infrapatella fat pad infringement

I bet you didn’t know you had an intrapatella fat pad. Even if you did, did you know what happens if it get’s infringed?

No, I thought not. So, I’m one step ahead of you then.

Basically the IFP (I can’t be bothered typing it out again) is a little bit of veiny fat that sits in the knee and acts as a bit of a cushion. That’s fine unless it gets pinched – or infringed – in which case it hurts a bit.

That accounts for my knee pain in the last week, as well as the last hobbled 2kms of my run on Monday morning.

The bloody physio reckons I’m only allowed to run for 5km every second day. And no hills.

Sometimes I wonder if this is all worthwhile, I tell you.

to the track

Rest easy, dear read. Your humble correspondent has not taken up the life of a professional gambler. Also, I do realise the Spring Racing Carnival is sooooo last week (back before Summer came in earnest).

No, the track to which I refer is the red, springy variety, with white lines and a long jump pit running alongside it. In short: an athletics track.

I normally avoid athletics tracks like an extremely boring dose of the plague. And with good reason: they bore me senseless. Perhaps I have a short attention span, but I need something to look at to distract me from my sweaty, fibrillating, shambolic technique.

Anyway, as part of the general project “get back into it”, (“it” being running) I thought I’d better do a quality session every now and then. So today was it: 4.5km to the track in Croydon, 10 x 100m sprints with 100 metre jog between each, and then 3.5km back home.

10km all up almost to the metre, and a good time was had by all.

Well, it was only me at 5:30 at Croydon Athletics track, but I certainly had a good time. I don’t know what all these track people complain about (I’m thinking about you Jojo). Track work is easy!

2 bigshot Americans in town

If you haven’t noticed, there are a couple of big American stars in Melbourne at the moment getting everyone excited.

Britney Spears is here doing her Circus tour. It’s mildly controversial, due to her obvious and apparently very poor miming of her “music”. Still, I’ve met many women (it is mostly women) who seem to be almost hyperventilating at the thought of the concert. I talked to a fully grown women on the train last night who was seriously talking about camping out the front of her hotel. I’m not sure what she hoped to see that hasn’t already been splashed over the front of a thousand trashy magazines. God knows, I’ve seen enough.

The second megastar is Tiger Woods, who we’ve paid 3 million bucks US to come here to play in a golf tournament. Thousands of apparently sane people turned up to watch him practice earlier in the week. I assume they’re mainly men. As I write this, theage.com.au has a live leaderboard. For golf! Golf, for christsakes!!

I’m a bit underwhelmed by all of this. I’m sure Tiger Woods is a decent guy, and he can certainly play golf. I’m not much of a fan of Britney’s work, but I do have some sympathy for her: she’s obviously had a difficult couple of years in her personal life.

But it’s not very interesting. I have a better idea: let’s do a switcheroo. Britney can enter the Australian Masters this morning and Tiger can turn up in fishnet stockings and writhe around in a cage onstage at Rod Laver Arena tonight.

I’d pay to see that.

Running
None yesterday. I did get to the pool for a quick km of my special brand of unco-swimming. With any luck I’ll get to run tonight or tomorrow morning.

men’s underwear and feminism

A fascinating sociological study, as reported today in theage.com.au – Men’s underwear key to fidelity.

Yes, apparently men only buy their own underpants when they are hoping to entice a potential partner into a relationship, according to a new survey.

Boys up to the age of 19 generally let their mothers buy their knickers, and after we get married we’re content to let our wives do the job. It’s only in the in-between period and when we’re thinking about having an affair that we pay any attention to our jocks.

Just in case you were wondering, 31 is the key number. If a man buys more than 31 pairs of underwear in a given year, that’s a sign he’s looking for a shag.

(Just out of interest, who in hell buys 31 pairs of underwear in a year? Bloody hell!)

This story rings true, in my experience.

Yes, it’s partly a feminist issue – why should women have to buy underwear for men?

The thing is, from my perspective, I’d much rather my wife didn’t keep buying me boxers. She won’t stop, no matter how many times I ask.

As far as I’m concerned, underwear is only there to perform a pretty basic function – cover up my unmentionable bits. As long as it does that, I don’t much care about what it looks like, whether it has holes in it or, god forbid, how fashionable it might or might not be.

I’m pretty sure I have renegade boxers at the back of my drawer that must be at least 5 years old. And they’re still going strong. I don’t need a brand new pair with go faster stripes down the side. Who’s going to see it anyway?

Also, I have a pair of sandals I bought in London in 1999 that were pretty daggy then and are worse looking now. But stuff it: they’re really comfortable, have great support and have gotten me around the world at least twice. Why give them up?

Running
None today. My left knee (the “good” one) has been playing up, so I thought I’d have a rest day.

agony of non-running

I spent some of today’s lunch break idly thumbing through a recent issue of Runner’s World Australia in the newsagent. They had an article about “The Agony of Non-Running” (I think – I don’t remember it exactly).

I confess to laughing out loud then and there. If you happened to be in a newsagent in Lonsdale street today and heard a bitter, sarcastic sort of laugh, that was me.

I couldn’t bring myself to read the whole article (and the shop owner was looking at me disapprovingly – what? you think I’m gonna buy this?) but I assume the author also wrote about the agony of getting back to running. You realise, despite your best intentions, you’ve lost an awful lot of fitness. Then there’s the frustration of trying desperately, only to fall short of times you used to take for granted.

Sigh.

Never fear, JH: it’ll come back.

Running
I got up early this morning – again, curse this early summer – and did a hill session. It was about 11km, including 16h hill efforts of 1 to 2 minutes. Fun.

My left knee is hurting today, but I’m pointedly ignoring it. I’m not in the mood to take any nonsense from my sad excuse for a body.

maroondah festival and stuffing around at pools

It’s sad, I know, but back in the day, when life was sweet and young and full of promise, I’d count a festival as being good if it had some combination of these attributes:

• loud
• crowded
• sweaty
• full of alcohol and other things
• loud – did I mention that?
• lots of guitars
• loud

And definitely no kids!

Yesterday I went to the Maroondah festival, and had a great time. Do you know why? There were:

• sandpits (plural),
• a sheep, a goat and a pig to pet,
• free spinning tea-cup rides,
• ice-cream and
• balloons to take home.

My 3 year old had a great time, which means I was happy too. Even if I had to ride on the tea-cup ride 3 times, which made me dizzy.

Earlier, we made a visit to the wave pool in Glen Waverley. Previously, I’d never given much thought to Glen Waverley as a suburb, considering it about as bland as could be. But that was only because I had no idea such the wave pool was there. What’s next, hot springs in Springvale?

Anyway, on a 33 degree day it was packed, but happily so. Again, the kids had a great time.

Running
I managed to run 50km last week, which is good. The last couple of runs were squeezed into the very small windows of relatively cool weather. I suspect this week will be the same.

On Saturday I did a lap of the Ringwood-Croydon bit of the Mullum Mullum Creek Trail. Yesterday, I went for a swim at chlorine central AKA Kilsyth Pool, then ran the long way back to the mother-in-law’s place in Mooroolbark in increasing heat, just so I could make it to 50km for the week.

This morning I was up at 5 for a 12.5km loop around the streets near my place. The running’s getting better, despite the infernal heat.

Man, I hate summer.

things I’ve learned in the last 48 hours

1. My Brooks Adrenaline GTS 7 shoes from 2007, that have run at least one full marathon and something over 2,000km in general training, are perfectly good for messing about the house but for a decent run, they’re a recipe for disaster.
2. Old Adrenaline-induced back pain is no fun.
3. Kids will eat broccoli, beans, carrots and cauliflower for dinner, and love it, if you sprinkle it with a little cheese.
4. Despite my protestations, I am a little vain.
5. Jojo knows this.
6. There’s a muscle in my posterior I wasn’t aware of, but it’s possible to pull it.
7. It’s Melbourne Cup week coming up and we have a day off work on Tuesday.
8. Yet again, I’ve forgot to arrange leave on the Monday, so I’ve missed the chance for a 4 day long weekend.
9. I’m an ijjit.

That’s a lot to take in in 48 hours. No wonder I’m tired!

Running
None yesterday, aside from the normal “after the kids” variety. I did have a swim at the Croydon pool and got nice and sweaty doing some gardening in the afternoon.

Today I woke about 5:50 and headed out for a run. It was 17km, including a section of the Dandenong Creek Trail, my old stomping ground. It’s a good place to run, but on mature reflection, it’s as boring as a boring thing from Boring University with a Tedious Degree.

That’s around 45km for the week. Pitiful, by my usual standards, but it’s in the right direction. I’ll try for 50-60km next week. The next step is to include some quality sessions. I’m thinking my easy hill course, or some fartlek.

old and slow

I’ve been reading just now, a piece on the Punch about photoshopping pictures to make yourself look younger and more beautiful. For example, here’s a “real”, unaltered picture of a 50 year-old woman:

Quite a nice picture eh? She’s pretty attractive.

Here she is after photoshop:

Odd eh?

I’m beginning to think I need of photoshopping these days. In real life I can sort of wonder around in a blissful daze, providing I avoid mirrors, totally unaware of how I look. In pictures, however, it’s hard to avoid the awful truth. I take very few pictures for just this reason.

Here’s my most recent picture, also my new facebook profile shot, taken on Monday afternoon at the docks in Hobart:

Scary eh? Admittedly, I had was pretty grumpy and cold, hadn’t slept much and was feeling less than enthusiastic about going to some conference dinner.

Here’s an older profile shot, taken a few years back at Venus bay, when I was relatively young and fresh-faced:

It’s all going south rather quickly isn’t it? I blame years of hard living, destroying my skin’s youthful elasticity and dampening my joie de vivre.

Running
My joie de vivre is not the only thing a bit damp this morning. Some bright spark (me) thought it would be a good idea to go for a run early this morning. I was up at 5:20 and out the door quick-smart. Even at that time, it was warm and humid. I sweated around my usual 12.5km course in pretty much right on an hour. That’s 5 minutes faster than 10 days ago, but still 8 minutes slower than my PB.

When I finished, I was so sweaty there were complaints. Actually, the complaints were about the smell, but it’s the same general idea.

I use this morning’s course as a measure of my overall fitness. (here is is on mapmyrun.com) It’s 12.5km, but not at all easy. I could run that distance in a race at under 4 minute/km pace pretty easily, but I’ve never got close on this course. There are 3 sharp hills and a couple of long slow ones. They hills are all in the first 8km, so the trick is to keep it strong and steady through them, leaving enough energy to fang it over the relatively flat last 3km.

So that’s my goal (for the moment): pick up enough fitness and speed to be able to give 52 minutes a shot. I’d like to do it in under 50 minutes one day, but that’s a way off.