bloody car

The weather reports for yesterday suggested we were in for some sort of biblical deluge.

I headed out for a long run about lunch-time, with clouds gathering, feeling there was a good chance I’d be doing my famous impression of a drowned rat before long.

As it happened, no precipitation eventuated and I had a pretty uneventful 25km run in slightly under 2 hours. Pretty easy paced and a bit easier than the previous week’s run. That’s okay, it’s good to have a step-back week every now and then.

Unfortunately as soon as I got home I was hustled into the shower, into some clean clothes and forced to drive across town for dinner with friends. 45 minutes in the car is not a good idea coming immediately after a 2 hour run.

I hobbled out of the car like an old man.

I’m feeling better today and may have time for a refreshing recovery run, all things being well.

Sarah Palin
You might have heard about this woman (I almost wrote “chick”), Sarah Palin:

She’s the new Governer of Alaska and the new Republican candidate for Vice President. Apart from being a bit of all-right, she has some erm… interesting… views on some things. Em has already had her say on the woman. (“I hate her already“)

I’ll reserve my opinion except for saying anyone who has five kids called “Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and Trig” has questionable judgement.

dangerous blogging legal precedent

I don’t know whether you saw this story today:

Blogger arrested over Guns N’ Roses

27-year-old Kevin Cogill allegedly played unreleased GNR tracks on his blog a while ago. Shortly afterwards, FBI agents descended on his home, muttering dark threats under their bullet-proofed vests and, with any luck, calling him “punk!”.

He’s in trouble now, old Kevin. Within days he could be in the slammer, being forced to listen to Poison’s 80’s power ballad “Every Rose Has its Thorn” over and over.

Let that be a lesson to you, bloggers out there. If you’re going to put pirated music on your blog, don’t get caught.

I think that was the lesson.

Running
Some half hearted 12km runs over the past few days. Nothing spectacular.

too many cockroaches, too much money

Too much filth

If it didn’t actually end up in the Magistrates Court, this is the kind of story I’d assume is an urban myth.

A woman began eating the takeaway fried rice with chicken and cashews from the Westlake restaurant and remarked that it tasted “disgusting”. “There’s something crunchy in this,” she said before removing a mouthful revealing legs and head of a bug.
Source: 20,000 fine for cockroach in rice

Just in case you don’t believe the story, here’s a picture of the aforesaid cockroach…

One interesting thing about the story is that the restaurant was charged with “supplying food not of the nature and substance demanded by the purchaser.” Who knew that was a crime? There are a few establishments in my local area who’d better watch out!

Too much money

John McCain, Republican candidate for US President, man of the people, rugged individualist, Vietnam veteran, man with the common touch. That was the story.

It’s taken a bit of a blow recently after he admitted publicly he didn’t know how many houses he and his wife owned. (They actually own seven!)

Either he has way too much money or way too few brain cells. I only own about 3 percent of a house and, trust me, I never forget it. I think I’d know if I had another 6 houses scattered around the place. My bank account certainly would.

Running

I’m probably not going to get time to run much this weekend, so, with uncharacteristic foresight, I scheduled my long run for this morning.

I ran from home into the office, starting off at the shivering time of 6:25am and arriving at 8:30. That took a while, you might say, but it was 27.4km. That works out at a bit over 4.5 minute ks.

Not too shabby.

Here it is on mapmyrun….

http://www.mapmyrun.com/route/au/melbourne/257599419113

By the way, if you get the chance, have a look at the satellite view of that run. It gives me a strange, but very strong sense of vertigo, like the time I went sky-diving.

bustin’ it

You’ve gotta feel for Craig Mottram. Tonight, Mebourne time, he’ll be racing against not just Kenenisa Bekele but Bernard Lagat, Thomas Longosiwa and former Kenyan James Kwalia in A HEAT!

Geez, who the hell’s gonna be in the final?

Lucky he’s such a good runner! If it were me the only question would be how many times I’d get lapped, 10 or 20.

Moving on…

AJH and JoJo made complimentary noises recently about my push-up endeavours. Trust me, it’s not warranted.

To answer your question Andrew, I was in the third, hardest column in weeks 1 to 5, but fell down to the easiest one in week 6. I can do 40 pretty easily, 50 at a pinch, but 60 is the most I’ve ever done in one session. 100 is a pipe dream still.

I’m still doing pushups though – I figure it’s good exercise.

Running
A satisfactory session tonight – around 15km all up with some nightmare-ish hill reps and a morale boosting sprint over the last 2kms.

worst ever

The only good thing I can see about Channel 7 is (to my knowledge) they’ve never actually employed Eddie McGuire.

That’s it.

And, if you were hoping I’d say they’d redeemed themselves with their Olympics coverage this year, think again my friend.

There have been plenty of other people lining up to bag them, and why not! They show the damn thing about 23 hours a day, and presumably have thousands of cameras littering smog-city, but mysteriously manage to miss anything remotely interesting.

What’s more, they still give substantial air-time to Sandy Roberts, a man with the charisma and insight of an inebriated wart-hog.

I could go on, but there’s one thing in particular I wanted to mention. This chick: Johanna Griggs:

She looks a nice enough sort. I’m sure she probably is a nice person to have around for a barbecue or something. But, Jesus H. Christ, she has THE WORST VOICE I HAVE EVER HEARD.

It’s the vowels, particularly the “a” sound. “Yaaaaaahoo”. It makes me cringe, a super-human industrial-strength cringe that starts somewhere in the depths of my soul and reaches up to the heavens, passing through every vertebrae in my back on the way.

Running
No running today. No time.

I will do some push-ups tonight. I should technically have finished the 100 push-up challenge. I actually have finished week 6 but I’m nowhere near being able to do 100. I decided to start again from week 5.

good stuff at beijing

Some impressive running at smog-central in the last 24 hours.

Usain Bolt broke the world record in the final of the 100 metres. 9.69 seconds, which is something like a bullet from a gun except dressed in a green and gold lycra suit and funky gold shoes. He’s a fairly impressive physical specimen – just in another league compared to the other guys in the race.

The commentator kept saying how we wasn’t well suited to the 100 metres. He’s too tall, apparently. Well, I think he’s answered that.

The award for worst pun of the day goes to whoever wrote this on theage.com.au –

It was calm, it was still and then suddenly there was lightning all around the Bird’s Nest stadum last night, Usain Bolt lighting up the night sky

“Bolt”. “Lightning”. Get it? Huh?

Puh-lease.

But, if Bolt is a force of nature – Constantina Tomescu-Dita’s win in the women’s marathon was a triumph of pure grit and determination. Imagine that – leading the olympic marathon, completely on your own for 20km.

I’ve plodded around marathon courses enough to be completely in awe of her achievement.

I bet she’s sore now.

Running
Oh yeah, I ran 26.25 km this morning. Not really in the same league, but good enough for this particular mortal.

Here it is: http://www.mapmyrun.com/route/au/melbourne/826810984522

i don’t like albert park

Albert Park Lake has a lot going for it as a running venue. It’s dead flat, there are trees and water, there’s wildlife to dodge and plenty to look at. It’s established enough as a running venue so people don’t look at you funny.

So why don’t I like the place?

Not sure. I thought at one time it had something to do with the swans loitering about the place. They’re nasty pieces of work, swans. You feel like they’re liable to take a bite somewhere painful if you so much as look at them funny.

I give them a wide berth and don’t make eye contact.

I also don’t like the way the distance markers are done. At the tan, they’ve been fairly logical. Someone obviously went around and measured the distance, picked an arbitary starting point then plonked in markers every 250m. That makes sense.

At Albert Park they have markers at seemingly random points saying things like “4.2km north, 1.1km south”. A bit cryptic.

They need to be a bit clearer, particularly for those of us who zoom around at a rate of knots and consequently only have a fraction of a second to take in the finer details.

Running
12.5km this lunch-time, including a lap of the lake at AP. I didn’t run that fast, I was just kidding.

smells

Somewhere between my nose and my brain there’s a bit of a broken connection. It’s always been like that. Most of the time I smell absolutely nothing at all. Roses, perfume, my running shoes, rotten eggs, they’re all closed books to me.

It’s only on very rare occasions when something in my olefactory nerve clicks into gear and suddenly I can smell something. And then it’s a real surprise. Wow! Smelly socks!

Strange.

Anyway, it came to mind on my run today when, plodding up Lygon Street in Brunswick, I was suddenly assaulted by the odour of deep-fried something-or-other; chips, possibly dim sims.

Man, it nearly made me vomit. Running and the smell of deep fried food do not mix.

A couple of blocks later and I passed a nut shop, and that was much more pleasant.

What do you think? Is there something you really don’t like to smell when you’re running?

Running
13.51km this lunch-time; at a good clip too. It took me less than an hour and felt good the whole way. I wouldn’t exactly say I’m back to being fit, but I’m heading in the right direction.

Here it is on mapmyrun.com:

http://www.mapmyrun.com/route/au/east%20melbourne/600096590754