I arrived home last night to find my new (old faithful) Ariel’s had arrived in the mail from Eastbay. They have a really quick turn-around time, less than a week from the USA. I was quite excited, as not only did they cost less than $150 ($280 in the shops here), but they are the “newest” model with improved technology… I only learned about all of this when talking to the Brooks trade tables at two events recently. So I had a new pair of bricks and was keen to try them out. I worried about running though as my leg still felt a twinge when walking and I wasn’t sure I should run yet. But with 9 days off (and counting) it was time to test it again.
MGirl’s netball club had a fundraising fashion parade on last night, so there was no chance to run then. I got up on time this morning and decided to walk FD#1 in the bricks to see if that helped my leg feel better while walking. After dodging magpies and retrieving FD#1 out of the creek, about 45 minutes later I was back out the door with MGirl on a test run. Running with MGirl is always like a time-trial, and as I only intended going about 3+kms, I figured a good hard run would be ok; even on “the leg”. At first my calf felt a bit “iffy”, but I could instantly feel the extra support from my shoes. The more I ran, the better the leg felt. Although I still argue that my cal problem started before I changed into the Adrenalin’s, I couldn’t help but wonder if my footwear change had prolonged a temporary problem? Oh well, water under the bridge (or kms under the feet) and all my wondering won’t change the fact that I am where I am at the moment with my running. I was happy to go 3.5kms at 5:13 pace and my leg felt much better than I thought it would. Hopefully this is the beginning of the climb back to full fitness.
Yesterday I was attempting to write my first ever program, to start from when we get back from holidays late January 2011. It is a 27 week program, and I think I’ve done a good job. I initially wanted to do it, so I could determine whether I did have enough time to increase my mileage safely (at 10% per week) and still get up to the required totals in time for the race. The answer is YES! As I got more involved in the program and tweaked it here and there; build-phases, rest weeks… I was getting more excited about how it was turning out. I’ve sent it off to StuMan from Eclipse Fitness for an expert eye over it to make sure it is all going to work. I am proud of what I’ve done; now I just want to put it into practice!
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
November 22nd 2010 – The end is nigh…
While my leg is “recuperating” it has freed up some time for me to make the last charge on the house before the end of November. That end goal was for two reasons… one as we are going away (and if it’s not done by then, it won’t get one!), and two my father is visiting for MGirl’s graduation on November 30th and I wanted the house to be as finished as possible for the “unveiling” for his arrival.
I had contemplated going for a “power hike” on Saturday morning up in the hills, but my list of things to do was far too long for the weekend to spare a couple of hours for that. As my leg still hurts slightly when walking, I thought it best to rest still. Saturday morning started with walking FD#1 down to the football oval. She is such a froot-loop when we walk; but she is now terrified of birds. From out of nowhere swoop magpies and wattle birds and she scurries to my side and walks really, really close. Even the will wagtails freak her out; a 55kg dog wrapping herself around my legs for protection against a noisy and aggressive 55gram native bird. It makes me a target as well and my head is much closer to the diving birds that hers is. I can’t wait for nesting season to be over.
On Friday night I’d discovered, much to my annoyance, that the new shower drain was blocked. The shower has only been used twice, so I wasn’t very happy. Once I’d returned from getting bombed with FD#1 I was on the phone to the bathroom company straight away. Good thing I’d not finished paying them yet!! The plumber was there about 90 minutes later, a really nice young man, who managed to move the blockage (tile adhesive) along the pipes until it was flushed away down the sewer line and the shower drain ran free. Thankfully, as I had all these visions of having to rip up tiles and digs up drains; especially after the run of bad luck I’ve had with companies.
While the plumber was working away, the man was in the laundry and CBoy’s bedroom scraping back the ceiling. He worked so quickly it is well worth the cost in the time saved, and he’s done a much better job than I ever could have. With a final coat of paint next weekend, the laundry will be all but finished. I just need to paint two walls, and it is all done! I had been pottering around the house while waiting for the plumber to arrive and cleaned out one garden bed and “uninstalled” (read: threw out) the fish pond. It has always been a problem and since the pump had packed it in and the fish well all gone, I couldn’t be bothered setting it up again. It is now just a garden.
By the time the plumber finished, I left the painter to finish off and headed out to inspect the boarding kennel where FD#1 is booked in to for 6 weeks while we are away. I think I’ll have a much better holiday knowing she is being looked after and exercised by them as she is such a big dog to ask anyone to look after. My girlfriend MGal (east coast MGal, not Bibbulmun running MGal) is coming over to house sit and she will look after FD#2 and the PC#1 (psychotic cat). The kennel had been recommended by other great dane owners, and while it was clean and the people nice, when I looked at the small pen he showed me my heart sank a little. He assured the run she is going into is big enough to house 3 great danes together, but I couldn’t help but think of her in a concrete run for 6 weeks! I asked if there was a “free-run” area and he explained how everything worked and I felt a little better. We couldn’t go “through” to see the area as it was “quiet time” and the little way that we did go into the kennel area the dogs were barking very loudly. And that was only 6 dogs or so, and they have over 100! He assured me when I dropped her off on the morning of our departure that as it would be feeding time we could walk through to her pen. I hope she’ll be ok; for the moment I’m wondering what I’ve done. I’ve never used kennels before; I know people use them all the time so I am sure she will be fine. MGal can visit every week and check up on her, so that’s comforting.
After the kennel inspection I did a bit of shopping. I have been looking at BBQs for weeks as I have some people coming over for a BBQ and the old one went out in the dumpster! Once purchased, I found it didn’t fit in the car without taking the cage behind the seats out and dropping the seats, and as the seats were covered in shopping I will have to go back another time to collect it. The rest of the afternoon was spent painting. I headed out to a Chinese wedding on Saturday night, and it was great fun. A lively celebration and the food was great and the karaoke style singing very entertaining. My friend KGal that also went has now decided that although she may marry a Norwegian (she is currently single!) that it would definitely have to be a Chinese wedding!!!
I was dreading waking up on Sunday morning; I’d done my best impersonation of someone that drinks… a few glasses of red wine and a couple of Sambucca on ice … I was feeling merry on the way home without being drunk! I managed a sleep-in until 7am and got up and was happy I felt sleep deprived but not too bad. By 8am I was into the painting again, with a goal of finishing the entire wall colour in the living/kitchen/dining area so that I could get on to the skirting boards. As the morning progressed, so did the hangover! Still it wasn’t half as bad as my last one (from memory about 5+ years ago) and I drank lots of water and kept eating to keep it at bay.
As the kids were out last night with their Dad and not due to get home until 11pm, I had an open evening with no commitments… no one to cook dinner for. Around 3pm, with my hangover gone, I was really craving a diet coke. Covered in paint I crammed a hat on my head and my sunglasses on and made a mercy dash to the supermarket and hoped I’d not run into anyone! A nice cool drink was just what I needed, and I finished out the afternoon and evening with caffeinated-energy and managed to get all the skirting boards done (1 coat) and two door frames. Sometime later I was thinking how proud my Dad would be of me doing the job “correctly”, having watched him tackle most everything around our house over the years from carpentry, brick laying, and wall papering. I still remember how he would take all the doors of their hinges and lay them on the trestles and paint them carefully with oil paint! While fondly reliving this memory I spied my newly-painted door frames; at about 30cm off the floor there were tufts of brown fur, and 70cm off the floor were tufts of grey and white fur! All each side of both frames! The dogs had obviously cut the corner too closely and wiped themselves along the paint and left their mark behind, literally. With the paint still wet, there was nothing I could do about it until it the paint dries and I can light sand the fur out!
At the end of the day I’d worked solidly for 12 hours and I was really happy that I found part of the floor and was actually able to mop it! One side looks finished now, all the furniture back in place… the end is definitely nigh! This morning I was organised enough to bring a supply of work clothes in, so that I can cycle to work this week, or run if my leg allows. I haven’t run for 9 days now… and I’m hoping to run into work tomorrow… the short way, about 5kms+.
I had contemplated going for a “power hike” on Saturday morning up in the hills, but my list of things to do was far too long for the weekend to spare a couple of hours for that. As my leg still hurts slightly when walking, I thought it best to rest still. Saturday morning started with walking FD#1 down to the football oval. She is such a froot-loop when we walk; but she is now terrified of birds. From out of nowhere swoop magpies and wattle birds and she scurries to my side and walks really, really close. Even the will wagtails freak her out; a 55kg dog wrapping herself around my legs for protection against a noisy and aggressive 55gram native bird. It makes me a target as well and my head is much closer to the diving birds that hers is. I can’t wait for nesting season to be over.
On Friday night I’d discovered, much to my annoyance, that the new shower drain was blocked. The shower has only been used twice, so I wasn’t very happy. Once I’d returned from getting bombed with FD#1 I was on the phone to the bathroom company straight away. Good thing I’d not finished paying them yet!! The plumber was there about 90 minutes later, a really nice young man, who managed to move the blockage (tile adhesive) along the pipes until it was flushed away down the sewer line and the shower drain ran free. Thankfully, as I had all these visions of having to rip up tiles and digs up drains; especially after the run of bad luck I’ve had with companies.
While the plumber was working away, the man was in the laundry and CBoy’s bedroom scraping back the ceiling. He worked so quickly it is well worth the cost in the time saved, and he’s done a much better job than I ever could have. With a final coat of paint next weekend, the laundry will be all but finished. I just need to paint two walls, and it is all done! I had been pottering around the house while waiting for the plumber to arrive and cleaned out one garden bed and “uninstalled” (read: threw out) the fish pond. It has always been a problem and since the pump had packed it in and the fish well all gone, I couldn’t be bothered setting it up again. It is now just a garden.
By the time the plumber finished, I left the painter to finish off and headed out to inspect the boarding kennel where FD#1 is booked in to for 6 weeks while we are away. I think I’ll have a much better holiday knowing she is being looked after and exercised by them as she is such a big dog to ask anyone to look after. My girlfriend MGal (east coast MGal, not Bibbulmun running MGal) is coming over to house sit and she will look after FD#2 and the PC#1 (psychotic cat). The kennel had been recommended by other great dane owners, and while it was clean and the people nice, when I looked at the small pen he showed me my heart sank a little. He assured the run she is going into is big enough to house 3 great danes together, but I couldn’t help but think of her in a concrete run for 6 weeks! I asked if there was a “free-run” area and he explained how everything worked and I felt a little better. We couldn’t go “through” to see the area as it was “quiet time” and the little way that we did go into the kennel area the dogs were barking very loudly. And that was only 6 dogs or so, and they have over 100! He assured me when I dropped her off on the morning of our departure that as it would be feeding time we could walk through to her pen. I hope she’ll be ok; for the moment I’m wondering what I’ve done. I’ve never used kennels before; I know people use them all the time so I am sure she will be fine. MGal can visit every week and check up on her, so that’s comforting.
After the kennel inspection I did a bit of shopping. I have been looking at BBQs for weeks as I have some people coming over for a BBQ and the old one went out in the dumpster! Once purchased, I found it didn’t fit in the car without taking the cage behind the seats out and dropping the seats, and as the seats were covered in shopping I will have to go back another time to collect it. The rest of the afternoon was spent painting. I headed out to a Chinese wedding on Saturday night, and it was great fun. A lively celebration and the food was great and the karaoke style singing very entertaining. My friend KGal that also went has now decided that although she may marry a Norwegian (she is currently single!) that it would definitely have to be a Chinese wedding!!!
I was dreading waking up on Sunday morning; I’d done my best impersonation of someone that drinks… a few glasses of red wine and a couple of Sambucca on ice … I was feeling merry on the way home without being drunk! I managed a sleep-in until 7am and got up and was happy I felt sleep deprived but not too bad. By 8am I was into the painting again, with a goal of finishing the entire wall colour in the living/kitchen/dining area so that I could get on to the skirting boards. As the morning progressed, so did the hangover! Still it wasn’t half as bad as my last one (from memory about 5+ years ago) and I drank lots of water and kept eating to keep it at bay.
As the kids were out last night with their Dad and not due to get home until 11pm, I had an open evening with no commitments… no one to cook dinner for. Around 3pm, with my hangover gone, I was really craving a diet coke. Covered in paint I crammed a hat on my head and my sunglasses on and made a mercy dash to the supermarket and hoped I’d not run into anyone! A nice cool drink was just what I needed, and I finished out the afternoon and evening with caffeinated-energy and managed to get all the skirting boards done (1 coat) and two door frames. Sometime later I was thinking how proud my Dad would be of me doing the job “correctly”, having watched him tackle most everything around our house over the years from carpentry, brick laying, and wall papering. I still remember how he would take all the doors of their hinges and lay them on the trestles and paint them carefully with oil paint! While fondly reliving this memory I spied my newly-painted door frames; at about 30cm off the floor there were tufts of brown fur, and 70cm off the floor were tufts of grey and white fur! All each side of both frames! The dogs had obviously cut the corner too closely and wiped themselves along the paint and left their mark behind, literally. With the paint still wet, there was nothing I could do about it until it the paint dries and I can light sand the fur out!
At the end of the day I’d worked solidly for 12 hours and I was really happy that I found part of the floor and was actually able to mop it! One side looks finished now, all the furniture back in place… the end is definitely nigh! This morning I was organised enough to bring a supply of work clothes in, so that I can cycle to work this week, or run if my leg allows. I haven’t run for 9 days now… and I’m hoping to run into work tomorrow… the short way, about 5kms+.
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