walkers, 2 joggers and a guy walking with his kid.

....if this post ends rapidly it will be because my keyboard is that latst bit of technology to hate me...the bloody cursor keeps jumping about and I find myself typing in the middle of a section 2 paragraphs back...very irritating...where was I?

I made OK progress but was not the rock-hopping-mountain-goat of old. OK, there is a large dollop of poetic licence there; I was not keen on taking any big drops on my weary - but better than yesterday - legs. The track basically follows middle harbour and has a couple of decent climbs that are part walk and part rock scramble. The final big climb, up Timber Getters I did walk most of. Two reasons; it is fucking seep and running it is just silly, and it is the only place I have seen a Brown Snake. Note the capitals; a Brown Snake is considered nasty even by Australian standards and is not just a snake that happens to be brown.

But today was snake free. In fact it was wildlife-lite from beginning to end. The trail was fairly dry after yesterday's rain with just a few muddy puddles. I got back to Seaforth Oval and the end of the trail at about 19.5km which was a bit short of what I wanted. I refilled the water bottle and crossed th Wakehurst Parkway to run a bit of the mountain bike circuit before heading for home in a little under 25km.

I didn' feel like too much of a slacker. Another couple of milestones reached - today I passed my 2011 Janathon total and went through 500km for the month. Gotta be pleased with that.

And my leg feels much better. And that picture wasn't taken today - I was travelling light - but is from the trail. See how far down the water looks? The trail goes down there on both sides. I told you there were climbs!

(apologies for the extra overhead of having to go to Garmin Connect from RFO if you want to see the course map and profile. I have now, officially, given up on trying to upload anything to RFO and am just logging there with a link in the notes. RFO continues to astonish me.)

two pelicans, a penguin and a run in the rain

2012-01-21T20:29:00.000+11:00

No reason for the picture of Harrie other than she is damn cute and I didn't take a camera on the run. This is her having a snack while I upload my miles. Anyway, to today's news.

I swung my legs out of bed a little gingerly this morning and was glad to discover they were both working. After going to bed at 8pm having jacked the foot-end of the mattress up in the air I felt OK and thought I'd probably go for a run today. Like I had a choice...But first, after short-changing Rowlf on Friday, I needed to take the big lump for a swim.

We walked down to the Harbour, a distance of just over a km, in overcast and muggy conditions. Oh dear, thought I. Coffee in hand and tide high I started throwing stuff in the water that Rowlf dutifully retrieved. I had a chat to another couple of dog walkers and stood up to my knees in the water, getting a bit of a cooling for the calf muscles. Not really very cool, but it was nice anyway. After one throw I spotted a couple of the resident pelicans cruising past in the distance and then something caught my eye in the water just in front of me. A fish? No, too dark. A cormorant? No, too small. It's a penguin! A Little Penguin (note the capitals, that is what they're called) idly cruised past me. Rowlf didn't notice as he came back, and that was probably a good thing.

By the time we got home Sal was hanging for a coffee. I threw down some porridge and we headed down into Manly for coffee and a visit to the library that Sal had joined and that has a cool kids section. I'd packed my running gear in he car and stashed it under the car in the car park - it stinks far too much to be allowed to cook in the boot. Not that it would have bothered me because my plan was to run home. The long way. Twenty five km long if I could make it.

While we were in the library the heavens opened, which was a little ironic as I'd worked pretty hard to get my trainers dry for today. The rain eased a bit, we headed back to the carpark where I don't think anyone noticed me applying vaseline to my nether regions. Sal drove the girls home and I headed for the beach. Plan A was to run 10km north, turnaround and then run the 5km home from Manly.

It was quite nice to be running in the rain. Once past the surf-craft carnival that was taking up half of the beachfront in Manly there were relatively few people about. The troublesome right leg had a dull ache or two, but I was feeling OK. Today was going to be a careful, slow run.

Along the beach, over the hill to Freshwater and then around the headland and down to Curl Curl where I decided to run along the dunes and not the road. Slightly more forgiving underfoot, if a little tougher to run on. I got to the lagoon at the northern end of the beach and got a little lost, having to double back through some long grass ensuring my shoes and feet got completely soaked. Oh well. I got back to the road and then decided that instead of going straight along the road to Dee Why I would hug the coast and take the bush track around the headland.

Well I say bush track...today "stream" would be a better description. Nevermind, I was already soaked. Down into Dee Why and I looked at the long arc of sand and decided to keep on hugging the coast. The rain and dropping tide should leave the sand reasonably compact and I'd just deal with the camber. At the point where Dee Why lagoon flows into the ocean I met a guy ferrying a lass across, her feet staying dry. They were practicing for an upcoming 100km walk. I told him he should ferry me over and he offered, but I was soaked, declined he kind offer and ran on through the knee deep water.

Before I got to the end of the beach I decided to arse around a bit and write 'AUSWOMBLE' with my GPS track. I think I did OK. From there it was up and to the end of the headland at Long Reef. Oddly enough I have never ben out to this headland before. I passed a couple of surfers taking the short cut to the waves and asked if they thought I'd be able to get around the headland. They thought I should on the dropping tide, so I headed down onto the exposed rocky reef to complete my set of terrains for the day with seaweed. I think the full set was concrete, asphalt, sandstone, sand, grass, mud, seaweed and water. Not bad, just missed out on burning coals and broken glass.

By Long Reef the leg was grumbling, but nowhere near as much as it had yesterday. The plan now was to run back on the road, which went well until I ran out of pavement - Sydney is for car owners. So I made my back onto the beach, back through the water crossing and once again on sand to Dee Why. From there it was the road back and I finished by picking up the stock loop. Twenty five came up without me needing to run the last little hill back home, which was nice. I stopped the GPS and it stopped raining.

Reasons to be cheerful part 3

Only one run today - hurrah!
That run was 25km and I completed it in one piece - hurrah!
I think that makes it a 100mile week. But before I get too carried away with myself, Gary is planning to run that distance in one go this June. But hey, it makes me cheerful, so take it away Mr. Dury

Is this the first post of the year in which I don't sound like a terminally miserable git? I think it might be.

oh ffs this is just silly

2012-01-20T12:14:00.001+11:00

Well that was precisely what the doctor didn't order! I was up until after 01:30 this morning working. Deep joy. So as I staggered off to bed I was working out what time I might haul my carcass into the office after having a bit of a lay-in. I slept until around 4:45am when Harrie decided she was thirsty and started to scream the house down, waking her big sister in the process. I think I drifted off again for a little while but I was up at stupid o clock after having nowhere near enough sleep. On the plus side, at least I didn't have a 14km run ahead of me. Oh hang on, silly me, that is precisely what I had. FUCK IT. Rowlf had to forgo his morning walk; the two bones I gave him for breakfast seemed to be a sufficient bribe and he hardly paused his gnawing as I went out of the back gate.

Last night Sal had cooked a macaroni-stroke-cauliflower cheese that she didn't like. So I had gutsed two big bowls. And, as I had been awake until daft in the morning I'd poured a litre or so of water down my neck (on top of the two pilsner and a rum.) In theory I was better fuelled than usual. That certainly seemed to be the case; at 10:55 this morning I had a piss! This is quite exciting. Ten fifty five is about an hour earlier than my first post-run-piss on any of the first 4 days of this working week. Runners notice this sort of thing. It had seemed a little cooler on the way in today - the weather, niot my piss - so maybe I'd not lost the usual 2 stone in sweat.

What little sleep I did have last night was with my feet up on a pillow in order to try and soothe the achiness that is infecting my right leg. Not a huge amount of success, but enough. Maybe I shoudl do some stretching...nah. So, I hit the road a little after 7am and got to the office around an hour and a quarter later. I went straight along the Hungry Mile today and not along the Barangaroo waterfront, so it was 13.5km. I didn't feel like too much of a slacker.

There is a curious thing that happens when the running gets tough. My enjoyment drops, and drops, and drops...and then what I am doing seems so ridiculous that I start to get a bit of a kick out of it again. So today, hobbling along Military Rod, sweat-drenched and stinking, I was grinning like a jackass.

So fuck you Janathon, if I need to dig deeper I'll get a bigger shovel. I'm not giving up now.

...post to be continued when I get home...and have a beer...

I have a beer and I do believe I earned it. That was the first run that I genuinely think I should not have done. It was a bit ouchy.

My right leg felt tight all day. I left work - half asleep - at a little after 3pm. Hottest part of the day. I was s-l-o-w already when I passed this sign on the bridge. Any slower, I thought, and I'd be stationary. The masochistic-mojo-bounce of the morning had passed.

I got through the run but wa alost convinced that i should have skipped this one. not skipped home, just got on the bus and to hell with it. My right leg had aches all over the place and felt very weak. Bad, but I consoled myself that the general weakness meant there was nothing specific wrong and it was just all manner of muscles and tendons and stuff trying to work together to keep it moving. A bit of rest and it'll be OK.

Ah, bugger.

New low form RFO as tonight it failed to load the details of my run in the time it took me to go and and have dinner with Sal and the kids! It was still trying when we got back. So here are the details; click through for the map on GarminConnect. Or don't, you know the route as well as I do by now.

And now for the dreaded weekend, with Gary less than 100miles away and letting on that his next race is a 100miler. Double bugger!

Despite that, I think I'll sleep OK tonight.

19

2012-01-19T15:30:00.002+11:00

The picture is a spot the difference from yesterday and the run is not. I slacked off a bit - 500m - because Sal took the kids to daycare. Other than that it's rinse and repeat. Did you spot the difference in the picture? That is a different cruise ship today, berthed in the same spot as the one I ran past yesterday. Fascinating, eh? Today was a bit cloudier too.

There is a PT I bump into sometimes on a run to work. I passed her today. We shared a few words near the top of the Galipolli steps (or "the steps of you must be fucking joking" as I sometimes call them.) Today she was herding her victim (sorry, client) up the if-these-were-any-steeper-they'd-be-a-ladder steps. Six times. I thought that warranted a friendly "you're both mad", and she pointed out that it was me who was the one running to work. Good call. She wished me well and I kept running to work.

I spent kilometres 2,3 and 4 trying to remember and replace the lyrics to Paul Hardcastle's "19" with Janathon inspired words. It is, after all, day 19. There will be a typing pause as I drift back to 1983...

In Janathon the combat runner typically served a 31 day tour of duty but was exposed to hostile conditions every day, n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-19, day 19, n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-19, day 19

I wasn't really sure what was going on
I wasn't really sure what was going on

OK, enough of that, it's just a bit lame. I identified the lameness on the run and started to think about my totals and toying with the idea of throwing in a cheeky 10k lunchtime run. I nuked that idea straight away. I can't see myself doing it until and unless the humidity drops off. It didn't drop below 90% last night and the highest humidity coincides with my morning commute, which means that by lunchtime I am still throwing fluids down and not pissing. Oh, and my right leg currently feels as if it is about an inch shorter than my left. No, I think I'll skip the lunchtime trot and eat instead.

My waking hours are now spent either running or eating. Because I don't want to carry food with me in the morning - I don't need the extra weight on my back and any food would probabaly get to the office poached - I'm buying breakfast and lunch. On the one hand this is great, because I get to eat loads of bad stuff, but on the other hand this is bad because I get to eat loads of bad stuff. And pay for it. Ah well, nearly February.

And so to the run home which was the usual run home and you've read it all before so here are a few random and semi-random thoughts.

My right leg is shot. Tight from arse to heal, but it feels like it's just tightness in all the squishy, stretchy bits so despite my advancing years I still reckon I'll be OK by, say, May.

I stink. Well, not me, but all of my running gear, my "new" Nikes that I insist upon doing ever mile in and the backpack I wear too and from work. I really stink. It even offends me. I dread stopping at lights; at least when I'm moving the stink is behind my nose. I stink.

I've previously whinged about people who squeeze in front of me at pedestrian crossings despite obviously being slower than me. Today we hit a new benchmark where a doddering old twat who must have been in his 70's actually squeezed past me and stood in the road in front of me! Weaved around him, ran on...

The government have a poster campaign - I run past a couple of the posters each day - warning us of the dangers of ecstasy. It features a horrific bog-turned-drug-den pic. Proper Trainspotting nasty image. In fact so nasty that I reckon it must be a setup. The strap line is 'Ecstacy. Face the facts' or something like that. What facts would they be? The ones that show it kills far fewer people than smoking, drinking and eating peanuts? Now I am not a drug taker, never touched ecstasy, but come on, what a fucking waste of time. Just because you missed the boat on getting tax revenue from it...

{big bit deleted after I reread it and thought better of it}

Ahem. Look, I've had a long day and a couple of beers and the running is a bit dull. But before I go completely off the rails...I ran a bit over 25km today, for not a change.

sleep running

2012-01-18T16:26:00.001+11:00

Yesterday's run home was bleugh. Shorts were chaffing again,I seemed to hit a red light at every pedestrian crossing and I just could notget into any sort of rhythm. Later, at I'm-not-sure-what-time-o-clock, I passedout on the sofa. I may not have hit the wall, but I've certainly tapped afence. Hello fatigue.

Sal, with the best of intentions, woke me from my spot onthe sofa and I staggered to bed where I promptly failed to get comfortable.Rather than ruin her sleep I slurred something about "if you need my helpwith Harrie then come and get me" and took myself off to our spare room;the room is downstairs and cooler and I dropped off almost immediately, wakingup at 5:30, a bit later than usual. Hello Wednesday.

Metronome...walked dog, despaired at humidity, got wet inrain, took kids to daycare. Then I leant forward until I'd either fall on myface or my legs would start moving. Legs started moving. Hello Janathon day 18.

I struggled on the way to work. I'm physically tired, butthat's to be expected when knocking out a morning and evening run. I'd love tobe able to kill each day in one go and have a decent slab of rest in between,but to get my numbers I don't have that option. Physically tired is OK. I getslow with ocassional second winds and tend to bottom out (pace-wise) atsomething that can still be described as running. My rule for Juneathon hadbeen if I log back-to-back 10ks in over an hour then that was time to quit.This morning I did 14.5k in about 1:17, so I'm still tracking OK.

I spent a fair bit of time thinking about mental fatigue andfigured this was not the best way to deal with it. I was more fixed on theeffects than how best to deal with it. I also tucked away three bottles ofGatorade - up from my usual one. Hydration is a complete pain in the arse atthis time of the year, especially when the nights remain humid; you start theday playing catchup and then head out for a 14k run. Whinge whinge whinge, moanmoan moan! A couple of slight deviations today, but nothing to qualify as a newroute. My path along Barangaroo was blocked because there was a cruise ship intown, so I was diverted onto Hickson Rd, Sydney's hungryMile. So here is a picture of a sodding great boat and the backside of the CBD.

So that was the run in. Does not make for inspiring reading,but it's in the bank.

Popped out to grab some lunch and...it's a warm one today.

And it was still warm when I left work. In fact it was borderline bloody hot in the sun, and the tarmac as I approached the bridge seemed like a huge heat sink. One of the office buildings told me from on high that it was 27C and I was not about to disagree. As I ran up the hill that is North Sydney a lass in office attire started to trot towards a cab just in front of me. "VERY EMBARRASSING if you beat me!" I quipped as I inched past her, glad I was feeling human enough to have a bit of a laugh. Work had called a couple of times since I'd left the office, so at North Sydney Oval I found some shade and gave called the office, glad of the rest.

And from there it was the trot home, which went a lot like it did yesterday, and the day before, and last Friday, and zzzzzzzz.....

When I got home I wrung out my shirt and gave the flies that plague my dog the chance to bite me - bastard things. Then I went and got a local paper out of the recycling bin so I could stuff it in my trainers in the hope that they'd dry overnight. After that it was time to jump in the shower, and as AJ needed a shower she jumped in with me.

...but not before stuffing her crocs with paper. Like daddy like daughter, gotta love the little monkey bum.

Metric 400 on the board

Five bottles of Gatorade, loads of water and 2 beers before bed. Hope that does the trick.

is it just me, or...

2012-01-17T19:09:00.003+11:00

...does runningfreeonline hate everyone?

This morning I was on daycare duty because today is Sal's first day back in the office after her second spell of maternity leave. Just two days a week for the next month, Tuesdays and Wednesdays and then it’s back full time in a month. So today I took the opportunity to run to work from daycare which meant that, as the kid’s daycare is at the end of our road, I got to run an extra 500m before getting back to the same plod. Sorry dear reader, but this Janathon's miles really are a bit tedious. Last night I got a little depressed (not really, metaphorically) reading the trail running exploits of my peers.

Ooo, before I forget. If you're a trail runner you should take a look at the Motatapu Off Road Marathon. A guy at work who is married to a Kiwi thought I might like that. Does look pretty nice...

Anyway...in the nick of time Harrie decided to sleep through the night. Good work from Sal in managing her, but talk about cutting it fine! So it was a reasonable night's sleep for everyone. No rain this morning, but the humidity was up, pushing 90% at 06:00. That made for a sweaty trip to work. So sweaty, in fact, that I could not bring myself to take my Nikes up into the office. As long as I am moving and my nose remains upwind of them all is OK. But sheesh, when I stop; they are minging. I do want to see if I can do every Janathon mile in them but if that means running in a gas mask I may have to dust off the Asics. The new runners are currently stuffed with paper and locked in the bike cage in the garage, probably trying to escape by themselves.\

A few guys in the office went for a lunchtime run and came back somewhat red-faced and sweaty, which does not really bode well for the trip home. But hey, three hours until I next hit the road. Berrysmoothie and a caramel slice, and I suppose I best get a bit of work done…

And so I ran home and then faced my greatest challenge, using runningfreeonline. Look, I don't want to dwell, in case it comes back on the event organisers or gets me banned. Details of today's 26km of commuting are here, albeit entered manually with a link to garminconnect because RFO will not allow me to upload from my device or a file. Whereas most other sites I have used...er...will.

Sorry about the short, dull post. Lost my computer Mojo at the moment.

turning into the home straight

2012-01-16T16:29:00.001+11:00

..if only that were true, still a long way to go, but at least I'm through half way...

Having learnt nothing from yesterday's failure to check theweather forecast before heading out with the hound I was treated a littlebetter today and got wet but not soaked to the bone. Rowlf, of course, didn'tcare. I didn't take a camera with me this morning so I'll try to describe thescene from the top of the hill. A bank of heavy cloud was hanging above theocean but did not extend all the way to the horizon. The sun was shiningthrough and under the cloud and the ocean was lit silver and bronze, but underthe cloud was a brooding grey-purple. From the cloud you could see rain fallingand where it hit the ocean you could clearly make out the crescent shape of theleading edge of the shower. If I can see that I really do not care how wet Iam, because that right there is gobsmakingly beautiful. Hello Monday morning.

The rain had stopped by the time I left for work and set tocoaxing my legs into doing something that might qualify as running. I'mstarting to feel like an old car. Let it turn over a bit to start with anddon't even think about revving it until it has warmed up. The suspension issuspect, so slow down on corners. Paintwork faded, backfiring, aircon broken.OK, that's enough of the metaphor.

Andrew had not backed up last weekend's marathon withanother big number so it was the slumbering giant, Gary, who rocked me thismorning with his 30 mile Sunday. Room spinning, need to sit down, it'shappening all over again...I'm on metronome detail this January and I'm notsure I'd have a big number in my legs. Repect to the guys who can lay down themiles day in, day out and then go large at the weekend.

My blog, back to me. The run to work was the run to work andthere isn't a lot more to say about it that that. I think it was the first timeI'd run with the three things I got from Wiggle after last year's 2nd place. MyX-Socks are on their last legs, the Inov-8 backpack is great until I start torun and then becomes OK, but the Craft shorts...they're like being cupped by avelvet glove. I did think about my dad a bit, but not in thedigging-deep-for-any-help-I-can-get way that I sometimes do. He had been aphysical training pnstructor (PTI and later a parachute jump instructor, PJI)in the RAF. I wondered if he had enjoyed his exercise or if he had days when hewas just getting it done? Then I snapped out of it, realising that fully-kittedwinter pack runs over the Brecon Beacons and my commute to work were really notapples and apples.

I decided to add the under-the-Bridge-along-Barangeroo bitto the commute and give myself 14km for the morning and a target of 25km forthe day.

But hey, I made it work and have therefore made it to thehalf way mark. And I have also made it to within fifteen minutes of going homewithout stuffing any newspaper in my trainers. Yuk. And on that, time to get ready for the run home.

The run home passes in a bit of a blur and I think I know why. By the tail end of the day I am so knackered that I've no energy left to think about how knackered I am and my legs, left to their own devices, simply keep turning over. Slowly, but turning nonetheless. But I have discovered something slower than me. Tonight runningfreeonline hit a new low speed record. It already has the shits with me - maybe because I changed Garmin devices after a few days, maybe it doesn't like my shoes. I don't know why, but it doesn't like me. The upload process now goes a lot like this:

Plug in Garmin and try to upload out of a misplaced sense of optimism. Website connects to device and sees new run. Website claims to have uploaded but not processed run. Website then decides new run, despite being a new run that will have a different date, time and (slightly different) waypoints tells me it thinks I have a duplicate. I tell website to ignore duplicates and just upload the thing (how I wish there was a "just upload the fucking thing" button!) and wait for it to tell me there is some is a communication failure or the dog ate my waypoints or my run was abducted by aliens.

Anyway, to make better use of my time waiting for the inevitable failure I chuff over to Garmin connect, upload the new run without any silly questions or accusations of duplication. I then export the new run to a GPX file. Tonight I id that while runningfreeonline was still trying to to fail. So I killed the session, started again and uploaded the GPX file. Then it was a simple matter of deleting the time of day, elevation and anything to do with the weather and then save my miles. Silky smooth technology I think not.

Anyway, having spent as much energy getting that off my chest as I did uploading today's trot I think I'm done for the day. A bit over 25km with the Barangaroo thingy.

For the record, and please don't tell the others, both legs are feeling a bit weak at the moment.

a more fun run

2012-01-15T20:21:00.003+11:00

My dog Rowlf is an Irish Water Spaniel and I make sure he gets to swim regularly because that is what he loves to do. Whether he loves it or not is moot; it could have just been bred into him as the breed was bred to retrieve from water, albeit Irish bogs and not Sydney Harbour. So, having not taken him for a swim yesterday I got up this morning, waited for Sal to achieve semi-conscoiusness and, after not checking the weather, I took him for a walk.

On the plus side I did have my morning coffee in hand and was near a large tree when the heavens opened, so we waited for the shower to pass when all it wanted to do was not be a shower and not pass. Bugger. I mooched from one tree to another until deciding to brave the Gallipoli Steps in a downpour with exuberant dog in tow. Or he had miserable middle aged wet bloke in tow, not sure. Anyway, I made it to Spit Bridge soaked through and sheltered there for a while, out of the rain but able to throw stuff for the lump to retrieve.

No running yet. Sal had put herself on Harrie duty last night and the two of them, having had a somewhat interrupted sleep, stayed at home while I took Alex to Evie's princess themed 3rd birthday paty. Similar drill to yesterday, 10-12 an ankle-biters aplenty. This one was at the parent's house and, without ducks for entertainment they had sensibly hired Princess Aurora to herd the kids (pretty much all girls), paint their faces and give the adults a break. I got home to find Harrie about to go to sleep at about the same time as Alex needed her sleep. Cracking timing, and that would mean Sal could - fingers crossed - get a little peace while I was out. The girls went to bed, Sal put on Rise of the Planet of the Apes, I unblocked a sink and then headed out for a run.

Today's game plan was to crack 200 Janathon miles and I needed 14km, a little longer than the stock loop. A bit tired of trudging along asphalt I decided I would sort of do the loop but instead of heading down the road to Manly I would go via the Spit to Manly Scenic walk. This would add 6km of mostly trails to my loop.

It had stopped raining but the rain had upped the humidity. I think I'd take temperature over humidity, but beggars can't be choosers and I was glad that it was un-seasonally cool, by which I mean very low 20s and 70-something percent humidity. It could have been a lot worse. Sydney's second La nina summer in a row kept the route fairly walker-free. It was a little damp underfoot which when added to he humidity-induced-sweaty-feet meant it was a bit of a squelchy trip. The nipples were a bit sore again - poor singlet choice - so as soon as I was away from the crowds I went weekend-warrior-stroke-hero bare chested. A little something for the lay-deez (I think not!)

It is a nice run. As a trail run it is a bit "meh" because it has been sanitised with sandstone steps built into the hills - I like my trails a tad rougher. But there is no traffic, you get great views of the Harbour and if you care to stop there are aboriginal engravings en route. On warmer days there are lizards aplenty, eastern water dragons that are so used to the foot traffic that some simply refuse to get off of the path. Oh, and you end up in Manly, the start of Sydney's Northern Beaches.

And from Manly, if you've been following, you know the route by now. The Garmin - my brother's, which he left with me and has not missed a beat - clicked over 17km at the bottom of the small rise to my home and I thought that'll do for today.

Fifteen days in and I have hit half of the June miles and I am just a little bit pleased with myself. Right leg is a bit grumbly but not a concern at the moment. Think I might need to retire the 7year old shorts I wore today. I spent more times at kid's parties than I did running. AFC Wimbledon finally got a win. All in all, not a bad weekend.

fuelled by cake

2012-01-14T20:27:00.001+11:00

Woke up to a dull damp morning that was probably our fault, fate decreeing that any time we organise a party in a park it pisses down. But it was early, so we got on with the getting on and I went to get coffees. Harrie is a bit over eight months and a fairly solid unit so I put her in the backpack, grabbed an umbrella and set off. She seemed happy enough so I suppose that once we get past Janathon I'll be taking her on the morning dog walk with Rowlf. But not before; balls should remain as unbusted as possible until month end.

It remained dull but the rain stopped as Sal and I headed to Manly Dam to setup for the party. We were expecting about 30 adults and 20 ankle-biters. The party was, thanks to Sal and most people turning up, a huge success. It was AJ's 3rd birthday so the thing was a bit of a blitzkrieg between 10 and 12. We had a spot next to the dam (ducks are a great distraction) the BBQs (I was on sausage burning detail) and a playpark. So the event was pretty easy to run. Adults stand around eating, drinking and chatting and making sure we don't lose any kids, while kids occupy themselves being kids. Balloons and bubbles were blown, faces were painted, candles were lit and extinguished. January kids party 2 from 5 done and dusted and the next one isn't until...tomorrow.

So to the runing. My plan was to get out and do a single run after breaking the back of the tidying back at home and while the kids were sleeping off the party. I'd had a waffle with my morning coffee, a sausage sandwich and enough water, but I felt I may be a little under-fuelled for a longer run. That, right there, is my justification for eating as much cake as I ate. Some of Sal's relatives had come back to our house and I was both surprised and relieved to get a pass to run. I skulled a homebrew gatorade, refilled the bottle with water and hit the road.

I wasn't sure how far I was going to run and figured mid-20kms. I was running "over the top" to Dee Why and then back along the beaches to Queenscliff where I'd pick up the stock loop and do the less appealing clockwise home. I started on the firetrail next to the Wakehurst Parkway but with the weather being a bit ordinary - dull, overcast but still a little humid - there were no cool creature to nearly tread on. It is mostly a gentle rise for the first 7km before heading downhill to the beaches. Unlike last week, where I wimped out on Dee Why, I made my way right to the beach. I needed a pee, and besides, who would not want to run right to the ocean?

From there I headed south, first going over the hill that friend, when training for his first marathon, nicknamed Mount Dee Why. It really is not that bad. Then it is through Curl Curl, which is a bit disappointing as a vegetated dune blocks the ocean. I could have run on the sand, but that would have been cruel and unnecessary punishment I do not need. A small boardwalk takes you close to the ocean at South Curl Curl and then it is around the headland at Harbord and across Freshwater Beach to the steps up and over to Queenscliff. I take this route infrequently so don't beat myself up too much when each and every time I get part of the super-steep climb wrong and end up at the foot of a garden . I doubled back, got it right and dropped down to Queenscliff and then the dead flat 1.6km along the beach to Manly.

Over to Middle Harbour, up the hill and I was home in from my Dee Why Beach Loop in 23km and a bit over 2hrs. It seems that this is my January number. My trip to work and stock loop are both around 11.5km, typically done twice in a day to get a total of 23km. So there you go, averages are being kept up. I wonder if I'll get any good natured ribbing this week for yet again managing to disappoint by not clocking a 100mile week. I might have knocked out the missing 2 or three miles if I had done my sums before having a beer. And then another one.

Happy to keep my midweek averages up on Saturday, happy to see the back of the second week. My dog somewhat less happy to have been deprived of a walk today. Will have to throw that into tomorrow's logistics mix.

Now to go to bed and not sleep for worrying what number Andrew will clock in this year's no-really-it-isn't-a-competition.

lost in YouTube

2012-01-13T15:00:00.001+11:00

Fifteen degrees! FIFTEEN! I'll be needing a coat soon. Humidity was aroud 70%, but this is still a decent combination, unusually pleasant for Sydney in January. I was feeling a little bit dusty after a couple too many beers last night. The guys I was catching up with had been running a bit late, so I'd sat and caught up on the UK news on my phone while absent mindedly throwing back a couple of micro-brewery bevvies in Sydney's Small Bar.

I met JC and The Chad through a local scuba diving shop over a decade ago, back when we were all single. Now all married with kids we compare the length of time since we last dived. If I exclude my recent holiday to Fiji (where I did 5 dives that, pleasingly, I took in my stride. Like riding a bike only completely different) I win hands down...kids can do that. We still have our gear sitting in our homes and we'll be back - we always say. I went snorkelling last Saturday morning; it's a start. We had a couple more beers and then, as another round approached I made a dash for the exit. In such circumstances I need to bolt because my mates don't really understand what "no, I'm all done, no more beer for me" means. Either we're all having a beer or none of us are. And if a beer is placed in front of you it is incredibly rude to not drink it.

The run this morning was dramatically different to most mornings. No, that's a lie. I ran about 200m into St Leonards park to get to a loo and then got back on metronome duty. I had a chat to a lass I caught up to as she got to the top of the bridge steps; I'd passed her on Parriwi so to find myself behind her again, I guessed, meant she had cut the corner from Military Rd to the Bridge, something I do when it isn't janathon. I let her get back to her music and did the last bit to work. Run one done, said the poet. And, for a change, there were a couple of sweat-free patches on my shirt! Woo-hoo!

One of life's little pleasures came next. Before heading up to my desk I shower and change then head out to get a coffee and some toast. I have started doing this walk barefoot. Not VFF, but barefoot. I like walking around the city in rush hour without any shoes on. Not sure why, but like I said - one of life's little pleasures.

Up at my desk and I had a quick look at the UK news. I read a piece on the Muslim Brotherhood's performance in the Egyptian elections. This proved to be my entry point into a morning of Youtube listening.

The first two songs I selected, but from the Jones Girls on it was suggestions all the way, and this is where I went:

The Brotherhood of Man - Save Your Kisses. Because I read a news article about the Muslim Brotherhood's election result in Egypt.
The Jones Girls - Nights Over Egypt. Because I was keeping on the Egypt theme.
Dextar Wansel - The Sweetest Pain. Because I saw the suggestion, and Dextar Wansel is an awesome name! Let's go wiht Youtube suggestions from here
Marcus Miller - Brazilian Rhyme. Because of the picture of Miller's bass
Faze 0 - Riding High. Because it keeps cropping up and I don't know them or this tune. Hmmm, I think I may only ever listen to this once...
Curtis Mayfield - Pusherman. Because Fred is Dead wasn't suggested. Starting to get all funked out.
Stevie Wonder - Higher Ground. OK, a bit more funk, and this might lead me to Chili Peppers.
The Clash - Bankrobber. No idea why this was suggested, but I'll take it.
Pixies - Where is my Mind. Wow, we're on a roll now!
The Stranglers - Golden Brown. Not so much for this song, more to see where it would lead me next.
OMD - Enola Gay. Because 80s synth pop is awesome.
Enigma - Sadeness. Because there is nowhere near enough Gregorian chanting in popular music. How I long for the olden days of 1990.
Nik Kershaw - The Riddle. Because Joy Division was a little too obvious and the Kershaw hair-eyebrow combo more than makes up for the musical failings.
Phil Oakley - Together In Electric Dreams. OK let's make this the last dodgy (yet awesome) 80s synth pop number.
Feargal Sharkey - A Good Heart. OK, this is a blatant attempt to get The Undertones "Teenage Kicks" (best pop song ever said John Peel) suggested. Damnit Feargal had nice hair.
The Jets - Crush on You. Bollocks, no Undertones, so it's electro-beat-box-break-dance-boogaloo. Must resist the urge to flatten out some cardboard boxes and spin on my head in the office.
Hey You - The Rock Steady Crew. Because B-boys break and electric boogaloo. OK, maybe this was a mistake. OK, this WAS a mistake.
Sugarhill Gang - Rapper's Delight. Not sure how much old school hip-hop I'll be able to take. Hotel, motel, Holiday Inn!
Ollie & Jerry - There's No Stoppin' Us. You really need to watch the video for the full effect.
Ice Cube - Bop Gun. Lead me out of the 80s Ice Cube...
Snoop Dogg - Sensual Seduction. Not sure I like where this is headed
G Unit - Feel Good. Still looking for a way out but I find myself lost in gold-chained mysoginistic bitch nigga bullshitland. HELP!
A basic Reggae beat. No artist, just a bit random, but this might just be my way out...
TOP 10 - Bob Marley. Soem shitty and unnecessary upload, but it is but a step on my path out of here...
Bob Marley-Don't worry be happy. Dear god, I'm getting lost in YouTube moronland as someone credits Bob marley with what is clearly the Bobby McFerrin song Don't Worry Be Happy. Still, it's a nice little tune...
Bob Marley - Three Little Birds. Right, we're back in the land of what-it-says-on-the-tin
What a woderful world - Louis Armstrong.

Time to take a break for lunch because I could not possibly go anywhere better than this.

I figured that the problem with the foot long sub was the bread and tested this theory with a beef burrito for lunch that did not come back to haunt me on the run home. The run home was a nice commute and I finished the day on the standard distance in the standard time - nice to se that I've not slowed as the week has gone on, merely been slow throughout.

Highlight of the run home was undoubtedly the Datsun 2000 that was parked near Spit Bridge. It was definitely worth the break to click off some pictures. I was going to write a bit about mental fatigue, but I'm tired - which seems appropriate - so that'll have to wait for another day.

And now the weekend is here, I have a couple of kids parties to attend, Alex urns 3tomorrow and then a friends daughter does likewise on Sunday. Logistics of running are tricky this weekend. I also have the chew-the-fingers-to-the-second-knuckle fear of what twitter will tell me Andrew has clocked up while I've been wearing a silly hat and pretending to like pink princess stuff.

Over to you Mr. Fletcher :-)

think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts

2012-01-12T21:49:00.000+11:00

Wow, 17degrees with 41% humidity this morning. Not at all summer like. I guess the howling gale I ran into last night has blown the bleugh weather away for a spell. The dog walk was especially pleasant and the sunrise was, again, magnificent.

Were it not a commute on tired legs I think I would have thoroughly enjoyed this morning's trot to work. As it was I got the job done. And then added just a little bit. I'm meeting a couple of friends after work tonight and that means I'll not be running home. So, with Andrew lurking a little too close for comfort I figured a couple of extra morning kilometres would not go amiss. I did the same run as last Friday morning, doubled back under the Bridge and then headed to the office via Barangaroo for a smidge over 14km.

I don't want anyone to think I'm being a slacker with my not running home. So I went for a run at noon. I revived one of my old stock lunchtime runs, a loop around the city that hugs the foreshore as clsoely as possible. At noon in the summer you get to clock up a few more metres by dodging tourists. You realise that Sydney has a lot of lunchtime runners. There was a big group congregated by Circular Quay and a conga-line going around Farm Cove. Cannot say I blame them; 21C and 39% humidity is fabulous summer running weather.

I added a couple of kinks to the end of the run to try and squeeze out a nice round 24km for the day. I got to my office at 23.33 and stopped. Not a bad number, and happy to see a total time of under 2hrs for the two. Also happy to have a slightly longer rest before my next run. And, while I'm being happy about things, I was pleasantly surprised at how OK I felt after having only 3.5hrs between the mornings 14 and the lunchtime 9. Another day done.

I'm properly bloody hungry now.

Meanwhile, later and at home...

Right, I'll slot it in here and hope no one notices (oo-er!)

How is it possible for runningfreeonline to suspect that a GPS tack is a duplicate? I mean really...different time, different distance and my GPS is accurate to within 3m so probably different co-ordinates. Come on! And, why does it get the time and elevation and weather wrong? Come on...I spend more time deleting crap info than I do uploading the good stuff.

Sorry, but it's been bugging me for a while and I needed to get it off my chest.

Had a few beers tonight, need sleep now. Goodnight.

eating a boat anchor

2012-01-11T19:41:00.000+11:00

Day eleven heralds the arrive of the niggles. Hoping it is just a bit of beatable mental fatigue brought on by too little sleep and...you know the story by now. Last night I was up until 11pm working, and although Sal went on "Harrie nightshift" I still had a fairly ordinary quantity and quality of sleep. Add to that the 3 beers I had with my brother on his last night in Australia for a while. I guess I need to HTFU.

The niggles are really rather minor, and in no particular order are:

Right little toe, rubbed a bit on the top. Big deal.
Left little toe pad. The planter wart has scaled up a bit and is starting to press. Ignorable once I get going, but a blister danger. I've altered my gait to accommodate a blister in the past and that led to all sorts of strife. One to watch.
Right knee a bit tight and clicky. I'm generally tightened up and the knee is where this presents most obviously back pulls hips pulls OTB pulls knee. If I don't get silly It'll be OK. Early night tonight, feet up, relax. I hope.
Sneezing a bit - a cold on the way? I'm hoping it's mild hayfever because the wind has changed and blown stuff in. The continued exercise is bound to supress my immune system a bit and I'm probably vulnerable to bugs. But on the plus side, it is summer and I am not using public transport, so again, I should be OK.

Look, I'm struggling for stuff to write, sorry for the mundane stuff. I ran to work today. Let's hope something more interesting - but not too interesting – happens on the way home. With that, I'm off to run home.

Today Gary put some great advice on hydration in his blog. In that same spirit I would like to add some words on nutrition. If you're going to run home from work in the afternoon you should avoid having a foot long tuna sub at lunchtime. OK, so this advice is not quite in the same league as Gary's, but hey, I'm trying.

I felt as if I'd eaten a boat anchor as I trudged home. It seemed to be leeching from my stomach into my legs and they felt as if they were slowly turning to lead. I was farting like a trooper, and as I became more fixated on just how bloated and bleugh I was feeling I started to feel physically sick. But hey, it did take my mind off all the other niggles, so that's a good thing. By 8km I was still farting but feeling somewhat more human and I was a little surprised to find that my total running time for the day was 2:03, splitting Monday's 2:04 and yesterday's 2:02.

The things of note on the way home - damn windy. I was fortunate to find myself sheltered most of the way but when I was not sheltered I was being blown all over the place. Proper windy. And at the Spit I stopped to take a picture of two of the resident pelicans. That's how I roll.

Another ones bites the dust. A little over 23km and a little over 2hrs, just to mix things up not at all.

Tomorrow, for a change, I'll try and lighten things up a bit in the blog. Really, I will try.

how it looked and how I felt

2012-01-11T09:53:00.000+11:00

...how it looked...

...and how I felt...

groundhog day

2012-01-10T14:14:00.001+11:00

Garage door, a photo by Auswomble on Flickr.

Struggling for inspiration for this entry. Got up after not enough sleep, walked the dog through a humid dawn and then did exactlty the same commuter run to work that I did yesterday. The only thing that sticks in my mind, sadly, was experiencing and incidence of a far-too-regular frustration.

Picture this. I am standing at a crossroads waiting for the green man so I can continue running. I am maybe 6 inches from the road; my feet are in the wheelchair/pram ramp. Any closer, thought I, and the risk of getting brained by a bus wing mirror would become unnaceptably high. I do look like a half-decent jogger (especially when I'm standing still), I'm really quite sweaty and I probabaly smell quite bad. Yet a sour faced commuter managed to somehow squeeze themself in front of me. I resisted the temptation to scream "ON WHAT FUCKING PLANET ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE OFF QUICKER THAN ME?" and instead sigh on the inside, waited for the lights to change and swerved around them, this time resisting the urge to drop the shoulder. Maybe it is the same the world over, but Sydney certainly has an oversupply of clueless, selfish, ignorant narcissists. I mean come on, is it really so difficult to take in what is going on around you and *not* act like a twat? Apparently, for some, yes.

Actually, on the plus side, now I think about it, the humidity had dropped somewhat by the time I got going and today felt a lot less like running through treacle. Which was nice. The homebrew gatorade I'd put in the fridge last night, swigged this morning and then left on the kitchen bench probabaly helped.

OK, if you're religious you might want to tune out now and come back tomorrow.

As I came down the steps of the Bridge on the way home I saw two young girls playing while their mother (I assume it was their mother) called to one of them to come back down. Nothing too strange about that. "Phoebe, come down! Come back down" was the call in a quite plumy English accent. What was strange - maybe it should not be these days - was the mother's dress. She was wearing a headscarf and a head to toe robe in a dull taupe or mushroom. It was unmistakably religious garb and to me seemed completely out of character with the wearer. I guess it could have been a fashion statement, but I think not.

I am not a religious person. By quite a long way. My "problem" with this scenario and others like it is not the mother's faith or beliefs; she is entitled to her beliefs as much as I am entitled to believe that Yoda is real. As it happens I don't believe that Yoda is real.

What I believe is human children and born early and helpless. If they were born any later the exit they pass through would...well it wouldn't really work. So they come out all purple and wrinkly and helpless and not at all like, say, a horse, which shakes the goop off and goes for a bit of a run. Or a turtle who is all alone from day one. To have any chance of survival human children live through a considerable length of time during which they must (and typically do) believe whatever they are told by adults in general and their parents in particular. If they don't they will die. Simple as that.

So I find it a little sad that kids are brought up in a way that will perpetuate and pass on belief in a god whose existence is so preposterously unlikely that maintenance of a belief in that god is border line mental. Well, it is if you're a grown up. Besides, why would an all powerful god be remotely interested in what we wear, eat, how we style our hair and how often we wash our armpits? It's just a bit bullshit. Of course the mother might keep her religious beliefs to herself and not talk to her children about them. Me? I simply avoid the subject. As AJ turns 3 on Saturday this has, to date, been quite easy.

Like I said, just my belief. I could be wrong. I suppose. Unlikely, but you never know.

Look, blogging about running too and from work gets dull real quickly, so you might have to put up with some other stuff.

On the running front, to bring this to a close, I ran the same distance as yesterday - around 23km - in about the same time as yesterday - a bit over 2hrs. Whoda though, eh?

monday bloody monday

2012-01-09T20:39:00.000+11:00

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.

Terry Hills and the goanna

2012-01-08T19:26:00.002+11:00

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.

finishing week 1

2012-01-07T21:35:00.003+11:00

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.

now where was I?

2012-01-07T20:48:00.000+11:00

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.

there will be a brief intermission while...

2012-01-07T08:17:00.000+11:00

I work through some tec provlems. All things tec hate ne. GP exploded, ISP have killedmy connectio. All things shuldbesorted by 4pm when normal service can resume.Until twn it will be a briwf post onmysroid phone dont try tis at ome kidfriday ran o work and bit thwn homefor apx.26k. This morning ran 12k.So so rired.Right, i need coffee.Unaable to see words as i type, so this may look a bit off. Meh.

the commute

2012-01-05T13:14:00.001+11:00

I think I should warn you...the general tone of this post changes dramatically at around 4:45pm and there could be a bit of colourful language. But before that, here is the write up for the run to work this morning

crane on a cliff, a photo by Auswomble on Flickr.

Vacation is over and it's back to work day. That means I didn't need to think about where to run. I've moved house since June(athon) and now live 3km further away from the my office if I take the (new) direct approach. My new commute is 10.5km, a nice social distance. There are few options to mix it up unless I feel like tackling more hills than I typically feel like tackling before breakfast. I will struggle to write about this run in any great detail after today, what with it being pretty much the same day in, day out. Anyway, today.

It was another fabulous night's sleep for me. I'd gone to bed a bit after 10:30pm and was woken by Harrie a little beofre midnight and at about 2am. Not to be left out, Alex woke me up at about 4am. Harrie was next at just after 5am. At 5:20 I got up to take Rowlf for a walk. The first day back in the office, my most productive of the year to date, will see me add next to fuck all value. Ho-hum. I don't think the boss reads this...I told the boss I was aiming to avoid any proper work until Monday; I hope he didn't think I was joking...I grabbed my new GPS, switched it on and it swiched itself off. Great. I switched it on again and it stayed on. Better. Rowlf and I headed up the hill to the park and at 2.5km the Garmin was still playing nice. I took it off my wrist and the screen went blank. Arse! I powered it on and hit start. It stayed on until I got home. It is an exccentric bastard of a thing and at this point looks as if it is going back.

Although there had been a southerly change in the weather it was still somewhat sticky, but I'l take 21C and 75% humidity. I got changed, kissed Sal and AJ bye-bye (Harrie was asleep, probabaly catching up. Oh to be able to...) and headed off, taking my chances with the new Garmin.

I expect heavy legs at this time of the year and was not disapointed. The first km of the run (1.13km to be a little more precise) takes me to and down the Gallipoli steps to Spit Bridge and sea level. Once over the bridge I loop back under the southern side - that's the sea level buit - instead of crossing the road. The road is normally ram-jam-packed, but today, half way through the school holidays, it was remarkably clear, hence the remark. I looked for and failed to find the four pelicans I often see perched on the piers out front of the yacht club. And then there is the slog up Parriwi Road. It's actually not to bad. It is steep, but not outrageously so, and it is long, but not horrifically long. I much prefer running up it than down it because my lungs are in better shape than my knees. You can distract yourself looking at the mansions hanging off the east side of the hill and between them out to the ocean. Every so often I race the slower cyclists to the top. Most of them don't realise they're racing (because usually it is only me who is.) It helps keep me from plodding every day. I think it is safe to assume I'll not be attacking the hill this month.

At the top of the street I get to Spit Road and continue to climb, albeit at a gentler gradient. By Mosman things flatten out as Military Road follows a ridgeline. Usually I will take a left at Neutral Bay, heading back down to sea level before up to the Bridge, that being the direct route. Today I didn't fancy it so decided to take avoid a sharpish descent/ascent in exchange for an extra kilometre. With far less traffic than usual on Military Road it was nothing like the lung-busting fume-fest I am used to.So I carried on along Military Road and then cut across St Leonards Park on my way to North Sydney. I stopped at a couple of bubblers in the park, but the water pressure on both was so pathetic that I shouldn't have bothered.

I ran along the side of the Bridge and passed Classic Throttle, drooling over the old Aston Martins in the window and wondering if the uber-rich would buy them on a whim after watching an old Bond movie. At Milson's Point I stopped at a far better bubbler and then it was up the steps to the deck level of the Bridge. I hit the lap button on my still-playing-nice Garmin. There was a southerly headwind as I went across the Bridge that was reasonably cooling. It was still humid and I was still sweating, but at least it was a cooler sweat.

The Bridge's 1.5km came and went in almost exactly 7min. Slow, but tolerably so. I'll need to discipline myself to not get involved in the "Commuter Olympics" this month; my best times on the way to work are usually when I've raced a bike up Parriwi and then decided to either pick off runners ahead of me or defend a lead.

And then I was at work in 11.5km and about an hour.

I've just re-read that, and although descriptive it is a bit of a dull read. Buggered if I know what I'll write if I decide to run home...

...that was written this morning...this afternoon, a little before 4:45pm, I got up from my desk and got changed into my running gear.

I stepped out of the office and switched on the Garmin. Well, I pressed the power button. Nothing happened. Zippety-squat. Shit it! I tried again. And again. Bollocks, dead again. Somewhat pissed off I put the Garmin in my backpack and got my Blackberry out. I went to the location options and told it to update my location. "Location update failed" it told me. I tried again. Same. I rebooted it. Same. I turned on location aiding. Same. Oh for fucks sake, this is just getting silly. I am endlessly frustrated with the Blackberry's "maybe I will, maybe I won't" GPS which today was firmly set to won't. I was around 850km south of where it said I was. I put that back in my backpack and got out my own mobile, a Garmin-Asus Nuvifone that rarely lets me down.

I went to the maps and hit "where am I?" and it correctly located me. Now we're cooking! I cleared the trip log and headed for the Bridge, somewhat annoyed that I had to carry my phone in my hand. But I consoled myself by deciding to run exactly the same course home so I could compare the results from the two Garmin devices. I kept an eye on the screen to make sure it was logging and was happy to see the metres climbing as I made my way home.

When I got to the north side of the Bridge the trip log read 800m. The deck of the Bridge is 1.5km. It seems the trip computer stops logging when the handset locks, something that doesn't happen when in the cradle in the car...but does when in my hand. Great. I mean really, just fucking great. Three - THREE useless GPS devices in my backpack. THREE!

So, dear reader, to the run. Apart from starting about 15minutes later than I'd hoped it was OK. It was overcast but not too hot or humid. The Bridge was a crowded tourist-dodge, but I made reasonably good progress and retraced my morning commute route as close as to-the-step as I could. No cutting corners that had been uncut earlier, plenty of crossing roads at the same spots, running on the same footpaths. There was one minor deviation at Spit Bridge; a little over 10km into the commute home I ran the 3m to a bubbler and then back to the path. If there is a US election style recount at the end of the month I would like that to be taken into account (hehehe!)

Once home I found I had no internet access and was about to go mental with this latest electronic absence until I realised that the desk was neat...I suspected Sal of tidying so checked the wires and popped the ethernet cable back into the modem. And we're back.

It took me a little while to find out how to save a map from a GPS upload on runningfree. Find it I did and that is how I logged the run home. It looks like I'll be doing the same commute each day for the remainder of January's working days, which is kinda cool because I don't need to think about it, but kinda sucks because it will be exactly the same. And it is all or nothing; either I do the whole and log it...or I don't. No getting 5km in and then quitting with 5km in the bag...and no sneaking in a few extra km. I know I could, but I won't because I'm a bit lazy like that. I still need to work out what to do at weekends after my brother and his working Garmin go back to the UK. Let's hope the Blackberry works out the difference between Queensland and New South Wales before he leaves.

Five days and the metric ton-up.

One last thing...I assume it is due to rounding, but the run to work was summarised as 7.3miles and the map created from that very run as 7.4miles. But hey, this is the site that allowed carrirmccoll27 to log 89hours in under two and a half days! I work with data and things like that irk me; not carrie, but the site not lending a hand. Grrrrrrr....

Seeya tomorrow janathoners!

down it in one

2012-01-04T20:12:00.000+11:00

Having checked the forecast before going to bed last night I knew today would have to be a single run day and that run would need to start as early as possible. Extreme UV, bastard hot (my words not the bureau of meteorology's) did not fill me with joy. But first thing first, get up at about 5:30 from my spot on the floor next to Harrie's cot and take Rowlf, my Irish Water Spaniel, for his morning walk. Strange to think that I care more about protecting that lump of crazy from the heat than myself. My mad dog does not go out in the midday sun, just this Englishman.

Anyway, I was ready to head out a little after 7am, by which time the sun had been up for about an hour and the temp was about 22. Humidity was a cloying 90%. In other words a typical Sydney January morning. I made some Gatorade homebrew, lubed up, sunscreened up, forgot my sunnies and head out. With my brother's Garmin. Again. Mine, after an overnight charge, decided it was not going to play.

Today's plan was to head inland and over the hill towards Dee Why, then pickup my stock loop. Anything over 21km and I'd be happy. The legs flt heavy again and I was very glad of the shade I found along the bush track next to the Wakehurst Parkway. This track goes past some aboriginal engravings and the last time I ran it I encountered an echidna (or fucking great hedgehog, if you like. The picture is of him - or her - waddling out of my way.) No sightseeing today, it was already pretty sweaty and th sunscreen was running into my eyes in a particularly annoying way. This looked like it needed to be a workman-like outing.

At 6km I refilled the water bottle and at a little over 7 I passed the gym that Sal was at. If I'd had any sense I'd have grabbed a guest pass and done some treadmill miles in the aircon. Nevermind, kilometres 7-9 are pretty much downhill with a couple of inspiring ocean views as you crest some rises.

I knew from yesterday that the return from the mall is 11km so at the turn for Dee Why I decided I'd not go to Dee Why but head for home, turning the run into a Brookvale loop. I was struggling a bit. I found a tap outside a shop and refilled the bottle again, and again from a bubbler when I got to Queenscliff. The sun had plenty of bite by now and I can't say I particularly enjoyed the last 6km any more than the first 15.

I stopped again at Fairlight beach to refill the water bottle and had a chat with a runner heading the other way. She was supposed to be knocking out 31km this morning and was also struggling in the conditions, which made me feel comparatively better. Objectively I still felt pretty ordinary, but at least I wasn't alone. We headed our separate ways and I made it home in 21.7km. Very sweaty and tired, but with the best part of 24hours until I next hit the road.

And now a brief Garmin update. Before heading out to see the new Mission Impossible movie - aircon win - I switched my Garmin on. We did a bit of shopping, had a bit of food...and when I got home it was still alive. In fact it has been sitting on a chair in the sunroom, not tracking anything but not dead, for over past 7hours. At about 9hrs it beeped 'low battery' at me. Weird. Another charge tonight and we'll see how it is in the morning.

let the chaffing begin!

2012-01-03T17:29:00.000+11:00

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.

I live 15 miles from an airport

2012-01-02T17:01:00.001+11:00

Logistics being what they are, this year I'll be needing to slot a few cheeky runs in when I can. That was the story of today. Sal was flying back to Sydney with Harriette and there was my opportunity. I'd drive to the airport with Alex, hand Sal the car keys and daughter number one and then run home. The only real downside was the flight arrival time - 11:35am. That meant I'd be heading home in the hottest part of the day. For the cooler start of the day I was lounging in a hammock in the back garden watching AJ play on her trampoline. I read that last sentence back and wonder if I am going out my way to lose friends. Look, it's summer, what am i supposed to do?

Anyway today turned out to be really rather hot. Humidity was down by midday, but it was a little over 27degrees in the shade. As I was starting at an airport, there wasn't any shade from the direct-overhead sunshine. Ah well.

I've run home from the airport a couple of times before and quite like it. You get to run through the seedier parts of Sydney and the light industrial stuff you find near most airports. I think it appeals to me that little bit more because it is the very antithesis of everything you see on the tele. Sydney rests upon it's four laurels; Bridge, Harbour, Opera House, beaches (mainly Bondi.) So my run is ant-touristy. Well, until I get to the Bridge.

I had a bottle of Gatorade for company and by the end of the run I'd refilled it twice from bubblers and then bought another. So I tipped back about 2.5litres. I had to ask for directions to get out of the airport, which I didn't get. I used the force and ended up on a bike path to 'City.' The path was not my usual escape route from Sydney Kingsford Smith, but it was a simple matter of just following the signs.

Which I did until I ran out of signs at a crossroads, maybe 3km in. Sydney is ferociously hostile to any form of transport that isn't a car, and as you move down the motive food chain you get less and less help. Luckily I knew the road I was crossing and simply ran in the opposite direction to the fucking great 'AIRPORT' sign.

The first part of the run is through the sort of home-depot warehouse-direct factory-outletville that I must keep Sal and her credit card away from. It then gets a bit seedy as you hit Alexandria and Redfern. Redfern is the last place in Sydney where the politicians/developers/crooks have yet to relocate the entire aboriginal population. It is a chunk of prime real estate, a couple of km from the CBD. But it looks like downtown Mogadishu. You are unlikely to read about Redfern in the glossies, but it makes the news every so often for all the wrong reasons.

A bit of an epic post in the making. Sal is filling in the gaps I left when I went shopping yesterday, Darren and Ellie are out touristing and the girls are both asleep. Now where was I?

OK, through Redfern and I cut across a few streets to avoid the shopping thoroughfares. Bottle refilled at Hyde Park and then straight down to the Bridge. The heat coming off of the tarmac on the Cahill Expressway was particularly unpleasant and I was glad to get to the Bridge, which I usually time and today wish I hadn't. Land speed record in no danger.

Another refill as I came off of the bridge and then it was the slog up to North Sydney, from where things flatten out. And then drop down to sea level at Spit Bridge. Which would not be so bad if I did not live atop the sodding great hill just the other side of the bridge. I crept up the Galipolli Steps, pausing at the top to take a look out over the Harbour and get my respiration rate under 300 or whatever the hell it was.

And then I did the last bit home to bring up a total of 24km, or 15miles in old money, in 2hrs and something. To be honest, I live just under 15miles from the airport. I ran about 100m past my house and then back to get the Garmin to click over to a nice round figure.

Ah, last thing! It was my brand spanking new Forerunner 305, which I knew my brother had bought for me, that today had it's maiden voyage. He also got me a very shexy OMM Adventure Light 20 pack, which was unexpcted. Second outing for the Nike Pegasus, which also went great guns.

Two done and I think I'll have a beer tonight.

and they're off!

2012-01-01T22:41:00.001+11:00

A few runs on the board somewhat later in the day than usual, but with good reason. Today started a few hundred kilometres north of Sydney at Stoney Park where AJ, my 3-in-a-fortnight year old and I were overnighting, about half way through our road trip back from Queensland's Gold Coast where the big Xmas shin-dig had been. By big I mean my wife Sal, her 2 brothers, 2 sisters, their partners, her parents and 9 kids under 10. I think think that's big enough. Good times. I was on carting the presents home detail.

Anyway, Janathon business. I woke up at a little after 5am and did ever-so-briefly consider a quick - very quick - blast around the lake before AJ woke up. But sanity got the better of me and I returned to where I am most comfortable, being a parent who does not pull shit like that. Anyway, Alex normally wakes by 5:30, and she did today, and we were on the road by 5:30. No runs yet.

We got home at about noon, by which time my brother and his partner, who are staying for the New Year at our place, had gone out to brave Sydney on a hot, sunny New year's day. Sal and our other daughter are flying back home tomorrow, so as lone parent I'd have to wait until the evening to go for a run when Darren and Ellie could babysit Alex. The afternoon was therefore chored out - house stuff, lawn cutting, grocery shopping and uploading photos. Fun times.

Stick with me, the run is next.

After dinner - barbecued kangaroo sausages for that authentic Aussie feel - I put AJ to bed, where she eventually stayed, and at 8pm head out for a run. We have recently moved to Seaforth, which is just on Sydney's northern beaches, and I have yet to get any "stock" runs sorted other than my commute to work. So tonight I decided I'd knock out what I think will be my first regular fun-run. In a nutshell; straight down the hill to Manly, along the beach to Queenscliff and then follow the bike path back to Seaforth. I call it the Manly Beach loop.

It was a thoroughly pleasant trot; the sun was down and the moon was out as I ran though the fading light. There was a cooling breeze coming of the ocean...and at about this point I cannot help but feel a few janathoners up in he UK could be cursing me...sorry. The bike path was a little tricker. I discovered that it is unlit, and I was a little concerned about turning an ankle on a dodgy lump and a lot concerned about running into a bollard at bollock height. Luckily I made it home with ankles and nuts intact.

One down.

Oh, the pic is of my new trainers. First pair of Nike (the Pegasus 28) since I was at school decades ago. They were far cheaper than the Asics (Nimbus and Cumulus) I've been running in for the last 7years, so I thought I'd give them a go. Went alright tonight.

rumpole

2011-12-20T13:04:00.001+11:00

rumpole, a photo by Auswomble on Flickr.

Sal has grown up with dogs in the household and for as long as I can remember it was a given that we'd be getting a dog as soon as we had a house with a garden. While in the UK I got chatting to a couple that had an Irish Water Spaniel ("what's up with your poodle's tail?) One thing led to another and we went to see Martyn Ford and his magnificent spaniels and Martyn introduced us to Kathy in Geelong and we put our order in when we got back to Australia. Then we waited for a litter with our fingers crossed. Well, I waited, Sal was not for wafting so we would be getting the IWS if and when we could...but we had a house so we were getting a dog.

We first looked at a rescue dog and were close to buying Bear the Briard. But I think he had a bit of a history and when left alone with just me he got a bit funny. Most of the staff at the shelter were female; when Sal was in with me he was fine. I suspect he was not a fan of men. We let the Briard club know he was there and things probably worked out alright for Bear. But we had no dog.

Then Sal found a cocker spaniel breeder on the Central Coast. I cannot remember the suburb, but the house and breeder were out of the 1950s. The woman had two puppies, a timid little black one and a golden who came straight over to Sal and sealed the deal. We paid, got our dog and a strange brew of foodstuffs that the old woman fed her hounds. In retrospect, even by dog breeder standards, she was a bit odd.

It was Sal's mum who named him Rumpole. He was named after Rumpole of the Bailey, on account of the floppy ears looking somewhat like a judge's wig. I don't remember too much separation anxiety from the little fella but I know he cried a bit when we first had him. I don't remember too much poo and wee in the house. He was a great little thing. He started living with us in the sunroom and soon graduated to the void under the sunroom where he could get straight out onto the garden. And that was his housetraining done.

He was a super cute puppy. I remember a group of girls absolutely swooning over him outside the supermarket and though I should have had a cocker puppy in my early 20s. Once he was bigger and stronger we'd go running together. Often as not I had to push pretty hard to keep up with him. He was never a great one for fetching; he just liked being around people.

He was great with kids. Nieces and nephews, random kids at cafes. And he loved me and Sal. Before we got him we'd agreed that he'd only be allowed in the house when invited and would not be coming up on the sofa. As he was Sal's dog she would be walking him regularly. As it turned out this was interpreted by my good lady wife as Rumpole can come in and sit on your lap on the sofa. And if you feel like dressing him up a bit then that's fine. And don't worry because I'll walk him. I guess that happens a lot.

When we eventually got Rowlf the boys met away from the house. They seemed to get on well enough, though they didn't play much. Rumpole was always more interested in people than other dogs. Luckily Rowlf is an Irish Water Spaniel and is more interested in being mental than anything else. They made a handsome looking duo and although they had their own beds it was not unusual to see the two of them share a bed. It was very cute. It was only as they got older that he seemed to get a bit resentful of the big fella, but I'm not here to dwell upon that. They were like many brothers growing up, not really paying a whole lot of attention to each other but just getting on with it.

I'd walk them pretty much everyday with Alex in a backpack. At the park, when she started running around, she'd get out and terrorise Rumpy. He never seemed to mind being chased around by a screaming kid. Right up until this weekend that was happening, AJ chasing the little fella around the garden or through the house.

He was a great dog. He just made a few bad decisions.

Best stop reading now.

The events of Sunday evening meant the little fella had to leave the household. Sal did her very best for him, but the writing was on the wall. The ultimate decision was not taken lightly. There was consultation with 2 different vets, friends who are in the know, the RSPCA and dog rescue people. She also spoke to the specialist cocker spaniel rescue people. The advice was pretty much unanimous with the cocker people saying we should be glad that we had 5 great years with him and him with us.

That'll have to do.

dog days

2011-12-19T12:59:00.001+11:00

Rumpole, a photo by Auswomble on Flickr.

Yesterday was a tale of two dogs and it is touch and go whether I will get through this post without starting to blub and walking away from the my PC.

Sunday started very nicely and Sal, AJ, Harrie and I went to Manly for breakfast and then took a ferry trip to the City and back. This is surely the best bargain in Sydney; if you have kids - who let's face it will cost you a fortune - you get to travel all day on Sydney public transport for just $2.50 per adult. So, if you were so inclined you could cruise from Manly to the City and back all day long. I digress, we did one return trip and then made our way home so the girls could have a sleep and I could have a run.

I decided on a slightly longer run that yesterday's dog walk to Manly and back. To mix it up a bit I'd run the Spit to Manly scenic walk to the beach, then along the front to Queenscliff and back home following the bike path. I'd done a bit of tidying on Saturday night and found an old pair of Asics Nimbus that had to be about 5 buys back. I pulled them on and they felt v-e-r-y comfortable.

It was reasonably warm and sunny but without feeling oppressive - nice summer running. There were a few people about but once I was up the main hill there were not many people so I felt I could take my singlet off without feeling like too much of a twat. I'm not a fan - conceptually - of bare-chest runners, all a bit weekend hero. But hey, I was out of the way and off to the beach, so I put my prejudice aside for a few km.

I ran to the very southern end of the beach before heading north for the 1.6km length of the beach. At North Steyne I ran past a surfboard rental tent that had Paul Kelly's From St Kilda to Kings Cross blasting out and everything was very Australian. Towards Queenscliff I spotted a guy with his daughter and their spaniel. A bit of a sucker for spaniels I stopped for a chat and he told me his story.

He used to breed spaniels but when he split with his wife he lost wife, 2 other English springers and Maxwell. So far, so sad. But after eight years he got back with his wife. Not only that, Maxwell's new owners had not changed over the microchip. So when the dog went missing and was found in Erina, on the Central Coast, it was this fella who the vet called to say "we have your dog." So he got his family and his dog back. I ran off feeling good about life. The rest of the run was basically a long, gentle uphill home which was a little uninspiring. With no GPS I mapped the run at about 17km and finished it in a stop-start 1:37, which is OK.

The rest of the afternoon was chores and the dinner and then the girls went to bed. And then things took a turn for the worst. I was coming back into the yard after refitting a kid seat in the car. I kicked one of the chew toys towards the dogs. Rowlf went for it and so did Rumpole. But Rumpole, who has never really liked Rowlf, had a snarl at the big fella. As I approached them Rumpole threw himself at Rowlf, something he has done a couple of times before. But this time he was not interested in stopping as I tried to grab a hold of the barking mutts and separate them. I can't really tell you what happened as I was busy trying to separate the two. I was not having a lot of luck and our neighbour jumped the fence to help.

Rowlf was barking and the neighbour managed to grab him with relative ease, but Rumpole was not for stopping. Silly, silly boy. I grabbed him again and got a bite on the thumb for it, but I managed to get him into the front yard, away from Rowlf, and things quietened. I probably knew at that time that this was not going to have a good outcome. I was probably in a bit of shock; I felt sort of OK, but was shaking a bit and there was blood coming from a punctured thumb. Fernando, our neighbour, got a couple of scrapes but was OK.

I went inside and Sal cleaned me up a bit before I head to the local medical centre to have the thumb cleaned up properly. Rowlf had a couple of scrapes but got off pretty lightly, Rumpole was OK. I went outside to thank Fernando for the umpteenth time and asked him if Rowlf had made any attempt to bite him. He hadn't, I was enormously relieved to hear. With all calm I headed off.

I knew we'd have to give Rumpole away. I simply cannot have the dogs fighting when we have kids. I was a bit of an emotional wreck - still am, if truth be known. Sal was managing to keep her feelings at bay. When I got home I went straight to the little fella to give him a hug and a pat. All I could say through the tears was "stupid fucking dog, why did you have to do it?"

I said goodbye to him this morning set off to work in tears.

That’ll do for this post.

in for a penny

2011-12-15T21:40:00.001+11:00

After a little umming and ahing I signed up for Janathon again. So, with some trepidation I shall attempt to purge myself of the following bad thoughts and prepare to look forward to the runniness ahead.

Deep breath...

January in Sydney is bloody horrible and it's not unusual to have days that start with humidity out near 100%. That said, typing "it's not unusual" always makes me smile and I now have Tom singing in my mind. Which is a good thing.

Second daughter Harriette is 7monhs old and largely nocturnal. But meh, it's only running. One foot goes in front of the other and as long as I can get to the end of the street without falling asleep on my feet I should be OK.

All of my road-runners are knackered and so are my knees. And I've decided, for a change, to buy some Nike Pegasus for no better reason than I get 2 pairs from wiggle for the same price as one pair of my trusty Asics Nimbus at their still-bend-you-over-Aussie sale price.

I now live further away from work and although that means a slightly longer commute - I run to work - it also means fewer opportunities to run and therefore potentially far fewer miles. But as this is just a bit of fun and not a competitive thing that is no biggy. If I keep I telling myself that I hope that I may one day believe it. Alas, it is not yet working. But I really need to see how I feel when Jan gets here.

On Jan 1st I will be driving about 500km with my soon-to-be-3year old who I am solo parenting. Opportunities to run further than a couple of laps of the car (without child services taking my kids away from me) will be limited-to-absent. Hardly a good start. But at least I'll not be doing "Beyond The Black Stump" which I started this year with and which damn near killed me.

My Garmin decided to explode. Until I get a new one I shall be tracking either manually or with my Blackberry. Which is a pain in the arse.

I feel better after that cathartic whinge.

I am genuinely looking forward to Janathon and now feel I can gorge myself stupid between now and the New Year wit relative impunity.

For the record, the new commute to work is 10.5km, and that is what I ran today. You will, dear reader, get very bored reading about the hill up to Mosman, the climb up to Milsons Point and Thrupp Street. Which is - trust me on this - a proper bastard of a thing.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Janathoners and remember - Xmas Pud is all good carbs.

Me and my monkey

2011-12-11T20:00:00.001+11:00

I really have been quite crap at keeping this up to date and I am going to blame, with little justification, being busy and the thief of online-time that is Facebook. Plenty of that busy time spent on status updates with a shelf-life of...well, nothing. So what brings be back here? Three days lone parenting with my little lady while my big lady wife and little baby daughter are in Melbourne for the father-in-laws 70th birthday; partners and non-breast-feeding grandchildren not required. As there is a big Christmas gathering on the Gold Coast, and as we had brickies putting some walls up, and because someone needs to look out after the dogs...I stayed and so did Alex.

Day one was Friday (day off work, re-sult!) and as Sal and Harrie were off to pick up Mara in Randwick I decided, after a bit of umming and ahing, to grab a lift so AJ and I could have breakfast out east. Sal dropped us at the very top of Oxford Street and we headed toward the City, first searching for a cafe. The one we found was called Cafe Cafe (I think) and is in a side street and we sat outside in the early morning sunshine. Alex had banana bread and a hot chocolate (marshmallow - of course) and I had an Israeli Omelette which was pretty much like any other omelette without bacon or prawns - nice though. Alex and I goofed about and had a great old time before heading onwards towards the city. When I stop to think about it - which I do occasionally - I am amazed that I can go out with Alex as a sort of equal. Of course I need to look out for her and she does not fully grasp all the stuff she says, but we can have the sort of laugh and joke that I would have with anyone. Slightly less profanity. I'm not kidding when I say she's my mate.

I thought about getting a bus, but we were doing OK and foot and just kept on going. The emerging plan was to walk to Circular Quay, so shopping en route, then jump on the ferry to Manly and from there get a bus home in time for the lunchtime snooze. And that is pretty well how it turned out. We had a bit of a rest in Hyde Park, chilling out near the fountain before heading towards the opening shops in the Pitt Street Westfield. Idea here was to grab a couple of Christmas presents for Sal, but AJ was tiring some and I felt border-line physically sick inside that shopping centre. So we kept on moving. At Wynyard, which must have been about 4km in, AJ had had it and I carried her a couple of hundred yards so she could have a bit of a rest before we boarded our ferry.

After a typically fabulous trip on the ferry - come on, is there a better deal in this city? - I figured it was snack o clock so we headed to the creperie (sp?) for a top up. A quick stroll down the Corso and I finally managed to get the Christmas shopping stated. But with Alex laying on a shop floor I could see I needed to get a wriggle on and get her back for a snooze. We jumped a bus up the hill, then at Seaforth I stuck the little lady on my shoulders and hoofed it home where she promptly passed out for two and a half hours.

I, of course, arsed around and probably wasted most of my time looking at online auctions at cameras I'm not going to buy and checking Facebook for status updates that I can't remember because let's face it, no one cares. Really, they don't. Should have had a kip.

With a shortish afternoon left we wrapped presents and then headed out to the local play park and for a fish and chip dinner. Showered and pyjamaed the little lady zonked and I had a couple of cans of Guinness before heading to bed feeling it had been a job well done.

Hang on, I've forgotten something...we, of course, phoned Sal. Our conversation before the call went a little like this (reproduced from a Facebook post with permission of the author)

OK Alex, we need to keep the presents a secret from mum so we can surprise her on Christmas day, got it?
YES!
So if mum asks "what did you and daddy do while I was away" what do you say?
SHOPPING!
And if mum asks "what did you buy?" what do you say?
PRESENTS!
And if mum asks "where are the presents?" what do you say?
(pointing) They're in there!

Just in case Sal is reading and does not remember, I shall censor this bit...I called Sal and handed the phone to Alex who immediately said "mum, we went shopping, we got a 'purple aardvark' for you!" Oh dear.

Fortunately for Sal there are 3 presents she (AJ) does not know about. So even after she (Sal) interrogates the little lady, something which will surely happen, possibly with Alex tied to a chair, a table-lamp in her face and a slapping glove nearby. Sal does not await Christmas with much integrity. I guess it is the Catholic thing; if she apologises enough anything will be forgiven.

Chances of completing posts for Saturday and Sunday are slimmish, so to summarise. Had a great time, Alex was tops, we went to see Puss in Boots, her first cinema trip. She was transfixed, any fear of her being a pain and/or us having to leave early was utterly unfounded. Had a couple of breakfasts by the beach (Dee Why with Jason, who we bumped in to as he was returning from a dawn photography trip, on Sat) and the Manly on Sunday (with added scootering), we caught up with JCJ and Susan, we walked Rowlf around the block, we played on the trampoline. We did not watch any television. We read Jack and the Beanstalk. And in the meantime a fucking great wall (quite large, but also tops, so "fucking great" in both senses) went up around our front garden. I've run out of Guinness so I'm on the red.

It has been a fantastic weekend. One on one with Alex is...and this will come back to bite me in the arse...easy. Free of the logistics of two kids and able to give her the attention she deserves she is a complete pleasure. I'll be honest; there are times when I want to rip her head off. But we've had none of them this weekend.

back in the water

2011-11-17T10:33:00.002+11:00

sheesh, the strobe works, a photo by Auswomble on Flickr.

Although I had a large Northern Diver bag with 'Dive Pack' in bold letters on the side I was still not convinced, as I queued at the Sydney check-in, that I would be doing any diving in Fiji. I had all my snorkelling gear and my wetsuit; the rest of the bag was stuffed with kids toys for general splashing around.

Fast forward to Fiji - Plantation Island Resort - and it took me very little time to jump in the water in my board shorts and rash vest, masked and snorkelled, and head out into the water that was about 30ft from the door of our bure. I can't remember the exact temperatures, but I'm fairly sure both air and water were hovering around 28degrees.

Over the next few days I spent a decent amout of time going up and down the reef out front of the resort, getting myself comfortable on and under the water. I was quite glad with the way my breath-hold came along and was pretty comfortable heading to about 8m. Any deeper would have required a shovel. By the end of the holiday I was comfortably staying at around 5m long enough to click off a couple of pictures, mess about with my camera settings, and drift back to the surface without my lungs exploding. I'm no Jacques Mayol, but for the gentle bimbling I was doing after a long lay-off I was happy. In fact I was quite surprised at how quickly the "BREATH NOW!" feeling was replaced with a far calmer "loads of time" (look up) "and beside, the surface is just there."

Most of my pictures were taken on breath hold on the local reef, and although it is not a great site there is plenty on offer for anyone prepared to put a bit of time in looking for stuff. I found loads of anemone fish, a striped sea snake, (too many) crown of thorns, cardinal, angel and butterfly fishe, shrimp goby and industrious shrimps, loads of clams, coral trout, jeuvenille wahoo, a decent sized octopus, flounder, feather star, sea cucumbers, batfish and more besides - but you get the idea; lots of stuff. Most non-dive days i was spending a couple of hours drifting over the reef. Visibility was variable, and it seemed the low tide was best, although the high tide seemed to bring in nutrient rich water and bring out the clams. On the high there was a real mix of water temperatures - probabaly ranging from warm to very warm. It took about a week of board-short and rash vest days before I shivered. Not bad.

And I also dived. Five - yes 5 - dives.

The first was a single afternoon dive to The Plantation Pinnacle, a coral pinnacle that comes from 24m to about 7m on the top and has a swim through at the bottom. Dive plan was find the pinnacle, swim through the swim through and then spiral up and around before a safety stop and return to the boat. The swimthrough, although quite large, had a good sized chunk of coral on the right hand side that I did not want to touch. I was keenly aware that I'd not dived for three years and was in hire gear. This would test me. I think I prodded a single finger into the sand as I exited the passage and was a little disappointed with myself. I looked back to see who was behind me so I could ask them when back on the boat how I had looked; they had their hand on the floor and were leaving a small cloud of sand in their wake so I figured I'd done OK. I'm not a massive fan of reef diving so don't recall much detail other than it being thoroughly pleasant. I do recall a lot of anemone fish on the top that I spent an extended period watching as I made my way back to the boat after everyone else but the dive guide. I guess my air consumption is still OK. A nice confidence boosting reintroduction to bubble blowing.

Next up was a double dive starting with the wreck of the Salamander. I buddied up with Chris from Melbourne; the backplate, cannister light and general "knows-his-shitness" on display gave me a feeling of confidence. I felt a little guilty about the attention I was paying my camera (more so when I saw how blurry my pics were.) Anyway, depending on who you listen to the wreck is 30, 36 or 40m long, but everyone agrees it is a cruiser and that, depending on the tide, it is in about 27m of water. It is a perfectly pleasant dive but not as exciting or encrusted as the blurb would have you believe. I think I've been spoilt with wrecks in the past. We popped around and through the upper desck but the dive guide grabbed Chris's fin when it looked as if we were about to drop down another deck level. Which we probabaly were. Ah well. Highlight was definitely the ghost pipe fish on the stern - a critter I'd not seen before.

The second dive was a reef dive that I've forgotten the name of. It was a wall sloping shrply to about 30m on the sand but we stayed at around 18m. I think I was just glad to be back in the water and that was enough; when I go back I'll be paying more attention. We bimbled along and I took a few more shots, one or two of them reaching the dizzy heights of "OK." Out of practice, so there is a mix of the underexposed and the fried-with-the-strobe. I kept gazing away from the reef in the hope of spotting a shark but to no avail. So it was reef fish, hard and soft corals and again perfectly pleasant again, without knocking my socks off. To be honest, I think I was more interested in just being in the water, making sure I felt comfortable and so on. Pleasantly surprised to grab a couple of anemone fish shots that I kinda like.

Next dives were another double and were supposed to first go to the Supermarket where we should find sharks. As it turned out we did the Supermarket second and first was Bird Rock. Again they were lovely dives and I took some more pictures - none of sharks. Nevermind. Chris shot his SMB a couple of times and I took some pictures of that, and another of him taking a picture of me. Odd to think that we were sitting just off a reef that many people would give their right nut to dive.

OK, bottom line, because if I don't post this now I never will...three year lay-off but I can still hold my own and in unchallenging conditions I still feel very comfortable.

When I got home I started to go through my old dive gear. Well, you never know...

just like paradise

2011-10-21T12:53:00.000+11:00

The blog has been neglected for a while, so I figured I'd pop back in to make sure it still exists.

This morning was one of those perfect Sydney mornings that serve to remind me why I live here. I didn't move to Sydney for the people or the sport or the work, I moved here because of the lifestyle on offer. I remember something which may or may not have actually happened but is what I tell people is the reason I decided to move here. About 13years ago, while on a work trip, I was sitting on the deck of Skiffies, a small boating club at The Spit that looks out on middle harbour. It was winter, I was wearing shorts, drinking beer that cost under a pound-a-pint while watching yachts sail past. Decision made. It was relatively early in my scuba days and here was a city where I could dive every weekend. As it turned out I would dive every weekend and often after work.

Anyway, before we get too misty-water-coloured...I now go over Spit Bridge each day on the way to and from work. And so it was this morning. Rewind Two hours and i was up at 5:15 and walking the dogs at 5:30. Blue skies, a few fluffy clouds being lit pink-orange-golden by the sun coming up over the ocean was my intro to Friday. Back home I shared some too-brief-moments with the ladies before hitting the road for work at about 7:20. It takes about 4mins for me to get my first view of the harbour and the ocean, from the top of the hill that Seaforth, the new home suburb, sits on. Then it is down the near-vertical Gallipoli steps before I get to Spit Bridge. middle harbour this morning was pretty damn flat; hardly a ripple and the reflections of the yachts and tinnies were picture perfect. On the south side I loop under the bridge, which is a whole lot better than crossing over the busy road, and takes me to sea level, depending on the tide.

As I head towards Skiffies I typically see three of four pelicans perched on poles at the end of the jetties. Occasionally one will be lazily swimming past. Past Skiffies, which is closed for renovations at the moment, I head away from the main road and up Parriwi. It is a bastard of a hill. However, it does have a few things going for it. First there is the view you get to the left (east.) Middle harbour, the heads and the ocean. Yachts go past, kayaks, the odd small fishing vessel that still goes out from this part of Sydney. Lovely. Then there are the houses. This part of Mosman sits atop a big pile of money, and although there is some old housing stock left there is plenty of evidence oh architects having had a bit of fun. The eastern side of the road drops away very sharply, and it is incredible to see what it is possible to build up in the air. In training terms you get the opportunity, every so often, to race bikes up the hill. The guys on their road bikes usually fly past, but some of the more casual cyclists on their mountain bikes can be beaten. And finally, today, being in an unusually good mood, i had Dave Lee Roth's "This Must Be Just Like Living in Paradise" stuck in my head. In short, it was a good start to the day and the run.

At the top of Parriwi I joined Military Road. The run keeps going up, albeit at a far gentler gradient, right the way to Mosman Junction. It's a bit of a slog, and you're running with the buses and nose-to-tail cars, so not as much fun. But every so often you get another glimpse of the ocean if you look down the side streets. At mosman Junction I caught up with a road-biker and we had a chat. He's broken a gear cable and was therefore now on a fixie - which was why I'd caught him. but up on the ridgeline he had the advantage and once the lights changed he was off, legs spinning a bit more than he'd like.

I was idly musing upon the "Just Like paradise" thing when, for no apparent reason, the Guns N Roses cover of "Mama Kin" displaced Diamond Dave. Maybe because the road and the cars were a little less easy on the eye than the harbour and the yachts. That said, I did have a sulphur crested cockatoo to follow for a while as he flew along parallel with the road.

I was fairly sure I was out-pacing the traffic but started to concentrate a little too much on my right knee that had been feeling a bit stiff. My form was pretty ordinary, especially on the downhills where I felt I was putting the brakes on a bit too much. Ah well, I was approaching 64k for the working week, and I'm old, so it's to be expected. I pulled off of military Road at Neutral bay junction, running down Wycombe Road (a road name the locals have an inability to pronounce correctly.) This takes me within about 400m of my first proper residence in Sydney, once I'd finished dossing. I moved out when the tax breaks stopped.

As I approached the bridge, after dropping down to sea level at Anderson Park, I checked my time and it was, as expected, slow. I wasn't too concerned as I knew I was tired. I decided to take it easy over the bridge and try to enjoy the fact that I was running over Sydney Harbour Bridge, something I do every day and therefore take for granted. That lasted until almost half way when I spotted another runner in the distance and decided I should overtake him. Rather than pip him at the post I overtook with a few hundred yards before the end of the bridge (from steps-to-steps is 1.5km) and had decided that if he wanted to have a race then I'd go for it. He didn't but I kept the pace up and got over in a respectable 6.11 - in fact very respectable considering I'd dawdled (relatively) the first third.

Off the bridge it takes only a few minutes to get to the office...and that is how the day started.

Mustn't grumble.

my take on the riots

2011-08-16T10:00:00.000+10:00

I've been reading about the English riots (have there been riots in Wales or Scotland?) with the "I-live-in-Sydney-and-this-is-only-happening-on-TV" detachment I normally reserve for African famines and wars waged in the Middle East. Most of it washes over me, but today Charlie Brooker in the Guardian managed to hit the wrong nail square on the head and in doing so he inspired me to blog. To be fair, all he has done is put in plain, explicit language the point everyone I've read has missed. Here is the most-offending paragraph.

But perhaps it's better to nip future trouble in the bud with the use of deterrents. Obviously a small percentage of the rioters are sociopaths, and you'll never make any kind of impression on their psyche without a cranial drill. But the majority should be susceptible to threats. Not violent ones – we're not animals – but creatively unpleasant ones. Forget the water cannon. Unleash the slurry cannon. That kind of thing.

"We're not animals." Actually Charlie and co., we are animals. Although there are a handful of books and a fair few people who would like you to believe otherwise, the weight of evidence shows that we are, in fact, animals. We like to think of ourselves as quite clever and advanced animals because we have iPads and pilates, but we are little more than apes in clothes. So, if we assume that this is true (the assumption is only needed by those who don't like science, evidence and fact) we should be able to work out why people do what they do.

As luck would have it we don't need to work it out because it has already been worked out. We do what we do in order to fuck and fight, or put a little more eloquently, to attract mates and intimidate rivals. Simple as that. If you are male lion or gorilla you will grow big and strong, get lots of attention from the ladies and punch-on with any bloke who thinks he can have a pop at you. I'm not making this up; go and watch the Discovery Channel and see it for yourself.

The "I am big and strong and can kick your teeth in" strategy does break down when the number of potential rivals and mates explodes and they are smart enough to have iPads and pilates. But the primitive principle remains the same. I do what I do because it will attract mates and intimidate rivals. Why am I writing this? I am writing this because it shows how smart I am. So fellas...I am far smarter than you and the ladies will luuuurve me for that. Our mates and rivals come from our immediate social grouping. There is some mingling between societies and societies do change over time, but overwhelmingly you need to look at a society ("society" might not be the correct word, but I'll stick with it) to see how and who they fight and fuck.

So when Charlie says this in an earlier paragraph

Why the obsession with trainers? Trainers are shit. You stick them on your feet and walk around for a while 'til they go out of fashion. Whoopie doo. Yes, I know they're also status symbols, but anyone who tries to impress others with their shoe choice is a dismally pathetic character indeed – and anyone genuinely impressed by said footwear has all the soaring spirit of a punnet of moss. There's no life to be found in "look at my shoes". There just isn't.

He is once again missing the point. Status symbols are precisely how you attract mates and intimidate rivals. Charlie may do this by using his wit at a dinner party. An unemployed kid on a council estate will do it with an iPhone and expensive kicks. It really is as simple as that.

So the posturing we see from the well-off intelligentsia is just a bit sad. They make a lot of good points and miss the big one. You can hammer politicians, parents, police and the polish as much as you like. But when nicking a tele and throwing a brick at a policeman is your best bet for intimidating your rivals then that is what will happen. Fancy trainers, bling, disrespect for authority - intimidate rivals and attract mates.

A couple of decades of reality TV, shallow, plastic heroes, me-me-me-me-me and easy credit got us here; this is what we are supposed fuck and fight over? If you're going to remove it - or going to plough on with no Plan B (unless B is for Baton-Charge) - then you really should have a deeper think before you come down too hard on the fucking fighters. Fighting and fucking are unlikely to go out of fashion any time soon. So naming and shaming are unlikely to stop someone who places the same value on his ASBO that you do on your Degree.

One more thing before I finish. Back to science; the human brain does not finish developing until it is about 20yrs old and before that happens there is a period of risk taking and boundary pushing. It's why teenagers are bullet proof and many get pissed and pregnant. Disregarding normal sentencing rules and being tough on crime is unlikely to significantly alter brain chemistry in the human population.

newspaper mache

2011-08-05T14:18:00.004+10:00

news paper mache, a photo by Auswomble on Flickr.

A few doors down from where I live is a development of 4 houses that are all very nice if you like houses that look a bit like aircraft hangers. Architect designed, I guess. There is a gate to the driveway and at the top of the drive, just outside the gate, are 4 letter boxes, painted a similarly tasteful-but-bland gray as everything else in the development.

In Australia, it seems, newspapers are typically delivered by a middle aged guy in a car. These "delivery boys" will slow their car a little and throw the paper from the window of the still-moving car in the general direction of the letter box. When I was a boy back in England it was traditional for the delivery boy to put papers in letterboxes. And papers were mostly delivered by schoolkids. But I digress.

Under the letter boxes is the slowly mushing remains of a number of newspapers. It looks a bit of a mess actually. But no-one seems to care. Each day as I walk past I see the mush sitting there. Must have been there for at least a month, probabaly more. Every so often a new paper arrives.

Each day the people who live in those four houses need to come and go through that gate, and each Tuesday, bin-day, they must wheel their garbage bins past the mush to the edge of the street. And each day of each week of the at-least-a-month not one person has tidied up the mess. The rest of the development looks all super-stylish in a glass and dull grey hanger way. I wonder why they let the papers shit the place up?

This is what I have come up with. None of the people living in these four houses recognise the papers - there are at least 3 - as their own. So each and every person has decided that they're not going to pick up someone else's litter, no matter that the now-not-paper-but-rubbish sits on their shared driveway - so sits on the property or each and every one of the residents. Maybe it is because the papers sit just outside of the gate, a gate that shuts them off from the rest of the street, maybe the rest of the world. Maybe a world that they are scared of or do not care for. Who knows?

To balance things a little. Our street is actually a very nice street where the hermits are in a the minority. Our neighbours and us share each other's bins when ours are full and if we see that the neighbours bins are still out in the evening we may wheel them back. In fact, when I had to go back to the UK a couple of years ago Vince even cut the lawn in front of our place when he finished cutting his own. We, you see, do not live behind gates.

Ho-hum.

(for the record, I have seen people coming and going - in their cars, of course, I have not had the opportunity to speak to any of the begated ones - so it's not a case of the papers are building up because all the residents have been murdered and no one has noticed. Well, I don't think it is.)

Go West

2011-07-31T13:41:00.005+10:00

There is something not quite right about this sentence: This Sunday morning I got up at 04:20 to drive out to Sydney's Western suburbs and ran a marathon right next to a motorway. I am sure there was a time when, if I was man-alone, I would call the lads and we'd go out and drink beer or stay in and drink beer. Probably watch some sport, maybe play some cards. As Bucks Fizz wisely said, now those days are gone.

It was serendipity that brought me to the start line of the M7 Westlink Marathon. At least I think it was, I've not looked up the meaning of 'serendipity' yet. This week I was told our open house was being moved from Sunday to Saturday and 'DailyMile' Andrew had posted that he was doing the M7 race on Sunday. I think I read his post before the open house was moved, because I replied "I would if I could but I can't." And then I could. And then I couldn't when I was thinking about paying Sal a surprise visit. And then I could when it turned out that the whole household was fluey and should be quarantined.

Hmmm. I've not done any marathon training for a while, but I did have the base from Juneathon. I also had a bit of a wonky right knee and an unhappy middle toe on my left foot. I did a couple of very average runs in the week and then, on Friday, without being completely committed, I entered the race. There was a large element of "let's see how far you've come" about my decision. Could I do the distance on little more than a whim and while not 100% fit? One way to find out.

The wonderful build up continued on Saturday when I had only a slice of banana bread to eat before 3.30 in the afternoon and I spent 6hrs on my feet walking my dogs. Left toe still felt a bit bleugh. Not being completely stupid I did have a homebrew Gatorade and made sure I was well hydrated. The epic build up continued on Saturday night when I went out to dinner with the gang from the dog park, sans dogs. I think they took pity on the sad man-alone who was spending his time watching news and documentaries in a rather soulless house. Whatever it was, the food and company were great (Vietnamese, more on that later) and I was smart enough to leave at a about 9:15 so I would get a half decent sleep.

In bed at about 10 and up at 04:20. Toe? Bleugh. I ran up and down the street a bit and tried to work out what I should do. Google offered advice; look after your feet, you only have one pair, don't ignore pain. Pain? Not exactly, more an annoying throbbing blisteresque ache that I convinced myself would be easily ignorable after a couple of km. Bugger it, I'm up now and I've paid, might as well have a bash.

Armed with a map book published before the M7 existed and a GPS that had no knowledge of Blacktown Olympic Park I managed to get just a bit lost and was pretty sure I'd miss the bus to the start and miss the race. As luck would have it the bus drivers had no idea what time the race was starting and there were two buses still in the car park. I grabbed my bag and ran over.

It was about 06:40 when I collected my race number and got changed. 'DailyMile' Andrew spotted me (I am bloody hopeless at the best of times, which 06:40 on a really very cold Sunday is not.) He was with Jo, we said a quick hello and I headed to drop my bag off. On the way (other) Andrew, who runs around my street dragging a car tyre on a rope, spotted me and we had a quick chat. He was looking for 3:20 to qualify for Comrades. He appears normal but must be a little madder than most.

There was a nice size field of maybe 250 as we lined up and listened to someone say something. I clapped politely when other people clapped, the gun fired and we head off. The course runs along the bike path that runs along the M7 motorway and it is therefore just a little surreal, as most races tend to try and go for something touristy and spectacular. The sun coming up though the mist that hung over the fields was very nice; all rural and atmospheric. The smell of the battery chicken farm next to the tip not quite so. But it did appeal very much to my love of running in places that other people do not. Well, apart form the other 249ish who were, but you get my drift.

With little training for the race (well none) I thought I'd be happy to come in at under 3:30, so I set off ahead of the 3:30 pacer. If he didn't go past me - job done. After a couple of kilometres where I had been preoccupied with just how fucking cold my hands were I found myself up near the 3:15 pacer. I decided to stick with him (Chris) as any quicker would definitely be overcooking it and storing up trouble for the 30k+ section.

And that was pretty much what I did. I chatted to a few people who were at a similar pace - the Kiwi who gave me waaaay too much detail about his diarrhoea and the local who was telling us that he would point out when we got to 'Snake Hill' where he had pretty much stepped on a brown snake. It was a pleasant enough trundle, surprisingly challenging due to having a hill almost every time there was a bridge over the motorway. Plenty of bridges makes for a undulating course.

Remember that Vietnamese food I said we'd revisit? Well it revisited me at about 30km. I had to peel off and find a tree to squat behind, losing valuable time and my spot with the 3:15 pacer as I Radliffed. Rejoining the race I spent about a km trying to catch up but was concerned that if I overcooked that I would pay later. My Garmin, which had died as soon as switched it on - low battery, apparently - was of no use. But hey, I figured I wanted sub-3:30 so I still had loads in the bank. Chris remained in sight for most of the run in, but as the km clicked over I did start to struggle a little bit. and gave up on trying to catch him.

At 34km I had my first emo moment and it was an odd one. I'm used to thinking of Dad and getting a bit teary, but this time I just wanted to have my dogs with me. I miss having them in our for-sale-house; even Rumpole - and he is a right pain in the arse. At 38km I shouted "MORE COWBELL!" at the woman with the cowbell, which probably means more to my brother than it would to her. Great encouragement though, cap doffed to her. I did have a quick Dad moment, but that was after 41km when I pointed skywards and told him I didn't need him on this one. Took the wind out of my sails for about a hundred yards, but the old bastard can have that.

I had ground out the final few km and came over the line somewhere between 3:17 and 18. No Garmin and I wasn't paying too much attention to the clock. It was 12mins quicker than I would have been happy with and I think my third fastest road time. I'l take that. I went over to have a shower and found myself incredibly cold. Finger tips yellow (circulation inherited from Dad) and shivering a barely controllable shiver. And my left little toe, I was fairly sure, had an enormous blister. I chose not to look and after my shower didn't put shoes back on.

Emo III came as I walked back over to the finishers area and I desperately wanted to speak to Alex. I called and Sal's phone went to voicemail. I could hardly get any words out to start with, but regained composure after a few seconds. Bloody high miles! Does it to me (almost) every time. I wandered about trying to spot familiar faces. I'd already thanked Chris for his great work on the 3:15 bus. I found 'Comrades' Andrew and he had pulled 3:12, well within qualifying. I then found the nameless Snake Hill runner (I told you I was hopeless, but thanks to DailyMile Andrew I now know his name is Ian) and had a quick chat before realising he was standing right next to DailyMile Andrew. In my defence, Andrew had been wearing black before the race, and a hat I think, but white afterwards and no hat. Mainly I am just hopeless. He was chuffed with his 3:28. I later discovered he had pulled a 33min PB which is mind blowing.

I would have liked to have hung around a bit longer, but I was feeling extremely cold and not at all my best, so I said goodbye and head back to the car and its heater. I'm no entirely sure driving while feeling so ordinary was a great idea. But hey, having this beer probably isn't a great idea, but I'm doing that.

Marathon 11 done and I feel no compulsion to do any more this year.

But that'll change.

the wash up

2011-07-05T19:19:00.001+10:00

I went into Juneathon having run "only" 116km in May. A mere 16 of those km had been in the second half of the month. I had a nagging cold that refused to either develop into proper ManFlu of go away. I was not enjoying myself and had decided I'd not be running the Gold Coast Marathon this year. The lack of late-training was only one of a number of reasons; selling and buying a house, a newborn, I'd quit and then un-quit my job. I'd lost my running mojo and thought Juneathon would give me a little boost. Knock out a few runs, make sure I got out there each day and have a little fun with it. Nothing serious...

I know I can run a cold off, so after a few days of feeling shitty when I set off I knew that as long as I got moving I'd be alright. I had a stubborn planter wart on my left little toe - it's been there for years - that objected to me running and would typically feel as if I was sticking pins into my foot for a couple of hundred yards and then calm down. I got a few blisters, but nothing to stop me. I was off and running.

I looked through the participant list and after 3 days I did not see Gary "LocalAdventure", Janathon's massive mileage man. So he was either absent or had missed a day and therefore was out of the medals. Jenks was back, and I knew he could throw down some decent miles, but hey, I'm not in it it to win it, so no big deal eh? OK, sod it, let's see if I can win the thing.

I figured I'd be able to run the equivalent of a half marathon each day, around 21km. This would be an extra 5km on my Janathon average. But I'd not have the humidity to deal with and being a little busy on the home front I'd not be doing many interesting (aka time consuming) miles. It would be pavement-pounding to and from work and at lunchtimes. All local stuff. Weekends might be a logistics struggle, but, well, meh. So that was the plan and, within a bit, the outcome. I "lost" one day to my toe. At the death I could feel another cold approaching so knocked the last miles out with a day to spare. Happy days. I had told myself that consecutive 10km runs of over an hour would mean I should drop the miles. I slowed, but didn't slow too much.

So, how did I pull up? Towards the end I was struggling but once I was moving I felt OK. Without wishing to sound too glib, if you want to see what the body can do you look to those fighting nasty land wars or lost in the wild or fleeing for their lives. We're a soft bunch when given the chance. The battle is all in the mind, not in your shoes. So says me. My left little toe didn't get any better and is still somewhat skanky. My right leg aches and the knee feels a bit off, but there is no clicking or grinding and I am fairly certain it is all muscular. If anything it seems a little worse since I stopped running. I put that down to muscles relaxing and my body getting a little out of shape. Pretty sure it will shape up again before too long. I did virtually no stretching throughout June. I have a bit of a theory; well, I was chatting with a mate a few months back and what he said makes sense. If all you do is run then having loose, supple muscles is of no real benefit. If anything it is a greater risk; what you need is proper, firm suspension. It seems to work for me. I'll try to fit in some swimming in to stretch myself out a bit, that's about it. The cold finally came and got me. Again, mental I think. With the goal reached you breath a huge mental and physical sigh of relief and that opens up the cracks for the cold to get through. Only lasted a few days, assisted by screwed aircon at work. Pretty much everyone was off with some sort of lethargic, sneezy, coughing thing.

I'm unlikely to be back in January because this year I need to drive several hundred kilometres over Xmas and the New Year for the family shin-dig on the Gold Coast. And I still remember what high-miles in a Sydney summer feel like - bloody horrible. But you never know. Juneathion appeals, so maybe I'll come back to defend my title (hahahahaha!) I am a little goal driven; I wonder if anyone has won 2 Juneathons? Or won two back-to-back? But does back-to-back need to be June then Jan? Who knows. My goal of a sub-3 marathon seems to be drifting away from me, but there are other goals. How far can I run in one go? How far in one day? Will I ever find out? Don't know. Funny, I've not run for 6 days and I'm already looking for the next challenge. For a while I think I'll just grab the cameras and head out to take some pics.

And before I forget; big respect to Cathy for once again putting this together. I will, of course, give her a slap with a sweaty in-sole should I ever meet her in person. But it will be done with love.

Seeya next year.

there is one more thing

2011-06-30T18:03:00.002+10:00

Last night was all a bit odd because I got home from my run to an empty house. Proper empty. Sal and the girls are still away and most furniture is in storage or piled up in the sunroom. I found the TV (on AJ's bed) and the aerial (on an otherwise empty bookshelf) and stuck them on the kitchen bench. I found my modem and router in a mangled pile of cables in the TV cabinet that had been moved to the sunroom. I took them to the lounge (drop sheets on floor, 2 ladders, no furniture) and plugged them in. Fired up the laptop on the kitchen bench. The house was a mess, but I had Guinness, TV and the internet, so it could have been a lot worse. I wasn't really tired or hungry or anything much. I sort of stood there dazed for a bit, then I fed the dogs and made myself a sarnie. AJ's high chair was in her bedroom and I eventually sat on that while I watched a bit of tele. My brother wasn't on facebook, so no chatting with him. Oh well. I logged my miles, finished my blog, packed away the stuff I'd just unpacked and went to bed. The Dunkel will be for tonight.

I had a fairly ordinary night's sleep, waking up a few times, snotty, but not bunged up. I got up at about 5:15. Legs were still working and cold was still lurking. I grabbed my Blackberry and Garmin and took the dogs to the park. The metres today were pretty simple. Once I was ready to head home I jogged over to the bin, 31metres from where I'd been standing, and dumped my coffee cup. I stopped the timer, clipped the dogs leads to their collars and walked home, Juneathon running obligations complete.

I loaded the GPX file from the Blackberry when I got to work.

I blogged.

I tweeted.

And now it's over.

Leaving me feelnig just a little empty.

But I'll get over it.

And as with Janathon...there is one more thing...

done

2011-06-30T08:18:00.000+10:00

Done.

marathon mileage

2011-06-29T16:02:00.004+10:00

Eyes open. Sniff. Hmm. That seems a blocked. Stand up. Eurgh. Walk to bathroom. Hoik and spit. Luckily the lightglobe in the bathroom died last night so I didn't get a chance to look at whatever I spat into the toilet. But I am fairly sure it was green. With chunk expelled my pipes seemed relatively clear and the cold had been kept at bay, still not on my chest. So it looks like I'll be running then. As is the norm I took the dogs for a walk and grabbed my medicinal coffee. By the time I got home I felt almost human.

The running really is a grind at the moment and for that reason I am stubbornly sticking to well known routes while I chase my target total. That, of course, does not make for especially interesting reading. So I ran to work again today and like yesterday added a little bit to the day before. Today I finished at a shade under 17km. The idea was to run until nigh-on 9am, seeing how far my Cliff Young shuffle would carry me. Anything interesting to add? Er...it was a bit warmer this morning, overcast too. The thought occurred to me as trotted in that a target of 633km for the month does not need to be exceeded by much to get to 400miles. I did the rough maths with the 1.6 and figured 640 could be the new target. Yes, I know...

I had a meeting at 3pm that was shifted to 2pm so the second run - out to Anzac Bridge and back - was at midday. Not as much recovery as I'd like, but this one would take me to and through my goal, so bugger it, just knock it out. And I did. Again, it was familiar miles that make for quite dull reading. As I headed out, once again needing to coax my legs into moving, I started thinking I'd got it in the bag. I stopped that thinking pretty sharpish, telling myself "you're not there yet, you're not there yet..." But on the return, as I passed the casino, I looked at the Garmin and saw I was through 25km for the day. A quick look to the heavens (atheist style) and a clenched fist and that was the celebrations done. Mission accomplished. I've not looked, but the warm squidgy feeling in my left shoe felt as like a popped blister. I can live with that.

It has been another day of goals. Six months ago, heading into Janathon, I had set myself a stretch-target of 10km/day. Then Gary and Jenks started to push me. It was unfortunate that Jenks copped an injury and even more unfortunate - for me (hahahaha!) - that Gary was hitting some freaky mileage. I clocked up a little over 500km in January, surpassing my wildest expectations. By the time I got to work today I had put over 100km on my Janathon total and doubled my first "..athon" goal. By lunchtime I had run the equivalent of a half marathon for each of June's 30 days - with a day to spare. Now I am faced with a choice. I can relax, content to have reached a goal that was, frankly, outrageous and has been achieved courtesy of a stubborn refusal to fail. Or do I say fuck it, in for a penny, in for a pound and add the 8.5km I need to reach 400miles. Which will also give me my highest Junathon one-day mileage.

How much better does a beer test at 400? Fuck I'm stupid. An hour till hometime, best listen to some wind-up music. Let's start with paradise City...

I did walk to Observatory Hill and waited seemingly aaagggeeessss for the Garmin to lock on. Then I headed north at a slow shuffle. And something odd happened. I felt fine. The kms clicked over relatively easily. Yes, my left little toe felt gooey and my right leg ached as it has for a week or more. But these things didn't concern me. I was running with a short-stride shuffle that was energy efficient...and I felt like I could just keep going. I set myself one final goal for the month. I was going to end the day having covered the marathon distance. I decided to run straight up the Pacific Highway to Chatswood and on the way was trying to work out how I could get the distance and end up near home. In the end i went past Chatswood, head down Boundary Street to Penshurst Street and when I got to the grog shop on Willoughby Road at 42.04km. I ran a hundred metres past, turned around and popped in as the marathon mileage clicked over. I got a Guinness.

Dad had come to mind at 38km and the tears had flowed as they often do. But I wasn't struggling. The image that came to mind was the old man shaking my hand and saying "go on son, I think you've got this one." He was right. Thanks dad, right as usual.

Sentimental nonsense over. Today has been a good day on the road.

my nose is running far better than my legs

2011-06-28T16:15:00.001+10:00

It came as no surprise that having felt ordinary yesterday I woke this morning with one completely blocked nostril and a strem of snot running from the clear one. I felt decidely ordinary. But when I got vertical my nose cleared enough for me to get some Vicks First Defence on board. I cleared my throat, reassured myself that my respitory system was not compromised and took the dogs out. By the time I'd finished my coffee and got home I felt almost human, clambered into the minging running gear and headed towards work. The run was a carbon copy of yesterday with a little around the piers to add a few more metres. Got in and went straight to the shop to grab some Panadol Cold and Flu MAX - they didn't have Lemsip. And the morning was done.

Later lunch today so I fuelled up on a foot-long meatball sub with the lot. I am sure Subway have other subs on the menu but I have yet to get past the meatballs. Was heading downhill by the time I was off and running and for a while there was a real disconnect between brain and legs. I had a floaty sensation that was bordering on dizzy. But after a couple of km I'd sweat that out and was once again shuffling around in my newly-typical shuffly way. Out to Anzac Bridge and Back. And yes, my miles today were the same as yesterday. And tomorrow, lungs allowing, they'll be the same again.

That's just the way I roll. Well, it is for the rest of the month.

come on you Dons!

2011-06-27T16:47:00.002+10:00

I was a Wimbledon FC supporter when there was a Wimbledon FC. I now, of course, follow the fortunes of AFC Wimbledon. But back in the day there were horrific afternoons of holding onto a one goal lead with 10minutes left. The team would start to play for time, something they were awful at. Taking the ball into the corner and badly protecting it or hoofing it from defence. Both "tactics" resulted in lost possession and gifting the opposition another chance to surge forward. It was arse-clenchingly horrible. The hardy band of supporters would scream "BLOW YOUR FUCKING WHISTLE REF!"

And that was pretty much how I felt this morning. In fact at one point I clearly heard, in my mind, my brother's voice screaming "BLOW. YOUR. FUCKING. WHISTLE." So close to the end and I am feeling as if I am desperately holding on to something that could quite easily slip away. But anyway, I don't feel like moaning too much. Which doesn't leave me with a whole lot to talk about. It was straight work and then a bit around the foreshore for the first knock, finishing with 12km on the board and then out to Anzac Bridge and back to finish off the day with 23km. Total miles came up in a under 2hrs, so I'm not dead yet. What to write, what to write...We're selling our house at the moment and the proceeds would just - and only just - get me the Mercedes 300SL Gull Wing that is front and centre at Classic Throttle in North Sydney. I stopped to take a pic of that. Again the weather was cracking, if a little on the chilly side - and yes, by local standards. Took one or two other pics, allowing myself the odd few small breathers. I'm really starting to wilt here today...

OK, I'll have a little moan then; I really need to coax my legs into moving at the moment. My right leg has had it. And I think the kid's snots got to me because I definitely feel as if I'm fighting off a cold. Mind you, the office aircon has shit itself, so everyone feels awful this afternoon. Propping a couple of doors open with chairs doesn't really cut the mustard. Right, time to wind down for the day. I'm really not a screaming mass of productive awesomenss right now.

make mine a half

2011-06-26T20:03:00.000+10:00

I don't think I could have prepared myself any worse for today's run. Sal had insisted I go to Kylie and Pau's for dinner and stay the night with the rest of my family. For a change. So I dutifully complied. Which was nice. Actually it was. Great food and great conversation. But I, naturally, had a beer with Paul. And then another one. And then a load of barbecued food (which was not a bad thing. Decent food - win. Body could probably do with the protein.) And then I had some wine and then a baileys (because I am comfortable with my sexuality.) So that wasn't too smart.

The kids - Alex and Harry plus Paul and Kylie's lass Grace - all had snotty noses. So I had some booze and threw some snot at my muted immune system. On the plus side the kids, sleeping on the floor either side of our bed, slept really well. Harry snorts a bit, and AJ woke up with a start at about midnight then fell straight back to sleep again, but they both pretty much slept right through. But for reasons that escape me there was a night light in the bedroom, sitting about a foot from my face. And it flashed. Like a miniature lighthouse. I woke up at about 2.30 feeling ropey went to the loo and had a glass of water and then slept only sporadically for the rest of the night. What the hell is that light all about? Didn't seem to rouse the ladies though. Oh, and I'd not patched my foot up. So all in all...well, it was a bit silly.

But wait, there's more. Sal was feeling rundown so I was on AJ duty this morning. I got her up and we headed out to the beach for breakfast. It was a stunning morning and I love spending time with my little lady so this is all good. But it did mean no morning run. And I was taking stuff to lockup storage in the early afternoon...so I'd have to knock all my miles out in one go. Later in the day. And then I'd have to run to work on Monday morning with limited rest time. Bugger.

blah blah blah blah. Cut to the chase. I knocked out a somewhat dull half in almost dead on 2hrs. So it was a slow slog. I popped into Gore Hill Cemetery on the way to try and write HELP with my GPS, which was the highpoint. It sort of worked. Not a fun run, but hey, suck it up ad take the punishment. No more Sundays in June. Probably the final single-run-total of the month.

Large pizza and coke to refuel. While sitting on the floor. Because I've taken my chair to lockup storage. bugger.

25 days and my life is still...

2011-06-25T18:04:00.002+10:00

Weekends have become a bit of a logistics mare. I tend to make sure I am available to do whatever Sal wants to do whenever she wants which is typically "now." I slot my running in around it. Trouble is, without anything to work around I can struggle a bit to slot my miles in. I'm pretty easy to work out. I need to run 42.2km over the two days and take my dogs for a walk and, if at all possible, take the big fella for a swim. He's an Irish Water Spaniel and the clue is right there in the word "water." So going in to today all I knew was that Sal wanted me to be at Kylie and Paul's, where the girls are staying in fume-free relative luxury, at 09:30. So the plan was to run 14km before getting over to pick up Sal ad then walk the dogs.

Which was a fine plan with only a couple of minor drawbacks. The running was a couple of loops of the standard snoozetastic lap along the freeway bike path. And I head out at 05:30 which is just plain masochistic. I could moan about it being 8 degrees, but that would be a bit soft. I did, however, wear some long pants and a hat because I am soft Aussie Kev. (Slightly seriously - this far into the month I am running a bit low on fuel and do feel the cold a bit more than usual.) What can I tell you about the run? It was dark and dull and I did it. Got back as the painters got ready to get cracking, pulled some less stinky clothes on and head out to get a warming coffee. The dogs were good today; both of them decided they'd fetch their respective toys right back to my feet, allowing me to sit on a bench and get even colder. Highlight of the walk back was seeing Rowlf, a 34kg hound, looking pretty small next to a 2yr old great dane.

Got to Kylie;s place at 9:30 to find the Sal wanted to be back at 11:30 so the girls could sleep. So I threw down some breakfast and then, with the girls heading off to sleep I went and did my third lap to bring up the day's total of a little under 22km. The third lap was every bit as thrilling as the first two, but at least it was daylight and warmer. Some miles are just like that. Got a passer-by to take a somewhat self-indulgent picture of me.

Tonight I'm also staying at Kylie and Paul's place and I was on wine buying detail. instructions were a bottle of sparkling red and a sparkling white. I know bugger all about wine so the red was Banrock Station because I've had it before and it was cheap and the white was Sir James, which was a medal winner and reminded me of Sid James.

I am such a connoisseur.

last Friday of June

2011-06-24T17:27:00.001+10:00

A few milestones today. I clocked up my 500th kilometre of June. I passed my Janathon total at 07:55 - and on the 24th day of the month. No more Friday's left in June - huzzah! Got to be pleased with that. And a funny thing happened on the way to the office. The day started, as most, with me hobbling off down the hill until I got a grip and just got on with it. But when I passed my Jan total I suddenly felt great. My legs stopped aching, I had a spring in my step and I lengthened my stride. I sped up. I SPED UP! I can't remember the last time I sped up. I felt as if I was movnig far mroe quickly than I had for ages. I made it over the bridge in 6:52, which is not especially quick, but pleasingly quicker. I think I said it towards the end of Janathon - I felt like Rocky-fucking-Balboa! Some chemical stuff must have kicked off in my brain; dopamine, seratonin? Buggered if I know. Good stuff though, and strenghtens my belief that this is all about the mental challenge. It's going to be tough, you're going to ache; do not let that stop you. No being soft; blokes once stood in trenches with their feet rotting while bombs and shit rained down on them and you're moaning about a planter wart. Get real.

Today's commute took me via Cremorne Point. Having abandoned thoughts of speed long ago I have started to stop whenever I see a friendly-looking dog walker with friendly-looking dogs. Only had fail once and that was with two odd looking blokes, each walking a dachshund. Which is odd in itself. They were miserable bastards. Today was all win. One jack russell, a husky, a minature poodle and two border collies provided me with four breathers. Stopping to take a pic at 500km provide another and by the time I got to work I felt fine and had another 14km on the board. Hmmm, thought I, if I knock out my Anzac Bridge 10km at lunch time I will payback the buffer I spent yesterday.

At lunch time I ran out to Anzac Bridge and back. Another lovely day for a run, but you must be getting bored with hearing about this trot. Got back feeling pretty pleased with myself, 24km on the 24th. And now the weekend has landed.

the western approach again

2011-06-23T12:09:00.003+10:00

Fig Tree Bridge, a photo by Auswomble on Flickr.

I dipped into my buffer a little bit today. Sal is seeing a couple of estate agents this afternoon so I'll be picking AJ up from her sports afternoon. I'll leave work early, which means no lunchtime run, which means I had to get all the Ks done before work. I'm not exactly speedy Gonzalez at the moment. I knew I'd not be able to do the full 21.1 before work...well, unless I'd left earlier, but that wasn't going to happen because I needed to walk the dogs and have my coffee and social with the regulars in the dog park. I did a bit of maths and decided I could be a slacker today (ha!)

I'd decided yesterday that I'd run to work along the bridges/Victoria Rd route. A couple of reasons. I need a bit of a change because running the same routes over and again is getting somewhat tedious. Although I've run the western approach a few times it is far fewer times than the straight-to-work-harbour-foreshore stuff. The other reason was that it would force me to do a decent total. If I'd run straight to work (7.5km) the temptation to stop instead of doing another 10km around the City may have been too hard to resist. I knew that Iron Cove Bridge was 11km, and even if I stopped there I would have managed to maintain my target average, albeit it at the expense of my entire buffer. As it turned out I managed a shade under 18km and therefore only "spent" 3km. Fairly pleased with that. The temptation to stop on Victoria Road is quite easy to resist; in the rush hour it is quicker to continue on foot than get on a bus. That was especially true today, at least up until the middle of the Iron Cove Bridge where there had been a shunt that took the outside lane out. Felt a bit for the person at the back of the accident; it looked as if they had swerved to avoid hitting the car in front and in the process had hit the steel of the bridge. That resulted in far more damage to the front of their car than if they had run into the bumpers of the car in front of them.

The run was OK. A hobbling start, and the shin-splintesque feeling in my left shin did, for a while, take my mind off of the general aches in the right leg. After a pee stop (lovely view from the pee stop, took a pic of Fig Tree Bridge) the splinty feeling went away and once again the right leg was front and centre in my aching mind. Legs still seem to work though. More fabulous running weather, cool and clear blue. Another day done and a 22hr break until I hit the road again. Gotta like that. At work I decided, for a change, to have some of Steve's whey protein; usually I take take the piss out of him for using Weightgain 4000 - BEEFCAKE! Sprinkled a couple of scoops on my muesli. Can't hurt, I suppose.

One week left. I think I've already used my week-weak pun for the month, so that's it for today.

Harriette

2011-06-22T15:01:00.001+10:00

A bit bored blogging my boring runs. Tomorrow is my second daughter will be 6weeks old. At 17:17 to be precise. There has been a shocking lack of internet space dedicated to her, though there are a fair few pics. Part of the reason is the manner of her arrival. Daughter #1 was a natural birth that knocked Sal around a bit but was all new and novel to both of us. However Harriette Mara was a caeserian and therefore a relative walk in the park. On the name. Mara is Sal's sister's name (Jo, Sal's other sister donated her name to Alexandra Jo.) Harriette was a name that Alex liked and stuck. The spelling is my fault; wasn't sure how to spell it so I stuffed in as many letters as I could get away with. If she wants to drop a few later in life then she can. We call her Harry or Hazza, so it hardly seems to matter. Oh, and the there is this.

Sal went private, so the birth was a bit like checking into a hotel, popping down for a prep and a pop-out and then back to the room. It really was very low stress, although that could have something to do with the discectomy Sal had been through a few weeks previously. Giving birth is, apparently, a piece of piss compared to spinal surgery.

Anyway, back to Harry. She is, so far, a carbon copy of AJ and that is no bad thing. Looks, behaviours, the lot. Just like her big sister she started packing weight on straight away. Already Sal has Harry in a routine and she is (please please please don't let me curse us) waking just once per night for a quick feed. She feeds well, really well. She is damn strong too - well, for a little takka (by the way, that is her nickname, Little Takka) and can lift and hold her head up for quite some time.

Tits! Time for the second run. This post is going to be all a bit back-to-front.

Right, back from run #2 and let's start with #1.

No bathroom or kitchen to use last night, but as I'd showered at lunchtime I did not have to sleep in my own grot. In fact I slept in a bed, what with the painters having finished the bedrooms. I toyed with the idea of taking the dogs for a quick walk to get some dinner, but the big fella is a bit of a handful at the best of times and this is not the best of times for my legs. I quickly fed the hounds and headed out to Pizza hut, not a normal haunt of min, but the nearest source of cheap calories. I bought a large capriciossa and a garlic bread, neither of which touched the sides. Also grabbed a big bottle of Aussie-brewed Guinness because Guinness IS Good For You. The night finished with me ripping as much dead flesh from the bottom of my left little toe as I could and then smearing it with some Scholl foot cream. I crawled into bed thinking I really should put the curtains back up but then fell asleep in the glare of the streetlight.

Toe was acceptable this morning, right leg dodgy. Not so dodgy that it stopped me walking the dogs, and by the time I got home it was warmed up enough. Not that this makes much difference, I was running to work anyway. Not a pleasant experience with the ache no extending from my knee up towards my groin. I suspect the main muscles are so fatigued that all the little ones you don't normally notice are being engaged to help out and it is these that are grumbling. Much as I am grumbling. Sorry dear reader, this is boring me too.

The run to work was the run to work which I've written about enough. To get the extra miles under my belt I headed over top of the Cahill walkway and then into the Botanic gardens where I clicked a couple of poor pictures before making my way to work. The 10km came up in around 14mins slower than my PB for the distance. in fact today I saw that my brother, a newish runner and not a small bloke, is currently as quick as I am. Give it another couple of days and he will be quicker than me.

Right, the plan for the rest of today is to do an early-lunch run and maximise recovery time. The mental struggle is a bastard now.

Run #2 was actually far more pleasant than #1. I think the reason is because once I am out and running I am fairly confident I will get the target distance done. Run #1, if it goes pear-shaped, might mean no run #2, so it is the first run where I am plagued by doubts and then once I am off and moving on the second I am pretty much sorted. And that was the story of today. Left a little before noon in order maximise recovery time before tomorrow. Another cracking, blue sky day. I made no attempt to run at anything other than a short-stride plod, though I have noticed that this means I am about as quick as most other runners I encounter. Anyway, it was another Anzac Bridge out and back and the combined-runs half came up in 1:51ish. I have set myself a cutoff of back to back over 1hr 10k runs. If I become that slow, or if I proper break, then I will stop. Eight days left.

I might be able to do this. Twenty two kilometres today, 22 days done.

a solstice slog

2011-06-21T16:57:00.001+10:00

Was planning not to run this morning but the painters had started on the bathroom yesterday so I couldn't have a shower at home last night or this morning. Hmmmm. So last night, wife-free, I slept in my own grot (luckily the smell of paint was stronger than the smell of me) and this morning I ran to work and had a shower here.

Another run of two halves today and Plan A was to do the reverse of last night's run home. At some point I changed my mind, remembering that Jo was running in today. She would be heading over the bridge, so I decided I would run over the bridge, back and then over again. The deck is 1.5km so that would add 3 to the 7.5 it is to work and get me my miles. Easy. Before I got to the bridge I stopped to take a pic of the confusing TR7. It has been pointed out to me that with enough money you can make any car look half decent, so I guess it is not too confusing. I didn't meet Jo on the bridge, but I did do the first crossing a little quicker than I intended, thanks to seeing a bloke in front who I caught and decided I would pass. Pretty dumb this far into Juneathon and guaranteed a slow second crossing. Third was middling.

Last Friday in Sydney there was an event called the City Mile Dash. Name gives it away really. Someone had chalked on the wharf along which the even was run 'Are you tough enough?" I could not help but think, as I clocked up about 430km for the month, are you taking the piss? I stopped to take a pic anyway. For the record, the winner covered the up-and-down-on-dead-flat-concrete course in 4:04. Pretty fucking swift. Unlike me. Towards the end of the run I was looking at my reflection in office windows I passed in order to reassure myself that I was moving at all. I felt as if I was stationary and being beaten around the calves and thighs with cricket bats. Properly grinding the miles out today. Ho-hum, half of it done.

Well that was quite horrible. From the first step there was pretty much no link between my brain and body. What little communication there was told me that my feet were bags of sand roughly attached by knackered bits of elastic. It was a little surreal actually. I felt properly vague. I was moving, but I didn't seem to have a lot of say in it, rather it was just something that was happening. The first 4km were like that. The highlight of the run - other than it ending - was the bit around Farm Cove. The "very strong winds" we'd been promised turned up all of a sudden. I could see the line on the harbour that was the front rolling in. I thought I was in for a soaking, but there were only a few spots of rain. I really do not like split training and wish I had the time available to knock all my miles out in one go each day.

Glad today's running is over. Bleugh.

splitting

2011-06-20T19:51:00.002+10:00

More split training today, something I'm not chuffed about, but if needs to be 2 runs then 2 it is. First the poor-me bit. Right leg all aches again today. Poor me.

First run of the day was out to Anzac Bridge and back, stock stuff. Nice and warm at lunchtime and, unusual for me in Sydney, I tried to run IN the sun instead of hugging the shade. Blue sky day. Lovely day (Bill Withers anyone?) Over Pyrmont Bridge there was a mobile blood donation van. I stopped the Garmin and had a bit of a natter with the crew. No change in the rules and my blood is still filthy mad cow juice, unwanted here in Australia. I asked if they could take some, label it and save it for me in case I get hit by a bus or a shark. I ran on without leaving any blood or getting my cuppa and biscuit. It was, of course, all in jest. This month would not be the best of months to give blood. So from there I ran out to Anzac Bridge and then back. Half way for the day.

I was idly wondering about how my body is working at the moment. I wonder what my body fat percentage is? I'm not ultra-lithe but I've not got a lot of fat on my bones. Mind you, I'm not doing any extra long runs, the 3-4hr treks that start to eat into you. Without really having a clue what I'm talking about, I reckon I am drawing mainly on blood and liver glucose this month. My diet is not great, but I suspect I'm getting enough sugary calories in to keep the blood topped up just enough for a couple of hours of trundling per day. I really should get someone to give me once over at the end of the month and see what sort of shape I end up in. Actually, maybe I shouldn't. I should just put my feet up.

Would you look at the time. Start packing up for the day and get ready for the second half.

First a product review. Apart from looks and lightweightness the Inov-8 Race Pro 18 backpack is shit all over by pretty much any Camelbak. I am persevering, but honestly, I'd rather run holding on of Sal's handbags; no, fuckit, I'd rather take a Tesco carrier bag. As a general walkabout pack it is fine. I like the concept, but the execution is woeful. Come on Inov-8, sort it out.

I pulled on my Inov-8 backpack, head to the end point of my earlier run and started along the hungry mile and towards the Harbour. A bit more poor me. That's enough. Felt OK, all things considered. In fact to begin with I felt a bit too warm, but as the run went on and the temp dropped I was glad of the Helly polypro. I was looking for about 3km around the City and then about 7km home to get my numbers up, so it was a run under the Bridge (Red Hot Chili Peppers anyone?) and then over to the Opera House, over the Cahill and back up the hill home. And that was pretty much it. North Sydney was a bit of an obstacle course of suits more interested in studying their phones than looking where they were walking and by the time I arrived home I was a bit cold.

I quickly downed the left overs of last night's curry. Hoping that does not the have the same impact as last night's curry had on the run home. Spent a good few hundred metres farting bhaji farts with every footfall. Luckily I was not running behind me.

Right, now for a night alone in my paint fumes. Suck of the day; not seen the family and heard only about 4 words from AJ. Ah well, will be worth it once we're in the new house.

Oooo, we're 2/3rds of the way through June.

not Strathallen please

2011-06-19T20:16:00.001+10:00

Man alone night followed by a long dog walk down to the Harbour so Rowlf could have a swim ad I could grab a coffee on the way. Special guest appearance from Rumpole today. I was feeling a bit sorry for the boys as they are exiled to the garden while the house is being painted; no indoors at all until we've sold the place. Rowlf goes mental when near the water and his swimming is limited only by the distance I can throw stuff and ho long until I get bored or knackered; he'd swim all day. Rumpole, on the other hand, has a quick dip and the goes and sits down until the big fella is done. If he could he would tap his foot and look at a wrist watch "are we done yet?" style. Nice way to start the day.

Sal finally came to her senses today. Which meant a bit of a change of plans today. She decided to stay out at her aunt and uncle's place in Cranebrook while our house stinks of paint and is covered in sheets that are covered in paint. I'd suggested this a couple of weeks ago, but what do I know? All it took was for it to become Sal's idea for it to be a good idea. A-n-y-w-a-y this meant she'd not be staying with friends in Hornsby and therefore I'd not be running from Hornsby. So after a trip to Cranbrook to drop off supplies it looked like I'd be doing my loops again. Which is a bit dull.

So I thought I'd do a bigger loop. still quite dull, but, well, a bit different. And that's what I did. I'll not bore you too much with details, most of which are boring. As I approached Gore Hill Cemetery I thought about popping in and trying to write "HELP" with my GPS tracks but it was getting dark and I thought the risk of tripping over a cider-pissed goth emo was too high; they're tough to spot in the dark and the light was fading (as was the temperature.)

My mind was mostly occupied with thoughts of avoiding Strathallen Avenue at the end of the run. Of course my maths let me down and in the end, with an inevitability, I ran up the hill of Strathallen, needed to do a bit of a trip around the block and completed my 21.1km for the day.

Earning the Guinness I did not drink last night and a curry.

For the record, it is a bit sucky not having the family about and leaving the dogs out in the garden. Ho-hum. Does mean an elevated level of running freedom though.

7 bridges

2011-06-18T18:33:00.000+10:00

Opportunity knocked today. Painters arrived at about 7am and it was time for us to clear out so they could get cracking. It finally dawned upon Sal that you can't really live in a very small house that is having all walls, ceilings and woodwork painted. So she arranged to take the kids back out to Cranbrook and spend the night with her folks who were still there, delayed by the flood waters up north. Was looking like I might knock the lot out in one go today.

We went to Dee Why for breakfast. Once again the swell was solid and it looked like all the local surfers were out, though not all were braving some of the larger waves. Sal left with the kids, timing it so Alex would get her lunchtime nap on the drive out west. With a bit of time on my hands I went to take a look at the house we're buying. I like it a bit more each time I see it. Wandered to the local shops. Bakery open at 6am weekdays and sells coffee (win) there is a kebab shop (win), a curry house (win) and a decent looking bottle shop (win.)

Then it was back home, dump the car and have a run. The seven bridges run is a nice loop around the western edge of Sydney. There is an annual walk event that does pretty much my loop. Only I do it anti-clockwise. And I run it. The bridges are Fig Tree, Tarban Creek, Gladeseville, Iron Cove, Anzac, Pyrmont and Sydney Harbour. Take it as read I was aching, but I got over the Harbour Bridge in 7:22 and went through the half distance in a little under 1:50. Slow, of course, but still respectable.

I neither enjoyed or didn't enjoy the run. It was quite workmanlike. I got on to a pace I felt comfortable with and tried to stick with it. That's about it. A few things of note though. After a few hundred metres I caught up with and got chatting to a runner in a 6ft Track Singlet. She was off to Turramurra and back, a decent distance. We headed our different ways after quite a nice chat and it was only then that I thought - dur, why didn't I tag along with her and do some new miles? Something different. Nevermind. Later, as I went across a bridge and looked towards the city it struck me that the Harbour Bridge really is fucking enormous. The stone pillars and massive and the deck level is a runnable 1.5km - but the footpath is not all of it It really is a very big bridge.

I got a filthy look from a bloke whose car I stared at as he drove past. In my defence, the guy looked like Pappa Smurf and his beard alone occupied about half of the space inside the original Fiat 500 he was driving. If this guy doesn't like to get looked at - I was admiring his car - he should shave, get a new motor (I'll take the Fiat!) or both. Over the bridge and I ran past Classic Throttle Shop. I love that place. But today it threw me into mental turmoil. It is not ready for sale yet, but they have a lovely looking TR7. A LOVELY TR7? Are you mad? I thought there was no such thing, but with a bit of imagination this thing looked a little like a Lancia Stratos. I'm all very confused by this. Sadly I was traveling light, so no pics. I'll have to pop in again when it is for sale.

The hill home was a bit of a slog and I slowed. I got home just as the painters were packing up for the day, having made decent progress. Not a good night for the dogs though, they're exiled to the garden as most rooms have had a bit of work done. So it is just me and the beers here tonight.

Not a bad day today.

normal service resumes

2011-06-17T21:22:00.000+10:00

Thank fuck yesterday came and went. This morning I woke up and the foot felt OK. Considering it had been throbbing when I fell asleep last night I was quite glad about that. The house was all quiet. AJ didn't wake up for her morning milk so I quietly dressed, puled on my Asics Eagle Trail, shoes that I'd mashed about 2rs ago but haven't yet retired, and headed out.

Got back and the toe felt a little warm but mostly just like a toe. I was taking a day off of work to pack the house up before the painters arrive tomorrow to add lipstick to the pig and hopefully fool some buyers. At home I did some packing and then, with Sal about to give Alex some breakfast, I ducked out for a stock 7km loop. Legs still ache, heels ached, felt a bit wobbly but I was moving.

At 1.71km - I checked the Garmin - I started to think about my dad. Now I am a fairly simple, scientific, no-nonsense person. No time for sentimental, spiritual mumbo-jumbo. But something happens when I am on the run and need to dig a little deeper. I think about the old man. I want to make him proud, despite knowing that he was SO proud of both my brother and me. And I feel as if he is with me as I refuse - re-fucking-fuse - to give up. Mum and dad were not dealt a great hand, but they did an epic job with me and my bro.

Regular readers and lucky randoms may know that my dad was an RAF physical training instructor (PTO) and parachute jump instructor (PJI.) For my entire life - well, until he died - he was registered disabled. He had an accident while testing an ejector seat. That damn near killed him. So did the treatment. After mum died I thought a broken heart or the booze might get him. In the end it was a nasty stomach cancer. Anyway, dad taught me to swim without ever getting in the pool with me. He taught me to ride a bike. He helped and advised me on my exercise. I engraved my first marathon medal for him "For my dad, my inspiration." When the going gets tough (anyone else hear Billy Ocean? No? Just me?) I feel closer to my dad than I ever did when he was alive. It's not unusual (Tom Jones anyone?) for me to well up and shed a few tears. But I love that feeling. It means that I keep his memory very much alive. I could do without the occasional sob-of-overwhelming-sadness while I'm trying to run, but what can you do?

By about 5km I was a little more stable. The old man had popped up to help and I knew - KNEW - that today I was going to get my 21.1km completed. In fact I had told myself that even if I had to fucking hop the last bit and finish at 23:59 I was going to get my target miles done.

I just had Sal read that and told her that's why I do it. She corrected me (she is my wife, after all) and told me that's HOW I do it.

So I notched up 7km-and-change and then got stuck into chores. I needed to work out how I'd get my remaining miles and thought a lunchtime loop and one in the evening would do it, but in the end it was 14km at just after 4pm. I decided that the best thing for my feet and mental state was to keep my shoes on all day and just not look at my toe. And that worked out really rather well, although 12hours stuffed inside some minging old Asics is not something I'd advise others to do to their tootsies.

Lap 2 saw the old man return briefly but by lap 3 I was thinking about my kids, mainly 29 month old Alex. Earlier in the day she had managed to thread a pair of her undies over the handlebars of her scooter and down the whatever-you-call-the-pole-at-the-front. She's tried a couple of times to remove them and then given up in frustration. She was telling me "can't do it." I wandered over and showed her what she needed to do. Lift them up, thread them back over one handle...I showed her a couple of times and then asked her if she could do it herself. Yes, she could. We high-fived. I told her that sometimes you think you can't do something and you feel like giving up. Don't. And I didn't feel like a hypocrite. Which was nice.

House is packed away and ready to be painted, Alex is asleep and 5wk old Harriette is too (though the grunts and snorts would suggest otherwise.) I have a glass (actually another glass) of red. I've run 21.1km and my oldest daughter knows she can remove her knickers from a pole.

A somewhat better day than yesterday.

There is one more thing; thanks for the tweets and comments of encouragement. I read them this morning as I walked the dogs and that was the extra bit I needed to get my mojo back.

bollocks

2011-06-16T20:36:00.000+10:00

Woke up felt awful. Ran feeling awful and got to work feeling awful. Looked at a blister, noticed foot skank, chopped foot skank off of foot - well THAT toe - iffy. So didn't do a second run. Wrote a long angry blog post instead of doing much work. Flickr said it had posted the post here but it didn't. More bollocks. In fact today has just been bollocks and I'm not happy. Ran 11km. Really fucking pissed off that something this small keeps me off the road. Suppose I can take some solace in the fact that I didn't run again and completely fuck myself up. That's it for today.

my Henri Cartier Bresson moment

2011-06-15T10:11:00.003+10:00

my Henri Cartier Bresson moment, a photo by Auswomble on Flickr.

I woke up this morning wondering if WD40 would work on my knees. And ankles. And everythign else. I think I'm paying a bit for the slightly quicker run at lunchtime yesterday and my lack of any warm-down in this week's colder conditions. Proper siezed up. But I hit my metaphorical starter motor with the hammer of Move You Bastard and made my way towards work.

A slight detour to begin with this morning, courtesy of my bad memory and awesomeness in the field of responsible dog ownership. Rowlf had taken a crap before we got to my coffee stop, which I'd bagged but not managed to bin before I got to the coffee shop. Not wanting to stand and chat to Alison with a bag of shite in my hand I left said bag at the foot of a tree about 20ft from the coffee shop. I then walked straight past it when heading to the park. So, the first stop today was at that tree. I picked up the bag of now cold dog shit and run it up the hill and into the dog park where I deposited it in the shit-bin. I ran past a couple of people who, had they noticed would probabaly have been confused: was that a bloke running with a bag of dog shit but no dogs? Odd. Once through the park I was back on my usual straight-to-work route. Down through North Sydney and up on to the bridge where I copped my second soaking of the day as the rain came at me almost horizontally. Mind you, the feral weather did take my mind off of the general achiness. For a while. Once off of the bridge I was again thinking about little other than how rotten my legs felt this morning.

I picked up the cuorse I run most weeks that hugs the harbour foreshore. The rain hadn't eased much and there was a fairly stiff wind blowing. The harbour reminded me a bit of the English Channel. Only with a really big bridge. And an Opera House. And ferries. I stopped once I had run around Farm Cove and took a couple of pictures, having posted a quite random shot yesterday. When I started again the specific aches were replaced by a general achiness in both legs that actually made me feel a bit better. I doubled back towards the Harbour and then cut across the city to the office, brigning up 16km and leaving myself a run home to bring up today's total.

A couple of wet weather gripes. People of Sydney - you still need to look where you're going when it rains. Please pay attention. And if you have a fucking great umbrealla how about standing in the rain and no in the undercover spaces that people without umbrellas might be happier occupying? Or you could just put the umrella down...come on people, it's not all about you y'know.

It was Pete's last day at work today. He's a top bloke, so I dug deeper than usual and bought him a big coffee table book about the Pirelli Calendar that I would like to have on my coffee table. But don't tell the wife. So that and his leaving lunch meant it was a run home. My legs had not loosened much at all; in fact they felt decidedly ordinary. And it looked as if fate was trying to stop me from getting home.

I called Sal to see if a run home was OK and she said yes. I then kept chatting on the phone, which was a bit dumb, so I said seeya soon and hung up. Only our Japanese website had decided to blow up. Bugger...but Steve fixed it pretty sharpish, so I went and got changed, hung my work togs up and got in the lift. Which went nowhere and instead started screaming an alarm at me in an alarming way. Sod it. Lift open, I went to another and managed to get to the floor.

In the City the Garmin struggles to get a fix. I do wonder why, considering that the satellites are (I think) geostationary, the thing doesn't first look to see if I am standing in exactly the spot I was in when I switched the thing off in the morning. Nevermind; I ran to Observatory Hill, gifting the oppositing about 700m. Away from the tall buildings I had 3 satellites locked on and another 8 flashing away as they got their fixes. Then the device asked if I was indoors. No, I'm not fucking infuckingdoors! I am standing gulping car fumes in the rain, now get a fix! It did, then lost it as I went up the bridge steps; but soon enough it was all good and I was off and hobbling. I felt pretty tight and bleugh and don't have much more than that to say. As I ran along the dark bike path about a km from home I heard my phone ring. Could be work, more likely Sal wondering where I was. Neither. It was a wrong number. Some lady from Melbourne. I knew fate was against me.

I said bye-bye to the Victorian stranger and hobbled the last small climb home, very glad today's miles are over. To and from work doneski.

But hey, half way.

a wet and wild tuesday

2011-06-14T18:31:00.000+10:00

My alarm clock went off late today and I think it was because she stayed up later last night flicking through her new In The Night Garden book. So despite it being extraordinarily dark at 05:55 it was 05:55 and I quickly gave the alarm clock some milk and told her to go back to sleep while I head out with the dogs. It was warm and I picked up the walking pace to maximise the time we'd have in the park, which was not so smart as I could feel a tightness in my right shin; not a splint, just a tightness. I could, of course, have skipped my coffee stop and got the time back that way, but that's just crazy talk. We stayed in the park a little longer than usual and left just as the heavens opened and I copped yet another soaking. It is going to be a wet week. I had a bit of time to play with as today's miles would be split in two. About 10km to get to work, dropping our signed home-purchase-contract at the soliciters en route, and then a 10km at lunch time.

I quickly faffed around at home, putting stuff in plastic bags to keep it dry if another shower decided to hit me. Which it did, but after I'd dropped the contract off before I copped the next soaking. Brief aside; we managed to sign and initial the contract in all the right places despite the "sign here" stickers finding their way from the contract to our daughter. Oops. Really should have left it a little further away from little hands. After the solicitors, passing a colleage as he walked to the bus, I made my way to St Leonard's park where I was going to run a lap. Insted, as a hommage to my brother's genius, I attempted to draw a GPSCock. I've not uploaded my data yet and don't know how successful I've been. Cock done, I made my towards the Bridge and my office, struggling a bit on the longish, steepish descent. Thoughts of a shin splint plagued me, so I sort of hop-old-man-hobbled until I got to the bottom. Felt much better running back up hill.

The bridge came and went in a little over 7mins and I got to the office with a little over 12km knocked off. Run one for the day done.

The weather went from bad to worse as the morning wore on and as I got ready to leave for my second run I could hardly see the next door office through the tipping rain. What can you do? I grabbed the dry gear and already wet trainers (why get a second pair wet?) and headed out. By the time I was changed the rain had eased a little. I don't mind running in the rain; quite enjoy it at times. What I find somewhat less enjoyable is standing in the rain waiting for the satellites to spot my Garmin. The city is particulalrly bad, what with the tall buildings. I trotted off towared The Hungry Mile and stood in the relative dry while I got a fix.

I felt surprisingly good as I headed off on my usual 10km-ish trip to Anzac Bridge and back. Shins felt fine, knees a bit achey but as I'd run to work and then spent the next 4hrs sitting on my arse I was not surprised. The rain arrived by the time I got to the outbound water stop, maybe 4km in. And it didn't really ease up after that, so I copped soaking number three for the day. The Ks came pretty easily and at one point I actually felt reasonably quick. A couple of times the wind slammed me, which was pretty cold, but mostly it was warm enough. Although split between 2 runs the half-marathon distance came up in 1:47:and-a-bit. Which isn't too shabby considering I'm a fortnight into Juneathon.

And I'm done for the day.

Oh, ant it seems my cock was not that good at all.

local

2011-06-13T19:52:00.000+10:00

As I looked at yesterday's somewhat uninspiring loop I wondered how far it would be to run every road inside that loop. I didn't do exactly that today but I did knock out my half in that style.

After a relatively good night's sleep I woke up to find that Sal had gotten a relatively shite night's sleep so I put AJ in the backpack, grabbed my dog and we headed out to give the missus a chance of some peace. Well, as peaceful as it gets with a 4wk old. Not entirely sure that walking around in the rain with a 16kg kid on your back is a good warm up for a 21k run, but there you go. We stopped at Maggio's for some breakfast and bumped into some friends who we'd lost touch with before Mel was even pregnant with the 8wk old she was nursing. With Sal and Mel now both on maternity leave we may start meeting up again. Rowlf will probably not want to meet up with their pug. He is far from a fan of pugs and launched himself several times at the little fella who, being a pug, didn't give a shit.

After brekkie we headed to the park and it started to rain almost straight away. Then it started tipping down and I copped a bit of a soaking on the way home. It was all quiet at home as Sal had popped out to weigh Harry (who has piled on about a kilo) so I gave AJ a lesson in bad dancing and awesome eighties music. I have already been accused of child cruelty.

Sal got home just as I put AJ to bed for her lunchtime snooze and I head out. I decided to start by running all of the roads nearest to home and then try to work my way along the ones that sit below Mowbray Road. This post is going to get very dull very quickly, so in a nutshell I deliberately retraced my steps once or twice, got a little lost once or twice (jogging Blair Witch...haven't I been here before?) and twice stepped *just* outside of the boundary as I went up and then down from a bridge over the freeway.

I stopped at just over target distance and when I loaded the route was surprised to see how many roads I'd not run. Maybe next time, maybe not...

After a recovery meat pie it was down to the pool where AJ goofed about a bit and I just kinda sat soaking in the shallow, warm kids pool. Nice.

No picture today. The run looked pretty much like suburbia.

let's go round again

2011-06-12T20:14:00.000+10:00

Had some chores to do today and at the weekend I tend to see what Sal wants to do and work around that. So there was no scope for anything as interesting as yesterday and I'd already decided that I would sneak in three laps of a local stock loop that I knock out whenever I'm a bit pushed for time.

Alex had a great night's sleep but I didn't do too well. I woke up at 4:30 and heard the rain outside. I decided to look at the bit of roof over our porch to see if the leak we'd had repaired was still leaking. Yep, still leaking. House about to be put up for sale. Arsechunks. So I stayed awake and stressed a bit, which was not the best use of my night time. I did nod off again for a bit and finally got up a bit before 7am, which is a proper lay-in. Sal wanted to go out for breakfast but I had about 30mins so I grabbed some even-older-but-slightly-drier-than-usual runners and headed out. Knocked out my first 7km, working up a nice appetite.

Then it was chores-o-clock. Adam the brother-in-law came over to help me take some of the heavy stuff to the lock-up - bookshelves, BBQ and so on. Nearly ended Juneathon prematurely by dropping a 4 burner BBQ. Adam is 6ft and I'm not. It all got a bit wobbly, but I think I got away with it. Back home and more of Sal's family turned up with pies and sausage rolls. Hmmm, plenty of people to help Sal look after the kids, I excused myself an headed out for another lap, kopping a bit of a soaking this time. Refreshing though.

As it turned out the second lap was the toughest. Yes I felt a bit tight, but it was mostly a mental struggle. I know that because I was thinking about dad, and that is a dead giveaway that I'm struggling. I did start to compose a blog entry about the old man, but the kids have been a bit of a 'mare this evening, so you may have to wait for that (or go back and read some of my stuff from Janathon.)

Back home and I did another trip to the lockup with sundry other bits that I could fit in my bus. Back home again and I was given permission to head out and knock off lap 3, which I was glad of. I had been planning to do it just before bedtime, after the kids were fed and in bed. The trip to the lockup had loosened the legs a bit and I felt pretty good. Kopped a proper soaking this time, but the miles came fairly freely and I felt as if I could keep going. Good job I didn't because the kids had been a bit mental and Sal was bit frazzled.

So there you go; today it was three laps of a local loop. Not the most inspiring miles, but happy to grab them while I could.

Oh, one more thing. Had bath and used some Adidas Active Shower For Men EXHILARATING TONIFIICANTE [with Pro-vitamin B5] Game Spirit Developed with ATHLETES. What a load of old bollocks. I stink, throw me a bar of soap. Does anyone buy this marketing nonsense?!

Spit Bridge to Manly

2011-06-11T20:37:00.002+10:00

Woke up this morning in a foul mood, even by my standards, and Sal was glad to see the back of me as I headed towards Manly. I'd roughly mapped the route and it was roughly the right distance. A couple of reasons for the choice. I would end up by the beach, which is always nice, and hopefully see some solid swell and big surf. And by taking the Spit Bridge to Manly scenic path I would get some lovely views and avoid a lot of traffic. I also thought some trail running, albeit a very tame trail, would make a nice change from pavement pounding.

I faffed about before leaving and also felt cold, which I put down to not eating as much as I should for my mileage. I warmed up pretty soon when I got going. Ran past last night's parking spot to discover we had pared illegally. Arse. To get to the Spit is a fairly standard road plod that takes you pat some massive and massively impressive houses. I picked up a Gatorade, had a pee and left the road.

Once again I was slow but it wasn't bothering me overly. I stopped to look at a few aboriginal carvings that I didn't take a picture of because in the wet they looked a lot like wet rock.

...this is likely to be a short entry, typed one handed as I hold my 4wk old Harry in the other,,,

After the slog up it was a pretty easy trot into Manly. The tide was low so i could cross a beach and avoid a hill (hoorah!) I wanted another 3km so headed to the beach where the waves were smaller than I expected, but still good. It was a simple and flat up-and-down to bring up 21km. I was pretty cold again at the end; and stinking. With the option of a dip in the ocean to de-sweat with a cold-wind blow-dry to follow...or a cold shower, I decided to just get changed into the clothes in the backpack and hope I didn't ming too much. Breakfast was a calorie-rich-quality-low feed from the ferry cafe as I made my over to the City. Sausage roll (mainly cartilage and eyeball), caramel slice, pack of crisps and an atrociousacinno.

Job done.

Got home just after Alex woke from her lunchtime nap and we jumped in the car and took Rowlf for his Saturday swim, then had a play on the swings, a few friends popped in for a natter in the afternoon and that's the day done.

Goodnight.

Cremorne Point

2011-06-10T14:17:00.001+10:00

Tired today, very tired. Legs felt heavy. Not especially sore but I felt just a bit bleugh. And I have a theory. I'd mapped out a couple of options last night that would get me from home to work. In the end I decided to go via Cremorne Point which would get me a morning jaunt in the mid-teens. A little lighter. So I could take it a little easier and have a (relatively) more restful day. And therein lies the problem. I am fairly sure my mind was playing this trick on my body: You are taking it easier because you need to take it easier, you need to take it easier because you're tired and therefore I will make you feel tired. Had I set out to do 22km I probabaly would have felt better. On the other hand that could be bollocks and the half bottle of bubbly I had last night, my first grog of the month (I was going to have a dry June) might have had something to do with it.

Sal and the girls were back at home last night and once again I managed to score the only bed in the house. Having got my random coughing-fit over and done with at dinner time I had a reasonable night's sleep. Alex woke at about 04:20 and told me I should sleep on the floor with her her. I slurred a sleepy "no" and told her she could clamber up into bed with me; it is, after all, her bed . She did and I sort of dozed until 05:15 when I snuck out to get ready to take the dogs for a walk and to not have a shave. She woke up again and asked for milk, which I got for her, and then she went back to sleep and I went out with the hounds.

And AJ slept until a little before 7am, which meant I wasn't in trouble with the wife when I got home. I quickly got changed and headed out to work. I could have gone down the bush track at the end of my road, which is nice but means a steep descent and then a steep climb. Didn't fancy the steeps, so stuck to the road and made way through Cremorne and down to Cremorne Point. I'd decided this was going to be a light morning, so I stopped to chat to a guy walking his two Wire haired Fox Terriers and another walking his Silver Poodle - a quite stunning dog that from certain angles looked like the lovechild of a silverback gorilla and a babboon. I went to the end of the point and took a few pics and decided it would be better to have a day off than a day in the office. I sighed, then headed to the office.

Although I was on light duty I still wanted to get 10miles done, Instead of heading straight up onto the bridge I went under it, around Lavendar Bay and then back up and over. So much for avoiding hills. I passed a jogger on the bridge, then shortly afterwards stopped to take a couple of pictures. They went past me, so I was honour-bound to pick the pace up just enough to beat them to the southern side; I don't like being beaten across the bridge.

And that was the morning done. Less miles, more knackered.

I wanted to get a few more km done before the end of the day and if anyone at work had been off for a lunchtime run I would have tagged along - but no one was heading out, maybe because it had started to rain. I thought maybe I'd do my stock local loop before bed, uninspiring though that was. Then an opportunity dropped in my lap. Our property lawyer had the contract from the guys whose house we are trying to buy and I needed to go and collect it so we can sign. Office is in Neutral Bay, just over the bridge and about 5km. Perfect, so I got back into my stinking running gear and left work an hour early.

If I thought I was slow in the morning it was nothing to my pace - or utter lack of - as I hobbled back over the bridge. And then, as I climbed up to Neutral Bay I swear I was actually moving backwards. I had the classic old-man-gait, sort of hunched, elbows up and out, but a proper shuffle going on. Mind you, it is a bastard of a climb, and it did get me my 21km total for the day.

Was glad when I got the office, happy to grab dinner out with Sal and the girls, not so happy with the parking ticket we picked up.

And the weekend has landed; I'm off to bed.

The Bay Run

2011-06-09T17:05:00.002+10:00

Again last night I woke up after 2hrs sleep, had a coughing fit and then fell back to sleep again. Odd. Not too happy about that and no idea where it is coming from. I'm not coughing during the day, I'm getting my miles in and I feel OK - fatigued, but OK. Ho-hum. I'd gone to bed a bit earlier than usual and as a consequence it took a little less time to get going this morning; in fact I felt....alright. But FRICKEN COLD. Night temperature dropped to about 8 degrees, which isn't arctic, but Australian houses of the era of mine (1930s) were not built with chilly nights in mind. As a result 8 degrees in my Sydney hovel feels colder than -8 degrees did back in Blighty. Again - I need to man-up. Dogs walked and coffee downed I was ready to hit the road. This morning I also had a PowerBar gel. Apple flavour, apparently. Tasted bloody awful.

Today's run was the western approach to the City which takes me over several bridges. Fig tree, Tarbum Creek, Gladeseville, Iron Cove, Anzac and Pyrmont Bridges. Only today, instead of going over the Iron Cove Bridge I went under it and around the Bay Track. This provides a bit or a relief from the lung-busting fume-athon of Victoria Road. Before you get back onto Victoria Road. I toyed with the idea of going around the bay and then jumping on a bus, but figured that my knackered legs would carry me to work more quickly than a bus crawling along Victoria Road. I'd passed a couple of old Jags on Gladeseville Bridge (done up for a wedding.) I got to the petrol station at the Iron Cove bridge, popped in, bought myself a gatorade, had a bit of a breather and only then did the Jags crawl past me; as soon as I started hobbling on I passed them again. The land speed record will not be broken on Sydney's Victoria Road.

The Bay was nice, if a little longer than I remembered. Small boats bobbing around, a few mangroves desperately hanging on. I toyed with the idea of finishing the loop, running to Balmain and getting a ferry over to the City. But I figured that would leave me a couple of km short of what I wanted, so I carried on over Anzac Bridge and towards the office. As I came over that bridge it occurred to me that I felt fatigued and slow, but without any significant acheiness or tightness. Nine days in, no stretching to speak of and the body is holding up pretty well. In fact today the only minor niggles were the graze on the top of my right little toe (big deal) and the middle toe on my left foot which has a nail on it that would look better on an elephant. It doesn't hurt, just aches a bit and that is probably down to my dog managing to land his 34kg weight entirely on it yesterday night and again this morning. What are the chances?

The mental challenge is, I fear, about to kick in. Ha! typing THAT proves it is already stalking me. I have few options for new and interesting routes to run, what with my miles coming on the way to work; I do not anticipate moving either house or office before the month is out. I need to grab some mental stimulation to cope with going over the same ground next week, and the week after, and the one after that.

So that was today done; easier than expected - but certainly not easy - and around the 22km mark. Will upload from the garmin when I get home.

Ah, on that...how is it that runningfreeonline suspects that each route I upload is a duplicate? Surely the date and co-ordinates are a dead giveaway? Very odd. Almost as odd as the site not being able to work out what time it is where I am; my GPS knows what time it is and where I am; does the site think it's lying? Very odd. Minor gripes; after all, the site is free, and waaaay better than anything I could create.

Hello Rusty

2011-06-08T16:36:00.003+10:00

Hello rusty, a photo by Auswomble on Flickr.

I woke up this morning feeling as if my eyes had been glued shut. Fair enough, I had been coughing my lungs up between 00:10 and 00:45, but even so, I was far more tired than I thought I should be. Could be all the running I suppose. The nightcap of Lemsip max and Robitussin are supposed to avoid that. Bugger. On the plus side, the Scholl moisturising cream I had smeared on my toes last night seemed to have softened the tough bits and I could walk properly. I thought very briefly about having a shave and decide against it - Sal is away, it's winter, sod it. Temperature was supposed to be about 9 degrees, but to me it felt colder than the supposed 7 degrees of yesterday morning. Again I put it down to the running having depressed my body's central heating. A brisk walk and a coffee had me sorted.

Where to go today? With a set-off time a little after 7am I could again knock all my miles out in one go. Not many options for the route because I am contractually obliged to end up at work, that and I wanted to get 21km done. So it was straight to the bridge and then I decided to head along Barangeroo, back around the foreshore eastwards and over to finger wharf and Russell Crowe's apartment. I don't know Rusty and wasn't going to pop in for a cuppa; I just know where he lives when he's in town. It's not exactly a secret, what with the 14mil he paid for it setting a record for a flat - sorry, apartment - in Sydney.

I managed to get somewhat pissed off as I came across the bridge. I attempted to say hello - a simple nod, smile and raised hand - to each of the 5 runners I passed as they headed north. Not one - NOT ONE - gave a half decent response. Not one. Now picture the scene; it's about 10degrees, perfect running temperature. The sky is clear and blue and there is little-to-no wind. Perfect. You are running over Sydney Harbour Bridge, looking out onto the Opera House and over the harbour, which is a thing of sublime beauty. The sun is low in the sky and the harbour surface is sparkling. Given all of the above - why so fucking miserable? Sheesh...Some of the folks running around the Opera House and Botanic gardens were friendlier and I therefore assumed they were tourists.

The daily slog get me to Finger Wharf at about 16km and I stopped to take a some pics, none of which had Russell Crowe in them. Then I headed back west and towards the office, which I reached at just under 22km. Once again knackered, once again pleased to get the miles done. My eyes stung with sweat and as I rubbed them I felt the unmistakable grittiness of sweat-salt in my eye sockets. Yum, yum!

What more can I say about today? Well, at about 7km and maybe before I thought "I'm doing this the hard way" and until the end of the run had The Beastie Boys "Three The hard Way" going through my head. And I'm not one to run with music (sorry Audiofuel, I still love your work, even if I don't consume it.)

Lunch was footlong meatball sub on the Italian herb bread with Swiss cheese and all salads. Pretty sure this used to be fatter and damn near impossible to eat without wearing some of it. That said, at $7 it is a good feed and it did hit the spot. I think I need to get my calorie intake up. And, after 8 days, I finally went to buy some cereal and yogurt to leave at work. Arriving at work, starving, I tend to buy my breakfast rather than bring it in my backpack where, after 100-odd minutes of jiggling the fruit would be pureed and the cereal mashed.

that was the week that was

2011-06-07T16:05:00.003+10:00

The maritime museum, a photo by Auswomble on Flickr.

What did I do last night? Not a lot. Fed the dogs, packed some stuff in boxes and threw some stuff away, had a Frey Bentos steak and kidney pie for dinner (gorgeous, but not exactly a carb load) and then went to bed after watching a rerun of UK Top Gear. Man-alone stuff.

Woke up feeling ordinary (again) and got up a little before 5 because I had an early start to my chores today. With us in the market for a new house Sal has placed herself well and truly in the market for new furniture. An item of said furniture was arriving at our lock up storage today at 7am, so that was going to be my first run-stop after a shorter than usual dog walk.

Guess what? Started walking Rowlf and Rumpole and My toe hurt. My leg hurt. I thought "I can't do this" and started composing my exit blog-entry. But, as has been happening, once I was moving I realised it didn't hurt that much and I should just man-up and get on with it. Fed the dogs, pulled on the battered and muddy Asics and headed off.

Our lock-up is about 2.5km from home and if you look on the route you can see where our lives are stored. The facility is alarmed and most of our stuff is shit, so I'd not bother ripping us off. The tall-boy Sal had bought, while nice, was big and old and in need of some TLC. It had also cost her more than the high-top transit that it had been delivered in, but not by much - the transit owner was very pleased with his $500 purchase.

I paid him for delivering the thing, restarted the Garmin and head towards the City. It was a little after 7am and I started thinking about how today could play out. The original plan was to run a little over 10k to work and little over 10k at lunchtime, a bit like I had yesterday. But it was early and time was on my side. Add the 5k to and from the lockup to the 7.5k to the office and I get 12.5k. I took an executive decision to have a go at knocking all the miles out in one go, still haunted by thoughts that Juneathon would be all over for me by the end of the day.

It was at about 8k that I finally decided to definitely sod it and do the lot before work. I stopped at a petrol station to get a Gatorade. My form felt OK, but my feet (snore...BORING) were now both hurting and I knew I'd ripped some skin from the top of my right little toe. I keep telling myself that blokes in my grandparents generation fought wars and trench foot and I should therefore stop being so soft.

The bridge came and went in about 7mins (1.5km) which is a bit on the slow side, but still acceptable. Without a decent feed in me I decided to knock out the remainder by heading to the Anzac Bridge and back, which is about as flat as it gets and also hugs the Harbour foreshore, which is really quite pleasant.

I gave myself a little encouragement by considering just how cool I looked this morning. Long sleeve Helly polypro with a singlet over the top showing off all the stripes on the arms. Camelbak. Odd little skulcap with earcovers and the Craft shorts I got out of Janathon. Shoes suitably battered and muddy, showing definite signs of use. OK, I didn't look objectively cool, probably more tramp-like than gazelle-like, but in my minds eye, stuck in 1989, I looked GREAT.

Running along Barangeroo I caught up with another runner and said a friendly "how ya doin'?" to which his "good" was so curt and clipped it sounded more like "gd" and even more like "I have no interest in sharing the time of day with you." Fair enough, his loss. There are far too many unfriendly people running the streets of Sydney. If you're really doing it hard or talking to someone else or properly in the zone then fair enough. But the ones who make a split second of eye-contact and immediately look away for fear of - horror of horrors! - saying hello to a stranger with a shared interest, they piss me right off. And then I get over it.

Where was I? At 15km I was outside of the Maritime Museum and stopped to take today's picture. Starting up again was a bit ooh-ah-achey-ooch so I decided I'd better not do any more stopping. At this point I was considering running 26km, figuring it would get me 150km for the week which would be by far the biggest week of running I've ever done. Do it today, might not get the opportunity again.

The rest of the run, let me think...pretty much a slogathon, but slog it I did and I even allowed myself a little punch of the air at about 25.5km and then at a little over 26 I stopped the clock and slowed to a walk.

I felt pretty much wasted by the time I got to the office. One week down though, happy days.

tell me why I don't like Mondays

2011-06-06T19:00:00.001+10:00

Somehow I managed to score the only bed in the house last night. Sal slept on the floor in the lounge with Harry in her crib, I slept in Alex's bed and Alex slept on her little fold-out lounge on the floor of her bedroom. Turned out to be a good plan; Harry woke up to fed pretty much to schedule, I got a decent enough sleep and Alex was still spark out when I got up to take Rowlf for his morning walk.

Dog walked I said my bye-byes to the family who were of to a relatives house, what with Kylie coming back to her place. I put on the running gear and headed towards the City. For a change my left little toe felt OK, but I have since put that down to wearing sandals when walking Rowlf; the cold must have dulled the feeling. But feeling quite good I made it to the City early enough to do a bit around the foreshore before heading up through the Botanical Gardens, across the city and to the office. I stopped to take a picture of some fruit bats in the gardens. I thought there had been attempts to get rid of these residents. Some sort of acoustic-doo-dad. If there was it looks like it didn't work out too well. First run of the day done, a couple of hundred metres short of 14km.

The second trot was out to the Anzac Bridge and back at late-lunchtime. This time the toe did play up a bit and that was a bit worrying. The run was OK, but heading home the toe was really playing up. I'm also getting an ache in the outside of my left shin, which suggests my gait is a little off. Not happy about that. But there is no running until about 06:30 tomorrow morning, and that is a break of about 15hrs. Hopefully that's enough.

I'm getting proper pissed-off with my toe.

In other news, we've had an offer accepted on a house we want to buy. Which is all a bit exciting. Now we just need to flog our place and get the money to buy it - anyone wanna buy a house?

ton up

2011-06-05T19:38:00.000+10:00

The day started at about 05:50 when Sal called to tell me she was awake and I should head over to get the rest of the family at about 7:00am. I felt pretty awful and sort of staggered about a bit trying to get myself going. I toyed with the idea of taking my dog for a walk, but after his decent walk and swim yesterday I decided he could skip this morning and instead I would sit and feel dreadful. Not a great use of my time. Checked the weather, looked in on Facebook. Just random stuff. Then I grabbed my running gear, in case an opportunity would present, went and grabbed my ladies and headed to Dee Why for breakfast by the beach.

Had a feed, let AJ loose in the playpark and then went to take a look at the impressively solid surf wrapping around the point. Not as large as yesterday at Manly, but still bigger than I'll ever get near. When it got close to AJ's snooze time we took a drive through the national park and then swung by the house we're hoping to buy...hold on, this is supposed to be all about running...

Got home and while Sal did a bit of tidying I went out for a few km. We need the name of the property lawyer we used when we bought our current house and I needed some Robitusin. So today was a trip to Neutral Bay to get the lawyers name from their letterbox (could have googled it, but that's no the spirit of Juneathon) and home via Crows Nest and the pharmacy. In between I did a lap and some bits of St Leonards park. Inspired by my brother's genius website - http://www.gpscocks.com - I tried to draw a football or a flower and pretty much failed. But it added an extra element to a kinda plain run.

Five days down and I pass my first milestone, although it is actually a kilometrestone. Ton up.

a cheeky ate k

2011-06-04T21:07:00.001+10:00

An atrocious pun for which I am sorry. Looks like Sal and I will be putting in an offer on a house (well, a better offer - the game is already afoot) and therefore it made sense for us to catch up this evening and have a chat. While our house is being tarted-up to sell Sal is staying at a friends place that is about 4km from home. Bugger it, I'll run. And so I did. Not a lot more to report than that. A fairly gentle 4km over, dinner and discussions and then an even more gentle 4km back again. In the rain. Which I'd not been expecting. And now I am done for the day.

podiatry plod

2011-06-04T15:10:00.004+10:00

Was not sure this one was going to be a good idea, bit I think I got away with it. I went over to see the house Sal and I want to buy and, what with it being 10mins from the beach, decided to head down to Manly for a barefoot run on the sand. There were plenty of reasons not to do it. I was knackered, I'd already had a run, I was going to our lock-up storage in the afternoon and needed some energy for that, I'd had pretty much no breakfast and sundry other stuff. But the thought that brushed these concerns aside was that a run in the sand might be just what the doctor ordered for my dodgy left foot. A nice exfoliation and a sanding - literally - of my scaly left little toe, a digit I'm sure you're already bored with (I know I am.) So I went to the beach.

There was another nagging concern and that is my history of getting horribly blistered feet when I run on sand. But when this has happened before it has been on reasonably long runs - over 10k. Today I wanted to clock 5k and not a step more. Oh, and before I forget, running in sand is really fucking exhausting and maybe not such a good idea when you're hungry and tired. Meh.

I parked at North Steyne and looked out to see some rather impressive waves, some three times the height of the surfers catching - and getting clattered - by them. If you look at the map and profile of my run it is very dull; flat and up and down. But I can assure you it was bloody fantastic to be out there today and i have no complaints about the view. I did stop a couple of times to dip my feet in the water and check for anything that looked like it might develop into anything that might stop me, but I got away with it. Nice to be barefoot and boardshorted too.

in for a penny in for a pounding

2011-06-04T07:22:00.000+10:00

People will tell you that stress is bad for you and I'm sure it is. But on the plus side, if it means you're in the wide awake club at 05:00am you might as well make the most of the opportunity to head out for a run. It would have been better if my legs hadn't been screaming at me and I'll not tell you I was the epitome of motivation as I pulled on some even-older-than-usual-but-at-least-not-sweat-soaked runners.

I figured I'd treat this morning as a psuedo recovery run and was going to do a local loop that comes in at a smidge under 7km - in fact it is the same path as the end of yesterday's miles. So it was to be a slow run and I decided that, for what might be my first time ever in Australia, I'd wear some long track pants. To complete my overdressing I donned my old long sleeve Helly polypro thermal, a t-shirt and a cap. If it was 1994 I'd have looked cool, but it's all skins and compression tec today. I looked like a middle aged try-hard who never really got over the eighties.

Fair enough.

The left toe had a bit of a shout at me but nothing like yesterday afternoon, which is good. Legs ached, but I expect that because I don't stretch. We can discuss that later, dear reader. I took it pretty easy and after about a km came to realise why I don't wear thermals and long-pants in these parts. No matter, there was a water stop at about half way and I'd rather be warm when I'm knackered.

Half way turned out to be around 5km because I decided I'd push out to 10k this morning - could struggle for opportunities to run this weekend, so take the miles when you can. It was a pretty dull plod; I passed a couple of dog-walkers and a new-skool cool kid in his skins and VFFs (Vibram Five Fingers.) I think I looked cooler; more retro.

Right, that's it for this morning. Sun is up, sharks should have finished feeding so I'm off to get a coffee and throw my dog in the Harbour.

arse feck

2011-06-03T20:27:00.000+10:00

So I just typed a huge, HUGE account of today's miles. I typed it into flickr so I could post it here with a pic attached. And flickr told me it couldn't connect to my blog and promptly ate my post. You're joking right? Gone. All gone. Bollocks. Proper hairy dangly bollocks. Arse.

Oh well, I'll get over it and you, dear reader, will have to make do with a savagely truncated version as I am about to fall asleep at the keyboard.

House to myself last night, opportunity to catch up on sleep missed, coughing fit, thinking about buying a house blah blah blah.
Walked dog without Alex on my back, ran to the City, had a brief slap from Dad, did a lap of the foreshore and 10miles done.
Day at work.
Ran home, missed home, added a local loop and saw the Garmin click over 30km for the day as I finally got home.
Toe hurt like a bastard briefly, then just a dull ache - toughen up Kev.

Proper pissed off that I lost the big post. Sorry folks. Mental note to enter blog text straight in the blog henceforth. Nuts. Here's the pic though. That's the Sydney harbour Bridge innit.

breaking the rules

2011-06-02T20:53:00.003+10:00

Me and my monkey, a photo by Auswomble on Flickr.

Well actually I only broke one rule and it was one of my own rules. I don't pick up free stuff from people on the street, I also don't sign any petition thrust in my face and don't stop for chuggers. There are just too many of all-of-the-above and I find it sometimes overwhelming and sometimes a tad depressing. I especially do not take free stuff thrust towards me in the street; a free sample of Nivea for Men, a goody-bag fro Qantas, a cheap fluro pen from the Cancer Council. Don't need any of it and would rather keep my carbon hoof-print down to the extent of said tat. But today I took a bottle of water thrust before me from the guys at Vision Personal Training on Victoria Road. I had rather fooloshly hit the road without taking a water bottle with me on a route to work that has few water-stops. I was glad of the drink because, despite being a very pleasant 14 degrees this morning, I sweat my arse out and needed a drink. So thanks personal trainer people, but no, I will not be taking you up on the 2 week free membership thingy that you were hawking. What with the several km run most days and, fingers crossed, every day of June plus bench pressing my daughter (low weight, high reps for the gym junkies) I think I can get by without a trainer.

The day had started as most weekdays do with a walk to the dog park, the little monkey on my back. Actually, let me rewind; it had started with me finding a small bit of rubber on the kitchen floor that looked suspiciously like it should be stuck to the bottom of my newest Asics Cumulus. Odd. Sure enough it had come off the sole of my shoe and I'll need to glue it back on. Considering I've run in Asics for many years, absolutely hammering most pairs, I was surprised but I'll not complain about one rogue pair. So, I dug out an older pair, drove over to Kylie's to drop AJ off and got ready to run to work.

I checked my Blackberry to see what time I was interviewing someone this morning; 9:30. Bugger. I then thought sod-it and took the longer way round anyway, which is around Sydney's western edge, passing over a number of bridges which give lovely views of the City out to the east. It is also a bit of a lung buster, but check out this piece of awesome, if utterly flawed, reasoning: I'm fighting off a cold and cough up gunk each morning. Therefore any diesel fumes will coat not my lungs, but the gunk. So meh, I'll run the rush hour along one of Sydney's busiest arterials.

I stopped once to take a picture of the view and twice more to pat dogs, the first a 2yr old Newfoundland and the second a 4month old pug. You would be hard pressed to find two dogs further apart on the size scale. So I made it to work for 9 and by 9:30 wasn't too sweaty and the interview went well and the guy may get the job. Work followed, which was predictably dull, but distracting enough to see me miss lunch. I had a bottle of some overpriced sugar-water and a brownie and, jacked up on sugar made my way through interviewing a guy who will not be offered a job. And then it was near enough time to head home.

Nothing fancy about the run home; straight over the bridge and up the hill to meet Sal and Harry who were at home (for a change) and then a quick shower (handy for washing away popped-blister-blood; little toe needs to harden the hell up) before heading out look at a house I will think about buying for what little remains of this evening.

I really should not have decided to give up the beer this month. Rather than log two runs I simply started the Garmin up again. Here's the map.

Fuck me, that was a lot of life story for very little running detail.

pinch punch first day of the month

2011-06-01T20:50:00.000+10:00

Welcome to Juneathon. Up typically early to take my dog Rowlf for a walk with Alex, now about 16kg, on my back. Straight away my scabby left little-toe started to annoy me, so I shifted weight slightly onto my big toe and that started to ache. Great - my mind is already playing tricks on me. Well, semi-tricks; there is blister on my toe, but I popped that and the feet felt OK once they'd warmed up.

Dog left at home, I dropped Alex over at Kylie's place where Sal and Harry are staying. Only Sal wasn't there. Despite it being 07:30 she'd managed to head out to the sales, between Harry's feeds. Harry was there, as were the grandparents. Oh, should point out that Alex and Harry are my daughters - Alexandra and Harriette. Not sure why we stuffed so many letters into Harry's name, but as we mostly call her Harry it doesn't bother me. Other than when website tell me I've spelt it incorrectly.

Anyway, I did eventually start running. I left the car outside Kylie's and headed from Chatswood towards my office in the City, a run which I thought would get me a little over 10km and actually got me a little over 11km. Not a big number, but a nice start. I paused a couple of times to take some pics - including one of my current favourite tree, a local Japanese Maple - and didn't pick the pace up too much coming over the bridge. It was a thoroughly pleasant run, and not even the spurt of lightly-blooded-goop coming from my popped blister managed to piss me off.

One down.

in it but not to win it

2011-05-31T20:42:00.001+10:00

Hello blog, have you missed me?

June starts tomorrow and with it Juneathon. Given a fair and following wind that should mean I will be running each and every of the next thirty days, logging my miles, blogging and blog-reading. That is the plan, and here are the excuses - best to get them out of the way early and before I forget. For anyone who followed me in Janathon, please do not expect more of the same. Yes, I know it is not about winning but about the camaraderie and the experience, but I did, for a while, think I was in with a shout back in January. That was until Gary handed me a lesson is mileage and, despite the best hunting instincts of the bunch of killer pumas I released into the Surrey-Hampshire wilderness, he managed to run to the moon and back, and good on him.

This time around things are a little different for me. My second daughter is going to be three weeks old tomorrow and my wife and I have decided now is right to pack up the house ready to sell it (we need a bigger one for the bigger family.) Our master bedroom has been re-plastered and is unusable, so I'm sleeping on the floor of our two year old Alex's room while Sal and Harry have moved out to a friends spare room. I have the slowest developing man-flu known to this man which has me coughing green chunks each morning while remaining OK for most of the day. I quit my job and then sort of unquit it.

Having decided not to run the Gold Coast Marathon in July for all of the above reasons (and some) I have sort of lost the running mojo and have had a wee bit more beer than I should have over the last month. Oh yes, and I cut a large scaly chunk of hard skin from my left little toe this evening, just for good measure. And Sal is not exactly over the moon about me doing this despite my insistence that I'll not be throwing down any big numbers, just having a bit of fun. For a change.

But set against that, I have returned to my blog, and that is a good thing. I ran about 9km yesterday and another 10km today, also a good thing and probably the reason I got the blister under my scabby toe. But the run felt OK. And, of course, it is winter in these parts, so I have flash floods and storm-force winds to contend with - which I don't mind - and not the searing temperatures and near-one-hundred-percent humidity of January - which I most certainly do.

So, I think I shall finish my lightweight-running-May with a glass of rose. Not because I particularly like rose, but because it is all I have in the house. Cheers, and seeya soon.

House - Season Finale

2011-05-11T20:09:00.000+10:00

With the delivery of my second daughter less than 24hrs away you would think I'd have something to write about that, and although I have, I will not be. Not today. Too much thinking involved. Been very slack since Jan on the blog front.

Anyway, the renovations are off. Try as I might I cannot but hand most of the blame to the architect who, knowing our budget from the outset, overshot it by quite some way. She, of course, has been paid.

I am not too surprised. I'd spoken to a couple of builders shortly after we moved in and each said, straight up, that a knock-down-rebuild or renovation-addition would cost around half a million. Where our wildly optimistic 350-400k came from I cannot recall, but it was probably dreamt up between me and DJ when we were tossing around ideas about design, construction and building materials. But, sigh, we then got an architect involved, I stepped away from the process, and our planned addition became the standard brick-on-slab construction beloved by the majority of Sydney builders.

Sal is scared to death of the bigger number and, although less shocked by it, I am not over-pleased at adding to the already decent-sized mortgage. We could have gone back to the drawing board, stripped back the design and got close to budget, but honestly, after a couple of years of to-and-fro with the council we're over it. So we'll tart the place up and shift it. Just go and buy one that's already built.

We've had a bit of a look around and if we move twice as far from my office as we are now we can upgrade from 2 small beds on a 467sq block to 4 big beds, rumpus room, pool, double garage, big living area on over 800sq. In fact, dollar for dollar i is damn near a straight swap. And keep in mind that the doubled distance becomes only 15km from the city. My travel time to my usual beach cafe in Dee Why would go up by a whole minute. It really is a no-brainer.

Unfortunately - for me - the abso-fucking-lutely perfect place is on the market at the moment. I can see myself living in it; properly see myself, proper day-dream this-is-MY-shangri-la. But it is on the market now, which is piss-poor timing. But worse, Sal doesn't like it because it isn't very pretty. No matter the awesome practicality, if it don't look right it don't get a look in. Oh well, I'm (not at all) sure there will be others...I was speaking to Pete in the dog-park on Monday morning and told him about the place. I said "it's bloody fantastic" to which he said "man cave?" "Yep", I replied "and a double garage with internal access." "We're simple creatures" he said. He's right y'know.

Exciting times to come. Did I mention the impending birth of my second daughter? I'm sure I will soon enough.

The Six Foot Track 2011

2011-03-13T14:06:00.005+11:00

my sponsors a photo by Auswomble on Flickr.

The week leading up to 6FT was typical of a week leading up to any big race and started with me convinced I was battling a cold. Probably not entirely paranoid as the taper does mean I let my guard down a little and with the guard down bugs can get in. That said it is almost certainly mainly mental. I tend to live on Lemsip and Vicks and so it was last week. Friday arrived and I felt OK. AJ had allowed me to sleep for 7.5hrs straight, the most uninterrupted sleep I've had in ages. I took her to daycare, came home to make sure Sal, who has a bad back and is off work, was sorted and headed to work. Sal's sister Mara was on AJ duty from Friday afternoon until I got back from Katoomba. What that meant was that I could leave straight from work and get the train up to the mountains.

I got to Central station early enough to get an earlier train that was already quite full and decided to wait the half hour until the next one, the 4:24 that I had planned to get and knew I would get a seat on. I had turned down a life from Tobes (also running) because I figured I would benefit from 2hrs bonus rest on the train. I didn't sleep on the way up, but it was a restful time. Katoomba was overcast with the threat of rain when I arrived. I checked into the Carrington, which still reminds me of the Overlook Hotel from Kubrick's The Shining, and then picked up my race kit, which was being handed out downstairs in the ballroom. No message from Tobes, but the traffic I'd spotted from the train looked a bit ordinary so I figured he may be running late. I head over the road to get some take out pasta to sit on top of the pasta I'd had for lunch. The threat of rain became rain with some thunder and lightening thrown in for good measure. It was pleasantly cool, which was good, but with the track about to take a soaking I knew we'd have a slow start down the slippery steps in Nellie's Glen. Nevermind.

Back in the room I threw back the pasta, put on the tele and found I had the option of falling asleep to England losing a cricket match or The Biggest Loser. Not much of a choice, and I crashed out pretty early. Before, it seems, the proper heavy rain started to fall.

I woke up a little after 5 after having an uninterrupted 8hrs sleep. Didn't feel bunged up. no lingering aches and pains. Wow. Pee was the colour of weak apple juice. Very weak. All good. I put the tele on while I faffed around, catching up on the news of the Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami. It was that or some TV preacher rambling on and making little to no sense to me. I'd missed a message from Tobes and sent one back saying I'd see him at the start. It was starting to get light and the rain had passed. The weather looked perfect. I planned to walk the couple of km to the start, along a newly constructed footpath that I failed to find. So, rather than walk along the highway, I turned around and headed for one of the bus pickups. I was fortunate enough to be spotted by random person #1 who offered me a lift to the Park n Ride. What a nice man.

I bid farewell to my new friend, went to the bag drop and as I put my bag in my numbered plastic bag found I was standing next to Tobes. We climbed aboard the bus and headed to the start. We had about an hour and half to pass so had a long chat, grabbed some damper, he had a cuppa and we both caught up with other runners we knew. The early starters headed of at 7am. At 8am wave one left and five minutes later wave 2 left. Tobes and I were off. He'd gone towards the rear of our 200 strong wave and I was close-ish to the start, reflecting our respective confidence on the steep rocky path to the top of the steps at Nellies Glen.

In training I felt that my rock-hoping ability was on the wane, but I felt good at the start and managed to get past quite a few of the more tentative runners. The steps were as slow as I feared they would be. The runners, with one fuckwit exception, formed a single file line and we made slow progress down. Nellies Glen is stunning and I must one day go back to explore it properly and take pictures. It is a lush green gorge and as we made our way down we got glimpses of the early morning sun lighting up the sheer mountain face ahead. This, I thought, is why I run on trails. At the bottom of the steps the trail remains single-track but the group of runners I was part of were making pretty decent progress and I was happy with the pace. The first section of the race is relatively easy running and very pleasant indeed. Out of the Glen and through farmers properties and generally undulating, generally downhill terrain, through trees and a few sections were you get the sun on your back. The first section (sections, incidentally, are arbitrary and not marked) finishes at the Cox's River crossing and I made it there in a little under 90minutes, which is what I had hoped for and what I had managed on my previous 6FT. I was doing OK at this point and headed straight into the water which was just over waist deep.

Once out of the river the fun stops. There is a short spell of running before the climb up to the Pluviometer. This is a 10km section that goes up, and up, and up and up. OK, there is a small section that goes down. But then it is up and up and more up. I had not intention of running any of the steeps and killing myself. I'd had a gel at the water station by the river and got into my power walking. Some people run bits then walk, run then walk. I prefer to keep my pace as regular as possible and walk consistently. My made-up-on-the-spot rule was that I would not allow anyone to walk past me. A few times people ran past and then as they had their walking breaks I walked past them. That made me feel as if I'd picked a better strategy. I can't tell you much about this section as it is head down and grind it out stuff. What I can tell you is the view from near the top is simply breathtaking. By 25km I was getting pretty knackered, but everything was still working. I knocked back the gel I'd picked up from the water stop at Cox's and had been carrying for the last 10km. I'd been stopping at every water station, having a quick chat with the Rural Fire Service guys and girls who were providing the support. They, each and every one, are diamonds. Some were in fancy dress. I think; maybe I was hallucinating. From the top of Pluvi there was coke offered as well as water and electrolyte drinks. I was having a combination of all three.

How does it go? The race starts here. There was the threat of rain in the air and it was pleasantly cool as we made our way through the Black Range. I was feeling somewhat dizzy and foggy, but my legs were still turning over. Although I'd shared a few words with other runners as I'd gone along this was pretty much solo running. The next few km are undulating and there were a few sections where I could get back into a decent running tempo. There is a lovely bit of descent which is just what the doctor ordered and other sections were it was back to run a bit walk a bit. I sensed that my pace was slowing and beating my previous time was becoming unlikely. I stopped at one point to remove a stone form my shoe and as I lifted my right leg to about 90 degrees to put my foot on a rock my left abductor gave a yelp. I was fairly fatigued, but once I started moving again everything seemed to be OK.

By about 33km I knew I'd not be getting a PB. With Sal's back as bad as it is I decided I'd not kill myself. There were a couple of savage hills to come and I needed to make sure I'd be able to look after both Sal and AJ in the morning. Of course if I'd had a chance to get a PB the red mist of selfishness would have descended and I'd be crippled today. Was the rain shower at this stage? I don't remember, but there was a little rain.

...right, AJ has just woken up and needs a change, so there will be an intermission...

Where was I? Up near the deviation, at around 35km, and I remember from my other 6FT thinking "it's only a 10km from here and I can do a 10km!" Of course that time I didn't know about the bastard hill at 36km. This time I knew it was coming and it was every bit as steep and horrible as I remember from before. It is put there to knock the remaining stuffing from your legs, something it does with startling efficiency. It was all very "make-it-stop-please" from here. Over The Cave's Road crossing you get a bit of a downhill section which brings a little relief. I went through the marathon distance over an hour slowest than my slowest road marathon but was happy (happy? make that relieved) to see the metres ticking over.

The final couple of km are a cruel and punishing downhill that will take out of you anything you have left. I sort of ran-hopped-hobbled my way to the finish, managing to sneak just under 5hrs. Official time was 4:58:09, which is 20mins slower than my other effort, three years ago.

I was completely spent at the end. I was dizzy, felt a little queasy and had about enough energy left to stand and feel like shit. Once again I found myself standing next to Tobes who in his first 6FT had finished a minute behind me and was feeling as knackered and emotional as me. It is a strange thing and something that a lot of people say; they are surprised by just how emotional they get. Probabaly to do with the exhaustion and dehydration, but I guess if you want to look at it in a spiritual way then knock yourself out.

Jenolan caves has no mobile reception for Optus, Vodafone and Macquarie Telecom and the payphone wasn't working. Great; no way to see how Sal had gone with her own and entirely different challenge. As luck would have it we caught up with another friend of Tobes while we were having a beer and his Telstra mobile had reception. I left a message. I'd gotten changed very slowly in the toilet block - moving at roughly the max speed I could manage - slow. I meandered towards the coaches that would take us back to Katomba to find the earliest was leaving at 3.30. I chatted about something or other to a couple of guys but cannot remember anything of the conversation beyond their opening question - was I the guy who had won lat years's North Face 100? I assured them I was not. Our chat ended when the world started to spin again and I thought I may chuck. I didn't spew and instead plonked my arse down outside the caves' ticket office.

I spotted Andrew as he walked past and asked how he had gone. I thought he said 4th but he actually came 1st in 3.35. Slower than his best, but everyone else got a view of the back of his head, so I guess he was pleased. I'd met Andrew on the coach back from Jenolan on my previous 6FT when I somehow managed to find myself sitting near a group of he elites. Nice bunch of guys. Andrew works in Sydney and I have bumped into and run with him a couple of times at lunch. Still don't know his surname, but it is the one with the #1 next to it this year. Hold on...

Andrew Lee. Actually I did know that.

Tobes and I got the 3.30 coach and he then gave me a lift back to Sydney, which was greatly appreciated. We stocked up on fat and sugar at a petrol station and were feeling reasonably human. And, because I take note of these things, I took a pee at around 9.30pm, approx 11.5 hours after my last one. Got to do something about that but I don't know what. I certainly thought I'd done well with the drinks stops - I stopped at every one - and keeping fluids going in after the race. Ho-hum

For the record, as it stands I am unsure whether I'll be back for another. But hey, yesterday I was definite, so who knows. In case you're interested, here is the route. No idea why DailyMile yesterday said it is 44.1km - the course is 45 - and even less of an idea why it now says 44.48km when all I have done is go back and correct a typo in the route name. Weird. Anyway, it's 45km. And not flat. And it is over for the year.

different strokes

2011-02-27T19:41:00.002+11:00

frangipani
Originally uploaded by Auswomble

Funny old world innit? On our daily walks AJ and I pass trees and bushes and flowers and I make sure I point them out and tell her the names, all of which she remembers and now she points them out to me as often as I point them out to her. She sometimes wants to take flowers and I make sure we grab ones that have recently fallen, explaining to her that we leave the flowers on the tree or the petals on the roses so other people can enjoy them, just as we do. Stop, admire, have a sniff and move on. Alex understands and is happy with that.

Compare and contrast with the kids out front at the moment. They are ripping sodding great branches from our neighbour's frangipani tree and then shredding the ripped branches by smashing them against power poles. And these are not the neighbour's kids. Bits of branch, flowers, leaves - all over the place. To be fair to the kids, the parents are out back of our neighbours' house, leaving the kids to their own Lord-of-the-Flies-devices, so I'm not too surprised. They'd been playing in the road when we got back from the cafe earlier; Sal told them to be careful, showing at least as much concern as...well, you get it.

Now I'm still new to this parenting lark, and I'd be the last person to suggest that my way is better than anyone else's. However...

Home Alone but not really

2011-02-26T20:04:00.002+11:00

running
Originally uploaded by Auswomble

Every so often Sal needs to do a couple of days work in Brisbane and overnights there. If there is a Monday or Friday involved she can tack a bit of weekend on and catch up with her folks or her sis. She has taken AJ with her (once I think) and the grandparents get granddaughter good-times, but typically the little lady stays with me. Which is cool, because I get to spend whole days with her, not just the pre and post work bits of the working week.

Mind you, relatively speaking I get loads of time with the little lady during the week, mainly because I am a pig-headed sonofabitch who refuses to not walk my dogs - and AJ comes with me every morning - and I refuse to work my arse off beyond what I believe is fair and equitable. Result is that AJ and I get up at 5am, head out with the hounds at 5:30 and get back at around 7am, in time for Sal to take her to daycare at about 7:20. So I get a little over 2hrs every morning, not bad I think you'll agree. I usually get home a little before 6pm and at the moment the monkey finally stops arising about and gets to sleep at around 7:30 so I clock up over 90mins each evening. I dress her each morning and get her ready for bed most evenings as Sal takes her post-dinner bath. Yes, I am a lucky bastard and get a ton of time with my daughter.

I am loathe to say looking after her is easy, but mid-week, with a couple of exceptions, is OK. Months ago Sal and I decided that should AJ wake before midnight Sal would be on duty and after midnight it would be me. Sal craves sleep and claims she is unable to function - unable to function! - before 6am. She is, of course, lying to herself. But I've had enough of arguing. Luckily for Sal the little monkey never wakes before midnight and the result is I do every night's parent duties until my body collapses on me, at which point Sal steps into a breach she avoids like the plague at all other times. That's about the worst of it.

As each week progresses I tend to get more and more tired and have my moments in the wee small hours when the little lady pushes me a bit. I'm sure all parents do. But we always make up. Once I'm up and moving in the morning I can pretty well get through - berocca and large coof, kick-start - and quite often I'll have a catchup nana nap at the weekend. Sal's helpful advice of "just go to bed earlier" is rarely headed. With monkey asleep at 7:30pm I'll browse the net, watch some tele and chat with my bro for a couple of hours. I mean come on, 9:30pm is hardly burning much at that end of the candle. I could stop running, but tend to find I have more energy when in training than not, so that ain't gonna happen either.

And so it was wed-fri this week. Up at 5am, out with the dogs, he boys and AJ run around the park while I have a coffee and then back by 7am for a quick turnaround before I did the daycare duties. Even adding the daycare I still get to work by 08:30 - before most of my colleagues - and with a super-short lunch I head off at 3pm to collect AJ at 4pm. I can even run to work, keeping my training up, just about. Mileage does take a dip. Dinner is around 5pm, bath finishes a little after 6 and bed is about 6:45. Goodnight #1 precedes 45mins of messing about before sleep happens. This week we had a couple of moments in the small hours and a bit of a snap as she did the terrible-two "no" thing. Probably would not have been too bad, but she placed them back to back. Don't rip that letter open, it is for mum - rip. Pick your pajamas up off the floor - look at PJs, look at dad, walk off. A few tears, a couple of apologies and we made it relatively unscathed to the weekend.

This morning I was pretty much knackered. AJ had murmured at 3ish and I simply told her to go back to sleep, which she did. A little after 4 she woke again and I got her some milk. She went straight back to sleep and so did I. At 5 she woke again, asking me to turn the light on. Not today, I thought. No I said, either go back to sleep or get up, but I'm staying in bed. I gave her option three of jumping in to bed with dad and sleeping. She took that option. Well, I assume she did. I remember lifting her into mum's spot and the next thing I remember is her saying "dad, dad, get up" at 6:10. She could have been watching tele, pissing about on Facebook and smoking in the intervening 70mins, I was dead to the world.

I'd promised AJ we'd go to the beach and she could have a swim but I woke up not knowing if that would be today or tomorrow. But the the dogs needed walking, so I had a bit of time to make my mind up. We took the weekday park route and I thought we could head to Wild Sage in Cammeray for breakfast until I got there at 7:30 and was reminded that they'd do a coffee but no grub until 8am. Bollocks. I could feel a faff approaching. We headed home and I thought about breakfast at home but AJ had babycinno on her mind and I am always up for a cafe breakfast. Fed the dogs, packed a bag and headed to Dee Why. We'd got up late, so a slightly later breakfast was no big deal.

Got to the cafe at about 8.30, AJ heading straight in to our usual table. No high chair today, she's a big girl. The waitress recognises us and is a big fan of the little lady; after breakfast - AJ asked for the bill and paid - she got a couple of stickers, something she was extremely happy about. As we headed towards the water she had her arms thrust out front so the world could see the stickers, one on the back of each hand. I'd hoped we'd go straight to the pool, but we had no chance of getting past the play park.

Alex loves the play park, and it is quite shaded, so in we went. Straight over to the slides and ladders, she clambered all over it and then over it again and again. I suggested the pool a few times, to no avail. We had a go on the swings and then were back to the slides and climbing. She is getting quite adept and agile and has hardly any fear or trepidation. Only slipped a couple of times today.

An aside; I wish that when I was teaching AJ about waiting her turn and sharing that those parents who don't do likewise would get their ignorant fuck arises out of my grill. Ahem, luckily the majority of parents are great and are not bringing their kids up to be be selfish fuck wits.

I needed a piss, which AJ was gracious enough to grant me and therefore we headed towards the loos and the pool. Relieved, she had a quick dip in the pool and then, before we fried, we headed back to the car. Little lady was getting tired and we were pretty much spot on her nap time. Damn I'm good! We drove off, stopped at the Long Reef pie shop for provisions and just after that she was spark out. Plan now was to head to the national park, find a shaded spot to park in and then I would grab an hours shuteye too.

About 25mins in I found a new car park, Carrs Creek Reserve, pulled in and parked under a tree, in the shade, next to the water. Sorted. Open windows, recline seat flat, time for a kip...unless Alex wakes. Which she did. Grouchy and clearly not in the mood to sleep in a stationary car. I was in no mood to argue and drove off. Did some mental maths with times and sleeping requirements and decided to head to Berowra Waters. It is a lovely spot, a bastard to run and it would make a pleasant change to drive through instead of do it on foot. There is even a small cable-pull-ferry, which I felt sure Alex would like.

And she did. She woke just before we got to the ferry. The ferry was on the other side of the water, so I stopped the engine and we got out. I took a couple of pics as the thing was pulled back to our side - the crossing takes only a couple of minutes - and then we got back in the car. It was lunch time, we crossed Berowra Waters and pulled into the marina car park for lunch at the marina. There was a play park that I thought looked promising until I realized it was not shaded. We headed in, found a shaded table and after spotting a few (scaled, swimming) mullet we shared a fish and chips lunch. The little lady pretty much matched me, wolfing down her "half." We went exploring after lunch, I asked if she wanted an ice-cream and she gave a no-nonsense "no." Er, OK.

We walked around the waters edge and I took her to watch a couple of fishermen gutting and cleaning their catch. Then it was back to the car for the journey home. The journey took us up and over and back down and up through Galston Gorge. Surprised that I'd not driven it before. Jason loves it on his bike...at least three of the switchbacks are not quite as much fun in a 5m+ 2ton bus, but I can see the appeal on two wheels. It is very pretty. The cyclists on it are bonkers. They bomb down at 50kmh and then haul are up and out again. It'll get your heart pumping. Think a motorbike is the best option.

Epic diary post eh? Figure it is worth putting down, every so often, life as it happens.

We got home at about 4pm, and then the weekend becomes very much like any other weekday. We had our dinner, we had the bath and we had some arising about before falling asleep at about 7:30pm. I wonder how the night shift will go?

mixed emotions

2011-02-19T19:59:00.002+11:00

Bantry Bay
Originally uploaded by Auswomble

The Six Foot Track is 3weeks away and 45km of hilly bush trails. This weekend was my last opportunity to get a big run under my belt before the big day. Janathon was good, a ton of base. But I needed a long run. The weekend started badly; Friday's SBS early evening news finished with a weather report that said Sydney was in for a day of high temperatures and oppressive humidity and it would feel very unpleasant outside. Their words. I had no option.

AJ woke 30mins later than usual at 5:30 so I left 30mins later than planned, at 6:30. It felt quite cool, despite being in the low 20s. Plan was to take it easy. I was not interested in the land speed record, rather completing 36km or so and spending 3.5 to 4 hours runing on mainly bush tracks. Route was to be my middle harbour to Manly run, which is 27km, with a lap of the Manly Dam mountain bike circuit thrown in for good measure and the extra ks. Expecting a sweaty morning I loaded 1.5lts in the Camelbak bladder (first time I've packed the bladder for ages), took a gel and a 600ml bottle of homebrew Gatorade.

By the time I got to Roseville Bridge and the trails I was feeling the humidity and felt a bit off. Suffering a lack of proper running form because I was consciously trying to keep it slow - I usually run at whatever feels comfortable. When I got on the trail I felt OK and got into some sort of rhythm. I met a couple of guys who were training for the North Face 100 which is 10wks away. Kinda puts my little 45 into perspective. Mind you, I still believe 6ft is the gold standard of Aus trail running. We had a natter and I left them, the next few kms being mainly occupied by cleaning up spider webs with my face. I met a trio a while later coming towards me and after that there were far fewer webs; I assumed they had cleaned them up with their faces. Plenty of eastern water dragons to scare and a blue tongue too.

At the top of trail above Bantry Bay I stopped for a breather and took the pic. Was still feeling OK. Took my shirt off and rung it out. Plenty of sweat, but I was doing well on the fluids and knew I could refill at Seaforth Oval. Headed on. At the bottom of the Timbergetters climb I had the one and only piss I took between 6:30am and pm. Mainly walked the steps, figuring 6ft has lots of walks ("the six foot track is all about running downhill and walking up them") and this was therefore acceptable. I was already feeling a bit disappointed at my pace, but tried not to care.

At Seaforth Oval I topped up the bladder and the bottle and headed over to Manly Dam. I cut in on the trail and after a short while came across a sign that said the next section was closed to walkers. I considered ignoring it, but I'm a bit of a goody-two-shoes so doubled back up to the Wakehurst Parkway and along a bit to join the track later. I think this was the first chink, it put me off a bit and pissed me off. A couple of k later I was back on the trail making slow and steady progress. I was passed by surprisingly few bikes, only 4. Guess most people are far smarter than I am and were at the beach or somewhere with aircon.

I am not entirely sure what happened as I went around the dam- genuinely cannot recall it - but at some point I got it into my head that I was defeated. Yes, it was fucking hot and horribly humid. Yes, I was struggling. I get it. But at 25.5km I stopped. Not to rest, but I stopped. I tweeted a couple of tweets to the effect that it was all over - and at the time it was. I was squatting by the side of a road at the back of Seaforth. I checked the weather, as if that would justify my decision.

I must have got a grip, a bit - and again I cannot remember - because I started to very slowly run up the hill, figuring I must be close to the oval where I could jack it in and get a bus or crawl into a corner. I was cursing myself. But I made it to the oval. Made it another km. I cursed at myself some more. The morning tweets went like this.

Early start. Feels quite cool
Defeated and devastated
Humidity 97% when I left at 6.30 and after 25k still 89%. Do I try to keep going? I feel beaten. Depressed.
To the part of my brain try to make me stop: SHUT THE FUCK UP. To the part that wants to listen: on your feet and run you piss weak fuck

Yes, I was a little unhappy at this point. Again I refilled at Seaforth and kept going. As I started to see a few more people on the Spit to Manly path I would pause for a quick chat, any thoughts of speeding up gone and taking advantage of the rest. Chewed a little fat with some dog owners at Clontarf. Tweet.

Clontarf, 5.6k after I quit. 600ml full fat coke with a sachet of salt. Let's see if that was a good or bad idea. On to manly and a beer

If you put a sachet of salt into a bottle of coke it fizzes like a bastard. I don't think I wasted too much, and wondered how the 6km I needed for my target distance would go with 600ml of full fat coke sloshing around in my gut. As it happens, not bad at all. The Spit to Manly passed pretty well; at one point I actually felt quite good. But at one point I felt so far from good I was in tears. And it wasn't anything to do with physical fatigue. Mental fatigue though, it is a bastard.

The emotional bit. Typically when I struggle on a long run I invoke my dad and somehow that manages to get me through. That sort of happened today but sort of didn't. And the thought that came crashing through was that on this run I didn't need my dad to help. And the unexpected feeling was like having him die all over again. I tried a few things; I spoke to him. "It's OK dad, I've got this one covered" and "looks like I don't need you with me on this one, but I WANT you with me." I felt horribly alone and started to cry.

"We are different, in essence, from other men. If you want to win something, run 100 meters. If you want to experience something, run a marathon."
Emil Zatopek

Then I got a grip and the 36km I had hoped for, and had quit at 25.5km, ended up being 38km. Within 7km of 6ft. That will do. I decided to have a beer with the old man. Enough sentimental nonsense, tough to type it up later; what Zatopek says. You see, when he says you experience something he is talking about far more than running. Anyhoo...

I jumped in the water at Manly and that felt very good indeed. I had a beer at the Belgian Beer Cafe and that tasted very good indeed. Mixed emotions today. Not happy with my performance, but content. A quick shout out to Mikel, a local ultra runner I have shared a few runs with. He swears by smashing yourself three weeks out form an event. Think I did that today.