With the weekend being one “sans kids”, I detoured past my regular bottle shop for my fortnightly 6 pack of Cougar and Dry! One of the few things I do to treat myself is a six pack twice a month. I’m not the sort of person to keep alcohol in the house and only buy it for immediate drinking. I have a few bottles of red I bought from a friend as a fundraiser (saving them for when Dad and my sister visit in 5 weeks, to drink together of course) and a special bottle of red wine from 1993 to drink when MGirl turns 18 in January. That’s a funny story in itself really. The bottle of red for MGirl came from her father’s cousin’s winery in Washington, USA (state, not DC). When I was pregnant with MGirl we went on a 3 week road trip which included an unannounced visit to the winery. We arrived just as they’d collected their first grapes of the season and were stripping them of leaves and putting them into the crusher! Needless to say our visit that day was spent doing “hard labour” in the winery. Perhaps we should’ve told them we were coming and arrived on a non-working day! Years later when MGirl’s dad visited his cousin’s winery again and they gave him a bottle of the wine we’d helped create that day… or so they thought. They actually gave him a bottle of the 1993 crop (the year MGirl was born), but we had been there in the 1992 harvest! Not to worry, the thought was precious and I’ve been holding this 1993 bottle of red wine ever since. The test will come in late January 2011 when we open it to toast MGirl becoming legal.
I’ve never considered myself much of a drinker and it has been some time since I last recall having a hangover. Being a morning person, who would wake early hangover or not, I can’t see the sense in wasting a perfectly good morning (and day) feeling like crap. Though every other Friday I look forward to my habit of “6 Cougars thanks”, the only trouble with Friday was I was on my bike; so I pedaled through the drive through and crammed the 6 cold ones into my back pack and headed home. By 6pm I was sipping on a lovely bourbon and watering the grass, for the 3rd time that day. This turf really needs lots of water to get established!! I was happy to learn from the retic man that my particular sprinklers on the lawn and garden (all 3 of them) are the low pressure variety and so for each hour I have them operating they only use about 50 litres of water. That’s only 5 buckets… to water the whole lawn. This will be quite water-wise when the lawn is established in about a month’s time.
Home alone on Friday night; I can’t even remember what I had for dinner. I am very lazy when the kids aren’t there and I try to keep some Lean Cuisine’s (or the like) in the freezer so I don’t have to cook. I do remember I was in bed and the lights were out by 9.30pm… such a nana I am.
When the alarm went off at 5am I felt like I’d only been a sleep for a short while. I love those nights where your head hits the pillow and you don’t move! I woke up suddenly and a little confused though, and for a moment thought I was heading to work again. The clock said 5am, and hour earlier than normal, and I remembered it was “Bibbulmun” day! I have been anticipating this run for over a month now. Just as MGal and I had gotten into rhythm with our trail running, I’d injured my leg and she’d not had much luck over the last few weeks either. We were both looking forward to the challenge, and praying that our body’s complied!
I picked up MGal a little after 6am and noticed it was nice and sun-shiney and quite a few people were up and about. The last time we did this run it was still dark as we arrived up the hill at Kalamunda, and for a moment I thought I’d overslept and had my clock on the wrong time. The fact the sun was so “present” means that after Christmas I’ll have to be at the parking lot at the trail head by 5am to avoid the heat. We had our routine “wee” at the Shell petrol station; I swear that guy must think we are strange! Like clockwork, before and generally after the run… he must have missed us over the last month. As I put on my Camelbak and chastise MGal for bringing one fuel belt bottle for water… we head off down the trail. It goes without saying we were both running gingerly and hoping not to blow out our legs in the first km downhill.
I’d forgotten how technical it is running over this terrain; especially as the sun filters through the tree canopy. It is serene but takes a lot of concentration as most of what’s underfoot isn’t really visible until you are on top of it. The rocks are sand coloured, the trail is sand coloured, the twigs are sand coloured… well not really, but you get my drift. In the shadow the colours all meld into “sand” coloured, and you don’t see the small rocks and boulders poking out of the trail until you pass into the shadow. It really heightens your senses and makes you pay attention to what you are doing. As I ran two things dawned on me. This was the first time I’d run off-road in the Adrenalin’s and their responsiveness to the ground was noticeably different than the Ariel’s. By that I mean I felt every change in undulation and the changes from sand to rock and back again. I could feel my arches sinking into the sand, and my feet wrapping around the boulders more. The Ariel’s are specifically made to NOT rotate through the foot strike, and the Adrenalin’s made me more aware of what was underfoot, and the fact that if I wasn’t careful I felt like I would roll and ankle. I was left unable to decide if the more responsiveness of the shoe was good or bad… surely it must be, but will take some time for me to get used to them off-road. The second thing that dawned on me was how much you look down when trail running and that I was going to miss some of the most spectacular scenery in the world in Canada unless I reminded myself to look up! I am definitely planning on taking my camera, with a warning from MGirl to not be too much of a tourist should I miss the cut-off times for different legs!
MGal and I reached the power lines and our pre-determined turn around at 45 minutes knowing we’d worked hard to get there. We were both not trail fit, it is amazing how quickly it drops off. We discussed maximum heart rates over our gels and heavy breathing and in a few minutes turned back for the carpark. My maximum heart rate seems to top out at higher than MGal’s (I feel it’s always been high) and I was reaching maximums of over 170bpm and MGal was in the 150s. I always know when I’ve hit 170bpm, because I have to stop running and it’s generally uphill. I can’t suck down enough oxygen to keep running uphill at that HR and walk some paces until it drops back down into the 150s.
As usual with the 2nd part of the first half being an ascent (and nasty) it always seems to take no time at all to hit the bottom of the climb on the way back down. With MGal’s last trail run (solo) involving her spectacular stack, I was mindful of when she didn’t come along behind me and I waited a few times and called out to her to make sure she was vertical. We both conceded that the 10.5kms we ended up doing was tough, and we walked a bit more on the way back than on the way out. We were both happy though, I love being out there in spite of the workload that comes with it. I can’t wait to go next week.
MGal helped me on the drive home to go past the bathroom supplies store and collect my shower, toilet and vanity for the laundry; such a helpful friend she is. I also organised to come over on Sunday and do a couple of loads of washing as my laundry is only 4 walls at the moment, with nothing else in it. After dropping the laundry fixtures off at home and dropping MGal home I headed out tile shopping for the laundry. That done, I then went and did a food shop at a furious speed as I’d been lazy and not gone on Thursday night and now realised why I don’t have time to leave the food shop until the weekends.
Saturday night was spent at the Simply Red concert at Sandalford Winery; and despite the fact that they performed for less than 90 minutes it was awesome and I spent the night bopping away to all my favourite songs from what seems a lifetime ago. With all the dancing my quads were really starting to hurt after the morning’s run, but it wasn’t enough to make me sit down.
Sunday was spent at home, other than the 2 loads of washing at MGal’s. I managed to get the deck in the front yard (treated pine) stained a Merbau colour, and painted the hand rails and trim in the heritage red I’ve been using outside. The stain was darker than I’d hoped for, but looks fantastic and that’s another task off my to-do list. It was quite challenging keeping the dogs off it all day but I managed in the end. It was a gorgeous sunny day, but way too hot to be indirect sunlight and painting. I was tempted to jump in the pool after I was finished, but I just opened a bourbon and sunk into the lounge and appreciated the awesomeness of my deck!
Today is a run day… which I’m leaving until tonight. I started the day walking FD#1 and I think it will take until tonight for the stiffness to go from my aching body. The hill run coupled with physical work has left me feeling all of my 43 years. MGal and I thought back to the time we did our first trail run a couple of months ago… it took me until the following Thursday to walk without pain. My body feels a little like that now, but not as bad. The best news of the weekend is that my calf is pain free!!!
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