A wet n’ cold, but strangely enjoyable run

A wet n’ cold trip into the Victoria Market this morning - pushing my little shopping trolley with one hand and a big umbrella in the other is harder than it sounds! I was so looking forward to my coffee this morning, not to drink, but just to wrap my hands around to warm them up!

After lunch more shopping, I drove over to Highpoint on my own to get a few new business shirts, a few of mine are starting to look a bit tatty.

The weather was pretty crappy when I got home, it really looked too miserable to get out and run, so I decided to just do one of my home workouts with some exercise bike mixed in. After about 45 minutes I looked out the window and the rain has slowed a fair bit, just drizzly, so I decided to brave it and head out for a run. So I rugged up in the rain jacket, wooly hat and gloves and ran my normal 6km loop. It was freezing cold, quite wet, visibility in the dark through the rain speckled and fogged up glasses was almost zero, but bloody hell it was a great run. Really truly, nothing gets the endorphins flowing like a run does it? Weird how even on such a crappy day as today a run can make you feel so good.

The next closest thing to a run for cheering me up is some of my favourite music. After tea I decided I’d iron my new shirts, so I stuck on the headphones while I was ironing. I was bopping away whilst ironing, and apparently singing too. Kate asked when I’d finished “Oh the concerts over is it?”. Oh well, at least I was enjoying myself.

The weight had crept up a little bit at the weekly weigh-in this morning, up to 74.1kg - only 500g up on last week, but the first time over 74kg since January.

Niggly knee

Bloody knee is playing up again. I headed out for another run with Alyssa tonight. She wanted to do a shorter, faster run, so we headed out around the 2.5km loop, and completed it at our fastest pace together to date, 4:27 min/km. Normally I would head out again afterwards for a few more kilometres, but the knee was a little painful tonight so I didn’t bother, just headed home.

It really doesn’t look like it is going to be a good weekend for running does it?

The fact that both Jaykay and I mentioned The Angels “Am I Ever Going To See Your Face Again” in our Beki’s Musical Challenge responses the other day reminded me of seeing them perform that song live. My question to you fellow bloggers is; Who can remember the usual audience response to the question “Am I Ever Going To See Your Face Again”?

I was excited to see that after a very bitter seperation between Doc Neeson and the rest of the band, that they have actually reformed and are touring again. Most of the gigs are way over “the other side of town” from me though, but I’d be really keen to go see them. Anyone else interested? One of the gigs is at the Ferntree Gully Hotel in July. Does anyone know what sort of a venue that is for seeing a band?

A 6km loop with Alyssa

After work tonight I went for another run with Alyssa. For the first time we ran the 6km loop. I’ve been trying to talk her into this a few times, and tonight she wasn’t sure as she had done the beep test again at school today. So, we started off and when we got to the intersection where we had to decide between the 4.5km loop we’d done before, or the 6km loop, she agreed to try the 6km distance for the first time. She managed it fairly easily I’m happy to say. I stopped for a quick calf stretch at the 2km & 4km mark, and got the impression she would have been quite happy to keep going. We ended up doing 6.3km at an average pace of 5:14 min/km.

My right knee is a little niggly tonight and there is a touch of swelling.

An early start

I had to get up early for a meeting (teleconference) this morning, 5am-8am, so was a little late getting to work, but it wasn’t a bad day.

Tonight I rode the bike again, exactly the same 20km circuit as the last two rides, about 10 seconds slower than last night, so still just over 28 km/hr average speed, and again finishing in the dark.

Both Beki(9) and John(4) used an excessive number of question marks in their comments yesterday in relaton to Gerri Halliwell. To answer John’s question, I wouldn’t say that I like Gerri Halliwell (in fact she wasn’t even my favourite Spice Girl, I preferred Sporty), but I do like that song for some reason. I’m not sure if I’m making it any better saying I like a song called “It’s Raining Men”, am I, I think I’ll just stop there before I dig an even bigger hole for myself.

 

Beki’s Musical Blogger Challenge

On her blog a couple of days ago, Beki issued a musical blogger challenge, that has taken some thinking about. I’m posting an answer tonight but I’m not sure I have really spent enough think time, but then I think I could spend an infinite amount of time on the second question and just keep changing the list.

Beki’s first question was; “Name your all time favourite song that you will never get sick of”. This one took no time at all, it was easy, the answer being Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-IX)”. Quite simply the most sublime piece of music ever (IMHO). And, Beki for your information, I did ask Adrienne if she could name my favourite song, she said “It would have to be Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb?”, when I said wrong song she got it right second time. So, not a bad effort!

Beki’s second question was “List the ten songs that would make the “sound track of your life i.e. your other favouritist songs that are not your bestest ever”. This was harder, and I should say I limited it to one song per artist, and excluded Pink Floyd as they had been chosen in the answer to the first question. If I hadn’t made these two rules, the list may have been quite different. 

The list I ended up with was (in alphabetical order); AC/DC - Back In Black, Bad Company - Silver, Blue and Gold, Blondie - X Offender, Bob Dylan - Hurricane, Daddy Cool - Come Back Again, David Bowie - Sorrow, Deep Purple - Black Night, Don McLean - American Pie, Elton John - Someone Saved My Life Tonight and Sex Pistols - Road Runner.

A few that just missed out were; Angels - Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again, Joe Satriani - Summer Song, Katie Melua - Just Like Heaven, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - Make Me Smile (Come Up & See Me).

Beki’s third question was “The one song that you love but are too embarrassed to admit it to anyone (and now I’m making you admit it to anyone).  The more embarrassing the better”. Again there were a few that came to mind such as Aqua - Barbie Girl, Avril Lavigne - Sk8er Boi, B-52s - Rock Lobster, Geri Halliwell - It’s Raining Men, Proclaimers - I Would Walk Five Hundred Miles and Ted Mulry Gang - Jump In My Car, but the definite winner was Plastic Bertrand - Ca Plane Pour Moi.

This morning I had arranged to go for a run before work with Voj, so I dutifully arrived at work before 7am, only to receive a text from him saying he’d slept in. So, I went on my own. A very, very cold 8.5km run around our normal bike ride route. I wished I’d taken my gloves, my hands were frozen, and breathing fogged up my glasses. Still, I felt happy to have gotten out for a run early in the morning - first time for a while.

After getting home from work I went for a bike ride, 20km at about 29km/hr average, not getting home till after dark.

Off to an okay start

Well, the first day of the new job went off okay, no major dramas. I moved into my new office (it really is lonely when you’re used to being out in the main ebb and flow of the office), and ordered some new business cards. Other than that it was a pretty quiet day.

No exercise today though, time just got away from me tonight.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mums out there!

Happy Mother’s Day to all you mums out there! Hope you all had a wonderful day and were spoilt by your families as much as you deserve! We had a family lunch over at my brothers place, and then returned home to go to a 21st birthday of some family friends. We arrived at the 21st just in time for the white chocolate mud cake birthday cake - good timing eh!

After eating a huge lunch, and then the mud cake, I knew I couldn’t run, and it was too dark for a ride, so I decided I would do a home workout, but I added in a kilometre on the exercise bike in between each exercise.

Just before my workout, Adrienne called me and asked me to look out the kitchen window. We live about a kilometre from a Corpus Christi mens hostel, mainly alcoholic homeless men live there. We back onto a large empty paddock, and recently there have been a couple of the Corpus Christi residents hanging out across the other side of the paddock drinking. Tonight they had decided to light a campfire! Not a very safe situation. We know the family who live across the other side of the paddock, so I walked around to see if they knew what was going on. When I got there, only the son (who I used to coach at basketball was there), so we walked around the back of their place to see that the fire was only about three feet from their back fence (it had been a bit difficult to judge how close it was from our place, which is a fair way away). We asked the men to put the fire out and they said, “How are we supposed to do that?” (it was quite large). My response was, “Well maybe you should have thought of that before you lit it.” Anyway, we got a few buckets of water and put it out and they left, hopefully to go back to the hostel. Very sad situation really, not the way you want to see people living, but you also don’t want them putting local residents homes in danger with fire.

Will I or won’t I?

Currently trying to decide whether or not to do the Run Melbourne Half Marathon on June 22nd. As I’ve said, I’m leaning towards doing the full marathon again at Melbourne Marathon in October, so the half in June could be a good starting point for ramping up the training and kilometres a bit. The date is not really convenient as it is my and Kate’s birthday weekend, so I’ll have to think about it some more.

A bit of a shopping Saturday, starting off at the Vic Market, then Adrienne and I went to Airport West, then I went over to Broadmeadows Shopping Centre on my own.

Late in the afternoon I went for a ride on my bike, the first ride for over three weeks. Just rode a few laps of a local street loop as the weather looked a bit suspect so didn’t want to be caught too far from home. Ended up being just over 20km at about 28.2 km/hr average, before the light got a bit dodgy. When I got home I did one of my home exercise workouts.

We got lazy for tea and got Chinese take-away. With it we had a new wine we hadn’t tried before. It was Brown Brothers Zibibbo. A nice light, sweet, sparkling white - if you like the Brown Brothers Moscato, you’ll love this one too - I think it is even nicer.

Parting is such sweet sorrow …

A double meaning for the blog title today.

Firstly, it was my bosses last day at work today, so next Monday the rubber meets the road - I’m on my own as IT Manager, even if I don’t start getting paid for it until the first of next month. Neil (my boss) has been with the company for the entire 28 years that I have been there. Although I haven’t always worked for him, he has been my boss for a lot of the years I’ve been there. He has also been my very good friend too. I said in my speech today that he has been my “rock” for most of the time I have been there - it is going to be extremely hard without him. I got a little emotional while I was making my speech today and that is rare for me.

Secondly, I threw out three pairs of my old running shoes today. This was necessary due to some territorial disputes in the walk-in wardrobe! I did take photos of them first (to remember them by) - we runners are such strange animals aren’t we, or is it just me?

One of the pairs I decided to throw out was the pair I ran in tonight (Saucony Grid Omnis). They had about 850kms in them, so were due to be retired, but tonights run ended up in the dark due to being late getting home, and in the dark I ended up stepping in something left behind on the bike path by an inconsiderate dog owner (you know what I mean). I cleaned them up, but even after they looked clean I could still smell it, so decided to ditch them.

Tonights run started off with Alyssa again. She asked if we could just do our short loop (2.5km) but run it a bit faster. So, I told her to set the pace and I would just keep up with her. We ended up doing the 2.5km at an average of 4:51 min/km pace. This was the fastest we’ve run together I think, and it was noticeable because there wasn’t as much chatter going on! After dropping her off at her place I went and did another 3.5km - the overall average pace for the total 6km was 4:55 min/km.

This article was pointed out to me today by a workmate “Office keyboards dirtier than toilet“. Bit scary really, but the thought that ran through my mind was of all the users seeing this and ringing the Help Desk after they’ve washed their keyboards under the tap and are now wondering why they don’t work anymore. You may laugh, but this has actually happened twice to me (well once was a mouse, once was a keyboard - different people though).

Oh, one other questions for you blog-o-philes out there - “What exactly is a pingback?” - I’ve got a few weird looking comments, that are just my posts content, looking like it is coming from another website - not quite sure what is going on.

Ahhh, that feels better

Thanks for your positive thoughts yesterday - they helped!

After work tonight I managed to get out for a run, and it did blow the cobwebs away, so I’m feeling much better. It was a good run too - I picked up Alyssa and asked her if she wanted to do my 6km loop. She was a bit reticent, as she had done the beep test at school this afternoon and was a bit tired. So we did a slightly smaller loop, 4.8km, but this was still the longest run we’ve done together, and we did it non-stop, at an average pace of 5:27 min/km, so she did really well. Afterwards, I picked up my iPod and headed out and did the same loop again. My goal was to pick up the pace, and try and get the average for the day down below 5 minute pace. I just missed this goal, getting the average pace down to 5:01 min/km, with the average pace for the second loop being 4:33 min/km. So, it was a good run, a great negative split by nearly 5 minutes, but this was the only negative thing about it

Every cyclist who rides on the road is used to the aggressive and stupid actions of some car drivers, but this story today takes the cake. I hope they throw the book at this idiot.