hard rubbish

As the title of this post suggests, it’s hard rubbish time around my house at the moment; a special time that comes but twice a year.

I’m quite fond of the hard rubbish period; there seems to be some sort of moral lesson in it about the value of thrift and the pointlessness of over-consumption. Or something.

I’m not one of your avid hard rubbish-scavengers, but I confess to having a peak as I went past this afternoon. All the good stuff seems to have been taken: all that’s left is fragments of dangerous looking antique electrical equipment and deeply disturbing discarded mattresses.

Oh well, 6 months to go ’till next time.

Cricket
I don’t care how many 36 degree October days we have: the season officially changes when test match cricket starts.

I’m not much of a fan of the game itself. It seems to involve about 4 and a half days of standing around in a field doing not much, followed by 2 minutes of abject terror as some great geezer chucks a hard missile at you at a hundred miles an hour.

The TV commentary manages to convey the 4.5 days of mind-numbing tedium quite well, but hasn’t really managed the excitement. Still, there is something soothing about the sounds of leather on Richie Benaud, or whatever it is they say.

Running
I was up with the birds this fine morning. Actually it wasn’t fine, it was considerably foggy.

I love the fog, I love the feeling of it on my skin and the eerie atmosphere. It’s also good to run in; being cool and almost completely without wind.

As I said, I started in fog, slipped down to the Dandenong Creek trail and then zoomed along to Kooma Park.

For a brief moment, when the freeway ahead of me and the power lines behind me both managed to be hidden from sight, it all seemed rather peaceful, especially when a kangaroo jumped out on the path in front of me.

I don’t know how far the roo went today, but I managed 22k. Quite comfortable, quite enjoyable.

ouch

I’m always happy to chew the fat with JoJo, the world-renowned blogger behind runjanerun, particularly when she’s in this sort of mood: uh-oh drunk pussycat.

Sadly, I wasn’t able to answer her question on Saturday night, owing to having other things to do….

Anyway, she expressed a desire to hear more about my whacking-the-elbow-and-writhing-around-in-pain incident from Friday. You might want to call that sadistic; I wouldn’t dare. So here goes, picture this:

Friday; morning; Yarra trail between Punt Road and Chapel street heading away from the city. Your humble correspondent sweating it up at a great rate, and also keeping a watchful eye out for lycra-clad speed demons.

All of a sudden, whoosh!!! from out of nowhere up jumped a great evil-looking fence. It must have been at least 12 feet tall. It’s eye, if it had one, would no doubt have been beady and evil-looking. I have an impression it was carrying some sort of firearm and had a few nasty friends lurking around.

Anyway, it jumped out, as I said, and whacked me on the elbow. Bam!

Owing to the great speed I was travelling (see above) it hurt. It hurt enough so I thought it was possibly broken. I pulled over to a convenient grassy bit (possibly a grassy knoll, whatever that is) and proceeded to rub the offending elbow and wince.

I was feeling generous, so allowed myself a grand total of 4 minutes feeling-sorry-for-myself time and then moved on.

I forgot all about it until that night, when I tried to lie on my left side, only to discover my elbows had gotten all out of whack. The right was as normal, the left seemed to have doubled in size and gone an attractive shade of purple.

It’s better now, you’ll be relieved to hear (unless your name is JoJo).

Running
I headed out yesterday morning for a brisk-ish 20k around the streets near me. I say brisk, but it’s all relative. There was a bit of a feral northerly wind, which hindered my progress somewhat, particularly along Dorset road. That was unfortunate, as Dorset road isn’t generally somewhere I like to spend a great deal of time.

I’ve passed 2850km for the year now. 3000km, here I come.

Simone Warne

A late, but extremely competitive, entry in the 2007 head-slappingly-stupid comments awards. This one’s from Simone Warne/Callahan on the occasion of discovering her ex-husband has cheated on her again:

I’m angry that I was fooled again … I can’t believe he’s cheated on me again.

If that’s true, she’s possibly the only person in the western world who has any problem believing it. It’s not exactly out of character for the guy.

Running
I shelved the depressing classical music for the weekend and ran along with the headphones ringing with the joyous sounds of Cody Chestnutt, De la Soul and the birds a-twittering. 13k on Saturday morning and around 25k on Sunday morning.

Both runs were okay, but not pushing too hard. It is tapering period after all.

Dandenong Creek trail
I had a first go at the new section of the DC trail yesterday. I don’t like it. I don’t like the concrete, I don’t like the lane markings, I don’t like the huge swathe they’ve cut through the park to get the new trail in.

It was obviously built by people who build freeways: on/off ramps and plenty of room to fit a fat-arse car through. What was wrong with the old gravel track?

Skins
I’m always happy to receive comments on this blog, especially from my blogging/running colleagues. I must say this one, from Morsey last Friday left me a touch puzzled:

Shouldn’t a photo of you in your tights have been posted on your blog by now?

There speaks a blogger who has never seen me in tights.

Trust me Morsey, there are some things you don’t want to see. Anyway, as a blogger, I have a duty of care. There might be kids watching this…

Plus, there is the Paris Hilton factor: you post one harmless little porn video on the net and it’s still circulating around the place 10 years later, blighting your attempts at a serious music career.

I too might like to be a serious singer/celebutante one day. So: no tights.

long Krispy Kremy run

The weekend last was one chock-full of novel experiences, most of which are of the sort I can’t tell you for fear it may BLOW YOUR MIND; the remainder of the sort that are of interest to me my close circle of family and friends but aren’t appropriate for this medium.

What I can tell you is this: I had my first trip to Krispy Kreme. As a cultural experience, no doubt it will be disappointing to the high-brow section of my readership, but it was a cultural experience nonetheless.

It wasn’t really my idea: after an afternoon trip to the pool that inexplicably included potato cakes from the pool kiosk, the more hormonally-driven of my household decided they had a craving for Krispy Kreme. Notice the craving was for “KK“, not donuts. I’ll come back to that later.

So, off I trooped to Eastland; and if you wanted to described me as “disgruntled”, well you wouldn’t be too far wrong. I certainly didn’t rush – taking in the various running/sports shops and having an enlightening conversation with a mobile phone salesperson. Yes, it’s possible.

The first surprise was the line, or I should say, queue, being Australian. There was a queue, in the foodcourt! For donuts. And my word they do a good business. People buy the donuts by the truckload. The guy on the till told me they’re that busy most of the time, and they get busier at night. Who hangs out in the Eastland food court at night? Apparently it’s the place to be.

As an observant, insightful student of the human experience I naturally took an interest in my fellow queuers, most of whom tended to be female, or on the harassed side of male. They were all a touch acne-fied and intensely familiar with the menu. I found that impressive, until I realised there were only two things on it – “donuts” and “assorted donuts”.

They were also of the opinion there weren’t enough KKs around. There isn’t one in Greensborough, or so they give me to understand, and this is NOT A GOOD THING. “There should be Krispy Kreme everywhere”. No kidding, she said that.

As an experience it seems like what McDonalds must have been like when it first came here. It’s also like McDonalds in that you don’t go to Maccas to get a hamburger, you go to “get McDonalds“. The food itself is pretty disappointing, and not really the point.

But what is the point? Good question. The decor? (It may or not be ironic. I can’t decide. Is it possible to be ironic in a shopping centre?)

Why do people go to KK in 2007? Aren’t Maccas losing money and desperately trying to attract a healthy clientele?

I think the answer is in the guilty pleasure of the place. It actively encourages over-consumption by making it really economical to buy a dozen donuts rather than just the one. That’s what most people seemed to do yesterday. If there are three of you, you could buy three donuts and it will cost you $9, but for just $13 you can get 12 donuts in a lovely big box. How can you say no?

Something tells me these donuts aren’t handed out to friends at school, or eaten over a period of 10 days. I bet they’re scoffed in one guilty session in front of the TV.

All of this is terribly attractive these days when it’s hard for us to separate guilty experiences from pleasure, if there is a difference. I’m not so sure any more.

Running
I did run on Friday night, and it was windy, nasty, dark and the streets were festooned with drunken teenagers, heckling and making a nuisance of themselves. Thankfully, drunken teenagers don’t run very fast, so I left them behind pretty smartly.

A very long, very pleasurable run yesterday morning (pre–Krispy Kreme). At least, it started out that way. The weather was just perfect for running: still, cool and overcast. The best word for the first 20k of the thing was “barnstorming”. In fact, if you do own a barn, garden shed or any out-door structure near the Dandenong Creek Trail, I suggest you go check, just to be on the safe side.

After then I had a carbo gel and kept going, happily enough. A light shower was a gratefully accepted cool-down. Well, it was okay while it was light, but it wasn’t long before I was doing my well-rehearsed impression of a drowned rat.

As I was the best part of 10k from home, there wasn’t much too be done about the situation, so I persevered.

Tiger Boy, from Ausrun, Cool Running and ESRG passed me by on Mount Dandenong Road and offered me a lift, having sensibly cut short his own run. I couldn’t see anything to be gained by making his carseat wet, so I declined and squelched the last few ks home on my own.

It turned out to be 36.2k, in just under 2hrs 45. Here it is on mapmyrun, for your viewing pleasure.

I could tell you about the chafing but, like I said in the first paragraph, it would BLOW YOUR MIND.

sport and performance

I would like to express my everlasting gratitude to Beki for pointing me in the direction of this site:

Sport and Performance

I should warn you in advance, the site has one of the ugliest backgrounds I have ever seen, and the navigation is, shall we say, less than intuitive…

Beki apparently got it to say she could run a 40minute 10k if she got her weight down to 52kg. Or perhaps it was the other round? Not sure. If I got my weight down to 52kg I’d probably die.

I plugged in my PBs into one of their calculators, only to be given a “diagnostic” of:

The performances are incoherent!

Well, maybe so, but there’s no need to rub it in. I don’t know why they felt the need to have an exclamation mark. It’s just mean.

Anyway, calling me “incoherent” is a bit rich, coming from a site that says, and I quote:

(*) A correct training allows getting homogeneous performances.

I had a bit of laugh though.

Running
Mid-week long run this foine morning (sorry for getting all Irish there). 20k along the Dandenong Creek trail. After yesterday’s dose of pre-race jitters, it was good to get a solid, hard workout in. It was run at under 4.5m/k pace, including hills and a stiff-ish headwind.

It had to be quickish, as I didn’t have much time to get showered, dressed and breakfasted and make the train. As a result, I sat on the train feeling slightly vomitous. (not sure if that’s a word)

baby, I’m on fire

Excuse me while I go a bit MacEnroe for a minute. You must be kidding.

I just typed out at least 600 words of the purest gold, the best prose you have ever read and bloody Blogger packs up on me. Now it refuses to accept it ever existed, the bastard.

Anyway – I can’t be bothered typing it out again, so you’ll just get the quick and nasty version:

Running
Long run promised, v. long run delivered. It turned out to be 40.17k in right on 3 hours. Quite happy, though tired. Thought I saw Tiger Boy but didn’t. Did see PJ and said hello. Lots of amusing stuff about Gmap pedometer packing up and refusing to go on.

Trust me, it was amusing. I really excelled myself.

Fire
We had a fire at our house. No-one hurt. Not too much damage. Just a fright, lots of stress, 2 amused fire engines and lots of firies swaggering about impressing the girls and umpteen conversations with loverly people at the insurance company.

That bit wasn’t so amusing, not so much to work with really.

Easter
I wrote a great long diatribe accusing the Herald Sun of being held captive by the religious right (Brian Patterson), which may have been the reason for blogger’s impromptu extreme editing display. Censorship, whooooooo……..

Probably not appropriate, at least today. Go do a google search for Richard Dawkins, and you’ll see the sort of stuff I was on about.

silvery moon

For reasons which we don’t need to go into at this point, I was up, wide awake and positively buzzing with energy, for lack of a better word, at 4am this morning. There was zero chance of getting back to sleep, and as the alarm was set to go at 5, I decided to head out for the daily perambulation an hour early.

Interesting decision….

It’s way dark at 4am. And cold, and very quiet, and did I mention dark? But, you know what, this morning those were all good things.

I set off for a solid 20k-er, including large swathes of the Dandenong creek trail, armed with a head torch thing, which is uber-useful when caving, climbing mountains and scaring loitering teenager thugs. To my surprise the torch was pretty redundant as there was a full-size, full moon blazing away like there was no tomorrow.

In fact, I spent most of the run heading directly towards the moon, which was hovering obligingly in the south-east, lighting the way.

So it ended up as 20k in just under 90 minutes. V. satisfactory.

Now, if only I could get me some sleep….

Still more on RFTK
If you haven’t seen this yet, don’t wait, GO to the heralsunonline site where they have searchable video of everyone crossing the finishing line last Sunday. If you follow the prompts through to the 15.2 (alleged) km race and plug in number 2760, you might, if you’re very careful, see a sweaty JRuns crossing the line. I’m wearing a black singlet and I look at my watch just after finishing.

A v. groovy site.

sleep-running and flat daddies

There’s been a bit of comment around the traps recently about this:

Flat daddies

It’s a semi-federally funded US program that provides full-size printed posters of parents who are serving overseas in the US military. I guess they’re supposed to be some sort of substitute (although the website doesn’t use that word) for the real thing.

There’s something almost comical about the idea, especially the photo of the cutout sitting on the back seat of the car. It’s deluded, ridiculous. It’s almost enough to laugh, but in only in the way that you sometimes have to laugh at something really awful.

And it is really awful, the damage war does to people and families and ordinary lives. Imagine what those poor kids must be feeling at the moment.

Running
A mid-week long run this morning, again starting and finishing in darkness. I did 16k including around 8k on the pitch-black Dandenong Creek trail.

I had my head-lamp for illumination, but it was still a bit eerie. There was fog, and strange shapes looming up at me everywhere. What’s more, I didn’t see a soul until I reached Wantirna road and headed for home.

As for the running itself – there wasn’t much to tell. Bog-standard 5 minute ks; predictable, unchallenging. That being said, I think I was at least 45% asleep for most of it, so who knows?

Tomorrow, some fartlek to spice things up a bit.