The living room

Finished decorating. That's my first wallpapering job - not too bad, although I probably will spend the rest of my life looking at the blemishes. A bit of delusion seldom goes astray in this situation.
We have a new rug too, but it doesn't photograph so well.

News in brief

She's a Devon Rex - a fairly modern breed I think, with a lot of Siamese in them. They're short haired, so no shedding (presumably that's actually less shedding) and no allergic reactions, which will make Liz's sister happy.

Liz doesn't have an odema, her CT scan was normal, but she's still very dizzy and headachey. There's not much to be said for ageing, and injuries certainly make you feel your age. Plus they muck around with your mind; it's much harder to rebuild your confidence. I remember it took me a few months after my first bad fall to be happy running on trails again. I'm still very aware of the surface when it's rough.

Liz is resting, but she feels worse in some ways after a day doing nothing than after a day at work - it's a different kind of worse, but worse is worse. At least if you're at work you feel like you're getting something done. She's quite worried I think, but certainly very frustrated.

I'm OK - last fall pretty much worn off. The rain is getting me down a bit & it's certainly not great training weather. I've got a marathon coming up in 6 weeks, so I can't skive off training too much but beyond a certain point, I'm not prepared to go out. I've never liked winter, but this is the first year I've felt as bad about a Sydney winter as I used to about the Melbourne ones.

Not much other news - staircase coming along, but again, the weather is slowing it down because my workshop is the back garden.

Sri Chinmoy 8km race

Sprint
Post-race warmdown

A record! 8km in 35 minutes 21 seconds

I have to put in some caveats, although I am in fact absurdly pleased. Firstly, I was pipped to the post by someone I hadn't seen all race, and I swear he beat me by less than a second. Fortunately, he wasn't in my age group, so he didn't cost me the medal - but he also won a medal; first place in the over-60 division. That's a bit of a thunder-stealer! I have to say, I was very tempted to lurch "uncontrollably" in front of him, but I restrained myself. I'm pretty sure that would be inappropriate behaviour for what is notionally a recreational sport.

Furthermore, the guy who won the 16k - which is my usual choice of event - ran it in 65 minutes. Twice the distance in 5 minutes less than twice the time. When you see the picture (below) you will see that I'm not winning that distance any time soon.

Finally, the two guys who usually win this event didn't show up. It's all about the process, though, isn't it? And that time represents a great PB for me, a solid 25 seconds per kilometer off my previous best. It makes me think that maybe the coaching is paying dividends in more ways than just comfort. It still feels like a long way to 4 minute pace though.

500 meters left

Really, I'm shockingly competitive.

After the race and the pancakes, I went for a warm down 12km through the Bardwell Valley. It's a bit of a pain getting to it (you have to run UP the spur between the Cooks River and Wolli Creek) but the 4-5 km you get to run through remnant bushland makes it worthwhile,

News

This gives you a reasonable idea of the new living room, admittedly in two different lights. I'm very pleased with the light - it is a weird sort of part-Deco part-Nouveau thing, with a simple paper lampshade. The new green walls are much more soothing than the old yellow ones, and I think the wallpaper does something good above the fireplace, without resorting to the  huge mirror kind of thing. It's hard to believe that one person can complain about hanging so little wallpaper, right? But the chimney had to be plastered first (as did the wall behind the lamp) and the pattern wasn't totally forgiving. Very curious, Liz and I see the pattern in COMPLETELY different ways. Fortunately we agree on the overall look!

 This is Birnum Birnum lookout (close, anyway) on the Woronora River. Liz is down there somewhere, paddling. This is a great place for running, although a bit small and a bit of a test of the nerves. Falling could be a bit painful. However, I don't go looking for world speed records in this kind of country. So far, no accidents.

I should get some pictures from the Bardwell valley, which is similar terrain to my untutored eye, although the Cooks is not the Woronora. One day I think I'll just run trails, they're very satisfying.


Many years ago when I was managing ABILITY, I got my DoS to find out about getting one of these signs - it turned out to be free, and I've always enjoyed the apparent landmark status it confers. Finally UTS has caught up. I wonder if it's been irking someone there for years, that this tiny language school had its own council sign, and the mighty UTS didn't. Oh well, in five years I'll be the only person who remembers our sign was first.

MIrambeena

Endomondo Running Workout: was out running 15.88 km in 1h:16m:43s

Well, that's the first race for 2012 done and dusted. It's a PB for the distance (which is 16 km, but GPS always loses some of the distance because it treats curves as line segments - it's a balancing act between battery life, sampling rate and accuracy) but not quite as good a PB as I was hoping for. Still, a PB is a PB. And the course wasn't completely flat.

It was a beautiful morning - an autumn morning, despite the month, but a beautiful autumn morning - and the course is really nice, set in a shard of bush/parkland on the upstream Georges River near Bankstown Airport. Running on cycle tracks can be problematic, but the cyclists were thin on the ground this AM.

I don't think I can run a lot harder in some ways. I think this is the highest sustained heart rate for any of my races, which I suppose means training is working, and I'm sure there is some theoretical - practical - limit on heart rate. IF I can't run harder, then I have to think about different ways to run faster.

Marathon training begins...

Endomondo Running Workout: 29.72 km

Well, things are starting to get serious. I slightly mis-aligned this run, but I didn't really feel, having arrived at the front door, as if running another 280 metres was absolutely essential. Since I am notionally recovering from an injury, I have the excuse of discretion.

The injury, in point of fact, hasn't been nearly as bad as I feared last Sunday. I had only got about 100 metres from the front door before realising that the pain in the knees just wasn't going away and returning home. Consequently I have had 4 days rest, and actually descended the staircase 100% pain free on Thursday AM. So, naturally, back to training. It's an odd sport where a rest week sees you only running 60k! Next week is also easy, because it's a race week, a 16k hit out at Georges Hall, over bike tracks in the national park(?) there. I haven't run this course before, but it should be fun. So, that'll be 3 60k weeks in a row, which should leave me in good shape to get through the next month. Last year I was averaging 70k per week and this year it's getting close to 90 (well, it was) so I'm not surprised that it's hard work. I learned last year that immediate rest is the way to go, and I'm sticking with that.

It's not all bad; the reason (I think) that my knees packed it in was that I've been doing a lot of strength training in the gym (plus I don't think 20 years of being 30kg overweight made my knees hugely happy) and I probably overdid it a bit. It's quite hard to judge weights/repetitions; it always seems hard at the time, but it's not until 24 hours later that you know if you overdid it or not.

Anyway, the strength training paid off today, because at about 28km I tripped on a bit of Marrickville footpath, but was able to convert it from a fall to a stagger, which is down to knee strength and one of the reasons I have been working so hard on those muscles. I sort of feel vindicated. Falling is very demoralising, but not falling is very energising. Of course you could argue that if I hadn't been running then I wouldn't have been falling - but logic has no place in all this.

I can't remember anything else much going on. The new bit of the garden is coming along well, although the  solar powered water feature isn't working as well as I'd like. I have to negotiate with the neighbour to put the solar panel on his roof. Plus, it hasn't actually stopped raining yet, so there isn't much sun around anyway. But apart from that the new plants are going well. I spent Saturday pruning and weeding between showers; the garden has gone beserk with all the water. Another couple of weekends should see it looking more orderly.

Work is good; I'm still working on some ideas for using computers in the classroom - it's harder than it might seem. For repeatability, computers are great, but for adaptability - and every class is different - they are not so hot.

Borders of Balmain

Endomondo Running Workout: was out running 23.26 km

Set out from Petersham Oval this AM (site, as posted elsewhere, of Bradman's Sydney district cricket debut, which included a century and three wickets) and discovered, while waiting for the rest of the group, that it's also the site of a very early colonist's attempt to grow "Indian corn" - the colonist in question having been born in Petersham, England the name of the suburb in a sense begins here.

We ran through Annandale and Rozelle, which, away from the main roads, are very attractive suburbs. White's Creek makes a brief unconcreted appearance in Annandale, in a very nicely landscaped wetlands.