new year resolutions

I only have a few resolutions this year, and they’re pretty basic. I’m going to aim to:

1. not get caught having drug-fuelled orgies with multiple high-class prostitutes while I’m supposed to be playing golf (notice the very careful and specific wording)
2. not accept the Nobel Peace Prize unless I’ve really earned it
3. stay out of hospital
4. stay away from the physio
5. not need the hospital or physio
6. run a lot, and well
7. figure out how to manage both 5 and 6
8. not bring two little kids on an overseas plane trip
9. move overseas for work (this may involve a brief suspension of number 8)
10. find some way of spending less time commuting
11. keep up the swimming
12. eat a little better
13. get back into playing the piano, it’s been sitting there in the corner of the lounge room for months, unloved and reproachful. I can hear it crying “Play me! Tune me!”
14. save the world from global warming
15. spend less time on facebook and twitter
16. have as many casual days as I can manage

That outta do it.

this week is casual week

Where I work, there’s a sort of informal agreement that Friday is casual day. The rules aren’t particularly strong. If you turned up looking like this, you might be looked at strangely, but that’s about it.

On non-casual days I wear what amounts to a uniform – black shoes, black “work” pants and a business shirt. I wear the suit jacket only when I have a big meeting, and a tie only for job interviews.

On casual days I just swap the shoes for sneakers, work pants for jeans and the business shirt for a t-shirt. Everyone’s happy.

This week, otherwise known as Out-of-office Email Week, I’ve decided it’s going to be casual Friday every day. Also, seeing as it’s a bit hot outside, I’m wearing shorts. Shorts!

The world hasn’t come to an end. There have been no complaints, even from impressionable women, forced to share the lift with my unsightly, hairy, stubby calfs.

Perhaps this is my resolution for 2010: a casual year. Sounds good.

Running
A reasonable run this morning, before it got too hot. Reasonable, not good, but that’s a lot better than most of my recent runs. It was 13km from the city, up towards Brunswick and back via Royal Park. I was pretty sweaty there by the end, but in a good way. Here it is on mapmyrun.com.

Incidentally, AJH – you’ll see by that map where my work is (at the start and end of the run). Just opposite there in Lonsdale Street is that woman I was telling you about yesterday.

back to work

In a rather spectacular example of poor planning, I’ve managed to end up at work in the few pitiful days between Christmas and the New Year; I’m super happy about that, believe me.

The holiday in Vietnam was certainly an experience, and if you go by the “change is as good as a holiday” theory, it should have been twice as refreshing as your normal laze-on-the-beach variety. It may have been, but any relief from the holiday was promptly ruined by Christmas.

Sigh, christmas.

At least the kids liked it. They (or at least one of them) are at the age when they understand who Santa is (he brings presents) and still believe in it. I’m not sure how they think a big fat man managed to squeeze down our little chimney, eat a couple of biscuits, drink a beer, leave a bunch of presents and then shoot back up.

Anyway, I’m back at work, and after only one morning, the holiday/christmas cheer has gone completely.

Last night I couldn’t sleep with quite strong back pain. I NEVER have back pain, so this was quite a surprise. I took some pain relievers, which reacted quite badly with the alcohol I had earlier in the night, so I had to lay there in pain and feeling sick. Even this morning I couldn’t keep any breakfast down.

Joy.

I did go for an 8km run around this morning, but it was pretty gosh-darn slow.

On the plus side, the trains are empty and there’s no-one much bothering me at work. I might slip out a bit early.

Running
My running is slowly getting back to normal. I ran 45km or thereabouts last week, including an 18km long run on Sunday, and I should manage about the same this week god willing. It’s all slow, low-quality stuff with no hills, but it’s a start. I realised recently it’s been weeks since I felt any knee pain, so that’s a plus.

beer and running – Saigon hash house harriers

I think we’re starting to get sick of Ho Chi Minh City. It’s very busy and dirty and there are about 20 million motor bikes everywhere you look.

On Friday we got out of town, as far as the Cu Chi tunnels – an area North of the city where the Vietnamese had a whole network of tunnels during the war with the Americans. It was interesting to hear a version of the war story in which the American soldiers weren’t the innocent victims. There was a video which described a heroic young Vietnamese woman – lauded for killing 15 Yankee soldiers. Hooray!

Yesterday I managed to beg off kind minding duties and joined up with the local branch of the Hash House Harriers. I’ve never done this sort of thing before, and now I think I know why. It doesn’t sit well with the kind of person who will happily run for 3 hours on his own. Solitary, antisocial me. But it was a cultural experience of sorts.

We headed south out of the city for about an hour, then set off for a race that ended up being somewhere over 10km. I ran more, as I inevitably picked the wrong direction at the checks. It was a beautiful day, in beautiful surroundings – rubber plantations, rice fields, farms, a monastery. I’m not much of a fan of the game itself – all the shouting out “On On!” every 30 metres gets on my nerves.

Then, at the end, everyone stands in a circle, tells extremely dirty jokes and drinks an inordinate amount of beer. Half way back to town on the bus someone yelled out “piss stop!”, so the bus pulled over and everyone piled out to pee on the side of a very busy main road – females included.

By the time I made it back to central Ho Chi Minh City, it was dark and quite late, and I had to figure out how to get back to my Dad’s place.

A long day, and quite fun in an adolescent sort of way, but I’m not sure it’s done all that much for my health and fitness.

Some pictures below, taken with my Dad’s mobile….

A view from the finish of the run, looking back over some of the course.

The bus at the end of the run. The blue tubs are full of beer, for the moment.

pho and running

It’s now our second full day in Vietnam. We’re now over the worst of the sleeplessness, although the kids still want to get up at 4:30am. It’s an improvement on 2am, but not by much.

Today was spent in Ho Chi Minh City, and around the pool. My 3 year-old son and I took a cyclo ride while my wife dragged my dad around a market. Cyclo’s are quite fun if you can take your mind off the fact that you’re 30cm and a fraction of a second away from being flattened by a semi-trailer, a bus or a small army of motorbikes. Oh, and the uncomfortable feeing of being a rich, idle western opressor making life hard for strong-legged Vietnamese blokes.

We had pho for lunch, which I quite like eating, and the 3 year-old likes poking with chop-sticks – one in each hand.

The rest of the day was spent mainly around various pools, my Dad’s and the one up the road at the massage place.

Running
I ran this morning at about 6:30. It was 24 degrees already and humid as hell (I don’t know why people pay for sauna baths here) but about as running-friendly as the day was going to get. The streets all look the same to me right now, so the plan was just to run for 15 minutes in one direction, then turn back gain, hoping I remembered landmarks. Luckily, I headed out to the main road and ran right into a fellow English speaking runner, who I prevailed upon to run with me. She was Rita from South Africa and she took me on a 5km circular route through Anh phu (here it is on mapmyrun.com) and instructed me on the finer points of HCMC running.

They are, in no particular order:

1. Don’t run on the footpath – it’s too uneven and frustrating, and most of the time not even there
2. Don’t give way – the motorbikes and trucks and things don’t go too fast, and they’re used to swerving to miss slow-moving objects.

It’s a little tricky, but once you get used to it, oddly safer than running on the road in Melbourne. If you tried that approach in Ringwood you’d get killed in about 35 seconds: mowed down by an absent-minded Commodore driver doing 80km down Mount Dandenong Road.

It was just over 5 humid, dead-flat ks in just under 25 minutes, followed immedately by a plunge into the pool. As a rule, the old plunge into the p. routine is about as good a way to finish a run as can be.

I’ll try the same route again tomorrow. Maybe 2 laps.

ho chi minh city

The JH clan have decamped to sunny Vietnam and I write this from my Dad’s place looking over (or should that be “overlooking”?) the Saigon River.

Actually, it’s not all that sunny, firstly because there are clouds around, and secondly because we’ve been up since well before the dawn. The kids’ body clocks are altogether unimpressed with the change in country. They insist on waking up at 6am, even if that means 2am Vietnam time.

The flight up here was a bit of an ordeal. The first bit – to Sydney – was great. Howeve, getting through customs and to the gate was a bit difficult. There were tantrums when it turned out the toy dog had to go through the metal detector. Then the longer part – from Sydney to HCMC – was a major ordeal. The baby girl didn’t sleep a wink and I spent about 5 hours burined under a heaving sea of wriggling, bawling under fours.

I bet the other travellers loved us.

Still, we’re here, and that’s good. I’m about to go for a swim (it’s 6:10am here – sigh).

this can’t be heaven

Apaprently, Geoffrey Edlesten (he of the expensive wedding to pneumatic blonde with boobs fame) has had a scrape in a helicopter down at Moorabin airport. Things went a bit pear-shaped and:

It all happened so quickly. I looked up to see the broken windshield and glass and thought this can’t be heaven so I must still be alive

Hmmmm. I’d agree Moorabbin airport doesn’t look like the heaven in the way it’s normally portrayed. However, there is an alternative explanation – one that would be particularly relevant to Mr Edelsten – that would make more sense.

With apologies to Mr Sartre, hell is an eternity at Moorabbin airport.

Running
9km this morning, no complaints.

Vietnam
Oh, I’m off on holidays as of about 2 hours from now. We (including kids) are zooming away to Vietnam for a while to stay with my Dad and check the place out. I’m not sure about the running situation there. I imagine it will be hot and sticky. But I will try.

If I don’t blog again before then – have a great christmas/hannukah/mindless orgy of consumerism/relaxed day off work or whatever turns you on.

carnivorous parenting

I’m ashamed to say this, but my son has reached the age of 3 and a half (“a big boy”) without knowing the unique joy of the lamb chop. He’s not vegetarian, believe me. He’s eaten more sausages than you’ve had hot dinners (perhaps) and a small mountain of chicken nuggets, but never something proper. Never a steak, never a pork chop.

Things have recently got to the stage where, like his mother, he will actually ask for vegetables for dinner. Broccoli, zucchini, carrots: all that stuff. And not even vegetables cooked in healthy bacon fat: he wants steamed vegetables with only a slight sprinkling of cheese.

Thankfully, today he expressed an interest in some lamb chops at the supermarket. It was clear: his time had come.

So, we cooked them up and he hewed into them with relish (I mean enthusiastically, not with any type of sauce). He ate two, holding them with his hands and ripping them up with his teeth. When he was finished, he said “I’m going to the shops now to get some steak.”

That’s my boy.

Please don’t tell his Mum.

Running
My last post was about running in the rain. No post has eventuated in the intervening 5 days. Put two and two together. Go on! Sigh, I guess I have to spell it out for you: I’ve been sick.

I still am, but I’m on the mend. Today I did my “long run” – only a miserable 12.7km. It started at Knox shopping centre and headed home via the exciting locales of Stud Road, Mountain Highway and Dorset Road. A miserable run, to be honest. The only thing that kept me going was the thought that every step took me further away from Knox City in the pre-christmas mayhem.

That’s motivation.