Endless monstrosities.

OMG.

Just did a training session with a different trainer on site at work.

I hurt and am sooo shaky!

Lots of interval running and boxing and some weights too.

There will be pain in the morning I think.

Shows the importance of mixing it up.
I've not done a huge amount of cross training recently, down to a mix of laziness and Bridges training.


And on that note: Photos from the Bridges Run:

I'm floating!

And also this monstrosity! This was when I was firing through the last km to try and get a 55:XX.
I'm putting it up small, but I think it will enlarge if you mist click on it. On the positive, my legs look good. :)

So I wont be buying any of those!

The other monstrosity if that they didn't record mat times.

They were all gun times. 

Which is s**t. Thanks to CoolRunner djc42 for summing it up nicely:
They also need to get onto the net times for events of this size ; people in C & D will really be penalised and (a) it's not fair and (B) it encourages people to jump their category...
There was no mat at the start - so all times will be gun times. The mat 100m before the finish is for the benefit of the announcer so they know who's about to finish. I think i feel stronger about this than I thought - not having net time is not good enough. People expect it now, given that every 'big' race has them - it leaves a sour taste ....


I thought I heard them reel off my name as part of a huge list as we streamed through the finish but I just assumed I'd heard wrong. What do I care if they quickly get my first name out. I'd rather have had a better idea of my time.
Official time 57:11. I'm sticking with my 56:15.

I think I will drag the boy along to the free group training for the R4R. When he's better!

And also have decided to go to WAMC interval training on tuesday nights. It starts at 5:30, so that gives me an hours worth of interval training then a quick dash down to the airport to pick the boy up at 7.

Sorted!

Battle Collossal IX - Muay Thai for the uninitiated

So on saturday night I went to watch one of my good friends in her first Muay Thai fight. I was scared, I will admit it. Not for s second did I doubt Sophies abilities, but its still not a pleasant idea- paying to watch a friend get beaten up...
I'd never been to a fight of any description, and avoid watching things like UFC. They make me cringe.
So I wasnt too sure how I'd deal with this!

We got there at 5:45. Doors were emant to open at 6 and Sophie was first on, a warm up match for a massive tournament with a prize fund of 2,000,000 Baht ($70,000 ish) and a spot representing Australia in some HUGE Thai tournament. It was close to 7 by the time they actually opened the doors. Some mess up with the food and drink delivery. But I would have rather been inside and thirsty than outside and freezing! Winter is definately on the way to Perth. Then a nervous wait for the fighting to get underway.

Once it did, I was hooked. Muay Thai may be fighting, and it is violent by nature, but it definately isnt as viscious as I was expecting.

In the first round Sophie seemed slightly dazed, and her opponent had the upper hand. But once Soph was over the shock of being in the ring for the first time, she came into her own. The other girls kicks just didnt seem to make contact, Sophies did. At one point I'm sure I saw the other girl with tears in her eyes, and her face was puffy and swollen, whereas Sophie looked normal, if tired.

In my understanding, Muay Thai is won by scoring the most points. You get points for a clean contact, more if its above the waist, more for your opponent falling over etc etc. And its scored by a number of judges (3?) at different points around the ring. If the majority of the judges think you scored the most points, you win.

Just like Sophie did!

Proud of you Sophie :)

We stayed on after Sophies fight to watch some of teh main Tournament, to get a better idea of what is involved in Muay Thai. Mainly, we stayed to support one of Sophies friend defending his Welterweight title in the break from the main tournamant (it was a draw! after 5 rounds and lots of blood...) and to wtach the heavyweights...

All the guys in the main tournament weighed 67kilos. Thats the same as me, which is very strange to imagine. The heavyweights weighed 100-110kg. No upper limit and no need to have equal weight fighters. So the guy challenging the Perth heavyweight was a good 5 inches shorter and 10kg lighter. It was never going to end well, but good on him for trying! KO in the first round. And the first time I felt uncomfortable watching the fighting, mainly because it was so unevenly matched.

It was a good thing it was over so soon, because while I wanted to see how the big boys fought, it was 11 o'clock already and I needed my sleep before the 10km race the next morning!

All in all a fun night, though I can't say I'll be going again apart from to support Sophie. But its always good to try new things, especially when they seem out of your comfort zone!

Bridges 10km - Race Report.

After a late night (boxing start was delayed, so didn't get home til 11:30! but more on that here) it was an early start.
Blue skies and sunshine, and less humidity than we've had over the last week. They said it was 15 degrees on the radio as I drove to the start (no public transport that early in Perth on sundays) but felt warmer in full sun!
  
The start was well organised. Many racers had had there numbers sent out to them, so all they had to do was show up, people like me who were late applicants collected their numbers with ease. There was a 5km race starting from the other side of the river, planned so the first across the line would arrive with lots of support from the 10km people, so I hung around the finish line and cheered the first 3 guys and a girl across the line. My guess is they were done in less than 20 minutes. 

Then it was time to line up to get going.
I'd put myself into group D, 55 minutes and over. I was hoping for 55, so turns out this was a big mistake! You'd think I'd have learnt by now that since everyone else puts themselves in too high a group, maybe I should too!
I spent the first 3 kms dodging and weaving. That was all the way across the first bridge until it opened up on the South Perth foreshore and there was more room for people to find their own space. SERIOUSLY PEOPLE! If you're walking at 2km, there is no way you can run 10km in less than 55 minutes so why did you start in with the group C and make me dodge around you?
I was doing well. I was definitely not going to let myself take more than an hour, so I was watching my splits for 6 minute kms and doing pretty good. Would have been better with a clean start, but could have been much worse.

By 7km i was getting hot and my shoulders started to ache which was very annoying. Must have slept a bit funny? So took out 30 seconds to stretch them out properly and relieve the tension building up across them.
8km and we were up onto the Narrows bridge and heading for home.
At this point I saw that I might just about make 55minutes, but it would be close. I put in everything I still had and over took a gazillion people on the home km, but it wasn't quite enough and my watch time was 0:56:15. Grrr! We'll see if the mat time is any better. I wasnt quite sure where the "start"was... so maybe I started my watch too early?! But probably not 15 seconds early... and definitely not 1 minute 15 seconds...
I felt good though. Sweat was pouring off me, but my legs felt Ok. Not "lets do this all over again now" OK, but Ok. My HR averaged at 180, so I was giving it all I had. I'm happy about that. No slacking off like in last years C2S! I'm definitely going to aim for the C2S HM again this year. With a build up in distance over the next 6 months and more speedwork, I hope I can smash the 2:15 barrier of my previous two HMs.


So, things to remember next time:

1. Don't go to a boxing match the night before and get home late.
2. Start in the group you want to be in, not the one you used to be in. 
3. Start further forwards!
4. Figure out the splits for the time you want to finish in, not the one you don't want to be over.  
5. Stretch shoulders more!

Hopefully should be some decent photos to put up soon. I remember seeing a few photographers right in front of me as I powered past, especially on the last km. Fingers crossed. 

First race of the season tomorrow!

My season anyway. WAMC don't really stop, but around now it gets busier.

The Bridges Run is once around the foreshore, 10km. Or a short 5km from one of the jetties on the other side. 

I'm doing the 10, and hoping for a time under 55 minutes. Fingers crossed. I've been running at my old race pace in training runs, so hopefully all the enforced treadmill running has picked up my pace potential.

As for the rest of the weekend, its pretty packed too! Off to Deep Aqua this morning, might stay on for Body Combat but will see. Deep aqua is usually enough in itself, and don't want to over work before tomorrow!

Tonight a big group of us are going to watch a friend fight. She's been doing Muay Thai for a few years now, and its her first public fight, so we're going for moral support. I'm really intrigued. I've never been to anything similar before, but I'm not sure how well I'll be able to watch because I'm not sure how well I'll deal with watching one of my best friends get beaten up! She loves it, so I will be there to support.

Tomorrow is the race, then an attempt to see a friend who is moving over to Germany. Shes having a barbeque on the foreshore, so hopefully I will have time to get home, get changed, get back and see her, then we're due to meet a friend that we havn't seen for a long while. He just got a job for a junior exploration company up in my neck of the woods, so thats going to be interesting. The joys of confidentiality!

All clear.

We spent the morning in A&E because there was no improvement over night.

After a while waiting, though not as long as I remember back home, he was seen by a supervised student Dr, then another, then a second opinion after X-ray to make sure he wasn't liable for compartment syndrome (where the internal pressure stops the blood flow from the capillaries, so while overall blood flow is still good, individual patches of tissue can die).

And then off we toddled, with a prescription of ice and elevation and ibuprofen.
Only took 90 minutes.
No exercise for a fair while, and he's warned work that he might not be much use, but we'll see how he goes by Monday.

Fingers crossed for a quick recovery.

Another one bites the dust...

The Boy had a tumble on his bike today. 

Not good at all, but also very lucky.

He went a new way, adding a loop of Kings Park into his usual loop down to the river and around. Unluckily, there are lots of roadworks in Kings Park after the storm, so he decided to cycle around the outside on the main roads. Nearly back to the start again a woman in a rush to get to her dentist appointment opened her door without looking in the mirror [properly], right into the path of an oncoming Boy.

From the sounds of it he crashed straight into it, not even time to swerve. Went over the top and rolled a few times, landing in one lane of traffic with his bike in the other. Heres the lucky part. The other traffic stopped in time. Other wise it would have been so very much worse. I don't even want to think about it.

I got a call asking for a lift home because he hit a parked car... He sounded shook up, but I assumed he'd dinted a nice Audi or something while avoiding a small child in the park.
Got there to find him sitting at the side of the road on his own (he told the woman to go to her appointment after getting her details, all she was doing was fretting anyway) looking sorry for himself. Then I saw how nasty it was. Not much blood this time, but all the side of his leg is bruised and battered and swollen, plus a fair amount of grazing and bruising all over.

I gave him a once over, checked for concussion even though he said he hadn't hit his head. He looked really bad in the car. I was tempted to go straight to the hospital, but he kept refusing. He was mainly just hot, dehydrated and in shock. So once we'd sorted that out he perked up some. I thought he was going to cry when I cleaned up his main graze. Poor boy. But better that than getting an infection from having gunk in it.
If its still as bad tomorrow we'll head to the docs and get an xray, but it seems more general brusied muscle pain than acute fracture... but maybe its both.

So now he's sitting there with a bandage around his poorly leg trying to stop the swelling. And ice before, but he got bored of the TV once he was feeling better and wanted to go install the new RAM in his computer that arrived at lunchtime, and is now happily playing his game and reaping the benefits of said upgrade and its hard to ice a whole leg and play games at his desk... Priorities :)

I think it was all fate.
I was meant to go out for a run this morning but I woke up really dehydrated and massively tired. We went to see Men who Stare at Goats last night and didn't get back 'til way after 11. So I was only just up when he rang. Otherwise, I would have been out and no chariot would have speeded to his aide.
Also, we have a run coming up on Sunday, the 10km Bridges Run. So now he has an excuse not to run. And I am safe for a while, because if he's not running he can't beat me and show me up. ;) We'll have to postpone that til May and the Run for a Reason!
He was meant to be helping a friend move house tomorrow, but thats not going to happen any more. Can't move sofas when you cant really move your self too well.

I've been playing with the idea of getting ID tags for a while (years, in fact) and this has spurred me into actually doing it. If it had turned more serious, there was no way they'd know who he was or who to ring. Sure, he had his phone to map his ride, but if he was down badly, chances are that would be out too. And when I'm out I currently carry nothing apart from a lone key. I used to have a slip of paper when I was running around the dark empty streets of Kambalda, but nothing in the City. So two shoe RoadIDs are coming our way. Learn from my pain. Don't wait for it to happen to you!

Would someone know who you were in an emergency?

Also, would you know how to help someone in an emergency? 

If not, why not?

Penguins!

Phillip Island was my favourite day of "Melbourne".

We went on a day tour with Go West down to Phillip Island, mainly to see the Fairy Penguins which return to the beach every evening.

The day started off at the Australian Garden in Cranbourne.  Not the most amazing place ever, especially since it was mainly a building site (for phase 2) and none of the water features were working. Which was a shame since part of it was meant to show the difference the presence of water makes to the plants... It would probably be of interest of keen gardener types who havn't seen much of Australia.

Then on down to Phillip Island, to the Chocolate Factory.
Now, officially I've given up chocolate for lent. That didn't last long! I fell at the first hurdle, as we walked in they handed us a truffle and I failed. It was a planned fail, so it doesn't count, right?
Its an AMAZING place! Think Willie Wonka. Ever wondered what a solid tonne of chocolate looks like? Ever seen 4 tonnes of liquid chocolate-fall? What about a giant mosaic of Dame Edna made out of truffles?

Then there were koalas...

And pretty rock formations...

Oh, and there was a snake too.

But mainly then there were PENGUINS!
We sat there in the freezing cold (for me...) in my many layers with millions of Asian tourists wearing even more layers, just waiting for the sun to go down so it was dark enough for the Little Penguins to dare come out.
But when they did it was amazing! We sat there, scanning the waterline for the little blobs.
Is that one?!

No, its a rock.

What about that?

Nah, seaweed.

That?!

Its the same rock, Ellen.

Oh.

Theres one!

And another, wow! Theres loads!

Want one!

That was pretty much how it went. 

As soon as there was one on the beach there were many, and they'd all group together, sometimes dropping back into the surf, sometimes just standing around, then eventually they'd make a dash for their homes back in the dunes. After a while, we went back from the main viewing area and watched them waddling around from the board walks. Totally amazing.

Some Fairy Penguin facts from the Penguin Foundation:

Little Penguins are amazing creatures that defy many laws of nature, let alone physics to swim, dive and live the way they do. We are proud to look after them and manage their habitat that enables many people from all over the world enjoy their incredible lives.
Did you know that ?

• The penguins at Phillip Island are the smallest of 17 species of penguins in the world (they are only 33cm tall) … their largest Antarctic cousin is the Emperor Penguin, standing up to 130 cm tall.
• Penguins are found only in the southern hemisphere; so you will never see a penguin and Polar Bear together in the wild!
• The name `Little Penguin` is now used instead of `Fairy Penguin` as it is a more accurate translation of their scientific name, Eudyptula minor.

Better in the water than Ian Thorpe !

• Penguins may swim 15 - 20 kilometres a day searching for small fish to eat. One penguin was recorded travelling 100 kilometres in one day!
• A Little Penguin has been recorded diving to 65 metres!
• A Little Penguin can actually sleep at sea, dozing as it floats on the surface.
• A Little Penguin can stay at sea for weeks, diving for fish, yet its waterproof feathers keep its skin absolutely dry.

The dangerous lives of Little Penguins

• Natural hazards for penguins are sharks, birds of prey, rough weather and fish shortages.
• Sadly, a penguin`s biggest danger is humans. They die from our plastic rubbish, oil spills at sea and on land from cars and introduced animals such as foxes, cats and dogs.
• A fox may kill as many as 30 or 40 penguins in one night. The fox is the penguins` main predator and keeps our rangers busy protecting the penguins.
• The Little Penguin`s dark feathers are not black like other penguins. They are a deep, rich blue. Their colour camouflages them from above and below the surface of the ocean.

I whole heartedly recommend going to see these little cuties.

If thats not possible, or you want to help more, why not adopt one?