barbie

I had a bit of a shock this morning when I saw this:

Barbie blamed for $100,000 city blaze

I know what you’re thinking, she’s been on the sauce again, Lindsay Lohan-style.

Don’t worry though, that headline is somewhat misleading. It’s actually about a barbecue someone ijjit left burning somewhere in remote North Fitzroy. It went on to light up a couple of sheds and the odd gas bottle.

I blame Ken.

Running
It was all I could do to lie still last night, so no running. I plan on a nice session tonight, if the weather bureau make good on their promise of a cool change.

happy birthday world

As you may have heard, the world turned another year older just this morning.

Apparently it’s 2008 years since a baby was born in a manger, and 1975 years since that same guy was nailed to a tree. I think that’s how the story goes, but don’t quote me.

Anyway, the world looks good for its age, despite the wrinkles and the saggy bits around Antarctica.

So here’s to you, big guy! Many happy returns.

Celebrations
Many of my fellow countrymen no-doubt celebrated the big occasion by gathering in crowds of tens of thousands, getting stupidly drunk and passing out in a gutter. Also fireworks.

I celebrated the big occasion by lying in a semi-slumber in a pool of my own sweat, owing to yet another super-hot day. I hate summer.

Isn’t it time for winter again? I liked that.

Running
None. Haven’t you been paying attention? It’s too damn hot. Perhaps tomorrow.

another stinker

It’s a stinker in Melbourne again today, but not as bad as yesterday. In terms of stinkiness, today is like a new-born baby’s nappy – stinky and kinda gross, but nowhere near as foul smelling as a baby who’s started on solids.

Apologies to the non-breeders out there.

Thankfully, this morning was relatively cool. I took the opportunity to dash out for a long run. 25km around the streets near me.

I’m not back into full fitness, but I felt a lot better than my last attempt at this distance a few weeks ago. I even managed to overtake a cyclist going up Kent Street in Croydon. Admittedly he looked like he was about to cark it, but still….

another awful run

I’m beginning to think running in the evening doesn’t agree with me. Last night was the second train-wreck of a training run in as many weeks. See November 28’s post.

After a couple of hours of battling the public transport system then corralling various youngsters, I headed out around 7:30. You’d think a run would be just the thing to clear away the cobwebs yadayadayada.

But no, it started sluggish, stayed sluggish, ground to halt around half way and then finished in a blaze of mediocrity. Yuck.

Perhaps it’s a nutrition issue. Who knows.

Christmas party
Yet another Christmas lunch today. Great.

Christmas seems to have gone from too-far-away-to-worry-about to completely-over-it in record time this year.

self-love

I don’t know if you saw this recently, from the Age website:

No relief for ‘masturbating’ teen

Could you imagine how embarrassing this must be?

This kid – Charles Bird – is going to have live the whole of his life known as the guy who got chucked out of school for beating off in class.

Maybe it’s just me being all repressed and Victorian, but if I had been caught in that situation, the last thing I’d want to do is go to court and risk EVERYONE knowing about it.

That sort of thing should be kept as a private thing between you and … sorry I can’t finish that sentence.

Thankfully.

As an aside, while I appreciate the “no relief” bit in the story headline, I’m sure the sub-editors could have come up with a juicier pun for that story. An ideas?

Running
Last night in Melbourne was filthy, stinky, fetid, disgustingly hot and awful. I was wide awake at 3:45 and noticed it was 28 degrees in the house. Yuck.

So no running as yet, although the temperature has dropped since then. I’ll probably have a bit of a bash around the block or something tonight.

New PB

I’ve had a couple of reasonably significant runs since we last spoke. Or, since I last spoke. You know what I mean.

Run home
The first run was the one I mentioned on Friday – I ran from work back home. As a run, it wasn’t that exciting, and only really significant in that 26k over hills is a bit of a breeze these days. I took it easy, due to the relative heat, hills and general laziness. I was done in about 2hrs 10 – roughly 5 minute ks.

It’s done, and over. Ho hum. I probably won’t do it again, unless I can come up with a more exciting route.

Burnley Half Marathon
The second significant run was the Burnley half yesterday morning, or “Advanced Freight Half Marathon” as it now like to be called.

It’s one of those AV events, which I always find depressing as I’m about the only person not in a snazzy uniform, and I feel about as fit as a slug. A lazy slug, at that.

I had a bit of a warm up of a few ks to get any stiffness out of the legs, then moseyed up to the start with Steve. The gun went off when I least expected it, and then everyone took off like a thousand scalded cats.

The first 5 ks were quite fast, self attempting to keep Tiger Boy (of Ausrun and Coolrunning fame) in sight. At 5k the guy called out 19.14 (“oh oh, that’s fast. better slow down”). At 6k he called out 23.05 (“damn, that didn’t work”). So I knew it was either going to be super fast or I’d start hurting soon.

I passed TB shortly afterwards – he didn’t seem to be having much fun at the time.

At 10k the time was 39.04 – not far off my (extremely soft) 10k PB. Again, I was thinking I’d gone out too fast.

At that point I came up to a bunch of AV guys who seemed to be taking it super easy – laughing and joking and stuffing around. For some reason it p**sed me off to think they could do so easily what was just about giving me a coronary. So I made it my mission to chase them down.

I did stick with them, though it might have been the end of this short life. I learnt a lot about their travel plans, what they do for a living, their thoughts on training techniques and what they think of various runners out on the course. I must have developed tunnel vision, as I completely missed Morsey and Em, who were apparently lurking on the sidelines.

I overtook my two chums with a k to go. V. gratifying.

The time was 82.02, which is about 4 minutes faster than the old time. Must remember to update that list on the right of screen.

Marathon
All this PB stuff brings me to a bit of a dilemma. The race pace calculators (McMillan and the like) gave me an expected marathon time, based on my HM, of 2hrs 52.

That’s not going to happen. Trust me.

But is a sub-3 possible? It could be…. Should I run with the 3 hour pacers?????

A dilemma.

gruesome

I’ve just been reading this story on the Age about Bob Woolmer:

Murdered Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer was poisoned before being strangled, rendering him powerless to fight back against his killer

Geez…. these Pakistani-cricket-coach murderers don’t mess around do they? It’s a wonder they didn’t have him hung-drawn and quartered while they were at it.

Another slightly unpleasant death in the news is this guy, who died after running the London Marathon the weekend before last. There’s a bit of controversy on Cool Running at the moment about whether they guy died because of too little water, or too much water and wether he was fit, or superfit, or some kind of slob.

Anyway you slice it, it’s pretty scary. Still, they’ve only had 9 deaths in 25 years. They probably have tens of thousands of entrants every year, so the odds are still pretty good.

Touch wood.

I have no intention of leaving famous last words on this, or any other, blog.

Running
8k on saturday followed by some downhill strides. Then a long run yesterday taken reasonably quickly – 37.something all up in 2hours 50. Not too bad I suppose.

more bad behaviour

Today’s entry was going to be all about running etiquette. You know, when to overtake, whether to politely cough, yell “track” or fall over and feign a heart attack etc.

However, in the course of 45 minutes on the Lilydale line last night the topic quickly morphed from running etiquette to train etiquette via variations on “I want to wring that guy’s neck”. (And yes occasionally I do think about what I’m going to write in advance).

I’m a creature of habit, sometimes extremely so. Everyday after work I get on the train at the same time, via the same door in the same carriage, sit in roughly the same seat, eat the same lunch (I could go on).

I also really like peace and quiet, especially after a long day’s work. There’s nothing better than sitting quietly for a while staring out the window or reading a book to recharge the batteries.

Which brings me to this guy last night.

He talks.

Now I know that doesn’t sound so bad. But really, you have to hear the guy. He barely draws breath for the whole trip. He must have some sort of circular breathing thing happening. And he talks absolute shite. It doesn’t even make sense. And it’s so effin loud. It drives me insane.

I’ve tried headphones, but I have to turn them up so loud I’m almost deafened. I’ve tried moving seats (grrrrrrr) but his voice reeeaaally travels.

The worst thing is, I know I’m being completely unreasonable. He’s not breaking any laws – no feet on the seats, or cigarettes; he probably has a ticket. You can’t just walk up to a stranger and say “shut the eff up”.

I guess the alternative is what’s happening now – I go slowly insane and presumably at some point in the future make like a disgruntled US Postal worker and/or get all medieval on his ass.

oh…

I mean to say yesterday – I did 13k including some intervals at the athletics track at Croydon at about 5:30am. I can’t believe I was doing laps of an athletics track in Croydon at 5:30am. What has my life come to?