civilized

I ended up going out for dinner for my anniversary. The lovely w. picked a place in Carlton called Embrasse which was quite lovely, in a French-accented, big-white-plate-small-bits-of-food type of way.

The pork belly was something close to transcendent; the beef, fish, vegetables and various reductions and jus were sumblime; the shared dessert kinda cool – it was lime-ish granita “grass” on crumbled chocolate cake “forest floor” with two chocolate “mushrooms”.

Go figure.

Still, it’s nice to go out somewhere and NOT eat chicken parmagiana, surrounded by screaming kids demanding to go to the play-centre.

Running
None today. Time does not permit. That’s okay as I could do with a rest day.

hungry

I don’t know if you ever read PG Wodehouse, but if you do, you’d notice a few charming expressions of his to refer to people of ample appetite. Two I can think of are “trencherman” and “likes his oats”.

I’ve never had any problem with my appetite, although I’m not over fond of oats. But these last few days, it’s started to get a bit ridiculous.

I usually eat my lunch at about 12:30 – later if I’m running at lunch-time. Now I start getting hungry about 10am. Luckily they have bowls of fruit sitting about the place where I work, otherwise it’d be down to the 7-11 for me.

Last night I devoured a big bowl of rice with chicken and vegetables, and 5 minutes later felt hungry. There wasn’t much in the house, so I was reduced to eating 2 bowls of rice bubbles.

I’ve turned into a teenager.

And I’m losing weight. I think I’ve lost about 6kg since late last year. I’m down to wear I was just before the 2007 Melbourne Marathon.

I guess this is all good – it means I’m working hard and getting into marathon shape.

Either that or I have worms.

Running
A 12.5km recovery run done yesterday lunch-time at an easy 5 minute pace. There’s a tempo run scheduled for tonight.

hungry

I have a pretty good appetite, normally. Put almost anything in front of me, at any time, and I’ll usually have a bit of a taste. But I don’t ever feel really hungry, really RAVENOUS. Horses have nothing to fear from me.

In the last four weeks so I’ve managed to fit in a fair bit of running – 87km, 89km, 101km, 91km – and this week looks like another big one. Through all of that my appetite has stayed pretty consistent.

But this week I’ve suddenly become REALLY hungry. Starving. I come home from work and do an impression of the Tassie the Tasmanian Tiger, hoovering up everything in the larder.

I’ve managed to avoid the choccie biccies so far, but it’s only a matter of time.

Running
14.7km yesterday after work. It was done at about 4:20 minute per km pace, so almost a tempo session. There was a good 8 or 10k traffic-light free session along the Yarra trail that probably was a proper tempo bit – I reckon I was hitting 4 minute ks pretty regularly.

All good.

A mid-week long run scheduled tonight.

Emiliana Torrini
I went to see her last night at the forum. Em seems to find her twee. I wouldn’t go so far as that, but she did walk a fine line between unbelievably cute and twee. She was very impressed with the size of the Forum and kept saying between songs “ooooh… stadiom”.

Still, with an Icelandic accent, it’s hard not to sound cute.

mmm icecream

The NSW government is ready to investigate reports a family was served a bowl of ice-cream smeared with human faeces by a Sydney pub, but is still awaiting an official complaint.
from theage.com.au

Nice.

Running
32 humid kilometres this morning, starting out at the uncivilised time of 6:30. That takes me to 86km for the week.

too many cockroaches, too much money

Too much filth

If it didn’t actually end up in the Magistrates Court, this is the kind of story I’d assume is an urban myth.

A woman began eating the takeaway fried rice with chicken and cashews from the Westlake restaurant and remarked that it tasted “disgusting”. “There’s something crunchy in this,” she said before removing a mouthful revealing legs and head of a bug.
Source: 20,000 fine for cockroach in rice

Just in case you don’t believe the story, here’s a picture of the aforesaid cockroach…

One interesting thing about the story is that the restaurant was charged with “supplying food not of the nature and substance demanded by the purchaser.” Who knew that was a crime? There are a few establishments in my local area who’d better watch out!

Too much money

John McCain, Republican candidate for US President, man of the people, rugged individualist, Vietnam veteran, man with the common touch. That was the story.

It’s taken a bit of a blow recently after he admitted publicly he didn’t know how many houses he and his wife owned. (They actually own seven!)

Either he has way too much money or way too few brain cells. I only own about 3 percent of a house and, trust me, I never forget it. I think I’d know if I had another 6 houses scattered around the place. My bank account certainly would.

Running

I’m probably not going to get time to run much this weekend, so, with uncharacteristic foresight, I scheduled my long run for this morning.

I ran from home into the office, starting off at the shivering time of 6:25am and arriving at 8:30. That took a while, you might say, but it was 27.4km. That works out at a bit over 4.5 minute ks.

Not too shabby.

Here it is on mapmyrun….

http://www.mapmyrun.com/route/au/melbourne/257599419113

By the way, if you get the chance, have a look at the satellite view of that run. It gives me a strange, but very strong sense of vertigo, like the time I went sky-diving.