Just got home from a visit to the Sydney Opera House to hear David Sedaris read from his latest book. I was accompanied by Amy, Miss Fee, and the Sock Victim, and we all had an awesome time. Sedaris was oddly boyish for a 50-year-old, I thought, but his stories had a packed-out concert hall rolling in the aisles. Judith Lucy introduced him and interviewed him after the reading, and you could tell she was a big fan. We thought about hanging around for a signed book, but the queue was going to take hours. Nope, it was off to Lowenbrau for dinner and good cheer…
Month: August 2008 (page 4 of 8)
Note to self: Book in for the Come-N-Try archery lesson sometime this Spring! (Link courtesy of Steph and Eva.)
Krispy Kreme Bacon Cheddar Cheeseburgers. I would SO try one of these. To misquote Joey on Friends (as the Snook and I often do): “What’s not to like? Donuts: good! Cheeseburgers: good!” (Link courtesy of Big Fat Deal.)
Marathon Thoughts
Did anyone else watch the Olympic women’s marathon yesterday? It was fantastic. I thought it would be boring to watch people run for 2.5 hours, but I was pretty much mesmerised by the strategy and form of the runners. Some of them ran the way I dream of running: relaxed, springy, with a rock steady upper body and a confident expression. But there were also several who run the way I fear I run: tense, shuffling, with arms, shoulders, and neck heaving all over the place. Like the commentators, I spent the first half of the race focussed on Paula Radcliffe, who was coming back from a recent stress fracture. (I hear her voice on the Nike+ quite a bit, so somehow I felt like I should barrack for her.) It became pretty obvious though that Paula wasn’t going to be a medal contender in this one. Then out of nowhere, some random 38-year-old took off from the pack in a sprint. The commentators – and myself – scoffed at her strategy and started predicting how long it would be before they caught her. BUT THEY NEVER DID. It was awesome. I couldn’t believe it as Constantina Tomescu extended her lead out to a minute-and-a-half. She ran the entire second half of that race by herself. How did she do it? I find it difficult to push myself on a solo training run; I can’t imagine the mental effort in sustaining her speed up there alone. And hello? SHE’S 38. It was inspiring to think that maybe my own best running years are still ahead of me.
I really like this schedule of having a hard week followed by a recovery week. It was good to back off a bit after pushing through the jet lag and the City 2 Surf. It felt great to get back out on my usual neighborhood routes. I realise now that all the aches and pains and struggles I had in LA were purely due to running on a treadmill. I hate treadmills! Out on the road I can do 45 minutes without feeling bored at all.
Week 6 distance: 11.5mi (18.43km)
Week 7 distance: 17mi (27.2km)
Week 8 distance: 12.25mi (19.6km)
This week was a step-down of nearly 30% from last week, but it was still a slight increase from my last recovery week. Yesterday’s workout was meant to be speed-intervals… but man, I suck at them. I just don’t think I’m meant to run fast. I was doing laps around Victoria Park with intervals of 90 seconds at my goal pace of 6:00/km. The problem was that I’d take off much faster than that, usually somewhere between 5:00-5:30/km. Then I’d try to slow down a bit only to realise that I still had 45 seconds to go, and I’d struggle just to finish out the interval without stopping. Then I’d walk for a few minutes and berate myself for being a big lumbering slow-poke. Repeat ad infinitum. Also, I have very little willpower and I find it difficult to push myself beyond my comfort zone. Running a bit farther isn’t hard, but running faster involves getting into that anaerobic zone where it’s hard to breathe. Maybe I need to actually get a coach for these sessions, someone who can motivate me to push a bit harder…
Dude, is that Molly Walker from Heroes in the new Miley Cyrus video*? She’s the first girl they cut to after Miley starts the song (with that weird “Shah!” noise). I can’t find any confirmation on the Internets, but that’s totally her, right?
* So I watched a Miley Cyrus video. DON’T JUDGE ME.
The Nerd Olympics
Last night we had a special event after work: The Propeller-Head Games! We got divided into six teams and we competed in three rounds of events. In the first, we had like five minutes to fashion an outfit for someone out of two rolls of toilet paper and ten paper clips. My team (mostly Asian engineering guys) and myself quickly set to work festooning Cheney with TP. I contributed two long braided TP pigtails, which he put to good use during the fashion show. In the second round, we had fifteen minutes to build a structure out of popsicle sticks, straws, and sticky tape. Points were awarded based on design and weight-bearing ability. They’d actually sent out the details of this one ten minutes before the games, so I had time to do some quick Googling. (And email the Snook, who responded: “TRUSS! Triangles, in general, equals good.”) My team immediately created a blueprint and set to building triangles and joining them together into side truss panels. Our resulting structure actually looked a fair bit like the Iron Cove Bridge. (Two of the other designs were decorative rather than structural, and the others were simply giant wads of tape and sticks.) Our bridge held up 4.5 reams of paper, which was more than anyone else’s. The third round involved writing and performing a song about the country. We went patriotic by changing the words to “Waltzing Matilda” and our performance featured the amazing Cheney as the text-messaging Swagman. The results were tallied… and we came in second! The funny thing is, that’s actually what we were aiming for! First prize was iTunes gift cards, but second prize was on-site massages next week. That’s gonna rock. I also won a $10 iTunes card courtesy of my team, who voted me “Most Enthusiastic.” (I think that means: “Biggest Nerd.”) A bunch of people took pictures, so I’m really hoping on Monday I can get a good one of our amazing bridge…
Swedish Furniture Name Generator. Fun! I am KRISTINÃ…N, and I am a sensible double bed. (Link courtesy of RODDD, who is a chair.)
Hey! Peaches Geldof just got married at the same place we did!
Official City2Surf Results and Photos
The official race results and pictures are now up, though the site’s been getting hammered all day: me, Rodd. If you watch the videos, we come running up pretty much in the middle. (I’m wearing a navy blue baseball cap, if that helps.) Our time was 105:46, which meant we placed 27,294th out of more than 50,000 finishers. They got LOADS of photos of us this year, and thankfully I don’t look too stupid in any of them. I’ve archived them here if you want to have a look.
