people are stupid

Specifically, the people who write the instructions on Coles crumpet packets. Yes, you read that right – instructions.

“Cook in a toaster until golden”

Phew, thanks for telling me, Mister Coles. Up until now I’ve been waiting until they go black.

The worrying thing about this is that, presumably, the people who write these things aren’t stupid; that somewhere out there are people who can’t figure out what to do with a crumpet. Have they been burying them in sand? Blending them in a food processor? Freezing them in an ice-cream maker?

The mind boggles.

Running
I have a couple of laps of the tan on Friday. Today I have a long-ish run planned, always assuming it stops raining at some point. I’ll let you know.

Pushups
I took a week off in my last bout of sickness, so I’m a bit behind schedule. I’m currently in week 5 and managing 160 in a session. I managed 45 in a row a couple of days ago. The arms hurt, but there’s not noticeably muscular development.

Cycling
Cadel Evans seems to have bottled it overnight. Again, I slept through the thing. I had a feeling that would happen. There were too many people airily assuming Cadel was the fastest thing on two wheels and that he’d “of course” smash Sastre to smithereens in the time trial.

I think not.

who does this remind you of?

For all you Ausrunners and/or Cool running people, have a peak at this picture:

It’s actually John Darwin, the English guy who faked his own death to collect the insurance payout, and who was found swanning about on some Costa Rican beach earlier this year. At least, that’s what the papers say. It looks an awful lot like Tiger Boy, no?

I ask you, have you ever seen TB and this Darwin character in the same room together? No, I thought not.

Very fishy.

le Tour
I did try to stay up. Honestly, I did. I even made it half way up the Col-de-something-or-other and over the other side. At that point, my eyelids became increasingly heavy, and before I knew it they were playing the test pattern.

Apparently Cadel fluffed it a bit, but possibly not disastrously.

Running
I did run last night – 10km of hills followed by 6 strides. Fun. It didn’t help me stay up but hey, what are you gunna do?

Day 2 – training log now online (ish)

I hate having to do this, but today’s post concerns things vaguely technomalogical. Why “hate”? Well, because I think of running as something completely simple and natural; even organic. It’s the most basic sport you can do, and should be kept so, in my opinion. I resent gadgets, machines and gear in general.

There’s a bit in The World According to Garp by John Irving, when Garp, who’s a distance runner himself, rejects all sports apart from running and wrestling. His theory was that every time you include an apparatus (ball, stick, bat, whatever) you corrupt the essence of the sport. Dodgy theory, I know. Also, I’m no fan of wrestling.

Anyway, that’s why I don’t do so much cycling any more. Bikes are beautiful machines, don’t get me wrong, I love all things carbon-fibre, but at the end of the day, they’re just “gear”. I don’t want to do a sport that requires “gear” and being a gear-head.

Anyway – the one sort of gear that is useful in running (apart from shoes) is a running log. Most people recommend keeping one, and I have in the past, especially when training for a specific race.

As I’m currently in Day 2 of my marathon program, I thought it would be worthwhile keeping one this year. And, seeing as this blog is nominally about running, I should be able to include it here.

Well, you’d think so. Sadly, it’s not that easy. My colleagues who’ve defected to wordpress are able to add extra pages. This would be ideal – I could just layout a basic html table, as per Jaykay’s beautiful example.

Blogspot doesn’t seem to like that idea, presumably on the basis that it would be a bit useful, so I have to look elsewhere.

Whaddaya know? Google, in their infinite wisdom have an online solution to my every problem. Bless ’em.

This time – it’s Google spreadsheets. Unfortunately, it’s unbelievably clunky and difficult to use, and up until recently, didn’t allow you to publish the spreadsheets anywhere. I don’t understand why you can only put in 100 rows. It’s clearly not enough. Combine that with the dreadful time-lag everytime you do anything, and it’s hardly worth persisting with.

I had little choice, so I’ve put together a simple spreadsheet, which you can see here at Google spreadsheets (opens in a new window). It will allegedly update itself every 5 minutes; completely pointless of course unless I decide to do a training run 480 times a day. Have a look if you like.

Yes, I know, it’s a crap spreadsheet. But consider what I had to work with, and the fact that it was done in about 10 frustrating minutes.

riding, running and rubbish TV

Km: 11, for the week 22km

Blessed relief today after yesterday’s diatribe. Today we return to safer pastures – the 3 Rs – riding, running and rubbish TV.

Riding: It was Ride to Work day today here in Melbourne. My employer is one of the largest sponsors of the thing so I was under some pressure to go along. However being the slashing outlaw/renegade/Reno Raines type that I am, I decided to run instead.

Running: So I did a quick 11k up to Princess Park and thereabouts, finishing up in Fed Square. I had a cup of extraordinarily quick “coffee” related substance but couldn’t face a 40 minute wait for breakfast.

Rubbish TV: A quick quiz readers: Who recognizes dude in the pink jacket?

That’s right – it’s Robert John Standing Bear Sixkiller, better known amongst his friends, enemies, and acquantainces simply as Bobby Sixkiller – the best right-hand man an outlaw could have. God he was cool – he wore pink suits and ear-rings, but owned about a million handguns and drove a humvee. He looks a little like the cat from Red Dwarf in that picture.

God bless late night TV, and god bless Lorenzo Lamas.

Quote for the week: ‘not to fall asleep is distinguished. Everything else is popcorn” – Saul Bellow.