dangerous

Yes, quite a dangerous little run this afternoon. I got to Sydney a bit early, so took a bit of a run from Coogee up to Bondi and back. About 13.5km, methinks.

And why dangerous?

Well, I’m something of a tourist in these parts and tend to run along with my head in the clouds, taking in the scenic vistas and the like. That’s all well and good in most parts of the world, but around Bondi way they have something kinda tricky.

Stairs.

Not ordinary stairs, like you might find in your local cinema. These are stairs that were hewn out of the living rock by drunken convicts using malfunctioning explosives and then left to erode into random shapes over a millenia or two.

And they sorta jump out at you when you’re least expecting it. If you don’t pay attention you end up tumbling 10 metres down a cliff face. Not good.

Thankfully, there’s a nicely positioned cemetery half way along the route. I assume the reasoning is: if the worst happens, at least there’s not far to go.

It also didn’t help that there’s some sort of sculpture festival on at the moment, so every time you turn a corner you run into a 13 foot bright pink cendipede or something more startling.

Still, I survived my first run intact. I shouldn’t complain.

AND… my Qantas flight managed to descend from 30,000 feet the normal way, rather than dropping out of the sky.

Extra good.

full moon

The people who run the stockmarket have grown huge tufts of hair on their palms and are ranting and raving and generally being dangerous to know.

Work, worryingly, gave me absolutely no trouble today. Everyone was sweetness and light. Eerie.

It’s a full moon tonight, or as near as makes no difference. It explains a lot.

Running
A good honest-ish hill session this lunch-time. Laps of Anderson Street. Joy. Bliss. Etc.

Sydney
I’m off to Sydney tomorrow for a conference. I’ve packed the running shoes and gear, so I’m hoping to slip off for a brisk 15km somewhere along the line. The hotel’s in some place called Coogee Beach, and those in the know (well, Beki) say there’s a good track along the beach there.

Training, trains, cricket

I don’t mean to alarm you, gentle reader, but we may have on our hands an unsually long, unwieldy post today, so here are some anchor links that should, assuming I can hammer the technomalogically orientated stuff into shape, direct you to something a little interesting to you.

• Public transport going to hell
• Cricket, or something like it
  
• Marathon training programs

Or you could always read the whole thing in order, if you’re a glutton for punishment. Either that or go read something else, or you could go out and get some fresh air.

Public transport going to hell
As you can tell by the bold bit – I did intend to write a rather scathing couple of sentences about Connex and the Middleborough road bypass project, which is currently adding about an hour to my daily commute. It was going to be pretty caustic, pretty bitter and may or may not have featured the phrases “piss-up in a brewery”, “fiasco” and “incompetence”.

However, after reading this page on the Metlink site, I’ve completely changed my mind. Apparently, Connex have set up a “Kiss and drop” spot in Box Hill for people to drop off their partners. What a stroke of genius.

Anyone want to give me a lift to the station?

Cricket, or something like it
Keen Jruns readers will already know this, but recently I spent some time up in Sydney, soaking up the atmosphere and generally making a nuisance of myself. At the time, I do remember thinking there were an awful lot of English accents about. At first I assumed this was just some new fashion amonst Sydney-siders. But no, I was wrong. Eventually, I put 2 and 2 together and figured out they were there for the cricket.

They were a funny bunch, those barmy-army types. Half of them looked like Grant Mitchell from Eastenders. (If you don’t know who that is, picture a neanderthal-type with shaven head, bow legs, about 120kg and a nasty look in his eye; there he is on the right). The other half looked like toffs, the kind of people who use the word “rugger” in civilised company and send their kids, Harry and Charlotte, off on their gap year before heading off to Oxford.

Anyway, as I write this, the news is coming in on the wires that England have officially lost the test series 5-0. Good on the Barmy-army for turning up and having a good time, it’s a pity the team didn’t.

Marathon training programs
My post on the Ausrun forum yesterday provoked a few responses, as expected. Runners always like to talking about the length of their long runs.

There was some concern expressed that the long runs aren’t long enough: the longest is only 34km. I have some sympathy for that view – my longest run in 2005 was 36km, and I ended up hitting the wall at 38km on the day. It’s hard to know whether longer training runs would have helped though.

The program I’m going to use tries to get around this by getting you to do the last 30 minutes of the long run at a faster pace, to simulate effort while fatigued. I think I’ll stick with the program, and monitor how I’m feeling.

I’m feeling quite good about it. I’m slightly scared about all the training, but that’s as it should be. If it wasn’t a challenge, it wouldn’t improve my running and if my running doesn’t improve why should my PB?

memories

I made it back from Sydney unscathed last night. I managed to negotiate the long-term car park dragging the family’s entire worldly possessions single-handedly, did an impromptu tour of north-west Melbourne’s less salubrious suburbs and ended up back at home, breathing a large sigh of relief.

Sydney’s pretty spectacular looking really – especially the bit I was staying in. Great big bridge, wet bits underneath, funny-looking opera house, loadsa money.

That being said, I did feel like a bit of an interloper there, like at any moment a security guard could jump out and arrest me for having insufficiently blue blood and/or less than 100 million in my savings account. Also, it’s far too hilly and far, far too humid.

In short, I’m glad to be back.

This morning I was up with the birds and out for a longish 17k trundle around the Dandy Creek Trail. Actually I was up before the birds and had to wake them up as I went. Birds these days – they’re slackers.

The only thing to note about the run is the fact I remember very little about it. I know I did it, as I remember knocking on the front door at 6:20, very sweaty. I also have vague glimpses of memories of, amongst other things, Dorset Road and a bunny rabbit on the Dandenong Creek Trail.

Everything else is a blank, like after a very heavy drinking session.

Which leads me kinda nicely too my next bit:

Goals for 2007

1. no more alcohol, especially beer, at least until I next run a marathon
2. drink more water, even when I’m not running
3. run the Sri Chinmoy marathon at Williamstown
4. beat the train again at Puffing Billy

Number 1 and 2 are going pretty well, thanks for asking. As for the others – we’ll see how they turn out.

more sydney

I’m still in Sydney, or as it apparently likes to be called – “The Emerald City”. Well, la-de-dah… I’m beginning to lose count of the times I’ve been told the Harbour Bridge is “affectionately known as ‘the coathanger'”. Whatever….

Apologies if that sounded a little Valley-girl/Paris Hilton.

In my defence, Ms Hilton herself is in town at the mo, which is causing no end of excitement. Well, the various gossip columnists seem excited and the “serious” commentators have been falling over themselves to write articles saying how silly it is that everyone’s writing articles about her.

Today, the town is in New Year’s Eve mode and the streets around where I’m staying are choked with would-be revellers, some of whom have been lining up sinced 8am. I kid you not. I personally couldn’t think of anything worse than being jammed in with a million other dickheads, “partying” at Circular Quay, fireworks or no fireworks.

Running

The main gripe I have with the whole NYE shebang is the difficulty I’m going to have getting a ride to Hornsby tomorrow morning to do the Black Stump run. In fact, it’s pretty much impossible, and I may as well use this opportunity to officially scratch myself.

Ahh, that feels better….

I’ve run a bit over the last couple of days – yesterday around the Cremorne Point area, which is where I’m staying, and this morning a nice trip from Cremorne, over the coathanger, no I can’t bring myself to write that – the Bridge.

Nice. Although it would be appreciated if the good people of Sydney could lay on some flattish bits to run on. Perhaps if they have time they could bulldoze Kirribili, which seems to be between where I am and the bridge. If they could level Johnny Howard’s place, so much the better.

silly season and sydney

We’re well and truly into the silly season now. It was 36 a couple of days ago and choked with smoke, and tommorrow it might snow. Work’s stopped but I’ve never felt more tired.

To top it all off – Eastland Shopping Centre has all-night shopping; which is convenient if, god help you, you feel the need to pop into Westco at 4 in the morning.

Or you could pop into Amart allsports, which is a newish sports shop there that claims to have Melbourne’s cheapest sports stuff. I don’t know what planet they’re living on, but their shoes are definitely not the cheapest. Go have a look, see what I mean.

Running

Running this week has been quite consistent with the general silly season theme, if nothing else. I only managed to run 4 times, due to a couple of days where it was too smoky for me to run. Perhaps you, kind reader, are the kind of tough guy who scoffs at puny weaklings like me who can’t run in the smoke.

I, however, come over all faint and feel a kind of tightness in the chest, headache and pain in the throat. All the smoke-induced symptoms are still there today, worse luck.

Still, I managed a relatively productive 24k today, to bring the week’s total to above 60k.

Sydney

I’m off to Sydney next Friday to spend New Year’s Eve with my papa. I’m contemplating a FatAss run in an area called Hornsby, but only in a distant, appalled sort of way. It’s 33k and I have no idea what kind of conditions there are, other than it’s described on the website as “challenging”.

That does not fill me with confidence.

Neither does the date – which is 1 January. Even I’m not that much of a masochist. Or am I?