Review

After a great (on reflection) January and a spotty, but generally consistent, February, (cyclone and all), March finds me struggling in terms of managing time, tasks, and myself!

The problem is competing commitments and lack of flexibility in prioritising said commitments. This leads to pressure, feeling of guilt and the occasion panic attack. Physically it literally feels like being squeezed in a vice, mentally my brain is a puddle of superficialities lurching figuratively from problem to problem, with me getting cross in the process.

So is the answer to tough it out and drop the less important commitments until a stable state is reached? I suspect so.

On a more satisfying note, I spent the weekend in Penrith, NSW, for the Australian Open Water Championships. The frenzied rush of eighty young swimmers in the first few metres of an open water race is an inspiring sight.

Open water swimming itself is a fascinating sport because of the tactics involved. A pack can always move faster than a lone swimmer but if a swimmer impedes another then he or she will be disqualified. Also the swimmer in front will not benefit from the drafting involved in pack swimming so the swimmer will need to drop back into the competitive pack to save some energy or take the risk of being run down in the final kilometer.

Whilst in Penrith I stayed in pleasant surroundings by the Nepean River and was greeted each morning by singles, doubles and foursomes sculling past. Alongside the river were pastoral green banks and English style gardens which provided enjoyable vistas as I ran along the river paths.

I really do have to do something about time, priorities etc but in the meantime I think I will throw off these worries and just wing it a little bit longer.

Time pics courtesy of google images

forlorn landscape

Two days after TC Carlos the foreshore looks more than a little forlorn. Last week the park land looked delightfully rustic. Now it is definitely a bit mussed up …

 

 

 

 

 

To add to the ambience I could hear a plaintive squawking which came from a wet and bedraggled looking black cockatoo huddled high in the trees and continuously croaking out a cry of complaint (or so it seemed).

 

 

 

Clean up crews were extremely busy with the chainsaw whine buzzing  as they did an initial clearance along the path.

In contrast the evening high tide changed the low tide landscape as shown in the following pics. The sheer volume of water is astounding.

and from this

The day belonged to Tropical Cyclone Carlos

On Tuesday afternoon I spent two hours poolside in pouring rain determined that my squad would get in a good session before the tropical low lashing the city intensified into a cyclone. Which is what happened.

I woke Wednesday morning to see that a large coconut palm in my back yard had toppled undramatically during the night leaving me to wonder if the companion palm would go also as the now named TC Carlos continued to hover over Darwin.

I was soon to find that my damage was minor as a wander through my neighbourhood revealed the tree carnage everywhere.

It began outside my front door and continued all along the foreshore.

There must have been 20-30 trees lost just along that pathway. In the other direction the story was the same.

It is chastening to think of these trees, the large ones especially, toppling in the dark of the night, unseen through the veils of water and unlit darkness, and unheard through the unrelenting rattling of rain and the whine of the wind.

This was not true of those who were affected in their suburban homes. Many woke to the crash of a tree on their roof or large broken branches battering their vehicles.

There was a malstrom of frentic activity during the day as Carlos sat and threatened to intensify once again. Cars with lights shining wetly on the roads raced to the supermarkets and service stations to store up. A severe cyclone would mean the city could be cut off from food and fuel trucks for an indefinite time. Schools and businesses were closed. Many at home regulalry posted on Facebook to check on friends and family while the tweets were awash with updates and wry comments. My favourite is one from the local cartoonist, Colin Wicking.

ColinWicking

Stupid cyclone lurching around like a drunk who won’t leave the party. #tccarlos

The afternoon was a little more sobering because wind and rain were intensifying and conditions were being compounded by a late afternoon high tide. Earlier in the day I noticed that the entry bridge to the Jingili Water Gardens was submerged by a now aptly named and swollen Rapid Creek

The high tide resulted in the expected flooding and at 5pm my street across the road from the intersection looked like this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At 3.30 this morning I woke to quiet; no wind, no rain. It was very unsettling but Carlos had unfolded on himself and was no longer a threat. Today has been a muddle and it was not until late this afternoon that I began an attack on the bouganvillea out front which had lost much of its foliage and twisted itself into a barrier against a visit from the postman.

Being a great fan of mail from all parts it was essential that I not dissuade the postman from visiting me. It began raining again while in the middle of this task and I now find myself at 8pm not having gone for a run. I have not missed any other day so here’s to another drenching.

Tough run today

After Saturday procrastination I reviewed several students’ work before going on my long run. This meant I was late leaving. Not only was I late, I did not have my canine companion – still recovering from her operation, and I set off at a pace, which was a little faster than easy, in a rush of self destruction.

Thirty minutes in I realised I could not keep it up unless …. what if I ran for 10 minutes and walked for one minute, and in doing so try to maintain the faster pace? This became my strategy and as I walked I took a few pics. The first was just after I left the beach and headed towards the trail through the mangrove boardwalk.

This was a benign section of the run. It was not too hot and puddles, which I did my best to go around on the inward journey but just splashed through due to fatigue on the way back, did not feature.

 

 

 

 

The boardwalk is a favourite. I enjoy the enclosed coolness and I am fascinated by the eiree mangrove roots twisting around and through each other in the mud.

 

 

 

 

 

Once out of the boardwalk I was into the challenging Lee Point track. It is challenging as it is undulating, the path itself deteriorating in places, and with the current monsoon troughs, waterlogged in many places.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is also quite beautiful and this distracts me from the fact that I am really struggling to maintain any sort of pace. In fact, by the time I had come back through the track and back on the boardwalk I took this pic, enjoying the contemplative vista, and I also fervently wished I had laid out a phone home option i.e. ‘please come and get me I am done”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately that was not to be and I continued for another 3-4km to complete 14.5km which was my goal. It took another weary 45 mins to walk the 5km home.

Just before I stopped, my iphone, and the ironically named iphone app ismoothrun, stopped. However the saved data showed that amazingly I was able to maintain a faster pace than most of my runs despite my fatigue. I am just not too keen to do it again too soon.

mud is the new medium

Forget annus horribilus, I am having monthous monstrous, and it is only the 9th. My back yard is an absolute quagmire; the lawn has been chewed to oblivion by a small excavator pushing earth back into the trenches dug to assist the removal of my fence (at huge cost).The weather is delaying the completion of the work and the property is not secure, mostly for the dogs.

Yesterday Penny failed to exude her charm on a random terrier and ended up with a small rip in her side for her trouble. This morning the small rip looked more like a gaping wound exuding a worrying smell so it was off to the vet. How can they charge so much for a stitch up? Now  she is a sad creature, disoriented with the bucket on her head, and wondering why a) I left her at that place when she made it clear she did not want to go in b) why I won’t take the bucket off her head.

Generally it’s been that sort of day – nothing really going right like fixing a tube on my mountain bike only for it to be flatter than the earth twenty minutes later. Actually I found out yesterday that you should set a treadmill to a 1.5% minumum gradient to reflect the curvature of the earth which is never flat; but my tube certainly was, and I had to start again.

Later in the day I wrestled with having a swim but just could not be bothered. However later I did decide to go for a run because I have noticed on my online fitness journal that there is a ticker for the number of days exercised in a row and I was up to 47 so how hard would it be to get to 100??  Therefore my notions of a day off went out the window at approximately 6.30pm.

I also hoped  the run would clear my mind of my anxieties and in my mind’s eye, as I ran, I wordled my worries away and it worked!

The relief was short lived as a new anxiety asserted itself. Half way through my run I found myself in the dark on a trail – the combination of poor eyesight, an uneven surface, a dodgy achilles and a penchant for falling over did not bode well for me but I persevered and made it home to devour the spare ribs, marinated in honey and citrus overlaid with plum and ginger sauce, put on before I left and enjoyed them with a beer. I forwent the vegies I was going to cook on my return and had fresh pineapple and yogurt instead. The absence of health ticks was replaced by extra taste applause.

“fat around my gut and not quick enough”

“fat around my gut and not quick enough” is a phrase from a blog of a fellow janathoner. My response was as follows “commiserations – I share your dilemna but what the heck; enjoy life, enjoy exercising, and nuture all the relationships that are important. That’s what matters. It would be good to be faster though.” And that is where I am at. I would love to regain the free flowing form I had as a performer in my own movie (memory is notoriously unreliable) but at the same time I know it is the people in your life who should be foremost in terms of priority. This is ironic as I am hopelessly asocial but I am working on it.

Reality has struck and I have to set the alarm for the wee hours to complete student marking before tomorrow. I am pleased to have got in a swim this morning but it was at the cost of riding to work. How to fit it all in? I love cycling recreationally and feel righteous, well good at the least, about reducing my carbon footprint (I don’t trust the airlines when they try to charge you for this though; proabably because I don’t understand how that works in their case but I always imagine it just goes into their profit coffers). Anyway time ends up getting squeezed in the day which I hate and I have to take the car to get to where I have to be in time.

I guess that is something to work on.

disorder squared

 

Disorder tends to be a characteristic of my home despite my desire that it be otherwise. Today took it to new heights. I finished a double lesson going through features and conventions used in the documentary ‘Dark Days‘ by Marc Singer. It is an amazing documentary as it is an intimate portrait of the lives of several homeless personalities living in the tunnels underneath Penn St Station, New York. The documentary succeeds in making you laugh with the community, and experience the pathos of the social pressures that led so many to homelessness. The efforts of one to keep his “house” tidy communicates a pathos most of us are priviledged never to experience.

Anyway (you can tell that I really like this doco) I received a message that the company contracted to remove my asbestos impregnated fence had been bailed up by Penny, the seven month staffy cross.

Here she is, not a cute face,maybe not even a friendly face, in fact a bit of a sad face, but she’s full of life and knows the joy of just running to nowhere.

Once I arrived home I discovered that the crew and the excsavator had managed to get past her and an uneasy peace had been constructed after a couple of lunges at a calf muscle or two.

However when I went for a swim and then off to coaching I locked the dogs in the house fearful of what penny might chew up in my absence – she is still a puppy after all.

However the disorder proved not to be in the house but in the yard. What a mess, and they have only just  begun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day ended on  a good note however thanks to my new wok once again. I decided to have a “left overs” meal. This involved sauteeing red onion, celery, red capsicum, brocoli and chilli. I added a can of chopped tomato and herbs, hard boiled eggs and coconut cream.

Cheers to Shottesbrooke McLaren Vale Chardonnay 2009.

celebration

I never realised how much the fall of light can affect how you see the physical environment until you really look. Yesterday afternoon, walking a path I have followed regularly, I was struck by the play of light and shadow on the trees I usually never give a second glance to. All that was needed was a picnicing family to make it a perfect rustic scene.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This morning a fercocious lightning filled storm thundered into my sleep but I got up to run anyway and, like an anticlimax in a love affair, that was it – the last day in January and janathon sadly over. However I felt a celebration of some sort was in order.

A firm baramundi fillet marinated in chilli, lime and coconut cream, wrapped in foil and baked for 20 minutes, resulted in a dish worthy of any celebration. The white flesh broke up into succulent pieces swollen with flavour, and with a glass of dry white accompanying the dish, I said ‘well done you – janathon completed’.

 

 

beautiful day

It’s a beautiful day and plans have been falling into place awesomely. The return of the sun has brought with it a rise in temperatures and you would have to be mad (and many are) to exercise outdoors after 8.00am or before 4.00pm unless it’s in a pool. The drawback is that I dislike running in the dark and also I do not feel comfortable running on trails during the dark (but maybe I will try a headlamp) so I began my long run in the dark but had the pleasure of watching the dawn break before I finished.

Home again I had a quick breakfast and my first coffee for the day, leisurely savoured folowed by an schedules nap on the couch for 90 minutes or so. The run must have taken it out of me but it was a perfect thing to happen as I woke in time to prepare for the opening of the pool and got a 2k swim in.

After nearly three hours of exercise I felt justified in treating myself to a seafood laksa and now here I am. The rest of the day to enjoy with no nagging voice telling me to work out and the self satisfaction that I have put in a good day.

One day to go in janathon. I will miss it as it has helped me entrench a habit of daily exercise. Another challenge must be on the horizon.

a coffee and a think

A 5am start and a busy day, finishing with 3hrs coaching the late afternoon squads and I find myself with no workout done. The advice given to me by a top level triathlete who occasionally trains with me was go home have a cup of coffee then go. I did all of that and it worked. I got in my run including 10 sand dune sprints and felt gulit free to enjoy a glass of red on my return.

Three days to go.