No Reservations

I had a day off today, and we started off the day at the Victoria Market, so that I can join the Start2Finish marathon training group run tomorrow.

After lunch we went to the cinema, the first time I’ve been to the cinema for quite a while. We saw the new Catherine Zeta-Jones movie, “No Reservations”. It was quite good, a typical “feel-good” movie, but very enjoyable, and the little girl that is in it is adorable.

A windy bike ride tonight, 30km but at an easy-ish pace, trying to save the legs for tomorrows long run. I still have a bit of shin soreness and a small niggle in the achilles remains, so I’m not sure how I will go.

Monthly Summary

Running: A low running month due to problems with the shin soreness and achilles, only getting out 12 times for a total of 128km (1210km YTD).
Cycling: 319km on the bike this month (1498km YTD) as the cycling replaced the running somewhat.
Swimming: Hit the pool a bit more this month too (10 times).

A dog of a day

Firstly, to answer a couple of comments from Jaykay;

If we do catch a cat, the council ranger comes and picks it up and it is taken back to the animal pound, where it can be retrieved by it’s owner for a fee. By the way, we didn’t catch anything last night, but there was a large feline deposit left about 1 foot away from the trap, I can just imagine the cat squatting and doing it whilst giving us a rude “up yours mate” gesture!

Regarding my shin soreness, my main treatment methods are; stretching (I’m sure mine is totally to do with calf tightness), self-massage, icing, not running and applying various lotions (Voltaren and Tiger Balm mainly).

Today at work was another long day consisting of meetings, delivering another IT Service Management training session to local staff and staff from India and China via teleconference, and a staff performance review (my least favourite activity). In all, I had 30 minutes out of the work day to do some “work”. I was late getting home, and by that time the weather was turning, so I decided that I would just do a bit of a workout inside. I started off by doing some Pilates to one of my DVDs. I lasted about 15 minutes before I got to the point where I couldn’t keep up with the lithe and supple young ladies on the DVD, then put on a music DVD and did some upper body free-weights, squats, lunges, abs stuff and exercise bike.

I seem to be quoting Kirk’s Thought 4 The Day a bit recently, but today’s was so apt for me at the moment. It was a quote from Dennis Waitley;

“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”

The last sentence speaks volumes to me, and says “go run that marathon”.

No late meeting tonight, but I do have a report to prepare that I need to email to my boss tonight, so your blogs may have to wait till later.

Oh, and “Go Buster” – run well.

Catch a cat?

Another day of meetings at work, literally all day, most not really acheiving anything, and the work day continues at midnight for another 1 hour meeting. Actually I guess that is really the start of tomorrows work day, isn’t it!

Wasn’t it an absolutely beautiful day though! I have a little bit of shin soreness again, so I decided on a bike ride tonight to avoid the impact. I did the same 34km track that I did last Sunday, but 5 minutes faster. Lots of people out on the bike track enjoying the sensational weather.

The girls lost basketball tonight by 3 points, 34-31. This was a decent comeback considering the opposition got out to a 14-0 lead early in the game. It was 2nd (us) vs 3rd, but fortunately we are still a couple of games ahead on the ladder.

We’ve just placed a council cat trap in our garden as we are sick of the cats around here toileting in our yard. Wonder if we’ll catch one?

Oxfam Trailwalker?

One of my mates from work has asked if I’d be interested in doing the Oxfam Trailwalker next year. This is a 100km trail walk, done in teams of four (not a relay, the whole team of four have to complete the entire 100km) over a 48 hour period. The Melbourne one is April 11-13 next year, and goes from Jells Park in Wheelers Hill to Wesburn Park in the Yarra Valley.

My initial reaction was “100km, no way”, but after a good look through the website I am seriously thinking what a wonderful goal this would be for next year. Have any of you done this in previous years, or anything similar? What do you guys think?

Today I actually followed through on the exercise I meant to do yesterday.

Got up and hit the pool before work, the standard 60 laps. It was really crowded, at least three in every lane, including one superfish in the medium lane who kept lapping us and generally getting in the way – obviously despite being a good swimmer he was plainly a little simple-minded and couldn’t grasp the concept of slow, medium and fast.

Left work a little early as I have a late meeting tonight and went for a nice gentle 10.5km run (5:29 min/km pace). Felt okay, a little calf tightness and shin niggles, but not too bad.

Big friends a big problem?

No exercise to report today, had planned a swim this morning and a run this evening, but neither eventuated.

Another interesting piece from Kirks blog today, entitled “Big friends a big problem?” -  worth a read.

Thanks to Kathryn, Em, Kathy, John and Vicky for your encouraging responses to my marathon self-doubts – they helped!

A recovery cycle

After yesterdays long run decided that I would just go for a cycle today, so did the loop from Greenvale down Mickleham Rd, Melrose Drive, thru Strathmore and back along the Shankland Valley Bike Path, then another little loop around Greenvale. All up 33.7km in 1 hr 19min. It was a nice ride, although quite a strong headwind on the way home up the Shankland Valley trail.

Did manage to raise the max speed on the cycle speedo though, now 71.76 km/hr!

Marathon thinking …

This morning I joined the S2F Melbourne Marathon training group for their long run. Tony (Tiger Boy) was one of the group leaders, and he took us on a good 25km run (well, it was just over 25km by my Polar, but I think mine might be reading slightly long, so it could have been 24.5km). It was a run that took in some of the city, the MCG surrounds, the Yarra River path, Glenferrie Rd, Orrong Rd and the Tan. There were quite a few hilly sections, which knocked me about a little. The majority of the km’s were done at just over 5:30 min/km pace, but a bit of slow-down, and some walking in the last couple of kilometres took the average down to 5:41 min/km. The achilles was twinging a little towards the end, which caused the walking, but it feels good now, so no damage I hope.

I had a crisis of indecision while getting dressed about what shoes to wear, I had all three pairs of my current rotation on at least once, before deciding on the Brooks Trance 7’s, which went okay, but again I got some forefoot pain from them.

My main concern though is that it was only 25km, and on marathon day I have to do that and then another 17km again. I am seriously doubting my ability to complete this damned marathon.

In fact I was reading Em’s blog the other day where she said, “It suddenly struck me that I no longer care than much for running a marathon, it used to be the ultimate goal for me, but now it just isn’t that important, I don’t need it to complete me as a runner.” and it made me think about why am I doing this? There is no doubt that sometimes I feel like that classic cartoon character who has two little characters sitting on each shoulder, with one saying “You can do this … go for it” and the other one is saying “You are an idiot … what the hell do you think you are doing”.

Talking to Tony today he suggested it might be a mid-life crisis thing – you know – the brain trying to prove that you’re not over the hill, but the body really knowing better! I think he nailed it, to be honest.

Whatever it is, I’m doing it, well anyway, I’m going to try to do it. Hopefully I can finish it without it killing me. I think it is incredibly important for me to join the next few S2F long runs though – to get the long runs in my legs, but more importantly to convince myself mentally before the day that I can do it.

One thing it probably does prove is that Em is a good deal smarter than yours truly!

After the run I got showered at the gym in the city and drove up to the Vic Market to pick up a few things as the long run obviously disturbed our normal Saturday morning routine. I didn’t do the whole “shop”, just picked up a few neccessities.

By the time I got home it was 1:30pm and I was absolutely famished. I always enjoy my Saturday toasted sandwich for lunch, but today it tasted twice as good!

Later in the afternoon Adrienne and I took Jackie for a walk around Queens Park in Moonee Ponds, it was a beautiful day for a run and for taking the dog for a walk.

Take away chicken and chips for tea, a nice glass of red and a few snacks since tea have probably more than made up for the run this morning though!

Just waiting up now to watch Benita race at the World Championships!

Friday off

Had a day off work today and started of the day with a nice sleep in – well only until 8.30am, but that is a couple of hours later than usual.

We had a mobile auto-electrician coming this morning to look at the Festiva so we had to wait around for him, so I helped Adrienne with a few housework chores and a little bit of gardening. The auto-electrician came about 11:30am and took about an hour and a half to fix the car.

We went down to Niddrie and I bought a new battery for my Polar footpod and then we went to a little cafe called Strudels for lunch. I had a baked potato with a tuna and sundried tomato topping, it was yum. Given the name of the cafe, any guesses at what we shared for dessert – yes, that’s right some gorgeous apple strudel with ice cream. Afterwards we both felt like we needed a bit of a walk to work off the lunch so we strolled up and down the shopping strip. I ended up buying myself some more lights for riding my bike. I’ve been ending up out at dusk a bit more regularly recently and thought it wise to light myself up a bit more for visibility. I bought another red flashing LED light for the back of the bike and a helmet mounted LED that goes on the top of the helmet and has a white light at the front and a red one at the back.

So, I fitted my new flashing lights and went for a nice ride. I did a touch over 31km, and rode pretty hard, ended up with an average speed of approximately 27km/hr. I could tell it was a good effort by my maximum & average heart rate (156/135) which is more like what I usually get on a run, riding my average is normally under 120bpm, so it is good to know that I can get as good a cardio workout on the bike if I pull my finger out and put in the effort.

Both the kids are going out for tea, and Adrienne and I didn’t feel like much after our big lunch so Adrienne threw together a nice fruit salad and I had some of that and some toasted muffins with peanut butter. I am a peanut butter addict, have I mentioned that before!

Beki has got me looking at Facebook, but it looks a bit complicated -Beki did manage to find me so I have one Facebook friend!

Tomorrow I plan to join Tigerboy on his marathon training run all being well – hoping the achilles is up to a longer run!

An enforced ride to work

Last night I was thinking about riding to work this morning, but when the alarm went off this morning I changed my mind and snoozed a bit longer. However, when I went to go to work we found that Adrienne’s car wouldn’t start – seemed like a dead battery. So, I quickly got changed, unpacked the briefcase, packed the backpack and hopped on the bike. There were two false starts, the first just to the end of the driveway (realised I wasn’t wearing my glasses), the second about half a kilometre from home (realised I’d forgotten my work security pass) – but eventually got underway. As I was running late, I took the direct route (busy roads) – just over 10km – but I really don’t like the traffic.

A reasonable day at work, in that nothing went wrong, managed to tick a couple of things off the To Do list – so all in all not too bad.

Decided to take the bike path route home, which is about 4km longer, but a lot safer and more pleasant. It’s also up hill and usually against the wind on the way home, so it was a bit slower than the trip in the morning.

After about a half hour rest at home, decided to go for a short run, the same route as Tuesday night, just over 5km at 5:13 min/km pace. I picked a recently measured route as the battery in my footpod has expired so need to pick one up tomorrow. After the run and before tea, I did a quick weights and abs session, just 15 minutes.

Tomorrow is the first of 6 Fridays off – trying to use up some leave – so it is going to be good to have 6 long weekends in a row – although job number one tomorrow is to try and get something done about the dead car.

A bit of a down day again …

Had an early (6.30am) teleconference this morning which I did from home before breakfast. I also knew I had an early (6.15pm) basketball game tonight, so I had pretty much resigned myself to a no exercise day, right from the start.

Then, this afternoon got a phone call saying the girls had been given a walk-over tonight, so no basketball. Now that freed me up for a run or a ride I guess, but I was actually quite disappointed – as you’ve probably gathered I really enjoy the weekly get together with “my girls” and the basketball game.

The second training session I am running at work went well again today, but there was an overwhelming number of other bad things today (projects going south, people not doing their job properly, people away etc.) that more than outweighed the positives of a good training session. Add to that the fact that my most effective team member, my Service Desk team lead is going into hospital and is away for a week and a half after today – and all of a sudden that light at the end of the tunnel looks more like a train heading straight for me!

To add to that I have to update my Succession Management Employee Data Sheet by tomorrow, and that is always a depressing thing to do. It asks all sorts of questions about your willingness to travel and re-locate your family overseas and stuff, as well as “what do you want to be doing in 5 years, 10 years etc.”. Now, as a family we have no desire at all to re-locate, and I am not really a terribly keen business traveller either, but know that being honest (which I will be) will most likely make any promotional moves unlikely – it is all very depressing.

So anyway, got home from work revved up to go for a run but there were car problems again with the second car which I had to spend a bit of time looking at (not that I am any good at that sort of thing – I’m a bit of a nuff-nuff when it comes to anything mechanical), and by the time that was done I had lost the mojo and just didn’t feel like doing anything – so again let’s call it another “rest day”.

Hope your days were better!