Painted for most of the day, from about 9am until about 3pm. Exhausting work and I have tired legs and sore feet from being perched up a ladder all day. To make it worse, the end result isn’t looking that impressive, I’m not a particularly good painter and am hoping that the second coat will look much better.

Then Adrienne and I headed out to the local shopping centre for a coffee and upon returning I went for a bike ride. It was about 25km down the Moonee Ponds Trail to Strathmore and back, at just over 26 km/hr. Warm, but pleasant, out on the bike.

About to go barbeque a nice piece of rump steak … of course gotta have a beer while barbequeing!

Not looking forward to having to work for five days in a row this week.

Edit: Two beers with the bbq, first one was one of my mate Herb’s home brew dark ales (very nice), the second was a Grand Ridge Supershine (11% alcohol) – feeling pleasantly sozzled, which might just get finished off with a glass of the shiraz I opened last night while watching Bones. I think I might sleep well tonight.

Edit: After a few drinks, and all the good TV shows have finished, what better to do than watch the last quarter of the Grand Final again. Chappy …. Chappy …. Chappy!

The usual trip to the Victoria Market started the day and our purchases were definitely more summery. Lots of things to make salads (I love summer for this reason, I think I’m a salad person more than a vegetable person), lots of things to cook on the barbeque (we had some delicious chicken sausages tonight) and lots of nice fruit (much of which went into a delightful fruit salad, with which I had yoghurt and muesli tonight).

The rest of the day was spent painting. Well, not actually painting because the paint tin never got opened, rather it was preparation. The preparation is the worst part I reckon, cleaning, wire brushing, sanding, filling gaps – it is quite hard work, especially in 30 degree heat. I’m re-painting under the eaves around the outside of our house. If you remember I did a little bit when we put up our new deck/pergola, now I’m starting the rest of the house. So, 7 hours or so of preparation today will lead to hopefully significantly less time than that painting tomorrow.

I am pulling out of the Sri Chinmoy Geelong run tomorrow, my sore calf is just not up to it. It is vastly improved, I didn’t really notice it much climbing up and down the ladder all afternoon, nor walking around the market. I went for a short run (2.5km) tonight, including some bursts of race pace, during which there were some definite twinges from the calf. I don’t think it is up to a race. This is the first race I’ve entered and not started. Whilst I’m disappointed, I think that long-term it is the most sensible course of action. “Discretion is the better part of valour”, “Live to fight another day” – funny how those platitudes don’t really make you feel any less disappointed.

Having some computer problems tonight. For some inexplicable reason Outlook and Firefox both seem to be having issues on our home computer. I’ve spent the last few hours trying to fix things but have managed to fix neither. I have managed to clean up a whole lot of crap off the computer though, at least it does seem to be starting and operating quicker. I removed Firefox and now it won’t re-install, so I’ve just installed Chrome, Google’s new browser – it is working and seems quite clean and fast – definitely a better prospect than IE. Outlook is still playing up, but at least I can retrieve email via Mail2Web.

My calf is still troubling me. It is improving, and I don’t really notice it when walking now, but am still doubting I’ll be right for race on Sunday – we’ll see how we go, but I think I might do further damage if I push it. So, no exercise yesterday, and just a half-hour home workout tonight.

Drinkies at the pub after work tonight was a pleasant end to the week. I wish all work weeks were three days long!

I went for a run with Deb before work this morning, our usual 8.5km loop. About 5km into the run I had some pain in my calf which got quickly worse. Some walking and stretching didn’t seem to help much, so it was a very slow trot home for the last few kilometres. Still sore now despite lots of icing and self-massage. Doesn’t auger well for the race on Sunday without a miraculous recovery, does it?

Another dratted teleconference tonight, 12:30am-2am (actually I guess that is tomorrow morning isn’t it, not tonight)

I can’t say I’m a big follower of the horse racing, but am always happy to have Melbourne Cup day off (for those reading from overseas, I think we in Melbourne are probably one of the few cities in the world to have a public holiday for a horse race!).

Started the day off with another bike ride with Herb, rode down the Maribyrnong trail into Docklands for a coffee then back up the Moonee Ponds Creek Trail – about 26km all up. There were a few nicely frocked up young fillies (of the two legged variety) walking around Docklands! I must say that I really can’t understand how they can last a whole day at the races wearing those high heels though – gonna be some sore feet by days end I think.

Then later Adrienne and I went into Williamstown with Herb and Kerry for lunch (a very nice pizza for me with a glass of pinot noir) and a nice walk along the waterfont. Walking back to the car we came upon a young couple who had found a “gentleman” passed out in the car park and were calling an ambulance. The young lady who was on the phone to the ambulance was trying to relay questions and asked him if he had a history of heart problems, his response was “No ambulance, the only f$%*’ing history I’ve got is not paying my ambulance membership”. It was about now we sort of worked out that he was just alcohol over-indulged, had been left in the car and had tried to get out and had fallen over. Anyway, the ambulance was cancelled and hopefully he sobered up okay!

Just finished a home workout, again to my new Quo DVD, which is brilliant!

I saw these two young Australian singers on Rockwiz on Saturday night. I loved the song they sang, very catchy and these girls can really sing. I’ve just downloaded their album and a few other tracks from EPs from iTunes, I really like them, hope you do too.

Check out their performance of “Painful” on Rockwiz.

Even though I wasn’t working today I arranged to go in for a run with Deb (who was working). When I got there Deb was in her running clothes but looking decidedly seedy and saying she thought she might have gastro so had decided not to run. So, I did our usual 8.5km loop on my own, the first time I’ve run the loop on my own. I did it at a reasonable pace, 5:15 min/km (it is quite hilly), but must admit that I did walk a couple of times up the big hill. Shows you how weak-willed I am, I never do that when running with Deb.

Adrienne and I then drove down to Geelong and had a little trip around the Bellarine Peninsula. We checked out where the Sri Chinmoy run is next weekend on the way through Geelong, then headed down and had a coffee and cake in Portarlington followed by a walk around the shops and down the pier. Then off to Queenscliff and a look around the shops and to The Rip lookout. Next stop was Ocean Grove for some lunch, a walk around the town and a walk along the beach. Then a quick stop off to visit my mum & dad in Geelong on the way home.

Upon return home I headed out for a little 20km ride on the bike, then we had a nice slab of steak on the BBQ for tea.

A short home workout to round out the day.

Is a good description of my ride this morning, during which I only fell off my bike once!

I met Herb at his place is Essendon just before 8am and we headed off down the Merri Creek Trail, planning to do the Capital City Trail / Moonee Ponds Creek Trail loop. It was foggy and a misty rain was falling, neither of which are good for a cyclist who wears glasses. It was a constant decision making process to decide whether I could see better with my glasses on or off. The trail was quite slippery, especially where there was muddy wet spots on the path, or leaf mulch debris, and particularly the wooden bridge surfaces that were wet and mossy. None of these go well with skinny road bike tyres. There were a few near misses where I felt the bike slide sideways.

The fall however was due to none of these, but rather another balance/cleat related incident. We were pulling up to some traffic lights on St Georges Rd, almost stationary, and my wheel just caught in the gap between the concrete gutter and the tarmac road surface, I just sort of turned the wheel, leaned to my right slightly, but unfortunately I had unclipped on the left, so down I went. Fortunately, I managed to get my right foot unclipped as I went down, and I fell into Herb who had pulled up beside me. So it was a fall, but not one that did any damage to my bike or my body, just my pride.

Oh, and Herb bought me a cute little black bell for my bike too, which I never had before – so now I am legal and can “ting” the walkers on the paths in front of us. A job previously he always had to do!

And don’t ask me why I bothered to clean my bike yesterday, it got filthy again this morning!

Anyway, just under 40kms, with a stop for coffee at Federation Wharf, then another coffee and muffins back at Herb’s place with his wife Kerry and Adrienne.

Then it was off to Ian’s (work colleague) place for his 50th birthday celebrations. I took a bottle of Bethany Merlot (2004) that Ian had given me for Christmas a few years back, it was divine.

One job I also did today was a little bit of surface spraying of our outdoor furniture where we found a red-back spider yesterday. Oh, and a rough clean of my bike again, just to get the dirt and mud out of the important places.

Well, I managed to lose those 2kg I put on in Lorne last weekend, 73.4kg at weekly weigh-in today. I think I have this weight thing pretty much under control now

My first trip to the Victoria Market for a few weeks this morning.

Too hot for me today to do too much, no exercise yet, but I might do a home workout tonight if I feel energetic.

Went shopping this afternoon for a 50th present for a work colleague (party tomorrow). Ended up buying myself a DVD too, “Status Quo Live At Montreaux”, a new concert, only filmed a few months back, of the same world tour I’ve got a ticket to next March at the Palais. No prizes for guessing what I’m watching tonight if I do go workout!

Gave the bike a good clean and lube this afternoon, including cleaning the chain, which is still really messy even with the chain-cleaner thingummy-bob.

That’s all – a pretty average, except hotter than average,  Saturday.

Edit: I did the workout, the same as last night, then when entering it in my training journal also realised it was the end of the month, so here’s the summary.

Monthly Summary
Running: 83 kms at 5:28 min/km (YTD 694 kms at 5:36 min/km)
Cycling: 284 kms at 23.5 kms/hr (YTD 3351 kms at 24.6 kms/hr)
Other: 12 home workouts

Another okay month, again without a swim, interrupted by some knee niggles and an exercise free weekend away.

An unscheduled (normally Monday/Wednesday) run with Deb this morning was a pleasant start to the day. I thought for a little while we were going to get quite wet, but the pelting rain stopped just as we were about to start out, and it just turned into a very muggy run with a few sprinkles of rain. Our usual hilly, 8km loop, with a detour through Gowanbrae due to bike path closure, at 5:44 min/km.

The day at work was business as usual, nothing exciting or particularly bad about it.

A hot and sweaty, one hour workout at home tonight including some exercise bike and treadmill walking, upper body free weights, core work, vmo exercises and lots of foam roller massage and stretching – all to the accompianment of some loud Status Quo on the headphones. Just what the doctor ordered to blow away the cobwebs.