maroondah festival and stuffing around at pools

It’s sad, I know, but back in the day, when life was sweet and young and full of promise, I’d count a festival as being good if it had some combination of these attributes:

• loud
• crowded
• sweaty
• full of alcohol and other things
• loud – did I mention that?
• lots of guitars
• loud

And definitely no kids!

Yesterday I went to the Maroondah festival, and had a great time. Do you know why? There were:

• sandpits (plural),
• a sheep, a goat and a pig to pet,
• free spinning tea-cup rides,
• ice-cream and
• balloons to take home.

My 3 year old had a great time, which means I was happy too. Even if I had to ride on the tea-cup ride 3 times, which made me dizzy.

Earlier, we made a visit to the wave pool in Glen Waverley. Previously, I’d never given much thought to Glen Waverley as a suburb, considering it about as bland as could be. But that was only because I had no idea such the wave pool was there. What’s next, hot springs in Springvale?

Anyway, on a 33 degree day it was packed, but happily so. Again, the kids had a great time.

Running
I managed to run 50km last week, which is good. The last couple of runs were squeezed into the very small windows of relatively cool weather. I suspect this week will be the same.

On Saturday I did a lap of the Ringwood-Croydon bit of the Mullum Mullum Creek Trail. Yesterday, I went for a swim at chlorine central AKA Kilsyth Pool, then ran the long way back to the mother-in-law’s place in Mooroolbark in increasing heat, just so I could make it to 50km for the week.

This morning I was up at 5 for a 12.5km loop around the streets near my place. The running’s getting better, despite the infernal heat.

Man, I hate summer.

pool rage

I’m almost at the stage of being able to call myself a real swimmer. Why do I say that? Because tonight I had my first episode of pool rage.

For one thing, I’d had a bad day at work. It was one of those days with meeting after meeting, always running late, getting back to my desk at lunch-time only to discover a blizzard of emails demanding attention.

Then at the pool, half the lanes were used for swimming lessons, and the other half were swamped by a flotilla of big beefy guys with dubious understanding of the words “slow” and “medium”.

I squeezed into one of the medium lanes and set about my usual slightly-slower-than-medium troll up and down.

The 3 big guys in my lane turned out to be extremely irritating. At first they were racing up and down at a million miles an hour, snapping at my heels and splashing me on the way past. I was just about to switch down to the slow lane, when they suddenly stopped, and stood around at the shallow end, chatting and looking cool.

This continued for the whole swim: super-fast sprint followed by 5 minutes of hanging out at the shallow end.

After the third instance of not being able to get within 5 metres of the end, I was about to crack it. I was about to say something along the lines of “hey, are you hear to swim or are you just going to pose?”. I say “about” because, when I took off the goggles, they turned out to be about 6 inches taller and 30kg heavier than me.

It turns out I wasn’t quite so full of pool rage after all. I had to content myself with an irritable sniff.

swimming sucks

Due to the aftermath of the whole cancer-scare thing, and particularly the operation, running has been, if not impossible, certainly inadvisable for a few weeks now.

Words cannot describe how irritating that is, believe me. I can feel the muscles in my legs atrophying as we speak and my lungs shriveling away into choked-up nothingness.

So, swimming has been serving as some pathetic running-substitute, methadone to get me through a heroin /running drought.

But it’s not good. I hate swimming. It’s so damn boring. Up and down, up and down, over and over again. I’ve swum three times in the last week and it’s driving me insane.

Then there’s the goggles, which I don’t enjoy at all. I’ve tried 3 pairs, and none of them seem to fit my over sized head. They’re either too loose and leave water seeping in or they’re so tight I have great red circles under my eyes.

At least I’m getting better at it (swimming). I’ve progressed from the 25 metre pool at Croydon to the 50 metre pool at Ringwood. It means I get fewer opportunities for a rest, but the whole experience seems to go quicker. Which is good.

Ringwood is also immeasurably older than Croydon, which means there is more to look at. Croydon is like a display home, with miles and miles of unblemished white tiles. Ringwood is full of “character”, like the shower recess at a scummy student shared house.

It doesn’t say much for a form of exercise when the most excitement you get is looking at scummy, broken tiles.

The basic problem I have with swimming is two-fold: I don’t understand it, and I’m no good.

I’m told by my wife that I’ve improved enough so that I no longer look like a drowning man coming up for air a third time, but I’m still pretty slow. I’m slower than almost everyone else, and that galls me. I rarely remember to kick, and when I do it’s so ineffectual, I’m not convinced it does any good.

When I swim, I just jump in the pool, start swimming and keep going until I get too tired, or too bored, to continue. Last night, I overheard two other swimmers discussing warm-ups and other sessions. This is all a mystery to me.

It was also a mystery how they managed to shoot up and down the pool at about 3 times my speed, in their warm-up laps. That was until I figured out they had flippers on.

Surely flippers are cheating? Aren’t they? Why not just strap an outboard motor on the back of your speedos?

It makes no sense, I tell you.

pleasant weekend

Outside it’s been a bit windy, wet and wintry and generally old-school Melbourne (before we got global warming). Despite all that, I’ve managed to have a nice weekend, in terms of exercise.

On Saturday I slipped out for a swim. It was just my usual 1km swim, but it went well enough. I didn’t drown and only got lapped about 20 times by the girl in the next lane wearing a AIS cap.

Afterward I went home and whipped up a lovely batch of scones. No, really. I did, and they were lovely.

Today I had a run, 24km including some Dandenong Creek Trail, some of the foothills of the Dandenongs and some of my favourite running bits between Montrose and Mooroolbark. Lovely.

Now I’m just about to pull out a roast chook from the oven. A nice weekend all round.

Things medical
Perhaps the weekend was the calm before the storm. Tomorrow is my appointment with the specialist. I’m a bit resigned to the whole thing now. I just want the treatment to come quickly so I can get it over with.

The nerves are still there, but I’m not letting it show. Don’t tell anyone.

a swimming milestone

I reached something of a milestone with my swimming last night: the first km swum in a single session.

I’m not saying I swam it non-stop. God no. I did the first 150 metres without stopping, but then stopped at the end of each 50 metre lap. But compared with where I was a month ago, I’m a veritable superfish. My technique no doubt needs a lot of work still, but I manage to breathe, I get from one end to the other in reasonable time and I don’t max out my heart rate all the time.

My aim is to be able to swim a km pretty much non-stop. If I can do that, I’ll consider a triathlon.

I’m enjoying the swimming, just on the “change is as good as a holiday” principle. It’s nice to exercise different muscles, or the same ones in different ways. The only thing I would say is that it can be quite boring: up and back, up and back until you lose count. I imagine the ocean would be a bit different, but I’m not ready to hit the open water just yet.

Also, the communal change rooms aren’t much fun, especially when you go into the ladies by mistake.

Running
7km or thereabouts last night – getting to the pool and back. The running was basically a warm-up and cool-down for the swim. I’m at training today so I won’t have much chance to run at all.

a question about swimming

I’m something of a newbie when it comes to swimming. I’ve been able to swim, in a limited sort of barely-afloat sort of way, since childhood, but it’s only in the last couple of weeks that I’ve actually done it by choice.

Anyway, I have a question for those of you among my readership who fall under the category “superfish” (I’m thinking of you Andrew): I’ve noticed after swimming 500 metres or so I get quite a strong cramp in my foot. It’s the left one, and the epicentre of the cramp, if that’s the right word, seems to be near the ball of the foot.

Am I doing something wrong? I’m pretty sure I am, as my technique is a little variable. Any idea what I could do to prevent this?

Running
I hadn’t planned on running yesterday, but the opportunity came up for a swim (I’m all gung ho for swimming at the moment). Then I thought to myself, why not run to the pool and back? It’s only 3kms or so. What’s the harm? And indeed, there was no harm, other than getting blinded by the headlights in a dark patch of Mount Dandenong Road and then being forced to use the Fast lane and repeatedly lapped by a couple of impressive looking female swimmers.

Apart from that the swimming went well, other than the cramps I mentioned above and a horde of middle-aged women bouncing about to the extremely loud sound of a portable DJ booth and an even louder instructor. Really! It’s much more civilised with just swimmers around.

Wow, I’m already getting snobby and stuck-up about swimming. That didn’t take long. I even have snazzy new goggles, a present from my wife who, naturally, resented me stretching and distorting hers with my oversize noggin.

It was 6.8km of running and 800 metres of swimming, another record for me.

Today, a more challenging run. It was 15km pretty much exactly, with the first half running into a stiff northerly wind, then being blown home at a rate of knots. It took 1 hour 9 minutes, which is okay I suppose.

bung knee

I’ve always (well, for the past 5 years or so) had one good knee and one bad. The left one is the good one – not that you’d know to look at it – it just goes along, doing it’s thing; stoic, uncomplaining, dependable.

The right knee, however, is a whining, complaining brat of a thing. It won’t stretch properly, is continually coming up with new varieties of “tight” and reacts to a long run or two with shooting pains up and down the leg that last for days.

I’ve dealt with this in the usual way: by ignoring it and hoping it will go away. That hasn’t been entirely successful, so tomorrow I’m going to go see a physio.

I have a bad feeling they’re going to tell me someting that will put the Melbourne Marathon this year out of the question.

Hope not.

Running
I ran for 14km this lunch-time, including a quick-ish lap of Albert Park and a slow trip up Clarendon street, South Melbourne. That’s the first and last time I run up that street – too many office workers not looking where they’re going. The knee felt quite good, particularly towards the end.

Swimming
Another swim last night, and another PB. I swam for 750 metres, and could have gone on for longer if I didn’t have to pick up takeaway for dinner on the way home. My technique is still – I suspect – abominable, but I’m experimenting a lot and gradually coming up with something that makes it at least bearable.

Swimming at night is much more pleasurable – not so many teenagers stuffing around and leaking hormones everywhere.

I had a brief thought that maybe I could do a triathlon at some point in the future. I’m not committing to anything, but it’s becoming more possible.

Not sure where to start though.