the waiting is over

A short post again today, as you might imagine I have a couple of things to do.

Team JH has a new member as of about 12:15am this morning. However, I don’t imagine Matilda will be up to much in the way of running for a while, as she’s only about 50cm long and tends to sleep a fair bit. She is pretty strong and healthy (she weighed 8 pounds 10) so I have high hopes.

Everyone’s safe and healthy and I’ve managed to grab some sleep this morning, despite the efforts of the construction guys next door.

old wives

When last we spoke I was all of a tizz, frantically rushing around the house in an effort to remember all the tiny little things one brings to the hospital. I had barely enough time to post a well-crafted sentence or two, before rushing, maternity ward-bound, to greet the new arrival.

Or so I thought…

It was something of a false alarm. I could go into the details, but frankly this is a family blog, and there are some things that are best left in the delivery suite.

So, the new arrival is now a week late. Stress, irritation.

Old wives’ tales that, 10 days ago, we would have laughed at, now seem quite sensible. Dangle 5 cent coins? It could work. Castor oil? Not sure what that is, but at this stage it’s a possible.

Running
9km yesterday morning around Lilydale lake.

box hill

I’ve been inexplicably tired all this weekend. I woke tired on Saturday, and just got progressively more tired as the day went on. Sunday wasn’t much better either. It doesn’t bode well, considering I’m supposed to be running close to 100k per week within a month or two.

I’ll have to look into my diet. I have a sneaking suspicion the problem revolves around a lack of beer. Beer has remarkable curative properties, or so I’m told. Also, barbecue shapes.

With any luck it will pass, most things do.

Anyway, I managed to go for approximately 27k on Sunday morning, so I couldn’t have been that tired. I headed towards Box Hill and back, taking the long way home, through the wilds of North Blackburn and various other salubrious locations.

I remembered to bring Vaseline, but only about 10k into the run, which was a little bit late. Thankfully, no bloody thighs eventuated. I hate bloody thighs.

Just passed Middleborough road I saw a guy running towards me at about 25k/hour, or so it seemed. He was absolutely flying. Of course, I felt I had to speed up to match him. Stupid boy. Why do I have to be so competitive? The guy was probably doing a 200m dash and I was 40% into my long run.

My body seemed to be saving it’s energy for running – I may have struggled to get out of bed, but the last 3-4ks were taken at top speed. Well, top speed for me, which ain’t all that top.

So perhaps this is how the next 4 months are going to go – running good, the rest of life an absolute bitch. Oh well, I suppose I can live with that.

Baby, baby
A couple of my readers of the female persuasion surprised me recently, by saying they don’t seem to mind being called “baby”. Some people get called after vegetables, others small hairy mammals. I suppose, compared with “pumpkin”, baby doesn’t so bad.

How do you feel about these?

• mon petit choux – more vegetables. Who wants to be called after a vegetable?
• darling – an ex girlfriend of mine used that one
• sweetheart – I can’t think how this could be used, at least without a super-heavy dose of sarcasm

baby, baby

The early part of this week seemed to have been dominated, blog-wise, by misplaced nostalgia for various hair bands of the 80s and 90s. It got to the point on Wednesday night when I woke, sweating, from a nasty dream involving Marshall stacks, leather pants, and Yngwie Malmsteen. I can’t remember the details, thankfully, but it left a nasty taste in the mouth.

So I did the sensible thing, took a day off blogging and spent the time instead fulfilling the duties for which I am paid a modest stipend, ie. work.

I’m back today, refreshed, and ready to do my daily couple of hundred words.

Running
18k this morning on my usual Dandenong Creek Trail route. The mornings are getting increasingly dark these days, especially right in the shadow of Mt Dandenong where I am. I must confess the talk of assaults on runners in Brisbane and this thread on the Ausrun forum freaks me out a bit, even though most attacks seem to be on women.

The alarm went off at 5 this morning, and as I turned it off I said “I can’t bothered baby, I’m not going”. I then lay in bed for 5 minutes feeling guilty and slack until I got up and went out anyway.

And I’m glad I did, it’s nice to watch the sun come up on the morning run.

Goofy theory for today
The bit above reminded me of one of my favourite goofy theories. Which bit? The bit when I called my other half “baby”. Anyway, I have this theory that there are only ever 5 or 6 men on the planet at one time who can call a woman “baby” and not sound like either a complete sleaze or the world’s biggest dickhead.

Bob Dylan could do it for a few years in the mid 60s. Elvis probably could. Patrick Swayze tried it for a movie in the 80s and that didn’t turn out too well. I am definitely not one of those 5 men.

Which just goes to show you – what goes on in the Jruns bedroom should stay in the Jruns bedroom.

Have a good weekend, and good running.

welfare for the undeserving

km: 10, for the week: 22.5452

Readers, there has been terrible, shocking news in the last 24 hours. Apparently, hoards of teenagers have been getting themselves knocked up just to pick up the $4000 baby bonus. Of course, the ungrateful little buggers are just blowing the money on plasma screens, text-messages to Australian Idol and hipster jeans. Bloody dole bludgers.

This is so distressing, and surprising. After all, the baby bonus was such a well thought out idea and had absolutely nothing to do with vote buying during an election campaign.

In a way, the worst thing is that respectable, law-abiding, mainstream families, who want nothing more from the baby bonus than to pay for 2% of the new Range Rover, are forced into the ranks of welfare recipients. When I signed up I had to go into Centrelink, and associate with a terribly low class of person. How declasse.

What’s more, now I’m at risk of a Centrelink fine if I make an innocent mistake estimating my annual income in advance (easily done).

I’m glad they’re clamping down on the ungrateful, undeserving wretches. That way there’ll be more for decent people like us.

As a wise man once said, “I didn’t earn it, I don’t need it, but if they miss one payment, I’ll raise hell”.