no music

I’ve had a couple of depressing signs that I’m getting old lately.

Yesterday lunch-time I was wondering around the city, wasting time, as you do. I ended up in JB Hifi, and decided I’d buy myself a CD to cheer myself up.

(Buy a CD? For the Gen Y readers out there – people used to buy whole collections of songs that they called “albums” in various formats, none of which fitted on your iPod and some of which weren’t even digital. Strange, but true.)

Anyway, I found the CD section, after searching through MP3 players, mobile phones, computers, Xbox games and DVDs and had a good look around.

Sadly, there wasn’t a single album in the entire shop I wanted to buy. There was plenty of stuff I’d heard and thought “yeah, that’s okay” but nothing I actually felt like handing over $20 of my hard-earned for.

I’m getting old.

The second sign – that I’m wearing a cardigan to work today – I’m not that worried about. I still kid myself I look cool in an ironic sort of way.

Running
A hills session on a little street course near my house last night. It was a touch cold, and not all that enjoyable, but at least it passed fairly quickly.

The training log says I’m up to 381km for the month. 400km looks very doable.

the capital of swine flu

Do you remember back in the 90s when Melbourne went through a stage when everything we did was “world class”? World class casino, world class Grand Prix, world class ferris wheel that doesn’t quite work, the list went on.

It was a bit embarrasing really. Anyone would think we were overcompensating for something.

Now, it turns out we may actually be pretty good at something. The whole of Australia has, at the time of writing, 91 cases of swine flu, and Victoria has over half of them.

That’s punching above our weight. Dare I say it? World class!

The media keeps referring to our “toll”, which has reached 53 in Victoria. I would have thought “toll” meant people had actually died. Apparently not.

Anyway, given the proximity to GC marathon, I refuse to be near anyone who has so much as sniffle, particularly if they have access to any form of livestock.

I can’t afford to get sick.

Running
22.5km last night around a hilly course near my house. I did 6 strides at the end, because apparently that wasn’t enough. I’ll run again tonight if I get the time.

at last, a decent run

I keep a little spreadsheet online to record my running. You can actually see it online at google docs if you’re so inclined. I don’t go overboard with it, I basically only have the date, the kilometres, the time in minutes and a field for comments.

The comments field is usually pretty sparse. I usually just put in “hills” or “fartlek” or, more commonly, nothing at all.

Today though, I’ve written “At last, a decent run”. Why? Because, at last, it was a decent run.

It was 15.5km in 65 minutes, which is just about on marathon pace for me. Here it is on mapmyrun.com.

It felt good, and strong. I was going up the hills pretty well, and down the hills at a reasonable clip. I even managed to race, and beat, a tram along Victoria Street from IKEA to the city.

V. satisfying, especially after an unscheduled day off yesterday, a couple of vegie runs last week and a nightmarish long run on the weekend.

Looking at my spreadsheet in more detail, it looks like I’ve managed 1480km for the year so far, and 345km for May. If things go according to plan I’ll pass 1500km for the year tomorrow and 400km for the month later this week.

That’s enough discussion of stats for the moment. I’m beginning to sound like Steve.

vomit

I had something of a first today – a vomit during a long run. It wasn’t something I was keen to do, and I’d be perfectly happy if it never happened again.

I’ve vomitted while riding a bike, which was entertaining. From memory, I managed to get most of it on the road, and none stuck in the gears, which was good.

This run was over a familiar course – from home to Lilydale then down to Montrose and then back home. About half way through I stopped at Lilydale Lake for a sip of water and then kept going. Within 5 minutes my stomach was heaving, my head was light and I was sitting down dry – and not so dry – heaving.

The worst thing was that I was minimum 15km from home.

I was tempted at various times to take a short cut to the nearest train station or find a public phone to call for help. Thankfully, neither were particularly plentiful around Montrose.

I made it home in the end, but not in great speed. The whole trip was 33.5km at an average of slightly over 5 minute ks. That included the time spent technicolour yawning. Here it is on mapmyrun.com.

It wasn’t my finest running hour. That being said, it was a good test of mental and physical toughness. I’m just glad I finished.

Food
My pasta maker got a second workout last night. This time we made ravioli with a stuffing of ricotta, lemon zest, thyme and spinach. It took a while to make and the quality control was a bit iffy. They didn’t look all nice and even like the ones you buy in the shops. But they tasted fantastic.

The carb loading didn’t seem to do much good this morning. Perhaps all the ricotta didn’t help. I must say, it didn’t taste so good the second time.

an all-time low

I don’t ask for much. When it comes to our media representatives, I don’t expect fascinating, informed discussions on the works of Marcel Proust. I’m as cynical as the next guy – I know they’re only there to grab our fleeting attention, so it can be sold to whichever advertiser is willing to pay for it.

That being said, I really think our national discourse, as represented in this case by theage.com.au, has sunk too a new low.

This is what they see fit to put on their homepage:

1. an article about lad’s magazines
2. panicky, ill-informed speculation about swine flu
3. an article about a woman who got drunk in a Thai bar, got arrested then tried to bribe her way out of it
4. a Pakistani cricketer missing a cricket game because of genital warts
5. a story about a grown adult who flies paper planes
6. an article celebrating some orange-looking tart famous only for going on TV to do racist impressions of “wogs” and make the sound “chk-chk-boom”

This is what passes for news. Doesn’t say much for our society, does it?

Edit: I saw this on Facebook…..

It’s funny ’cause it’s true.

Running
Another vegie run this morning with AM. My legs were feeling pretty heavy. I probably should have just taken the day off.

running gives you energy

It’s counter-intuitive but undeniable – a brisk 10km leaves you feeling more energetic afterwards than when you started.

At 8pm on a Wednesday night when you’ve had a long day, it’s dark and cold outside, and your marathon training plan says you’re supposed to run 18km it’s VERY counter-intuitive. The way I saw it last night, the very idea was evidence of clinical insanity.

I was sorely tempted to pull the plug and spend the night eating mint slices in front of bad TV. (Is there any other kind?).

Thankfully, something – momentum, shame, habit, the lack of mint slices? – pushed me out the door and pure stubbornness got me far enough away from home to make a proper run unavoidable.

I ended up with 19km in just under 90 minutes. Not fast, but in my defence, it was pretty hilly. I had a decent time listening to the entire Goldberg Variations on the MP3 player, plus a little bit of Schumann lieder towards the end.

By the time I got home I was happily humming “Dammrung will die Flugel spreiten, schaurigruhren” and other misunderstood cod-German phrases to myself and considering hugging complete strangers.

Today I had a little lunch-time run with a friend from uni – Ben – who I haven’t seen much of for years, despite the fact he works in my building.

We schlepped it down to the MCG, at any easy chatting pace, then 6 non-chatting sprints up Barack bridge.

Nice.

football and emotional blackmail

Lou Richards may or may not be a delightful old bloke (I must say I’m yet to see any evidence of that, just a lot of extremely irritating appearances on weekend football shows). I’m told he was a pretty good footballer in his day. But is he a “legend”?

That’s the question that seems to have obsessed 75% of Melbourne, the AFL, and most of the media this week. The Herald Sun has clearly made up its mind in the affirmative, running strident front page editorials and articles by Sam Newman.

I’m not convinced. If he doesn’t meet the criteria, then I don’t care how close to death he is, how good friends he is with Sam Newman or even Kevin Rudd. He can’t get in.

If it were me making the decision, I’d resent the petty emotional blackmail playing out in the newspapers.

Stuff him.

Running
None today. I have a run scheduled for tonight, which I’m not completely looking forward to.

now I’ve done it

Well, it’s officially done. There’s no backing out now.

I’ve entered the Gold Coast Marathon.

The flights are booked and paid for, the accommodation is sorted, the place in the race itself secured.

I’m number M1501 (a nice number, it fills me with confidence).

On the other hand, nerves have suddenly appeared, as it from nowhere. The second I hit “submit” on that entry form, I started to think “what have I done?”

Memories of blisters, of heart pain, of sweat and chafing, of heart rates in the 180’s 12 hours after the race finished, they all came flooding back.

It’s funny, there’s always a moment somewhere towards the end of a marathon when I think “why did I get myself into this? This will be the last one.”

But I always go back for more.

Sucker.

Running
A fartlek session around Princes Park this lunch-time. I took a roundabout way back to the office, and ended up with 14.6km. Here it is on mapmyrun.com.

Stats wise, I’m up to 279km for the month, and 1396km for the year.