Tuggeranong Runner

Out of service

2007-10-20T00:03:00.000+10:00

I am currently in Vienna in Austria for another work trip and saw Ewen's message on my previous post. Thanks mate for your concern.

I have been out of action due to injury yet again. I had the incredible high of the Boston Marathon earlier in the year but the period since then has been a non event. I have had a persistent groin injury the whole year and have not been able to shake it. The injury has received noodles of rest and physio and yet it persists. A scan in mid-year did not show anything spectacular but every time I run I can feel pain and tightness to the groin. I strongly suspect it is all nerve related and wonder if I have nerve entrapment. A lot of wiring has to make its way through a narrow passage from leg to torso and I think the electronics and other engineering in that part of the world is suffering from overload.

I have run out of answers and I have to admit to feeling very down about the whole thing. I have had a few other non-running related difficulties of late as well and the less said about this year the better.

Rest heals all wounds. I shall return.

Venus in our vines

2007-09-08T17:16:00.000+10:00

I had a real weekend of contrasts when it came to running. On Saturday I did the usual run with my group over 20k's or so out at the Cotter Reserve. It feels like you are in the middle of nowhere, yet it is only about a 10 minute drive from Canberra's western suburbs. It was a gloopy morning for running with mist and light drizzle. The conditions (at left) could easily have been mistaken for any melancholy day on the Yorkshire moors.

But then came Sunday. This time I was alone, doing one of my favourite runs - and taking photos along the way - from my home in Gordon in Canberra's southern suburbs to the Pine Island reserve then back along the banks of the Murrumbidgee River to home. It was another of those mornings where me the runner, and the birds, the bees, the flowers and the trees all were in love with one another. We were all so high on fresh air and the blue skies that this couldn't have been legal. What a morning!

A morning like this recently with one of my running buddies brought out the poet in me again:

From where does Nature's sleeping beauty spring?
When playful runners roam those dream time hills
And watch the dawn's gold sail to which we cling
To starry skies and the winter moon's chills
Or season's blush - frosty fall's disrobed trees
Kangaroos, scarlet birds, a river's wealth
Wattle wonders, nectar and springtime bees
Nature's pulse, ancient lines that rule by stealth
But how does a lofty mind see such things?
When flirty running girl is my eye's feast
And mankind loses its sense to false kings
Beauty for one, is just another's beast
Yet fragrance flows from Adam's love for Eve
It's Venus in our vines to which we breathe.

For the record, my poem conforms to the structures of a Shakespearean sonnet. I am trying to say that there is so much beauty in Nature, yet sometimes we can be distracted by "flirty running girls" or the materialism of life ("false kings") and beauty is also in the eye of the beholder ("beauty for one is just another's beast").

Yet the bottom line is that it is a man's love for a woman and vice versa that allows us to see beauty in Nature. It's the Venus (love) in our vines (Nature) to which we breathe.

We are so lucky to be runners to allow us to see and feel such things.

Creature from the Black Lagoon

2007-08-10T07:41:00.000+10:00

I had another good week of running with recent niggles and injuries all behaving themselves. I also had the most delightful fun yesterday morning (Sunday) with one of my running buddies. It was a dream morning for running.

We started at Weston Park in Yarralumla just as the sun gushed orange over distant hills, giving birth to another day. Barely a cloud in the sky. It was a mild morning; crisp but not cold. Cockatoos and Galahs squawked their welcome. As we ran along the southern shores of Lake Burley Griffin around Lotus Bay towards Reconciliation Place in Parkes there were even some sea gulls, a surprise.

I love these runs when there's little pressure or expectations. We jogged a bit and walked a little with plenty of time to observe. The birds were friendly, but so were the people. We came across guys preparing their boats, a young couple taking photos, and a few runners and walkers. There were smiles and waves, everyone relaxed. What is it about mornings like this? There's an order and simplicity to Nature where each has their place - even for us, these strange, bipedal intruders we sometimes seem to be.

Except I think when it comes to water. Last Thursday night I headed off to the Australian Academy of Science building, "the Dome", to attend a Get Up political forum on the Australian Senate. There is an unfenced moat with about a metre and a half of water sitting idly around the outside of the building. As I waited at the building entrance, I thought surely many a bugger pissed to the hilt would have stumbled outside from a cocktail function or something similar and trundled into that water.

Sure enough not ten minutes later, that is exactly what happened. Except it was no drunken skunk, but a dear old lady in a wheelchair. She probably had visions in her youth of being a Formula One driver perhaps. She took the corner of the pathway, too fast and too tight and, yep...plop!..went straight into the drink. Oh, this was funny! She didn't think so, of course, and she had a point. She was SINKING! She certainly wasn't thinking of England as she lay on her back, the water rising, tangled in that chair of hers.

Many hands make light work, but that doesn't apply to old ladies sinking in wheel chairs. Yes, many helpers extended their hands from the (dry!) edge of the abyss. Yet she continued to flounder. There was only one solution - TD to the rescue! In my business suit and shiny leather shoes (less the jacket) I jumped in to help the damsel in distress. With one hand through her legs and the other under her back, it was like tossing sheep at the Cloncurry annual show as I...er...'manoeuvred' her up to the helpers' hands at the edge of the moat.

Yay, she was saved. I do remember her smiling as she was driven off and at least she was happy. As for me, I later felt silly sitting in that large auditorium listening to the debate completely wet below the waist. I imagined I also smelt like that putrefied creep in the "Creature from the Black Lagoon". A bizarre night to say the least.

Just call me TD

2007-08-03T19:02:00.000+10:00

Thanks everyone for your wonderful comments on my previous post which are greatly appreciated as always.

After the 'excitement' of my Moty posts and earlier overseas adventures with pigeons and all I decided on a deliberately low-key tone for that last post. But as a couple of you very perceptively picked up (Cirque and Eddie especially), 'My Moty' has well and truly returned. She's back indeed. And I do feel like the Old Running Don of Old.

I was away overseas for work again during the week and that photo at top left is of a great sunset snapped through the window of my cab as I headed back out to the airport.

In other news, I have decided to give Sydney City to Surf the flick this year. I'd paid, entered, and received my number and am fit. My mates will be there, I love the race, and it's an annual pilgrimage for me - not a combination of fortuitous events to be scoffed at! It's just that I didn't think I could afford to have two consecutive weekends away from home as the following weekend I have decided to head north to Brisbane and run the Noosa half-marathon. More on that later.

It was pleasing to get through last Saturday's Bush Capital run without pain or discomfort to my adductor. All year I have been battling this right adductor/groin/glute tendon and nerve thing. That's a convoluted description and it was a convoluted injury . Yet as is sometimes the way with injuries, this ever persistent pest just got up and left. Just like that!

With the injury gone (apparently - fingers crossed), something else has left - and for good. Hasn't anyone noticed?? "Tuggeranong Don" is kaput and replaced by "TD". I had long felt uncomfortable with the former, which was too much of a mouthful and too hard to spell. It was boring. It's now gone. For the bereaved, donations in lieu of flowers can be sent to any suitable charity for the relatives and victims of deceased blog handles.

For the time being until I can think of something better it will be the plain and simple boy next door name of "TD". I would therefore be grateful if you could respect my wishes at this sensitive time by no longer cavorting with my alter ego. Just call me TD.

Bush Capital Marathon Festival

2007-07-28T13:55:00.000+10:00

I've just walked in the door, dry salt still on my face, and sweaty and smelly after a great run in one of this morning's Bush Capital events.

From Campbell High School near the Australian War Memorial, runners had their choice of hilly and bushy races from 16 k to a 60 k ultra through the Mt Ainslie and Mt Majura bush reserves. Inviting tracks and trails and Mother Nature's sqwarking, jumping and crawling things were in abundance. There were a few humans here and there as well. They did the running. Like me, who ran in the 25 k event.

It was beaut morning for running, not too cold or too warm with a nice breeze in parts. I really enjoyed my run. I ran easily for the first 12k's or so and had a good chin wag with a bunch of other runners.

About the 15 k mark, I caught up with Emma from my Saturday group and we solved the world's problems during most of the homeward leg. I found our chat a great distraction from those pesky hills that simply refused to flatten out over the race's latter part. I had enough energy for a kick finish and surprised myself by not collapsing at the end.

It was also very pleasing to catch up with some great running buddies and fellow bloggers. My Saturday group were out in force. Ewen , Aki and Friar were there as was the Queen herself, Lucky Legs. It was also really nice to meet Bernie G from Sydney. I am not sure what my finishing time was and I don't care. It was simply good fun.

Motivation - a love story Part 3

2007-07-23T20:36:00.000+10:00

Cinderella, that tart! My Moty and her were having one of their feminine bonding sessions at the Fairybucks cafe when I found my lover and needed to convince her to come home.

What to do about Miss Motivation? Her story was my story, the great passion of my life.

As a runner she had nearly always been there when I felt good. But enter injury, sickness, cold mornings and other difficulties that life decides we need. Then she's off with the fairies to the Enchanted Forrest. She was reluctant, but I had a plan...

I would woo her. It would be the good, old fashioned way just like they do in the movies. I held out the promise of lemon-scented fresh linen and lavender bubble baths. We would be the free spirits of old, abandoning ourselves to the effects of fresh air, the fragrant soil and Mother Earth in all her glory. We would share the poetry of our souls. In my best Elvis voice, I would be singing "...I can't help falling in l-o-v-e with you..."

I threw in a tear for good measure. Not just any tear, but a masculine, briny tear, full of the saddest juice; a child's tear that spluttered when 'old yeller' bit the dust all those years ago. That's what I would show her. Something to make her go week at the knees.

It worked. Motivation came running into my arms (of course she came running). We clasped again, again and again never to leave.

She also made me happy by giving Cinderella the flick (personally, I never though much of the chick. I thought she would be better off with that other prissy thing, Snow White. Neither, I should add, are runners).

But then....what's this...."pfft"....a puff of smoke (cue puff of smoke, flash of lightning, claps of thunders, etc) hovers over my beloved. It's Motivation's Fairy God Mother, er, Father, along with a tiara, frumpy frock and hairy legs.

"Yes, it is Motivation's Fairy God Father" the voice proclaims. She...er...he continued:

"Motivation is like love; it can come and go when we least expect it. To get it back, you don't need Viagra (Ewen), you just need the right key to the right lock. Like love it can be found in the most unexpected places, under a rock, at the end of the rainbow, at the end of a race and our arms around sweaty salt-encrusted strangers...

...The real key to the lock is 'expectations'. We put expectations on ourselves, they sometimes immediately can't be met and, hey presto, the motivation slides, we give in".

"So what do we do about it", I said.

"Relax, my child. You don't need to go looking for love. It's a cliche, but it's true: just be yourself and love will come to you. Motivation is the same," he said. "Take one small step at a time, cross train, don't sweat it and in time you will start to feel your old self again...".

"Pfft." Then as suddenly as she..er...he had come, he was gone..gone with the wind...(heard that somewhere before I think??)

(cue angels singing, Mana falling from heaven, sound from Suncorp Stadium after Queensland State of Origin win, etc)

Alone at last with My Moty, our eyes met and danced a tango. Soul mates for life! A heart-felt reunion indeed (at your request Cirque)

Ever the optimist, Motivation gushed in relief to see me, "oooh you're so spunky! I want to go running but what if it rained, what if we got injured, what if it was cold..."

I cut her short. As we rode..er..ran off together hand in hand towards the setting sun, I blurted:

"Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn."

And we lived happily ever after.

(cue soundtrack from 2001 Space Odyssey..)
da dah dum dum dum dum dum da da daaah da daaaah dum dum da daah...........

The End

*****

Post-script:
Well, that's enough of that. JayKay's post that she had lost her motivation and the many others I have read prompted me to use my imagination and have some fun. Whether I have been able to convey a useful message at the same time I will leave others to judge.

Tesso asked about the the mini-series. In my dreams I could pretend that Brad Pitt would play me. Debra Winger, Annette Bening, Cate Blanchett, Emma Thompson and Meryl Streep have been among my favourite actresses over the years and I would love to see them play Motivation. Not sure who would play the Fairy Godfather. Ideas? Maybe I could write the screenplay but I doubt I would have enough motivation to see it through!

Note: No fairies, fairy god fathers, or other creatures were hurt in the compilation of this drama. For overseas readers and those from southern Australian states, the Queensland State of Origin team is the world's greatest ever rugby league football team. Champions.

Motivation - a love story Part 2

2007-07-20T19:25:00.000+10:00

"Oh, damn", I thought, suddenly amazed at my ability to speak in tongues. My high school English teacher would be proud.

The love of my life, Motivation, had disappeared in the trance of time. Some might say she wasn't mine alone.

Ha! She was. There was something different about My Moty. When the going had been good Motivation was my friend to accompany me, a runner, through races thick and thin. But now when I was injured, sick and sore she was gone. A rough diamond who couldn't handle things when the going got tough.

I was haunted by that song by Lennon and his bodgy-headed mates from Liverpool, "There's something in the way she moves..." Oh, so true. She moves alright, but not when I wanted her to and to places I knew not where. Which planet, which galaxy, which universe? I know men are from Mars and women are from god-knows-where but THIS was ridiculous!

Where had she gone? I had looked long and hard, yet I was left bereft. Things were at their worst. But isn't it strange that when things are at their worst that suddenly clarity - an epiphany - comes to us to show us the way through the puzzle.

Lance Armstrong said in is bestseller "It's not about the bike" that the irony of his chemotherapy treatment for cancer was the worse he felt, the better he got.

It is a bit like that for runners, too, missing their motivation. So often in running and in life all the world's nastiness can hit us all at once. Not nice. I felt like that after running the Boston marathon earlier this year when I got injured.

Yet I decided to use some reverse psychology on myself. I was feeling miserable and relying on others to get me out of the bog. In the end I felt that I 0nly I could get myself moving. And that's when I had the epiphany. That's when I said "stuff this", I was not going to allow myself to feel sorry for myself because I couldn't run. I was going to reverse the strength of those negative feelings to bounce upwards...

...certainly that is what I decided when it came to me and my absent lover, Motivation. Typically, when I became more positive in my thinking, Good News, another friend, raised her beautiful, beautiful head. She told me about Saffron.

And Saffron, the yellow fairy, one of those spunky little flitty things I had spoken to at the bottom of my garden told me about Motivation. There had been a sighting. "Oh, yus, yus," I cried, punching the air.

Motivation, she said, could be found in the Enchanted Forrest of Lost Hopes and Repressed Marathon Desires. Motivation was there with another flaky one called Cinderella. Both were in the said Forrest sipping caramel lattes and bemoaning their bad luck with the men of this world (or at least some world!).

Motivation and Cinderella were real girl friends, as only girls can be. They shared a fetish over shoes: Cinderella with ...well... at that stage she didn't have any. Motivation, of course, had her tailor-made size eight Brooks Adrenaline running shoes. (Please note, I say "hers" but they were actually unisex running shoes we both wore, such was the relationship we had.)

Oh, they could be catty too. Privately Motivation always felt that Cinderella's obsession with pumpkin carriages was a tad odd. Motivation ALWAYS preferred to run to the ball.

Still, they shared so much in common, and both wanted to be coveted by the best stallions in the land - Cinderella by some dude in leotards wearing a fluffy pink hat (and he had a kinky thing for glass slippers didn't he?). Motivation, I would hope, was thinking only of me.

Anyway, this is where I found my little cherished catty cherub - in the Enchanted Forrest with that siren, Cinderella. Just seeing her...my head spun with desire, engorged with endorphin-rich love again, and again...

Trying to ignore the tart sitting next to her, I pleaded to my Moty:

"My darling, the hills will be alive with the sound of music, our music. Our running steps, our breathing, our spirits would be entwined forever...if only you will come with me..."

"No"

"Wot"

"No"

What did she mean, NO? Just like that, NO! How could she? My oxygen-depleted brain cells couldn't take anymore of this. And they weren't going to take any more of this. I would fight for her. Release her from that fandango she seemed to be in with Cinderella.

I would get my Moty back. It was just that I was going to have to be smart. I had a plan...

TO BE CONTINUED

Will this story have a happy ending? Will I get my Motivation back? Does Viagra get to play a part? Who will play me in the television mini-series of this grand adventure?

Stay tuned for the final exciting installment of "Motivation - a love story" - which will be released at 7 pm Australian Eastern Standard Time on Monday 23 July.

Agents please note the exclusive rights to this story are currently under negotiation with the inhabitants of Planet Venus. It will then be available in all good book stores throughout the universe.

Motivation - a love story

2007-07-19T20:41:00.000+10:00

My blogger mate, JayKay, says she has lost her motivation with running and I know that many others, including myself, have had the same problem in recent months. So I thought I would share some thoughts on how I found my motivation again.

This (said with booming god-like voice over) is a true story....

Motivation and I were lovers. But she was flaky; definitely a fair weather friend. When everything's hunky dory there she is, along side, hand in hand, lapping up the good times. Yet when the weather turns foul, injuries appear and other problems intrude, this lady seems to take flight. Just when I need her the most she goes missing in action - MIA. Some friend.

This happened to me earlier in the year. Motivation and I had been together in Boston for the marathon, a great lovers' tryst if ever there was one. After I came home from Boston, I got injured and stopped running. Motivation was gone. I stopped blogging. The world was the pitts.

I was like a lost puppy in love....panting.....frantic. I looked for my Motivation. I remembered all the great times we had together, remembered the special times, moments when we looked into each other's eyes and only saw a galaxy of stars. Remembered the soft loving touches; the embraces, our breathing up close and decadent..frosted, sparkling like dew, melting as one. Our feelings were really butterflies landing on our hearts, contented. Not since Caesar and Cleopatra and that cad, Antony, had there been love like this. We were runners and lovers; lovers of fun, who would run to love, and love to run and...um...have fun.

We had traveled together to the great cities of the world. Our romance blossomed in London, New York, Tokyo, Washington, Singapore, Bangkok, Beijing, Vienna, Geneva, Sydney - the hills of Canberra. The world was our oyster and what an aphrodisiac.

Who needed Viagra? It was bliss...it was passion...it was freedom rubbed raw... it was a romp through the hills and valleys of Nature's grand adventure...sunset and sunrises...rolling in the waves of a sea of lustful eternity with the sand getting in all the wrong places. God it was good. Just me and Motivation, Motivation and I. The two of us. My Moty.

Then she was gone. Just like that. Gone. Emptiness, loneliness. My soul, a vacant pit looking over a tundra of sadness and fallen tears...."oh Motivation, oh Motivation, where art thou Motivation..."?

How could she do this to me after all we had been through together. This was hell. I looked far and wide, high and low, long and short, up and down, inclined and upclined; through and back; looked under my bed, spoke to the fairies at the bottom of the garden but no-one, not one person had seen Motivation.

I needed a sign from her. Something. Anything. A clue from her that our old magic could be restored.

Things where at their worst and I was in the gutter of despair. Then something happened. I had my epiphany.....

TO BE CONTINUED

Please note the next installment may be R-rated. That means - especially for my US and UK friends - it could be adults only...(oh goody, very naughty...ssshh!)

Skippy versus Freud and his couch

2007-07-14T14:11:00.001+10:00

Cold, (-3 to -4) frosty, and foggy conditions greeted my Saturday running group as we went through our paces over familiar turf this morning through Isaacs, Mt Wanniassa and Mt Taylor in Canberra's southern suburbs. From the top of Mt Taylor, Telstra Tower (left) put on a show as it rocketed through the heavy fog over central Canberra.

For part of the run I had a really interesting chat about the mental side of running with Emma, one of the stalwarts from our Saturday group, a psychiatrist in real life, and a damn good runner. (That's her at right approaching the top of Isaacs Ridge during a recent group run.) Freud and his couch still might have a place somewhere in modern psychiatry but Emma said that exercise plays an important role in therapy to treat depression these days.

This is hardly a surprise. As even Skippy and her joey would know (at left on Cooleman Ridge recently), running makes us feel good. That endorphin release and good honest sweat seems to reduce anxiety and create well being.

But I think intangibles come into play too. A run - any run - is a journey isn't? There's a start, a middle, and an end. While we often focus internally on our own thoughts during a run, the tug of the external is never far away. Whether its is the chat with a running buddy, or simply 'to finish', there's more to think about than just ourselves. Finishing any run is a challenge of sorts in itself.

And what price does one put on being at 'out there' at one with Nature, a great sunrise, and intoxicated with cold, crisp air and the 'sounds of silence'.

Life will give us plenty of mountains to run. But more often than not, as runners, we have the skills to confront those challenges...and win.

In short, to get more out of life we don't have to read Rhonda Byrne's The Secret and learn something slick marketing is trying to convince us is exclusive information when it's the bleeding obvious (and contribute to Byrne's handsome royalities at the same time). Nor do we need to watch re-runs of Mr Bean to feel good about this world.

For the real answers talk to Eddie who ran at PB at Canberra this year. Ask the inspirational Cirque about the tremendous gains she is making in her return to running. Speak to Tesso about the blinder she ran recently at the Gold Coast, or Aki and her own recent 5k PB and her health battles, or PLU, the Owl, Blkbox, Lucky Legs or a myriad of other wonderful runners and people who have come to overcome adversity and challenges through running.

Through running all of us have the capacity in ourself and with those who share the spirit to have fun. And fun I am going to have. So stuff negativity! Stuff you too Dr Freud and your couch!

Skippy knows the real secret. And I don't have to go to a book store and pay $25 for the 'privilege' of finding that out. So there!

London and its pigeons

2007-07-07T18:36:00.000+10:00

I've just returned from another overseas work trip, this time to Europe. While I was in that part of the world I decided to fly over to London last weekend to fulfill a life-long dream of feeding the pigeons in Trafalgar Square.

You can imagine my disgust, though, when I did get there and discovered you were not allowed to feed the poor blighters. What a travesty!! There's one of the dispossessed of the Earth (at right), meek, mild...and unfed (you poor little thing, I know how you feel).

Frustrated that I unable to fulfill my aviary ambitions I decided to go running with London's Serpentine running club instead. I had a beaut time with the Serpies running their Three Parks run that takes in Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, Green Park and St James Park.

You get to see the landmarks including Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Downing Street, Marble Arch, and so on. On our run, as if on cue, Her Majesty's Horse Guards came clip, clop, clip, clop, clopping down the road at one point obviously off to guard horses somewhere. Strange place this England.

Anyway, the run was fun. A whole bunch of us started the run from Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park but for the most part I ran in a quartet: with a Brit, an Irishman living in London, and a young American living in London. There was me the Aussie marveling at the wonders of this world where I could be running over a Monopoly Board one week and then zooming around Canberra's outlying hills a week later.

It rained during the run - this was England after all - and my nipples got rather sore from rubbing against my wet shirt. So I caused a bit of shock and awe to the locals by taking off my top and running bare chested through central London.

Now I know they have had to put up with a lot over the years with the Blitz and all that but I distinctly heard some oohs and aaahs from some adoring natives when they saw my Herculean physique trundle around town. This was pleasing. Well, Hewitt had not won at Wimbledon again and someone had to do their bit for Australian masculinity! (That's me and my body from a few year's back - the hat? don't ask!).

Not so pleasing was the little episode with a mother and baby at Heathrow airport as I was trying to escape this lofty old town the next day. There I was sitting alone in Terminal Two, seeking solitude, wanting to be at one with the world, needing karma...and desperately trying to hold my head steady to relieve the effects of a grade ten hangover. I had had a great previous night at the South Bank area of the Thames with friends. I was accompanied by too, too much red wine, and a 'gay' dog called Hooper (or was it Hoover. Such was my alcohol induced fog from that evening, I can't remember for sure! Hoover is a strange name for a dog. Then again this is England.)

So there I was grieving the loss of clear headed innocence when a mother decided to change her baby's nappy right next to me. I couldn't believe this latest travesty - strange place this England! My grade ten hangover was matched by the force ten odor that emanated from that young thing. I almost brought up my own chemical warfare hazard to equalize the biological toxin that had emerged and was clearly visible next to me. Aren't there international treaties to guard against this sort of thing???

Ah, England! It was my third trip to the Old Dart and I did miss the place. It was good to be back. The pidgeons clearly had missed me too! (At right, London lights and sunset shortly before landing)

During the week back in Canberra I had the privilege of catching up for a cuppa with Owen, son of Cirque. We had a lovely night and this was one very impressive Cirquette (at left with glasses).

Minus 5.5

2007-06-23T11:37:00.000+10:00

My spies in Brisbane have told me that my home town is going through a cold patch at present where the overnight minimums might dip below +10 on the odd occasion.

I'm sure that will be too cold for some runners up north. I can imagine some will brave the elements in their finest Antarctic running gear with a whine or two about how cold it is. Ahh!

Try running in Canberra where the temperature was minus 5.5 (yes -5.5) at 6.45 am this morning when my Arrows group took to the hills for their regular Saturday jaunt. And was anyone complaining about the cold?

Nah. We just got on and did the job in what was a magnificent morning for running. How's that for a sunrise (top left). The frost might have been as heavy as snow and the mud patches here and there frozen permafrost but still we went on, on, on....for about 16 to 18 k's of delightful running.

They breed 'em tough here in the national capital. There's a few of the Greek Goddesses and Gods (at right), rightful descendants of the heroes of Olympia, true Immortals! And did I tell you the temperature was minus 5.5?

On a (slightly) more serious note, I had one of my best runs this morning since the Boston marathon and my return from injury. I had acupuncture for the first time ever yesterday and although I was told not to hope for miracles my ever persistent groin/adductor injury was not quite so persistent during this morning's run. It was one of those great to be alive mornings in Canberra today. Minus 5.5!

Comeback....or is it?

2007-06-14T21:47:00.000+10:00

After three weeks off I am finally back running. The left foot had been a frustration but my physio tried a new strapping technique that provided more support to the left arch and it made all the difference. Hey presto! - I felt greatly reduced pain and that sped up the healing process.

Last week I was away in Singapore for work and the foot continued to feel so good that when I got home on the weekend I just had to give it a test drive. Last Monday I did exactly that and the foot felt great throughout the run and most importantly after it as well.

Yipee, I was cured.

Or was I? Well, in fact, the foot has felt great. It's just that the evil spirits have paid another visit, playing silly buggers with my right groin/adductor again.

This is the injury I have been battling all year right up to and through my Boston marathon. With my post-Boston rest, the injury had settled down. Or so I thought. Unfortunately, I have felt that damn groin tugging, twisting, pulling, somersaulting, sidestepping, whining, bending, turning - through every step of that first run last Monday, my second run on Tuesday and my third run today. Aaargh, poo, bum, sook, sook (and additional four letter expletives as desired!!) come to mind at this point.

Mood definitely grim. It's about as bad as that freezing, frigid wind we have have had to put up with in Canberra today.

What do I do? I am going to keep running, that is what I am going to do. I am off to my masterful physio on Wednesday and (are you hearing this Tesso?) taping of the adductor will almost certainly be on the menu this time.

Injury doldrums!

2007-05-21T19:34:00.001+10:00

I am sorry that I have gone missing in action since the Boston Marathon and my thanks to Eddie and Scott for giving me a push along to get back on the blogging scene. I have been in the injury doldrums since Boston and frankly haven't really felt like blogging.

I had mentioned in an earlier post that I had thought I had got through Boston injury free. Unfortunately, that didn't prove to be the case. On the night of the Boston Marathon my left foot came up very sore but then after a couple of Voltaren seemed to settle down rapidly and didn't give me any grief for a week or so after the race. But gradually with my return to running the pain also came back. I went to my sports doctor and she suspected stress fractures to the navicular bone on the top of the left foot. A bone scan cleared me of any stress fractures but the pain was still there more or less - sometimes I felt it, sometimes I didn't.

Last Sunday I went for a run up and over the top of one of my regular haunts, Mt Taylor. Strangely, I didn't feel any pain going up the mountain. On the downside, however, my foot caused me real agony and I could barely walk. I was reduced to hobbling back to the car pack.

Today, even with no running, my foot still hurt. I have now decided to stop running completely until this thing - whatever it is - heals. The pain of not running hurts as much as the hurt itself but I know it is for the best. I will take my medicine and return a much fitter and healthier runner. Many others have gone through far worse than what I have got.

I have a great physio who I have much confidence in and I will again work with him closely to deal with this latest set back. As always I will stay positive, hit the pool and the bike big time, and come back ready to zoom.

As for my blogging, I will see how I feel. I will try and catch up with my blog reading as much as I can. But I think my mind needs as much of a rest as does my sore left foot. I think of all of my friends in the blog world often. I won't forget you.

Reflections part 1: "Chicks dig runners"

2007-04-21T14:38:00.000+10:00

"Chicks dig runners". That was just one of the inscriptions that appeared on the space blanket we were given to stay warm after the Boston Marathon. It lead to an embarrassing question from my wife but she seem to be satisfied with my explanation that that was simply an machine embossed note that appeared on all blankets produced for the race. Phew!

I am back home in Oz now and time for a few more Boston Marathon reflections before I put the race to bed.

"Oh, what a feeling!" That's me in blue. The Boston Marathon was easily the slowest of my three marathons but by far the most satisfying (3.14, 3.16, 3.22 respectively). I had been well prepped for my first two marathons. For Boston it was anything but.

I arrived in the US vastly under prepared: no speed work, little hill work, one poor run of 30+ k’s, weekly mileage in the 50 to 65 k doldrums, injury and illness ridden and lacking confidence. I arrived in Boston early to acclimatise but found that jetlag, too, was hard to beat and I slept poorly for each night I was in town. I was far from being at my peak physically by race day and the odds were against a good run.

Yet mentally at the start I felt great. The occasion itself obviously helped but really there is no doubt that what got me across the line was the phenomenal support I received from, you, my friends back home in Oz and, secondly, from the incredible spectators that lined the course.

I was overwhelmed by the level of support I received from my family and friends. I have referred to this before but will do so again because I can not overstate how much this all meant to me. I drew enormous strength from it. Throughout the race I recalled many times the poems, the emails, the cards and other specific words of encouragement that many people gave to me. The wonderful support I received was very humbling, and was far more than I deserved. It played a major role in how I ran on the day.

With the spectator support, I tried to give a sense of this in my previous report. I am not sure I really did it justice. The press said crowd numbers were down due to the weather, and maybe this was the case. All I can say is that for a small crowd they made a hell of a lot of noise. The numbers built up along the course and from Boston College at the 20 mile mark were 3 or 4 deep behind the roadside barriers. There were so many cries of ‘go dad’, ‘go mum’ ‘good job runners’, ‘go Canada’, ‘go Mexico’, ‘go Costa Rica’ etc etc that it was difficult to take it all in. I was even astounded at one point to see a sign that said ‘go Don Smith’. I slowed and thought, hey, what’s this? It wasn’t for me but I took strength from it anyway.

When I arrived home on Thursday I was intrigued to read in the Weekend Australian magazine an article about Deek's fantastic win in Boston in 1986. As Jim Fixx did in the 1970s and I did in my earlier post, Deek specifically referred to the girls from Wellesley College who he said treated him like a rock star. For a mere mortal such as myself it wasn't much different.

These were chicks that certainly did dig runners! I slapped hands with each one of those young ladies. I had a huge smile on my face as I ran down that line and was close to a tear, I guarantee it. It was like running through the middle of a wind tunnel with the vortex generating a noise of jet engine proportions. Felt good. I just couldn’t believe I was experiencing all this. W hat right did I, an ordinary runner from Downunder, have to receive such adulation? I can’t answer that question and will ponder it as one of the mysteries of this magic day.

The other mystery is the nature of the Boston course itself. It's a point to point race starting in the township of Hopkinton then weaving through Ashland, Framington, Natick, Wellesley, Newton, and Brookline before finishing in downturn Boston. A profile map shows it as mostly a downhill run and I have to admit that I found it to have many accommodating down hill portions. Heartbreak Hill was taxing but not too bad and certainly not has steep as our own Heartbreak Hill during the City to Surf. Yet every runner I spoke to says Boston is a deceptively difficult course. There may be something to this. While the hills are not especially steep there are a lot of them and collectively they may take their toll by the end of 26 miles. I think the jury is still out on this one.

I am definitely feeling a post-Boston letdown. As I rode Boston’s subway out to the airport last Tuesday my mood, surprisingly, was dreary. Boston's weather didn't help: still cold, wet and miserable. Boston had been my dream for so long. It had been achieved. What next?

To be continued.

Mission accomplished

2007-04-17T06:44:00.000+10:00

Well, I've done the deed and run Boston and I had a ball. And I got a pretty little gong for my efforts.

I am absolutely stoked with my result 3.22.03. And thanks Eddie for giving me that as I in fact had no idea of my net time until I read your comment on my previous post. My Garmin would not locate a satellite and I ran blind for the whole race. I had no idea of my splits or of my actual finishing time (and to be honest I didn't really care; I was just having such a great time).

I could not be happier. Despite my terrible preparation and poor lead up form I felt great out there. I felt strong and fast and didn't tire until depletion started to set in about the 23 mile mark. My time was eight minutes slower than my PB and I probably could be accused of dawdling the early stages of the race too much. I was lapping up the atmosphere and doing quite a bit of high fiving with spectators at very points. At the half way mark (13 miles) I was even thinking this seemed all too easy and that was probably a sign I was too casual with my pace early on. But I was running blind as I said above.

The spectator support during the race was like nothing on this planet. I can't really describe the intensity of the cheering, the hooting and hollering, the waving of signs and placards, the ringing of bells, and so on. God it was good for the ego. Bostonians go ballistic about marathon runners and even riding the subway back to my hotel I had several strangers come up and congratulate me for finishing the race. The level of support towards the finish was like something out of a movie and I felt like I had just entered the stadium leading the Olympic marathon.

The beauty of the little townships we passed through on the way from Hopkinton to central Boston was also something special. Even though it was a crappy day the locals came out in numbers. The girls of Wellesley College were something else too. In his Complete Book of Running, Jim Fixx says they are the world's most appreciative marathon fans. He's not wrong. I heard them before I saw them; this massive crescendo of sound on the right hand side of the road as we approached the college. Of course, I had to high five the girls from the college - such appreciative supporters can't be left unappreciated!

The conditions were not pleasant but were not as bad as we had feared. Yes it was cold, wet and windy but so what. I have run in worse. The photo at right shows just some of the 22,000 runners waiting for the call up to the race in the Hopkinton High School gym. I was grateful to be in that gym where it was dry and warm. Most runners slugged out the waiting under tents where conditions were a tad airy and muddy.

I have got my wonderful family to thank for giving me the opportunity of doing this and I have been greatly touched by the level of interest and support that friends on-line and off-line have given me. Several people did some very special things for me and I am reluctant to name names as I might forget someone. But I would like to thank Flashduck who very generously lent me her Garmin. In the end the satellites didn't cooperate with the Garmin but I was very grateful for her kind thought in giving it to me.

I have got the usual post-marathon soreness and I hate stairs (and for such a marathon focussed city why does Boston's subway system have so many frigging stairs!)

Today was simply an incredible day; there is no other way to say it. I just didn't want it to end and was sad when it did.

It has been the greatest day of my running life.

The night before

2007-04-16T09:48:00.000+10:00

It's the night before the big race and my third day in Boston and boy it's cold! The much anticipated big storm arrived bringing snow to large areas of the north-eastern United States and heavy rain and plunging temperatures in the Boston region.

I doubt the temperature got above 4 or 5 degrees all day and the wind chill factor would have been well below zero.

I was amazed at the fortitude of some of the marathon volunteers. This photo (above) really doesn't do justice to what this guy directing human traffic for the pre-race dinner had to put up with - bitterly cold winds and driving, sleeting rain. The volunteers have been amazing. There's literally hundreds of them and all are incredibly friendly and supportive.

The weather is forecast to ease only slightly. If it continues, the race will be a challenge. Race organisers have issued a hypothermia alert for tomorrow and put in place additional medical arrangements to cater for the many runners who are likely to pull out of the race due to the cold.

There's even been some discussion of canceling the race, but that has never happened in the 111 year history of the event and I am sure it will take place as planned. Every runner I have talked to remains excited about tomorrow and is looking forward to the challenge of confronting the elements. I know I am.

I went to the pre-race dinner tonight and met runners from Chicago, Mexico and Canada. It has been great to compare notes on our running experiences. Despite differences in language and culture we are really all that not different no matter where we come from in the world.

I am been trying to catch up with results from Canberra and well done to everyone. There were some fantastic performances, including from those in my Pink Arrows group. I look forward to reading race reports.

It is 8.45 Sunday evening in Boston as I write this and I need to be up in time to catch the 5.15 am transport from the hotel. Jet lag has been a real pest again on this trip and I haven't been sleeping well. But I don't think I would expect to sleep well anyway. The butterflies in my stomach have also got jet lag and are going ballistic.

And so it has come down to this. At 10 am tomorrow (midnight eastern Australian time Monday) I will start on the final leg of my journey that began when I first read about this race in 1984. When I think back over all the disappointments and challenges I have faced in my life before I became a runner I don't think in a million years I could ever have envisaged the day I would run in a Boston Marathon. Even now, hours from the start, I don't think I can still quite believe it.

As all of us do before a marathon we need to confront our fears - fear of the cold, fear of the distance, fear of the pain, fear of embarrassment, fear of failure; the fear that emerges from my lack of preparation and poor lead-up form. Yet this is why we do it don't we? We want to stand in front of the monster, scream at it, and prove who is boss.

Tomorrow I am going to show who is boss - "I have promises to keep"
Robert Frost (US poet)

Meet Bill Rodgers

2007-04-15T09:06:00.000+10:00

For my second day in Boston I received a real thrill when I met marathon great, Bill Rodgers. Four times winner of the Boston and New York marathons, a former US olympian, and Boston resident, it was Jim Fixx's stories about Rodgers that first got me interested in the Boston marathon all those years ago.

Even though I was just one in a long line to see him at Boston's Hynes Convention Center, Bill was incredibly friendly and was keen to talk. He asked me about Deek and Monas and surprisingly even asked about Benita Johnson who he described as an outstanding runner. He said he had visited Australia to run the Melbourne Marathon and would love to come back. Without me asking he gave me some pointers for Monday's race, suggesting especially that I dress well given the doom-like forecast (see below).

Bill gave me his autograph writing: "Don, run steady on the Boston Hills, Bill Rodgers 2007". While I was waiting to meet Bill, I was chatting to a young American from Florida who had been an exchange student in Australia and at the University of Queensland of all places, which was my alma mater. Small world.

Marathon fever continues to build in this phenomenal city with the weather remaining the main talking point. Boston's two major Saturday dailies ran front page stories on the Marathon. For its headline story the Boston Globe wrote: "With a nasty brew of heavy rain, cold and headwinds forecast for Monday, authorities are scrambling to mitigate the misery of 23,000 runners in what could rank among the worst conditions in the history of the Boston Marathon".

I think I have come well prepared and will be running in my full winter kit but it will be interesting to see what the weather does throw up on Monday. Race organisers have sent emails to all runners with guidelines for avoiding hypothermia and snow is forecast for tomorrow. Gulp!

At least we should have God on our side, judging by this banner I saw outside of the Old South Church near the marathon finish line.

I have never come across a level of anticipation and excitement as I have for the Boston Marathon. It reminds me of the build-up to the Melbourne Cup back home, but yet this is for a road race. The local WBZ TV station continues to give regular weather updates and station promos for its live coverage. Runners are everywhere and you can't go anywhere without being reminded of the race (subway poster at left).

Is there another city in the world with such a devotion to a road race? I would be interested to find out. It's as if all the running gods have descended on this city, this Mecca of the running world for the once in year celebration of the running spirit. For me, the dream continues. Meeting Bill Rodgers just made it even more a bit surreal.

As I write this my friends running the Canberra Marathon should just be coming to the end of their own race. I hope their dreams have come true too.

"Marathon Monday"

2007-04-14T06:07:00.000+10:00

I arrived Boston tired but in good shape around midnight local time Thursday (2 pm Canberra time Friday) and am already getting a feel for the extraordinary hold the race has over this city.

The place is abuzz with runners and talk about the Marathon. The streets are adorned with posters (at right) and you just know that that lean looking dude in the running shoes and track pants at any street corner in Boston at present is here to do business on "Marathon Monday" as the locals call it.

The local TV station is already giving regular promos about its upcoming live coverage of the race and the local Boston Globe newspaper even produced a 10-page lift out spread for the race in today's edition (below left). I could never imagine this happening for any race in Australia.

The weather is the big talking point. The temperature in Boston today (Friday 13) ranges from 0 to 4 degrees. Similar temps plus heavy rain and strong winds are forecast for the race itself. It might be spring here but the weather feels like an unpleasant Canberra day in mid-winter. It's chilly.

I have had an easy day so far. I have been to the runners' expo (at right), which is impressive in itself - massive in size - to pickup up my number and other bits and pieces. I have already met some runners from Aus and also had a good chat today to several US runners who had made the trek from Arizona and Pennsylvania.

Such is the feeling around town that I think I am coming to understand Jim Fixx's observation in his Complete Book of Running that Bostonians love their marathon. Even as spectators they look on it with pride and recall the day that they were there in one particular year to watch such and such do battle. The weather might reduce the spectator numbers a little next Monday. But I am still told that crowds of ten deep will line the course up to 500,000 in number. And these people are there there to cheer on the back of the pack guys as much as the elite.

I took a snapshot of the finish line in Bolyston Street (at left) and am trying to imagine what it will be like on Monday. Three days out from the race the atmosphere is already fantastic. It's hard to describe my feelings at present. I just know that my dream has started and I enjoying the sensation.

Time to go as I am trying to squeeze in a light run before it gets dark.

Departure for Boston

2007-04-12T11:10:00.000+10:00

My thanks to everyone for your fantastic comments. I have really treasured the wonderful support I have received from friends on-line and off-line and it has all given me a great boost on the eve of my departure for Boston.

Best of luck to all my friends running Canberra on Sunday. I am thinking of each of you and will enjoy catching up with your post-race reports.

For my Boston adventure I am going to break my normal weekly posting habit by trying to post daily if I can. If nothing else, for posterity and for the family record it might be useful for me to record my experiences as things roll along.

I'm currently in the Qantas Club at Sydney International and there is QF11 above at left waiting to take me to the USA. There was once a time in my life when I believed I would never get to visit the United States. I thought I might get their with work at one point. When that didn't eventuate, and after 45 years of waiting, I finally took the family off for a great five week holiday to both sides of the US in 2005.

Of course, lo and behold, what happens? Within a year and half of this trip I do in fact visit the US twice more for work. And now here I am about to go back to the US for the fourth time in 19 months, and for my twelfth overseas trip in that time period. Boston wont be a completely new experience for me as I did visit that beautiful city during my 2005 visit. My family is not with me this time and that will feel strange.

Next stop Los Angeles. I will have about a four hour stop-over there before my American Airlines connection to Boston. I went for a light run near Botany Bay last night and for a Canberra-sider it was great to suck in some warm salty air for a change. I am a little tight this morning and stretching will be a priority on the flight.

The race looms

2007-04-07T10:58:00.000+10:00

This will probably be my last post before I leave for my Boston journey on Wednesday and I need to start with an apology. Work and family life have been so frenetic of late that I am badly behind in my blog reading and I am sorry I haven't had a chance to catch up with everyone's news. I have some time on my hands now and will make amends.

Boston is now looming very large on my radar screen and I am well and truly into the detailed planning for the day. Ewen said I would need to rise early to make it to the start of the race in Hopkinton and he is not wrong. My bib number is 7224 and that puts me in the first wave of runners starting at 10 am. This will mean I have to be at Boston Common at 6 am to catch one of the official buses to the Athletes' village near the start. As I will be staying in a hotel in outer Boston I will probably need to set the alarm clock for 3 am or some similar bewitching hour to get ready in time and make it into town.

The pre-race guide makes fascinating reading, not least in conveying the organisational puzzle that underpins the race. I know the BAA have had a lot of practice (this is the 111th running of the race) but to read about the sheer scale of logisitics behind the race, the transport arrangements, medical facilities, pre and post race functions, massage facilities, drink stations, the media arrangements, and so on on is a marathon in itself. The race will televised live throughout Boston and I think nationally throughout the US; 500,000 spectators are expected to line the course, and the field of 23,500 is the second largest in the history of the race.

The race will start at mid-night in Australia Monday 16 April. I have no real idea how I will go but should come in under 3 hours 30, which means I should finish just before 3.30 am Tuesday 17 April. For the utterly bored and sleepless my progress can be tracked on the Boston Marathon website (www.bostonmarathon.org). Just punch in my bib number of 7224 at some spot on the site and hey presto and you should get a read out on some dehydrated and fatigued runner from Downunder struggling to make it up Heartbreak Hill at about the 30k mark. If you do see that, don't bother with the rest of the story. Just go back to bed. I'll be thinking of you.

So there you go. My dream will soon become a reality. The Boston Marathon first caught my imagination when I read Jim Fixx's Complete Book of Running in the early 1980's where he gives a great description of running the race. The book will come along with me to Boston, as will Stephen Lacey's wonderful poem and some other special things from people close to me. What will also come along for the ride will be the many, many stories, of my great friends in Blogland. Meeting so many new friends both virtual and in the flesh through my running has been one of the great revelations of my life. At its core, too, I have my family to thank for putting up with this slightly obsessed runner who has wanted to fulfill this goal for so long. And it will come true.

My preparations, as noted in earlier posts, have not been great. I haven't been able to get beyond one long run of 30k or thereabouts and no week has gone further than 75k in workload. Out of concerns with this adductor injury, I have done no speed work at all - not once, zilch! (Tess - thank you for your comments about taping the adductor injury. When you first raised this I mentioned it to my physio and just last week we had another detailed discussion about the pro and cons of taping it. I am seeing my physio for one last time before the race this Tuesday and we will make a decision whether to tape or not).

On the positive side, though, I have had over a year of solid running to fall back on. And I was very pleased with my run this morning with the Saturday group, which was over very tough, hilly terrain in the Isaacs, Mt Wanniassa and Mt Taylor area. I pushed all the hills hard and felt great, really strong and fast. This was just the 'mental' run I needed with just over a week to go to the race.

I felt so good at one point at racing to the top of Mt Wanniassa (what a brute) that I thrust my arms into the air ala Rocky and let out a loud yowl. I also did a couple of chin-ups on a survey marker for good measure. But as my running buddy Maria had much pleasure in telling me the only thing that responded to my yowl was a dog in the distant reaches of the Tuggeranong Valley, probably on heat, and probably drooling at the mouth that it had received its best offer for a couple of weeks or so!

Frankly, I might get so lonely in Boston I would be happy to have a dog howling for me. And it will be me doing the drooling!

Next stop: Boston

2007-03-28T11:47:00.000+10:00

I am just back from my latest work trip, this time to South Korea. No more work trips planned for some weeks, which is a real relief. Next stop: Boston - Monday 16 April!

Finally, I have a chance to catch my breath and get excited about the race. My race preparations have continued to be anything but ideal. While traveling last week I came down with the flu and had to take a week off from running. One month out from the race, this was not good. My adductor injury also continues to be a pest. But as always I will focus on the positives. I have a reasonably solid training base behind me and being in Boston will be such a thrill I am sure it will carry me through. I would like to give those Africans a real shake for their money too, but will settle on just surviving the race and enjoying the day I think.

Some 2007 Boston fast facts: (1) total prize money this year - USD$575,000, (2) the field of 23,500 will be the second largest in Boston Marathon history, (3) spectator fleet - 500,000 expected to line the course, and (4) the traditional race starting time of 12 midday has been moved forward two hours to 10.00 am.

I leave for Boston in two weeks on 12 April, flying Qantas to LA and then American Airlines to Boston. Accommodation in Boston is heavily booked and I could only get some place out in the boondocks. But to be there - yo baby!

The Kiwis

2007-03-15T23:01:00.000+11:00

I'm at Singapore's Changi airport as I write this on the way home from a short work trip to Vietnam and Singapore. That's a typical Hanoi street scene at left - never seen so many bikes!

There's a logic (which is one way of putting it!) to the traffic flow that defies my ability to describe it. Not a great place for running and I was confined to doing multiple 500 metre circuits of a park near my hotel to get in my run (I thought of Scott in Japan with his 10x3k loops).

My future posts are going to be much more Boston related but first I have to deal with a New Zealand theme. I have been promising Vicky in Auckland that I would do a post on something New Zealand related and here it is. WARNING: mostly non-running content follows.

I first visited in NZ in 1975 for a family holiday and have visited many times since to both islands, nearly all for work. While I find the Kiwi's 'chip-on-the-shoulder' attitude irritating at times I love New Zealand and love New Zealanders.

The beauty of NZ takes my breath away and the New Zealanders themselves have made many enormous contributions to the international community out of proportion to their population and geographic size. I think of famous Kiwis over the years and remember Sir Keith Park, Rutherford, Katherine Mansfield (an absolutely wonderful poet) and of course that great nugget of a man, Sir Edmund Hillary.

When it comes to runners, the Kiwis have made a very distinctive contribution. Names such as Lydiard, Snell, Walker come to mind to name just a few. I have worked and drank a beer or two with many Kiwis both in Australia and abroad and there wouldn't be another national group that is as like-minded to us as your typical Kiwi.

I have heard all the sheep jokes (which work both ways by the way) and received all the barbs over that underarm incident of the early 1980s (still remember the day well!) and had to deal with a Kiwi almost in tears over Australia's defeat of the All Blacks in the 1991 Rugby World Cup (another day I also remember well.)

But the point of my tribute to our breathren across the Tasman is this: I think it is time to look seriously at a trans-Tasman Federation.

Now I know Helen Clarke and 4 million Kiwis will be coughing up their Steinlagers when I said this. But there are many compelling political, economic and social reasons why both countries should consider federation, which I wont go into here. I will just say for now that I am not considering a situation where New Zealand is placed on similar status to an Australian state.

I've got in mind a scenario where New Zealand has a special status superior to an Australian state but still within an Australasian federation. We would have a single defence force and common foreign and defence policies and a range of other unified economic and social policies.

But both countries would retain their own sporting teams for international competition much as England, Wales, and Scotland operate within the United Kingdom. Whether we would have unified Olympic team is a tough one, which I will leave to another time.

There are an enormous range of complex constitutional, political and other considerations that would need to be tackled for Federation to occur. But it is time they were.

The 3% club

2007-03-11T16:01:00.000+11:00

I was greatly, greatly touched by all the words of support that came my way after 'that incident' with the bike last weekend (the bike and I still aren't on speaking terms). I am a tad embarrassed both by the incident itself and the attention that came my way later. I had very much wanted the focus of my last entry to be on Maria's wonderful poem and I am very happy that others have appreciated it as much as I do. Stephen that poem of yours, too, is a classic. It blew me away mate and, as I said to you, it will come along for the ride with me to Boston. I can't thank you enough for what you wrote.

I promise to finish this post on a positive note but I have to say that the week since the incident has had its emotional ups and downs. I had a lovely run at the Western Creek Half Marathon today coasting for most of the course and only pushing it a bit over the last few k's for a 1.38 effort. Many of my running buddies set PBs, not least Michelle who finished with a 1.42. She took 13 minutes off her course PB and seven minutes off her own overall half-marathon PB; a tremendous performance.

Unfortunately I could feel my annoying adductor injury through nearly every step of today's half. My right glute also became tight and sore during the run and just for something a little different I had some mysterious knee niggles come and go during the run itself. If that wasn't enough my right foot has started coming down with plantar fasciitis again. Mentally I was also down as last night I received the terrible news that a younger cousin I was close to had died suddenly and tragically in a house fire in Alice Springs.

So my Boston preparations are not ideal. But never, never will I be complaining. One of the most exciting things to ever happen to me will take place in just over a month. I have many blessings with family and friends. On Wednesday night I caught up with the famous Lucky Legs, and fellow bloggers Ewen, Strewth, SpeedyGeoff, Aki, Flashduck and Flashdrake for dinner at Dickson. It was a beaut evening and I enjoyed it a great deal. There is nothing like being in the company of fellow runners. As Strewth said on her blog Lucky Legs looked simply fantastic. Every time I have met LL's her she looks like that. She's a pin up poster girl for our sport if ever there was one. It is dinners like this that make me realise how enormously lucky I am and why I treasure each day.

Just how good I have it was also made clear by my doctor earlier last week when I reported in tired and sore after my bike incident. He did all the usual checks, blood pressure, etc and declared - despite the bruises and abrasions - that I was extremely healthy. He told me I looked ten years younger than my age and had the blood pressure of a young boy. He said I was part of just 3% of the population that didn't smoke, wasn't overweight, and exercised regularly. Wow, does this dude know how to make one feel good or what and I know that I walked out of his surgery walking taller than I went into it. But I thought of you my fellow runners. We all come in different shapes and sizes and different levels of ability. Yet we are actually members of one very elite club - the 3% club!

I am off overseas in South East Asia this week for work. I will try and catch up with my blog reading while I am away as I enjoy blog reading a great deal. As soon as I get the opportunity I will be visiting.

The Inner Child

2007-03-03T16:43:00.000+11:00

Thank you so much to everyone for your wonderful words of support for my decision to run the Boston Marathon. I really do appreciate everything you have said.

I've had a scare with my Boston preparations today, but first a little poetry.

I've long had an interest in poetry and find that there is few better ways to describe the joy of running through dabbling in a little of it. Some of you might recall a poem I wrote about running last year.

This time, however, it is my real privilege to share a magnificent poem written by Maria, one of my fellow runners and a member of my Saturday running group.

Maria is an incredibly talented writer and poet and runner to boot. This poem is just so beautiful, capturing as it does the sheer joy of our wonderful sport.

The Inner Child

The morning is still, few yet awake,
The sun lifts its head and gently kisses the lake.
Rays illuminate everything in sight,
As the child’s soul ascends and bids goodbye to the night.

Birds in unison fly together,
Such perfect accord nature un- tethered.
A work of art, hypnotically entranced,
My spirit leaps and joins in the dance.

The trees sparkle with their ‘prism’ like dew,
Eyes seldom see a more glorious view.

So happy to witness this astounding day,
The heart accelerating, pumping away.
Alive with love an untamed heart,
Please stay forever let us not part.

Happiness, ecstasy, bursting with joy,
Like a child reunited with its favourite toy.
Still stars in the sky, the moon and the sun,
YOU’RE ASLEEP! YOUR MISSING IT! WAKE UP EVERYONE!

So grateful to have been here to watch your magic unfold,
You’ve lifted my heart, your beauty untold.

© Maria Brady 2007

This poem has come at a good time for me as my Boston Marathon preparations almost came disastrously unstuck today.

I got through a nice 25k run with my Saturday group earlier this morning and shortly after was riding my bike to Little Athletics. About half way into the ride I was going too fast around a blind corner and collided head-on with another rider.

It was a nasty crash: I couldn't move, was in pain, and went into shock. The other rider got away more or less unscathed. First the Fire Brigade then an Ambulance was called to untangle me from my bike and see what damage had been done. I was in pain in my right wrist and was uncertain if I could feel my back and neck; I still lay motionless on the ground, still in shock, cold, trembling, and wanting to spew. I could see blood dripping from my arm. Morphine was administered and I was taken off to the Canberra Hospital. On arrival at the hospital I can remember the paramedics brief the ER that I had a suspected compound fracture to my wrist with cuts and abrasions to other areas of my body.

To cut a long story short, after x-rays and a full body check I was found not to be suffering from a broken wrist with mostly just some painful bad bruising, several scrapes, bumps, cut, and a badly shaken ego as the only lasting trauma. I am still in pain as I sit here tonight typing this. Hopefully, I might be able to back running in a couple of days. So to my great relief nothing too nasty bit me today, but it could have been worse.

I think I can thank Maria's beautiful Inner Child that my own Inner Child is still with me today.

As Maria said in her wonderful poem:

So happy to witness this astounding day,
The heart accelerating, pumping away.
Alive with love an untamed heart,
Please stay forever let us not part.

I have never, ever, read such beautiful words about running.

"And the winner is...."

2007-02-25T05:49:00.000+11:00

Boston it will be.

Decision time for my Boston v Canberra dilemma came and went on Friday and I still couldn't quite make up my mind. I decided to wait and see how I pulled up from yesterday's long run before making the big D. I got through the run ok, all 27k's of it. The fact that I had to hobble for most of the rest of the day with this blasted adductor injury didn't worry me too much. I had got through a long run without too much discomfort and I am confident I can manage this thing up and until the marathon. The question was - just which marathon would it be?

In the end, the compelling logic in favour of Boston became too compelling. I read and listened to all the advice that came my way on-line and off-line. I thought if I passed up this opportunity there may not be many more. I'm not getting any younger, family finances could change, who knows what. I just didn't want to live with regrets. So even though it will be expensive and there were some important personal issues to consider, I felt I needed to do it. Call it destiny perhaps; I dunno.

I am going to do it for the experience. This injury has ruled out any chance of thinking about PB's. My preparations are already well behind and I am simply looking to get in some big long runs before the day, rather than worry about piling on big weekly k's.

Flights and accommodation have been booked. So it's Boston or bust!

Evil spirits lurking....

2007-02-18T14:06:00.000+11:00

With my self-imposed Boston v Canberra drawing near (23 February), I have done myself no favours in the injury management department.

My right groin/abductor responded very well to physio I received earlier in the week and on Saturday I got through a nice 18k run with my Saturday group. I was feeling good and reasonably smug...but the evil spirits were lurking.

A couple of hours after my run I was watching darling daughter do her thing at Little Athletics. I hadn't done much post-run stretching and was standing around nice and tight when the announcement came for a parents' 200 metre race. I haven't raced a 200 since high school and I'm a distance runner, not a sprinter. But being a typical macho 45 year old male who thinks he has more testosterone than brains what do you think the chances were of me just standing there watching the other's dads give it a go? Not great.

So, tight and cold, I ran the 200 hard and finished up with one very sore adductor. It's feeling a little better after resting it yesterday and today and things will improve after I have more physio on it mid-week. But this is not the sort of environment I need at the moment. My marathon preps are behind schedule and I have one of the biggest decisions of my running life looming at the end of the week.

Decision pending....

2007-02-13T18:36:00.000+11:00

I had another big weekend of running and one for which I am paying some costs. Saturday started with a 2 hour 20 minute effort, part of which I ran with buddies from my Saturday group over our favourite territory at Farrer and Isaacs. It was a good run, although hard work in stages and I battled with some nerve problems to my right glute. At one point a couple of ladies from our group had me on the ground going through contortions to stretch the nerve. What I was doing might have looked a bit kinky to outsiders but it was fun for me just the same.

The main event for the weekend, however, was the Sprint Marathon relay on Sunday. That saw sixty runners front up at Dunrossil Drive, a short distance from the Governor General's residence at Yarralumla, to battle it out in ten teams of six running a series of 1k relays over the marathon distance. The event has been going for about 12 years, and in recent years has been organised by Canberra running identity, Jim White. Jim sorts out the teams and allocates runners so that each team has a spread of runners from those capable of about 3.30 to 4.00 minute per k up to those of around the 7.00 minute standard.

I was fortunate enough to find myself as the only guy in a team of wonderful lady runners. There was Natasha and Beryl from my Saturday group, along with Strewth, Helen, and Barbara from ACT Vets. Except for Barbara, I had met them all before and I liked them all. We didn't get a podium finish but that didn't matter. We had a great team, it was a wonderful morning of morning, and it was fun. It was a privilege for me to run with these ladies.

I caught up with many other friends on Sunday from my Saturday group and elsewhere, not least Flashduck, PRB, Griffin, Friar, and others. Speedy Geoff was there, not part of the official action but using the area for a training run. My running buddy Michelle was in another team. I know she had a good day too.

The cost from Saturday's long run and Sunday's intense effort was that I have aggravated some slowly developing problems with my right abductor. I was at the physio today and will need to reduce my workload just as I need to be increasing it for my marathon plans in April.

These niggles add yet another piece to the jigsaw of my Boston v Canberra conundrum. I have given myself just over another week to resolve all the various issues. Friday 23 February is D-Day!

Undecided!

2007-02-05T07:39:00.000+11:00

I don't know how to thank you, my friends, for the wonderful comments that were left on my previous post, Canberra v Boston. I was totally overwhelmed not just by the number of responses but also by their substantive and thoughtful nature. Many of you wrote things which have left me pondering much about my running, my family, and about life.

I know that all of us have to balance the demands of our love for running with our love for family and other things. It is so easy to lose sight of what is, deep down, important to us. I am not a perfect father, nor a perfect husband, or a perfect runner. Yet I try to be all three and then suffer the inevitabe tensions and conflicts that emerge when the train tracks all don't go in the same direction.

I remain undecided whether I will run Boston or not. There is a compelling logic in favour of Boston which many of you have pointed out. But I just feel I am not ready to make the final plunge yet. Meanwhile I will continue with my training. I am also under pressure at work and am just about to leave on another overseas work trip and several more are in the pipeline between now and Boston. Maybe in my travels I will also seek guidance from the Delphic Oracle, or Paris Hilton, or the Pope or someone. Don't think any of them, though, have any where near the levels of wisdom that you, my incredible friends in Blogland, have in spades.

My entrance application for Boston as been accepted and time is running out. I am yet to make my flight bookings and will need to make a decision soon....

Canberra....or Boston?

2007-01-28T14:21:00.000+11:00

I'm facing a delimma with my next big race but before I get to that I want to say a big thank you again to those friends who left comments in my previous post. To respond briefly:

Ewen: it is a nice thought about the shorts and CR singlet, but it was too cold for that. I was actually in my full winter kit, gloves, beanie, long tights, and two long sleeved running tops. I found that zero degrees in NY at midday is not quite the same as a zero in Canberra, given the artic wind that works its way through the Manhatten jungle.
Tess: interesting you should ask about the push-ups. Rocky didn't do push-ups on the steps in Rocky I (or did he do them in the sequels, which I didn't see?) but there was a guy (at left) doing them on the steps on the day I visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I didn't do them myself.
Eddie: no I didn't see the G'day Australia thing but I did see Bindi Irwin on US television regularly. Our ABC says Bindi charmed the US and that is no exaggeration. I was asked about her and her father several times.
Vicky, Jorex, Strewth, Cirque and Rachel: thank you for the lovely things you wrote. I strongly recommend you get a chance to visit Ground Zero if you already haven't done so. I am including another photo from the 911 tribute center of a window from one of the planes that crashed into the towers.

******

Now for my running delimma. For the last few months I have debated whether to run the Canberra or Boston Marathons this year, after I ran a qaulifying time for Boston at last year's Canberra Marathon. Both marathons are run coincidentally on the same weekend this year, (Canberra 15 April, Boston 16 April).

I had seriously considered doing Boston, turning it into a super doopa family holiday at the same time. We had discussed this in the family but I had pretty much given the idea away due to the expense. I thought maybe I would leave Boston to the future when we are in a better financial position. And it wasn't that long ago that we did have a great five week family holiday in the US in 2005. So I thought no Boston marathon for TD this year...

...that is until my wife, Mrs TD, came completely out of the blue as we were driving home from work last week and said why don't I go solo to the US and run Boston. She says she knows how much running means to me and how much running Boston means to me. I wasn't quite sure I was hearing her right and I had just picked her up from her after work drinks! But she went on that she really wanted me to go without her and the family and just do what I had always wanted to do. Me going solo is something we can afford. Well, is this manna from heaven or what?

I've checked out www.bostonmarathon.org, have submitted an online application, and paid the US$150 fee. My training continues and I am fit and injury free. But Houston, we have a problem! - I've got a real bad attack of the guilts. I feel that I being too self indulgent, trying to fulfill a long-held personal whim. I feel that I am greedily putting me first and family second, for some silly race on the other side of the world.

Yet, this is B-O-S-T-O-N! It's one of the most prestigious and oldest marathons in the world; a race that I have dreamed of running for over 20 years. And with my Canberra time of 3.16 I have easily met the 3.30 qualifying time. Qualifying is something not everyone can do and there is no guarantee I can repeat it in the future. What should I do?

Woody Allen said he wasn't afraid of dying; he just didn't want to be there when it happened. I'm not afraid of dying either; I am just not sure I want to be there without running Boston!

USA 3

2007-01-22T06:11:00.000+11:00

I've just arrived back home after my latest work trip to the USA where I had three nights in New York and one in Washington. The temperature in Canberra when I left was in the high thirties and in New York hovering around zero, which left me thinking is this a crazy planet or what! I did see my first North American snow in New York when I awoke last Friday morning to see the city covered in the fluffy white stuff (seen covering an old cemetary near Ground Zero in lower Manhatten).

With my work commitments out of the way, I spent my last morning in New York walking around the Ground Zero site and also visiting the September 11 tribute centre in Liberty Street. The picture at right shows the sun rising over a frozen Ground Zero with snow in the foreground. I had visited Ground Zero on a previous trip to NY but had never seen the tribute centre before.

To visit the centre is intensely moving and it is hard to keep a dry eye in the place when you see the so many photos of loved ones, young and old, that lost their lives on 11 September 2001 and when you see the many poignant artifacts. The photo at left below is of a NY Fire Department coat and helmet that belonged to a deceased firefighter who died during the collapse of one of the World Trade Centre towers. The coat and helmet were recovered separate from the remains and as the large tear at the back of the coat suggests had literally been torn from the body from the forces generated by the collapse of the tower. I was moved to write something on one of the comment cards at the centre as I finished my visit. This is what I wrote:

Dear Mr Terrorist
We will never forget what you did to us on 911 when you showed us evil in its most pure form. All you have done is stregthen our resolve to confront evil in all its forms, the very thing you sought to deny us.

On a happier note I had a great week in the USA, which was my third trip there in 14 months. I didn't seem at all bothered by jet lag as I had on my last trip there in September last year. I slept better over there than I do at home and I managed to get in some great runs in both Washington and New York. I had to confront an official wind chill factor of minus 10 in Washington and all I wanted to do was to get back to my hotel and get warm.

In New York I had a couple of wonderful runs around and through Central Park, the last one taking place with the park covered in snow and to the sounds of young people having a great time at the Wollman open air ice skating rink. That run was was an absolute delight and my only regret is that I didn't take my camera with me (sorry Ewen) to take some shots. While I was in Central Park I thought of all those great runners to finish the NY marathon there, including our very own Lucky Legs. After finishing with Central Park I had a great time dodging Manhatten's lunch time pedestrian traffic. The locals must have wondered who this nut was but I had a ball and frankly couldn't have cared what anyone thought. Think of those street scenes from Crocodile Dundee and you will get an idea of what I had to confront.

During my train trip from New York to Washington I did a four hour stopover in Philadelphia. I made the pilgrimage to the Philadelphia Musuem of Art where I just had to run the famous steps that were the site of that great scene from Rocky I where Stallone sprints up the steps thrusts his arms in the air and does a little dance to the sounds of 'Gonna Fly Now'. Even though the movie was released in 1976 I read that hundreds every year continue to do the Rocky thing and run those steps. Sure enough on the day I visited there were several people doing just that, including that dude from Downunder (below right).

After arriving back in Australia I had the great pleasure of meeting up with Sekhmet and Blkbox for a cuppa at the Sydney domestic terminal. You are an inspiration guys.

Surprinsingly I seem to be suffering more from jet lag on my return to Oz than when I was in the States. I have suggested to my boss that perhaps I need to go back to the States and return home via London to reverse the process! I am still waiting for her to get back to me.....

Urambi Hills

2007-01-14T09:35:00.000+11:00

I had a delightful couple of my runs with my Saturday group yesterday and today. Yesterday's was over our familar Pink Arrows territory in the Mawson/Isaacs area to the "Green House" and return. I ran with my running buddy, Michelle, for about the last half of it. Michelle and I did a little bit more than the others, finishing with a 17k effort overall.

Today a few of us from the group did a nice little gallop from MacDonald's in Tuggeranong to the Urambi Hills area and return for about 10k's all up. It was a nice run, even though Michelle and I did get los....er....were a little unsure of where we were at one point. We completed the run with a coffee at Macca's and that was nice too (their cuppachinos can be surprisingly good at times). I rode my bike to the start of the run at Macca's and then home again later and it was a really puffy morning to be out and about in Canberra. It was lovely and sunny with the bird life in full bloom and the sun rising over Lake Tuggeranong. There was nothing really special about this; just another beaut morning with good friends like the many others we have done before and will do again. But as my endorphin and caffeine hit mixed nicely as I rode home on the bike I thought again how sometimes even the most normal and the most rehearsed can be the most enjoyable.

I'm off overseas again for work this week and leave for the USA tomorrow morning where I will spend one night in Washington and a few nights in New York. I will be back Sunday week, hopefully with a post about my running in the Big Apple. I have been so lucky to have had so many opportunities for travel and this will be my seventh overseas trip in less than a year. Travel really does broaden the mind and, as my darling wife keeps telling me, my mind needs lots of broadening!

Oh, just remembered. I have just started wearing "Skins" and find them an absolute boon for relieving the post-run aches and pains I have suffered with for years. I am going to wear them on my 20 hour flight tomorrow to NY where they are supposed to be good in keeping the blood flowing for travelers in sardine class. I usually like a wine or two when I travel and if they can keep it flowing too that will be an added bonus.

Thank You

2007-01-04T14:24:00.000+11:00

I'm just back from my Chrissie holidays in Brisbane. I had a beaut week in my home town, doing all the usual holidays things, catching up with loved ones, getting a little time at the beach, some swimming, shopping, reading etc. I also ate too much - thanks Mum! - and am paying the price. I'm hoping some adjusted New Year's resolutions will sort out that little(?) problem - see below.

I also did some running and caught up with some great Cool Runners who I have got to know over the years. I saw Eddie, Tesso and Shane at the Brisbane Road Runners 10k on Christmas Eve (actually at 6 am on the Sunday). My early indulgence with Christmas Cheer resulted in a sluggish 43.50 effort for me but it was good to be out running just the same after my drive up with the family from Canberra (as an aside, thank God for portable DVD players. I only counted one "Are we there yet?" for the whole trip, there and back).

Regarding the Christmas Eve run, I also have a secret confession to admit which Tesso and Eddie would not be aware of. I woke up on the Sunday morning and was shocked to see the time was 5.40am and I would be really pushing to make the start of the run at six. I dressed, gobbled down some fluid, and drove into the city at warp speed, only realising when I had got to the West End start and couldn't see anyone that...um...I had failed to reset my Ironman Triathlon Timex (which I use as an alarm clock too) when I crossed the border the day before. Instead of rising at 5.40 I had actually risen at 4.40 am and arrived for the start just after five - an hour before the run was to begin! The Chardonnay or four the night before - thanks Dad! - also didn't help matters.

Being a Queenslander, for years I have had to cop all those awful southern jokes about visitors needing to wind back their clocks 100 years when crossing the border into Queensland. In my case, it would have helped if I could have actually remembered to wind back the clock to begin with! Twit-a-saurus in extremis!

In addition to problems with clocks, I also had difficulties with the weather in Brissie. Being from Brisbane of course I know that the place is hot and humid, beautiful one day, perfect the next, and so on. And being the ever prepared Tuggeranong Don, of course I travelled to Queensland without any cold weather clothes at all. So what happens? I find that it is one of the mildest summers I have encountered in the capital. Come Boxing Day, with its miserable cloudy, drizzly stuff, I am finding it cold and wishing I had brought a jacket with me from Canberra - of all places. What gives!!

Anyway, the atmospheric conditions and time might have been inverted and twisted respectively, but I did find the natives very friendly. I did a really nice 13k with Eddie one morning, which I followed up by a speed work session at Pat Carroll's group where I caught up with Tesso again and also met Clairie. I saw both of them again during my final run in Brisbane, an 18k group effort from South Bank to St Lucia over the new bridge to Dutton Park, through Highgate Hill, West End and then back to South Bank. I was relieved to find I was hot and sweaty after this run, the way I should feel after a run in Brisbane!

My sincere thanks to Tesso, Eddie and Clairie for making me feel welcome in Brisbane. It was also great to meet finally Cirque and to have a cuppa with her. It is always a special treat to run with and meet like-minded running souls.

As for those new year's running resolutions: (1) lose weight - thanks Mum, again! (2) do a sub 3.14 PB at the Canberra Marathon, (3) forget I am turning 46 this year, and (4) gain a better sense of time!

I also want to pay homage to the Year 2006. It had its challenges on the personal front, but it was one of the happiest and most satisfying years I have experienced. I met some incredibly fantastic new friends, all through running and blogging about running. All in their own way have brought tonnes of insight, inspiration and fellowship to me. They are very special friends. The next two words are plain and common but are gems nonetheless: Thank You.

Tesso - one of the Magi

2006-12-16T12:43:00.000+11:00

Canberra was graced by one of the Queens of the blog world, when Tesso from Brisbane joined me (at left) and a couple of others for a nice run around the Mawson, Isaacs, Wanniassa area of Canberra's south.

It actually felt a bit strange to be honest. This is Pink Arrows territory (the name of my Saturday running group) , except that my group weren't out this morning resting up for their participation in the 'Tour de Mountain' challenge tomorrow. So to be running over the familar tracks and trails on a Saturday without my group felt odd. But to be there with Tesso, along with Steve and CJ, was special.

I was a tad embarrassed that the run was longer and hillier than Tesso had expected. She had wanted something longish but easy. With that in mind, her and I had gone for a 5-6k primer before we would catch up with Steve and CJ for what we thought would be a gentle 13 gallop through the suburbs. What we found, however, was that Steve the Mountain Goat wanted to do a trial run of tomorrow's Tour de Mountain for CJ's benefit. Um...ok! Being runners we can accept any challenge, leap tall buildings with a single bound, stop trains, etc.

So with Steve leading, we followed....little rats trailing the Pied Piper to god-knows-what. Launching out of the shops at Mawson, I warned Tesso that...ahem...there was a gentle little climb to come up and over Isaacs Ridge. A little later I then mentioned that there was....um...a slight incline to negotiate over Mt Wanniassa. Of course after that, I said, it is all down hill to the finish at the Mawson shops - that is if you choose to ignore the one of two 'mild undulations' here and there we still had to do. Anyway after about 14-15 kms of lung-crunching hills I wondered if Tesso would still be talking to me. She was and it was great to have the chance to chat to her throughout the morning about running, about things in general, including our not too dissimilar schooling in Brisbane.

A lowlight of the run was a classic case of Tuggeranong Don 'foot in mouth' disease when I proclaimed loudly for all to hear that Tuggeranong Don never falls over when he runs. It might happen to others but not to me, I said rather stupidly. Of course that dude with horns, a cape, a pitched fork and from a place a little too hot for comfort then made an appearance didn't he! A little later in the run for the first time ever I fell, tripping over probably not much at all and landing in a flurry of dust, interupting a very enjoyable chat I was having with CJ. CJ had been telling me about her yummy gingerbread muffins. I don't think she had realised she was running beside a ginger haired twit!

Anyway, this post is my tribute to Tesso. Tesso's own blog is a delight to read, full of so many observations of other great runners and great runs. But what comes through so strongly in her blog is that running is fun. The 'fun run'. It's the heading on a million promotional flyers for recreational and community runs all over the world.

Yet, stripped to the core, the fun run is our Christmas Star drawing us runners ever closer to the meaning of why we run. Tess, I think you are like one of the magi from the east with their gifts of gold, frankincence and myrrh. Only in your case, your gift can't be weighed or carried. But it is a bountiful one just the same. It is the sense of fun you bring to this wonderful sport of ours. We are all the richer for the treasures you have shared with us.

The cycle of life

2006-12-03T12:50:00.000+11:00

I have had a strange week of running, hitting a real flat spot in my form.

I said in my last post that last Sunday's Triple Tri was one of the toughest runs I have done and perhaps that accounts for the way I have felt since. I seem to be battling nausea and fatigue for runs that I would take easily in my stride. Yesterday's 19km run with my Saturday group was one of my worst. I struggled on all the hills and even had to do the unthinkable for me - resort to walking at several spots. I'm not sure what's going on here, but perhaps diet is to blame and mine is far from perfect. Perhaps the heat and difficulty of last Sunday's run took more out of me than I thought.

Still, I'm careful not to complain. I love my running enormously and I am currently free from injury. And as a postscript to last Sunday's Triple Tri we all heard the terrible news that there was a fatality out on the course during the middle run leg of last Sunday's event. Details are very scarce but the story doing the rounds is that a young runner collapsed and could not be revived. I only wish to extend my sympathies and sincere concern to the family of the person involved. That was a dark shadow over an otherwise great day.

On a happier note I had the pleasure of seeing daughter Alana do her thing at today's Women's and Girls' Jogalong at Weston Park. My little darling likes her running and just for the fun of it, as her smile shows (above). As the last run for the year, it was also presentation day and it was a real thrill to see the son of my running buddy, Michelle, take out a prize for best male junior runner.

Running reflects so much of life. Like life, running has its fair share of pain, glory, joy, disappointment, estacy, and sadness. Great runners come and go. All of us come and go. It seems that as soon as we struggle to come to terms with the tragic loss of a loved one or friend, we still have the capacity to see, through our tears, youth and renewal all around us. The cycle of life in its wonderous beauty goes on. See that cycle at work in the smile on a little girl's face doing an activity she loves with the world at her feet. With not a care or a worry about what might happen tomorrow, she is simply living for the joy of the moment.

Running does that to a little girl - or boy. Running can do that to all of us. Let's cherish the little girl or boy in all of us that running - and the cycle of life - brings forth.

Triple Tri

2006-11-26T14:52:00.000+11:00

I've had a big weekend for running; actually a big week when I think about it.

I headed out to the AIS track last Thursday night for my first Vet's meet for the season. I ran one leg of the 4 X 800 relay (a 2.37 for me), which was just so much fun. I then backed up a little later in the night to run the 10,000m. The latter was no starring performance for me. I finished with a 44.14, which is minutes outside my PB. It was hardly a surprise to be honest. It was my third run for the day after I had done a 14 k'er before dawn. Great to see Ewen and Strewth at the AIS. Well done to the both of you for your 1500 m walk and 10,000 run respectively. Good to see Griffin again too, such a friendly guy.

On Saturday morning, I caught up with the Saturday group for a gallop up and over Isaacs Ridge and then tackled Mt Wanniassa before heading back to the start at Mawson. This was a 14 km run and purely social as I was saving myself for the big one Sunday morning. I couldn't stay for the regular post-run coffee as I had to head off to my daughter's Little A's meet to help out as First Aid officer.

Sunday was the Triple Tri - that three triathlons back to back covering almost the length and breadth of Canberra and several of its waterways. I was part of a nine-member work team, and I ran the 20km third leg from the western side of Mt Majura, up and over the mountain, then down to Mt Ainslie, up and over it before exiting the bush at the back of the War Memorial, down Anzac Parade to the lake and then on to the finish at Grevillea Park.

With the temperature over 30 and a very hilly and demanding course, this was tough, hot, and dusty work. My time of 1.43 was nothing special but it was very satisfying simply to survive and finish this run. I judge it as one of the most difficult runs I have ever participated in. I was covered in so much dust, grime, sweat, sticky drink, and sun cream that I was surprised Rico could recognise me when I handed over to him for his 3.5 k swim in the lake.

Overall I was very impressed with what I saw of the organisation of the Triple Tri during my run leg. The drink stops were frequent and well appointed, even in some of the most unlikely parts of the Mt Majura scrub. To see a friendly face at those tables in the middle of the bush was just great.

I think a key point about my running over the last week shows that there is so much structure to our wonderful sport here in Canberra. It would be nice to have a beach or two but for runners the Canberra scene is well established, professional, and diverse. It caters to many standards and interests.

Mt Majura vineyard Two Peaks Classic run

2006-11-21T12:53:00.000+11:00

I know I have a tendency to go over the top with my descriptions of my runs around Canberra, but there is something about our clear mountain air that makes me that way. I get a little loopy sometimes. Just can't be helped.

Anyway, I have run out of superlatives (thank God some might say!) for describing last Saturday's run where I ran with Elle from my Saturday group in the Mt Majura Vineyard Two Peaks (26kms) Classic. Most of my Saturday group did the shorter 15km One Peak Challenge.

It was simply the most perfect of Canberra mornings, a little brisk to begin with but later becoming warm and sunny with not a cloud to be seen. The Two Peaks Classic is appropriately named comprising two major uphill sections up and over Mt Ainslie to be followed a little later by a difficult (walk only) section up and over Mt Majura.

It was nearly all tracks and trail through scrub, pine forest, among delightful screeching bird life, kangaroos and the other unique flora and fauna of our wonderful country. (Ewen, take note - there were no slithery things to be seen but I did look carefully during one pit stop). Unfortunately I left the camera at home in the rush to get out the door in the dark earlier, which I really regreted as there were some magnificant veiws to be seen over central and northern Canberra.

The turn out was perhaps not has large as I would have expected, but I still saw many familiar faces. As always, I could really feel that positive energy from the special bond that us runners seem to have when we are there at the start of a race on a gorgeous day in a great part of the world.

Elle and I didn't push the pace and we were content to treat the event as a training run, finishing in about 2 hours 40. That was well back but I didn't care a bit. I simply enjoyed the run and was pleased with the effort as it was my longest run since the Canberra marathon earlier in the year. A special thanks to our mutual running friend, PRB, who didn't run himself but was tremendously generous in picking us up and getting us home again. Thanks also to the Australian Moutain Running Association and John Harding for organising such a wonderful event. And to the volunteers again, what gems. To come across a smiling face at a drink station in the middle of the bush is a unique experience in itself.

Dairy Farmers Hill

2006-11-11T19:45:00.000+11:00

What a glorious morning to be running in Canberra again.

It was not too cold, no wind, and not a cloud to be seen. It was a roughly 15km gallop with my Saturday group this morning from the Curtin shops to Dairy Farmers Hill in the Stromlo pine plantation and return.

There was just time at the top to check out the view (top left) do a little stretching (top right) and say hello to Smiley (left).

Heading back down (below right) for the return leg we even came across a giraffe or two (below left).

My thanks to 2P for giving me a little wake up call to get bloggging. Since my return home from my travels I have not done much in the way of interesting runs. But as always there is the simple delights of the "ordinary" run, which are all too easy to take for granted. Today was very much one of those kind of days - not that we usually see giraffes on our "ordinary" runs in Oz.

We are heading out bush again next weekend for the Mt Majura Vineyard Two Peaks classic (26km) and the Mt Majura One Peak Challenge (15km).

I'm looking forward to finishing one of those runs as rumour has it that each finisher receives a bottle of vino from the local vineyard. I will try and stay sober enough to post a report.

(For the record, 2P, I did submit my tax returns on time and got a refund back within a week!).

Good to be home

2006-10-27T19:53:00.000+10:00

Finally I'm home after the most concentrated period of travel in my life - three separate overseas work trips over four weeks, through three continents and six of the world's major cities.

Just on a month ago it started with an overnight trip to Tokyo, then on to New York for one night and Washington for three nights (see earlier post). A week later I was in Singapore for two nights where I had a great run along Orchard Road (at left), the island's main shopping thoroughfare.

I then went on to Bangkok for two nights to attend a series of conferences and meetings and had a chance to check out Bangkok's caterpiller-like new international airport (at right). I also distinguished myself by getting lost in Bangkok during one of my runs and struggled to get back to my hotel when I couldn't find anyone who could speak English and/or knew where my hotel was. Thus, Bangkok joins Tokyo (2003) and Washington (2005) to those cities in the world where this spatially-challenged runner has...um...lost himself (yes, I know, sad but true)!

Just yesterday I returned from my final trip to Vienna in Austria where I enjoyed the last of Europe's pleasant autumn weather before the northern winter starts to set in. It was my second work trip to Vienna this year and I am coming to love this place. It is just so incredibly beautiful with an aristocratic old world charm about it (see left) and a fabulous cafe culture to match what Paris has to offer. I didn't get lost running in Vienna but I did have a chance to see the city's Roman ruins (at lower right).

The morning after getting home (today) I was out with my running group enjoying a very nice 17k'er through Canberra's forrests and tracks and trails. After spending time with my family, getting back with my running group and catching up with the blog world again I am gradually reestablishing the priorities in my life.

I have had some fantastic experiences over the last month and am so lucky with the opportunities that came my way. It is a month I will never forget.

As always, though, it is so good to be home. There is just a little matter of outstanding tax returns still needing to be done (argh!)

Voices of America

2006-09-29T09:26:00.000+10:00

I have just got back from my US trip and about to head off to Singapore and Bangkok for the second of my four overseas work trips that I am undertaking in five weeks.

So many stories to relate about my week in the US (me at left on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington) but just have to tell this one, a really bizarre experience that probably belongs to one of those 'only in America' categories.

Walking to dinner a short walk from my Washington hotel I came across St Matthew's Cathedral. The Cathedral is a Washington landmark being among, other things, where JFK's funeral was held in 1963 and the spot where JFK junior poignantly saluted his dad's casket.

When I read the plague at the church describing this I also noticed a middle aged woman sitting alone at the top of the church steps (see steps in photo at right). I asked her why she was sitting there in the dark by herself and she told me that this is where she slept for night. I thought she was just another of Washington's homeless - which in fact she is but with a difference.

This woman - Jean was her name - was well dressed, clean, had polished nails, hair neatly done, and so on; not the typical picture for someone living on the streets. When she starting telling me that it was God's wish that she live on the the church steps and that this is what he had directed she should do I began to think I had a looney on my hands.

But as she continued to talk she explained ever so articulately how she was an adult convert to Catholicism, that she had moved away from her family to devote herself to the church, that she heard God's voices and that him and her talked to each other directly. I was having trouble coping with all this and my internal computer chip marked 'sceptic' was working overtime. Yet there was something about this incredibly articulate and attractive woman. I sat on those steps for a good 45 minutes or so going through the problems of the world and being impressed with her take on them and the church. Never in my life have I had a conversation such as this and I will never forget Jean.

I really struggled with the jet lag in the US and my running was of poor quality. But I did have a great run one morning at dawn (see the US Capitol building at left) where I also met a cute young Californian girl called Samantha. We had a lovely run together around the monuments and sites. She was a delight to talk to and it made me realise that us runners, no matter where we come from, share so much in common.

Anyway, I am about to head to off Asia. A trip to Europe is in the pipeline in a couple of weeks and then I am back to the USA in early November. All this travel and disruption is causing me to fall well behind on my reading of blogs. I also have my wonderful and beautiful family to thank for so much and especially for their patience for what is a very frenetic time. I really am thinking about all my blogland friends too and promise to try and catch up with you as soon as I can. Take care everyone.

Japan and the USA

2006-09-26T11:47:00.000+10:00

I am on the road travelling for work again. I have just spent a day in Tokyo and am now in New York, typing this a few blocks from Times Square. I head down to Washington tomorrow and spend a few days there before heading back to Oz over the weekend.

I will try and post a couple of stories and some photos if I get the chance.

Because of my travels I am very behind in my blog reading. I promise to try and catch up with everyone's news as soon as I can.

When I arrived in New York tonight I had to ask directions. Turns out that the the random couple I asked were from Oz and - wait for it - from Canberra of all places. Here I am in this incredible city of 18 million people on the other side of the world and the first people I speak to just happen to come from my home town.

I am going to try and get in a run early tomorrow before the streets come alive.

Canberra Times Fun Run

2006-09-18T07:55:00.000+10:00

Thank you so much everyone for your wonderful comments to my previous post. I was greatly touched by many of the things that you said. It just reinforced to me - not that I needed it - that there are many fantastic people in Blogland who are not just fellow bloggers and runners but special friends as well.

I ran the Canberra Times 10k fun run yesterday. I am not going to dwell on it because I had a shocker. It was a gorgeous Canberra day, and perhaps too gorgeous and too warm. I really felt the heat and struggled home in 41.50, almost a full minute slower than the last time I ran this race in 2004. I didn't enjoy the race, but I did, as always, enjoy the atmosphere of the day and loved catching up with everyone again. Just to feel the energy of the day is special in itself.

Lady runners

2006-09-11T06:09:00.000+10:00

My Saturday group had another of its lovely runs on Saturday, this time revisiting familar ground at the Cotter Reserve. The group split into two at the start with some opting for a longer 24 km course, and others preferring a shorter 19 kms. It was long and tough no matter which starting point we chose.

The Cotter is simply a wonderul place for running. The trails seemingly go on forever and on Saturday we even had the blessing of a river crossing to contend with (below left). I swear the water in that river was piped direct from the snow country. It was that cold.

The Cotter is not an easy run. Yet, clearly as a group we are getting fitter and faster. As far as I could tell there was not a complaint to be heard about the run itself. Everyone just got in there and did it.

I don't know what it is about the Cotter but I seem to lose myself out there a bit and I came back reflecting on the qualities of women runners, who make up the majority in our group.

Women bring many gifts to this world, not least their intelligence, their intuition, their sensuality, their capacity for feeling and nurture. The ladies of the running world bring all this to running. And they bring more.

I delight in the watching the elite of this world, be they Kerry McCann or Norma "Lucky Legs" Wallet. At the other end of the spectrum are those members of the elite who never make the newspapers but are special just the same.

It's women who can teach us guys a new way of seeing beauty in the world. Think of the exqusite delight of the statue of Venus. This incredible sculpture is one way of seeing beauty. Yet then again look at the ladies in our group. They come with different backgrounds and approaches to this wonderful sport of ours, but all are incredibly fit and are equipped with levels of strength, grace, and enthusiasm that are beyond my words to describe.

I think that perhaps more than us males, running for women is simply a means to an end. Ladies love to run for the fitness and competition that running brings. But it seems to me they run - in stronger tones than us males - for the pleasure of sharing the experience with friends, new and old. I have heard so many times from my lady friends, "I only run for the coffee afterwards". Which I think is code for "I love running because it helps me bond more with my friends".

Running helps us get in touch with our feelings as perhaps few sports do - it helps us map our emotional countours. I just loved the following few words about one of the oldest emotions known to humanity:

"Love doesn't happen in an instant. It creeps up on you and then it turns your life upside-down. It colours your waking moments and fills your dreams. You begin to walk on air and see life in brilliant new shades. But it also brings with it a sweet agony, a delicious torture. It reduces one life to feverish meetings and pining in between." (Q and A, by Vikas Swarup)

If it wasn't for the female of the species we wouldn't be able to say such a thing. If it wasn't for the female runners of this world we wouldn't be able to say such a thing. And if it wasn't for the beautiful (in all its forms) women I have come across through my running that I would be able to say such a thing. Women give insight into what love in this world really means, whether it be in the capacity of one human to love another, a love of running, or a love of life itself.

ACT Vets Half Marathon

2006-08-27T17:28:00.000+10:00

I escaped my daughter's birthday party sleep-over and six screaming ten-year olds to run the ACT Vets half marathon today.

I had a really strong run and was again helped by Pollyanna, the little birdie at my ear who helped me during the City to Surf two weeks ago. More on my feathered friend later.

There were some sensational runs today and I was totally in awe at what many runners achieved. Special congratulations must go to several friends from my Saturday group. Emma (W35 1.42), Linda (W50 1.54), Marg (W55 1.55) and Norma (W65 2.07) were all age group medalists - simply fantastic runs by all of them.

Elle - one of my running buddies - just missed out on a medal, coming fourth in her age group (W35 1.46). It was an excellent run by her and I know she was very happy with it. The Spirit of Camelot came to the fore again when she said she dedicated the run to our our much beloved friend, the still hospitalised PRB.

I want to say something about today's volunteers. We all know that we owe them so much. But the volunteers who come to the Vets events are just something else. Before the race I went over and had a chat to one or two and loved their infectious enthusiasm for lending a hand. All of them out on the course, without exception, were helpful, friendly and supportive. Leah, one volunteer and a fantastic runner herself, I know you were champing at the bit to be running today but your legs will thank you for the rest.

It was wonderul at last to meet Flashduck (simply an amazing woman and runner) and great as always to catch up with Speedy Geoff and Griffin.

As for me, I was pleased with how I ran. I felt strong and stuck to my race plan of not going out too fast or too slow. A special thank you to Paul who I met for the first time during the last few k's of the race. Paul and I had a great duel, racing shoulder to shoulder when the going was getting real tough. Inside the last km I moved ahead thinking I had put him behind only to have Paul come back to my shoulder with 75 metres to run. It was then a sprint finish for the both of us, with each trying to outdo the other. We dead-heated, with the clock reading 1.30.55. I was amazed when I found out Paul was in the M55 category. A sensational run by you mate, a great guy.

I was just a tad disappointed not to go sub-90 but 1.30 was easily my fastest half of the four I've done this year and my fourth fastest overall out of nine completed half marathons. It was that little bird Pollyanna who I have to thank for this. Paul was pushing me hard at one shoulder. There was Pollyanna at the other telling me to dig deep when I didn't think I could possibly dig anymore.

Pollyanna and I had a chat after the race and my wise little friend told me about the great coincidences of life. Seemingly out of nowhere you can meet someone new who can infuse you with positive energy, making you a better person. There were many "coincidences" there today at the Vets half. So many runners and friends bringing their own unique gifts to the day - their enthusiasm, their determination, their smiles, their quest to drive themselves a little further. Many had their own Pollyannas to carry them through. That's what makes the day such a special one; a Spirit of Pollyanna day if ever there was one.

Camelot

2006-08-19T13:33:00.000+10:00

Don't let it be forgot,
That once there was a spot,
For one brief, shining moment that was known as Camelot

Yes, I know. I'm smitten with my Saturday running group. I won't deny it. The group reminds me of Camelot. They are an idealised world of chivilry and grace, good times, mugachinos, raisin toast, and grand gallops across the woods and hills of the nation's capital. All the ingredients are there. There's Arthurette and Merlin and all those Dames and Knights of the Runners Round Table (I'd like to think I'm the Court's Poet Laurette, but given the exalted company I'm happy to settle with being the Village Idiot!).

After today's run we celebrated the birthday of Arthurette (Maria) herself. That's her at left. She's the one who established this most brilliant of courts. There's three candles on her cake. That's one for each thousand of years she has been with us. It's befitting this figure of legend and myth who just always seems to be there; this apparition who arises each Saturday from the mists of time. We love you Maria...er...Arthurette. You're our Merlin (ette), our wizard(ette), the glue (ette) that holds us all together. Happy Birthday.

Then there's PRB, one of the bold Knights of the Runners Round Table. That's him at right. Just last Sunday he was with us at the City to Surf. He had a great run, finishing around the 80 minute mark. On the very next day back in Canberra he underwent major surgery for a very serious condition. Despite what he had been through he looked fantastic when I visited him after today's run, still in Camelot's hospital. To all those who know him, PRB is one special person. But it was Queen Flashduck who caught his personality so well with her great epithet for him, "PRB" or Perfect Running Buddy. Indeed.

You're a cherished knight from Camelot, PRB. We miss you. Get well soon. The running woods beckon.

Then read below (extracted from her blog), QueenAki's beautiful words about both Queen Flashduck and Sir PRB:

I find it rather strange that there are all of these fully capable runners out there, yet two people who are the most bravest and strongest runners they are, who have such a great level of determination and inner strength, who are battling serious illnesses, and run despite all odds being against them just happen to be my two greatest friends and support crew with running.

They don't run because they'll make the olympics. They don't run because of pbs. They run as an act of defiance against nature and a test of their self belief, but most of all, they get out there, even if it is just to hold the clock some days, because they love it.

Aki you have brought a tear to this Knight's eye.

Such is the spirit of Camelot.

The Mad Hatters' Tea Party

2006-08-13T21:40:00.000+10:00

Today’s City to Surf, my third, reminded me of the Mad Hatters’ Tea Party from Alice in Wonderland. There were enough mad hats on display for a start (as at left). But is was such a great day, a fantastic day, that I could just imagine the Mad Hatter saying to the March Hare: A very merry unbirthday to us! .. The day mightn’t be any special anniversary of sorts. But to those who ran and walked it was special just the same and worthy of a birthday party.

There’s something incredibly seductive sucking in the collective energy of over 60,000 kindred spirits. James Redfield in his Celestine Prophecy talks about how we can become more complete people by drawing in the positive energy from those around us.

I certainly felt like that today. I had a ball. The weather was stupendous; all of us were excited and happy just to be there to participate in one of the world’s great community events.

I stopped the clock at 59.37 and was ecstatic to come in under the hour. When I saw the finishing chute come up ahead and I knew I had beaten sixty minutes, I punched the air and did a little two step. It wasn’t a PB but that didn’t matter. I was just stoked to really run strongly and tackle the hills aggressively. And truth be known I had some help. Throughout the race I could hear this little birdie at my ear, whispering encouragement. Pollyanna we’ll call her.

Being from Canberra, I really noticed the heat. Just after the 6k marker and approaching the bottom of Heart Break Hill I was starting to fatigue. But Pollyanna said: “You can do it - I'm sending some positive energy your way - you love hills so run ‘em hard”. So true I thought to myself, so true. So I pushed on. Again feeling hot and under pressure with those pesky hills between the 10 to 12 k markers I can hear my special friend saying, “…come on you can do it, you’ll be through the hills soon and then it’s all down hill”. “Yo, I can do it…on, on.on…”

Then finally, when I hit Campbell Parade I was really feeling the pain. My chest was burning, my legs were killing me, and I was sick in the stomach. Then I whiffed some wretched cooking smells from nearby bbq's. I felt like puking. “I’m a goner”, I thought, only to have Ms Pollyanna say “you’re running like a rubber ducky. Come on, you’re almost there.” Somehow, out of nowhere I got up a sprint for the last 300 hundred metres. I stormed home, forever grateful to my sweet voiced friend.

I caught up with so many friends and Cool Runners on this gorgeous day. PRB, Bernie, Elle, James, Jane, Greg, Leah (great PB), Aki, Marg, Wombat Face, Jim, John Rawlings, BlkBox (great to meet you mate), Tesso and Miners (pictured at left), Gronk, Ellie80, Strewth, CJ, Shelly, Sekhmet (telepathically), Unidentified friendly lady at the Hash tent, Unidentified friendly guy who’s ran every C2S I chatted to at the start, and to all my other friends who were there in spirit if not in person – thank you so much for this special day. With so many unpleasant things happening in this world, all of us did our bit today to make the world a better place.

It was our very own Mad Hatters’ Tea Party.

"Bless me father...."

2006-08-05T12:41:00.000+10:00

"Bless me father, for I have sinned. It has been three fun runs and two marathons since my last confession, father, and these are my sins...."

A mea culpa follows, but first of all some pride before the fall. My Saturday group did another great run today of about 16-17k's over familiar terrain in the Fadden-Wanniassa-Isaacs area. That's Leah, Ann and Maria (right) on a high(!) having reached the top of Mt Wanniassa leaving behind the magnificance of the Tuggeranong Valley. Simply a bootiful morning!

After the run we celebrated the birthday of Marg (left) today, one of our much loved members. Happy birthday, Marg! I know you had a great day yesterday with your family and friends. Your running friends today cherished the opportunity to share in it too.

Now for the Mea Culpa. My name's not Mel Gibson and I didn't get caught drink-driving on a Los Angeles highway. But I am guilty of a crime so wicked, so heinous, so dastardedly awful that a public lynching seems the only appropriate recompense. Yes, my friends, I am guilty of....

....failing to mention my friends on my blog. Really, I am very embarrassed by this.

It occurred during my last post when I listed those I had met during last week's Bush Marathon festival. I try to personalise my blog entries by mentioning names, but that does mean I run the risk of forgetting to mention some people. Which I did.

So to Marian (right above) and Kevin (left, below), especially, I am sorry. I will stress that neither made a fuss about this. Father, bless their angelic souls!

It's just that I've seen the Da Vinci Code and I'm heavily into self-flagellation and enjoy its liberating effects. In fact, I will probably employ the whip when I battle with Heart Break Hill during next week's City to Surf in Sydney.

"...so father I am guilty as convicted...and I'm happy to now go and run three marathons barefoot for my penance. Thank you, father......God bless you my son."

PS. To my Saturday friends - more photos to come with next post.
PSS. My foot doesn't seem to have suffered anything too serious from last week's run (previous post refers); just a few lingering little creaks and groans now and then.

Bush capital marathon festival

2006-07-29T14:56:00.000+10:00

It was great to see so many happy and smiling faces today at Canberra's Bush Capital Marathon festival. I'd never run the event before and was impressed with the organisation and turn-out. The festival caters for events from the 5km to a 60km ultra, all off-road via track and trail through the Mt Ainslie and Mt Majura areas and beyond. Start and finish is at the Campbell High School next to the Australian War Memorial.

I settled for the 16k run that roughly follows a circuit around Mt Ainslie. I felt tired at the start after yesterday's 60k bike ride. So I didn't push the pace and was happy just to chat with others and admire the views. Being a great run in the bush, nature was in full force. On a beautiful sunny winter morning I enjoyed taking in the fresh air and seeing the fantastic bird life. Galahs, sulphur crested cockatoos and other pretty flapping things were in abundance. Departing off the track for a pit stop I even disturbed a herd of kangaroos that was as surprised to see me as I was to see them. I was worried about snakes but Elle (at left), one of my running buddies, promised to do a Crocodile Dundee on them, catch one, and break their backs. Thanks Elle!

The day was again a great social one and I enjoyed very much catching up with everyone. A special word of congrats to Emma (at right) who did the 25km run and looked as fresh and relaxed at the finish as she did when I ran with her in the early stages of the run. I also ran for a bit with one of my regular running buddies, Michelle, and was impressed as always with her ability to really push on the hills and at the same time respond to my inane chatter! (that's Michelle at lower left finishing hard).

There were so many of my other running pals out there today and it was wonderful to see them - and be inspired by them - including PRB (great seeing you running for a bit), Leah (your recovery from injury is an inspiration), Aki (nice to meet you again), Strewth (hope that lergy is a thing of the past), Natasha (hope that foot thingy is a thing of the past for you), Eric and Norma, Beryl, Bernie, Maria and Jim, Allrounder (a very embarrassed Tuggeranong Don was intrigued to find you were a female and not a male), Marg, Charmaine, Helen and Maria, and Jodie.

It was great to see Speedy Geoff again with some of his proteges. (That's him lower right at the finish with Helen and Maria. Holding hands...umm...nice touch Geoff!

So the morning was a delight. The only note of concern was the short, sharp pain I felt in the middle of my left foot as I tried to push the pace, not far from home. A couple of hours now after the run, the foot doesn't feel quite right. I hope it is nothing.

Mt Taylor revisited

2006-07-23T21:26:00.000+10:00

We didn't get there last weekend due to the weather, but we did today. After yesterday's group run, some of us from the Saturday group did an early morning Sunday run to the top of Mt Taylor.

It was one of our shorter runs, about 7 or 8k. But it was an intense effort, especially over the last couple of hundred metres up the steep track to the summit.

That's us at the top, along with some of the great views to be seen - looking north (at right) through the Woden Valley towards Black Mountain and a glimpse of Lake Burley Griffin, and looking south (at left below) over the Tuggeranong Valley and Lake Tuggeranong.

As always, I really enjoyed the run with the group and especially loved, again, working hard to get to the top of Mt Taylor.

But I thought I needed a little more. With plans to move onto triathlons later in the year, after the obligatory post-run coffee I set off on a 67k bike ride through Tuggeranong and Woden. The trip took several hours and included a stop at the Tuggeranong pool for a swim session and a stop for a high reps class at the Southern Cross Club.

I finally got home in the dark feeling very happy for myself. After yesterday's beaut group run, it was a great day to top off a fabulous weekend covering just a few of the ways of keeping fit and loving life in the national capital.

Group dynamics

2006-07-22T13:37:00.000+10:00

I had called them "pikelets" for opting out of last week’s run in poor conditions. Today, they showed why my Saturday running group is so special to me.

Firstly, some details on this morning’s run. It was mostly over old ground. Starting at Mawson it takes in nature reserves at Farrer Ridge, the Wanniassa Hills, before a jaunt through the Long Gully Pine Plantation, then a return to the start at Mawson and our coffee. It was about a 17km effort. As we like it, it was hilly And mostly over track and trail with mega kangaroos and a rising morning sun (above) for additional company.

Last week’s non-run probably contributed to a great turn out today and it was fantastic to see everyone. It was made more special for me as there was a nice little surprise waiting for yours truly during the coffee. The group wished me happy birthday. Very nice….and very intriguing – my birthday was actually back in May! But a confidant had leaked (so typical of Canberra!) this bit of sensitive information to our convenor, Maria. Maria then went and organised accordingly. (That’s me above right with my candle.) I shan’t reveal the confidant’s name (but Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and a Mad Hatters Tea party =?).

I was very touched by this morning and the surprise says so much about the group. A year ago I didn’t know one person among them. But yet they are now among my closest friends and I feel like I have known them forever.

They are wonderful people who, as I have said before, celebrate a common passion in our sport.Birthdays are recognised, triumphs celebrated, and disappointments lamented.

"Just do it", says Nike, as if it's a dream, an aspiration and something which should get around to doing.

"Just does it", is my group's approach...to running, walking. To life.

That's (in descending order) Michelle, Natasha, Marg, Elle and Linda from the group.

Mt Taylor - solo

2006-07-15T12:41:00.000+10:00

I set out this morning in the rain to run Mt Taylor with my Saturday running group, only to find the group had found the morning too cold and wet and, like little pikelets, had given it a miss.

So it was left to me to do battle - alone - with the elements, to run hither and tither through slosh and sleet, across brooke and dale to the lofty heights of this mighty summit overlooking Canberra's southern suburbs. It was enough to make one sing.....(and I can just hear Julie Andrews now...."Climb every mountain....").

Actually it turned out to be quite a good run. The conditions were certainly crappy. Lots of low cloud, fog, cold rain, and the temperature hovering around eight. But I soon got warm working my way up the trail to the top of Mt Taylor. And it was a sloshly trail too...I was was going up one way, and gravity was doing its trick with little rivers of water going down the other. Unlike the last time I did this trip, there was not a soul to be seen. That added another dimension to the run; a little eerie though with heavy fog covering the top.

It's a reasonably steep run to the summit but worth the effort. It was magic up there. The rain was more like sleet and stung my face. There was a strong breeze up there too, bringing with it more of that low fog and cloud swirling through Woden Valley. I felt like I was on top of the world watching Lady Nature mix her basic elements. Euphoria kicked in after that struggle to get to the top and I stood there admiring the view. God it felt great to be alive.

I didn't stay too long. My waterproof New Balance running jacket proved to be not so waterproof and I was soaked to the bone and cold. By the time I got back to where I had parked my car I looked like something the cat had dragged in. If it wasn't for those nice Brooks Adrenaline running shoes I was wearing, I probably would have been mistaken for an amoeba washed up from a prehistoric swamp. Perhaps Fred and Wilma may have found me of some use (see my post on them of 4 June).

I really missed my running friends too. They're more wiser than me. The conditions and common sense suggested I probably should have given this run a miss, and that was certainly what I was telling myself before I started the run sitting in my nice warm car.

Yet to make it to the top of Mt Taylor in those conditions was something special, a little tonic for the spirit. And I couldn't afford to miss a run with the City to Surf only a few weeks away. I felt I just had to do the run.

"The Rocks"

2006-07-09T10:43:00.000+10:00

A few of us from my Saturday running group set off this morning to tackle Cooleman Ridge, on Canberra's south western outskirts (see Google Earth image at left below). It's a nice run along tracks and trails. It's not especially hilly but does have scenic views across the Murrumbidgee corridor to the Brindabellas to the west or, looking east, to the Woden Valley seen here covered in fog this morning at right.

That's us at the start (L-R), Ben, Kevin, Maria, Bernie, Michelle, Natasha and Leah. It was a fairly typical Canberra morning for this time of year, foggy, frosty, and cold. Temperature minus 2.

Like all of our group outings, it was a very pleasant run with ample opportunity to chat and take in the scenery. The only moment of controversy came when the group split. Michelle and I, the hill hounds, took a slightly different and hillier diversion at one point. The others chose to take a more direct and lower path.

We believed we had taken the authentic route; the others begged to differ.

The key sticking point had been the location of some “rocks”. Just turn right at “the rocks”, we had been told. Michelle and I thought we had found the correct rocks and turned right accordingly, believing the rest of the group to be not far behind. But we were shocked to soon see our other friends low and to the right ahead of us. They had found “their” own different rocks and taken the shorter and easier route.

There’s a word to describe what some might say our friends had done – it has two syllables with the first syllable sounding like meat and the second sounding like ring. If you can work out what that word is you can get an idea of what they had achieved (Of course, I would never use such a word myself!). Anyway, adjudication at the post-run coffee sorted differences of interpretation when it came to the signage for this run. Personally, I would have liked a little more clarity at just which rocks the turn should have been made. Either that or we undertake geology lessons before the next run here. That's Maria our dear leader at left. Is she pretending to be an out-of-season Easter Bunny....or a kangaroo? Maria, please explain!

Father's pride!

2006-07-02T12:37:00.000+10:00

Fathers' can be foregiven for showing off their pride and joy in their children every now and again. I'm always sensitive to their privacy and I don't talk about them too much. But I do have to say something today.

One other member of the family is showing an aptitude and interest in running and that is my daugther, Alana. She's not necessarily the quickest runner in her group, nor the one with the greatest endurance. She is, however, improving all the time and is developing a beautiful, coordinated running style. She looks the real thing, even if the results might not show it - yet.

She won the mini-jog section of the ACT Cross Country Club's monthly Women's and Girls' Jogalong today for the little ones over 1.5 km. This may not be the Olympics or the national titles, or even state or school titles.

But in her own way, it was her own little triumph.

The joy on her face today was matched only by the joy I have seen on her face when she is out there every Saturday with her Little Athletics club, when she gets beaten by others but smiles anyway, because - well - that Alana's nature and she loves being with her friends.

Well done my little darling, well done.

'Tour de Mountain'

2006-07-01T12:49:00.000+10:00

I've mentioned my Saturday running group many times and there they are (I took two shots from different directions to try and get everyone in). They're not phantoms they really do exist.

Friendships exist for many reasons but the friendships that take shape out of a common passion or cause I think are something particularly special. While the rest of the world is asleep there is my group up and adam on a Saturday morning in the cold and dark doing battle with the elements. It's maybe a little hard to begin with but then there are wonderful views to be had from those hills around Canberra, the carpets of mist lying dormant across the lower ground, the sun rising over it all and then us, out of breath, panting hard to get to the top of the peak. I wouldn't miss it for the world.

I am not critical of the media focus on elite sport. They have to talk about something. But beyond the headlines there are ordinary people like those in my Saturday group who perhaps won't make the headlines and don't want to. Yet when it comes to their approach to running and fitness many of them have their own stories to tell; stories of overcoming adversity and difficulty; stories of personal triumph and victory. Why doesn't the world hear these stories? They are my heroes.

When I took these photos we had just finished an especially challenging course called 'Tour de Mountain'. The run starts at Canberra's Southlands shopping centre, takes in the peaks of Isaacs ridge, followed by the Wanniassa hills then, just when our glutes, quads (just ask Natasha's!) and brains are crying murder, we finish off with the grand finale of up and over Mt Taylor before arriving back at the shops. It's about a 19k, two hour effort in all and its tough not matter what the calibre of the runner. It's also great fun and I enjoyed it enormously.

Climb every mountain, search high and low
Follow every by way, every path you know
Climb every mountain, ford every stream
Follow every rainbow, till you find your dream

(Lyrics from the song, Climb every Mountain, "The Sound of Music")

Get well Peter

2006-06-25T13:36:00.000+10:00

Peter, one of the much loved members of our Saturday running group, recently found himself in a spot of bother with a serious illness requiring urgent surgery. That's him, at left, when a few of us dropped in on him in Canberra's National Capital Private Hospital over the weekend. Unfortunately, the battle is not over for him and he will need to undergo a second round of surgery in coming weeks.

But it was just fantastic for us to see Peter looking so well. The consensus is that hospital food or an enforced lay off from running is doing him much good.

Peter, and others like him, are the heart and soul of various running groups in Canberra. He gives much and expects little in return. He makes others feel special. For me personally, it's the spirit in people like Peter that make participation in our wonderful sport such a gift.

Peter our thoughts and prayers are with you. The running calendar ahead is a busy one and you will be part of it before you know it. We love you. We want to see you back with us soon on the road, track, or trail.

"Utter, utter bastards"

2006-06-25T06:19:00.000+10:00

Our Saturday running group set off to tackle the delights of the "Two Mountains" run on Saturday. It's a long undulating run up and over Isaacs ridge then across to the Wanniassa hills area for a few more 'up and overs' before finishing at the Athllon Drive start - about 16k in all. The higher parts of the run took place in reasonably heavy fog - a bit like a gallop across brooke and dale in 'ole England' - except this was along the tracks and trails in the southern suburbs of Canberra early one June Saturday morning. That's Michelle, at left, a member of our group, coming down off one of the peaks and about to head off into the gloop again.

It was a fabulous run and we all came back on a typical high. It was short lived, however, when we discovered that four of our cars had been burgled while we were out on the run. In all cases, side windows had been obliterated and wallets, bags, etc, stolen. As several of my posts have highlighted, my Saturday running group is something special. After such a beaut run it was very dispiriting to see the faces of each member of the 'family' as they came in feeling great but then having to see what had happened to their cars. Referring to the perpetrators, one member of our group said it best: "what utter, utter bastards".

European dream

2006-06-17T17:35:00.000+10:00

Is this a dream....certainly feels like a dream? I should be in Canberra doing routine things, heading off to work, dealing with family duties and all the rough and tumble of the daily grind.

But here I was sitting in a great little cafe beside Lake Geneva sipping a very nice Swiss beer enjoying the delights of a long twilight under this very warm European summer. There was sound of the birds and the bees, the smell of freshly cut lawns, and fragrances from gardens in bloom. This was bliss! Santa didn't give me that exta day in Vienna but he gave it to me in Geneva instead.

I'm back home now, still a little jet lagged and reminiscing about my great few days in Europe last week. (That's me at left at the Heldenplatz in Vienna. The Heldenplatz is famous for many things, although infamous too for an address that Hitler gave to sychophantic masses from that balcony behind me in 1938.)

I had my last run in Europe last Friday in Geneva from my hotel down to Lake Geneva, along its edge to the historic old section of the city. It was just on sunrise and I took the snap below to make a great shot of the sun coming up over the lake. One of the problems I faced in running in these places was having to stop every ten minutes to take a photo, given the wonderful scenery.

Not for one minute do I forget the many blessings I have had in my life. I have travelled a great deal over the years (this is my third trip to Europe) have met many, many wonderful people and seen some fantastic things from Africa, to the Middle East, to Europe, to North America, to Asia. Not least there has been my running, which I have been fortunate enough to do in most of these places.

I have got much reading of blogs to catch up on and my apologies for taking so long to get organised.

Vienna day 2

2006-06-15T16:29:00.000+10:00

My second day in Vienna and another glorious one. I was out on the road early for another run under more warm European blue skies. I ran from my hotel to all the usual touristy spots in this wonderful city. First stop was the Heldnplatz, followed by short flybys of several museums and churches. History lingers in the air here and I came across lots of signage to show off the city's age: Mozart lived here, Strauss studied here etc, etc. The city blooms class and my great sadness is that I am actually here to do work. The rest of the day will be taken up with meetings before I fly out to Geneva tonight. Pleasa Santa just one more day here....

Thanks everyone for your comments. Yes, Tesso, have come across some Austrian chokolat and yes, Friar, I have also come across a few runners. I even tried to talk to a couple...I've got a couple of 'lost in translation' stories, which I will tell when I get a chance.

Next post from Geneva.

Vienna

2006-06-14T16:08:00.000+10:00

Have just arrived in the City of Mozart after a 20 hour flight from Canberra via Melbourne and Singapore. I was desperate for a run after all that and was out on the road within half an hour of getting to my hotel. I have just come back from it after mixing it with Vienna's morning peak hour traffic. This city is absolutely beautiful, the weather's great and I can't wait to get out for another run. Hard to believe I was running in Canberra's sub zero temps just yesterday. More to come!

Queen's birthday run

2006-06-12T14:00:00.000+10:00

Only time for a short post, after a busy last week and Queen's birthday weekend.

I had another lovely run with my Saturday group this morning, which as well as running Saturday also ran today. It was an invigorating morning for running with sub-zero temperatures, a crystal clear sky, and a lolly pop of a full moon settling down over a light dusting of snow on the Brindabellas. The conditions were just perfect for getting the juices flowing! We are blessed in Canberra with so many outlying tracks and trails and our run this morning took us through that type of territory around Canberra's Cooleman Ridge on the western fringe of town. I love these runs a great deal. There is no pressure on, noone's competitive, it's just a great group of people running at a comfortable pace, having a good time and a good chat. Next time I will have a camera to try and capture something of what we experienced this morning.

I fly out tomorrow for my work trip to Vienna and Geneva, where I am looking forward to getting in a few runs. My next posts will hopefully be later in the week from central Europe - if I can get access to a computer. Will be back home on Sunday.

Canberra today -3 to 7; forecast for Vienna 12 to 28.

My poem - FAQ

2006-06-04T15:42:00.000+10:00

Thank you everyone for the beautiful comments about my poem. I would like to respond to a couple of queries in the format of "Frequently Asked Questions", common to many web sites. Here goes.

Have you written poetry before? (Thanks Tesso) Yes, but a long time ago. I visited Gallipoli in the early eighties. I was so moved by the experience that I wrote a poem about it. I have read that poem at Anzac Day ceremonies a few times over the years to good feedback but have done nothing since. I will only really write the stuff when I feel inspired to do so and I don’t know when my next bit of poetry will emerge.

Where did the photo come from, it seems so appropriate? (Thanks again Tesso) The picture – actually a water colour print – came from an interesting US web site: http://www.runnerart.com/

Are there subliminal messages in the poem? You bet! The Da Vinci Code it is not but, yes, there are some underlying messages I was trying to convey – the sensory and the sensual. All runners know how great it is to in the big outdoors letting nature engage our senses. There is something special about being out in the fresh air experiencing a beautiful sunrise, or sunset, or some other aspect of nature. This sensory side to running – the way our senses are jangled into action through running - is for me one of the most enjoyable facets of this great sport of ours.

But there is also the sensual side.

And it goes back a long way. Think of our ancestors in some dank, dark cave in the middle of winter. There is the male protector/provider, the alpha male at the high order end of the primate species – we’ll call him Fred. Also in that cave, is the female of the species, tending to home and hearth – we’ll call her Wilma. One morning Fred awakes and says: “Me good husband…me need to go catch wildebeest for breakfast…..Need to make Wilma happy”. So Fred trundles out of the cave, spear in right hand, Ipod strapped to left arm, and wearing his best pair of Nike Neanderthal running shoes.

Now Fred is no fool. He knows that to catch that wildebeest he needs to run damn fast. So fast in fact and for so long that the experience triggers all kinds of chemical processes in his body. After a while, wildebeest in hand, he feels the beaut endorphin and adrenaline rush that all us runners feel. Now Fred really likes that feeling. It’s such a feeling that Fred thinks, “Mmm….me feel good…..me feel real good…..must go back to cave and put smile on Wilma’s face.” And so he does. Off he goes and he and Wilma have a good roll around in the cave. Wilma has a smile on her face for the rest of the day. While the historic DNA research is not necessarily clear on this point, had Fred not gone hunting, or running, or rolling with Wilma on that day so long ago, we -the descendents - might not be here now reading about it.

It’s no surprise that researchers tell us that the feelings of well being that we experience after a run are due to the release of those same endorphins that make us feel good after sex. So running and sex have a common chemical link. It was my awareness of this that I sought to convey in a nuanced way by talking about the sensuality of running in my poem. Hence the references to being seduced, teased, or whatever by Lady Nature…”a Lover’s Delight”! Sex is such a beautiful thing, but so is running. I am sure Fred and Wlima would have agreed!

Poetry in Motion

2006-05-29T21:43:00.000+10:00

Okay, I'm going to try something different for this post...a little poetry. The words are all mine, inspired by the beauty of some of our recent group runs in Canberra.

Autumn Morn', a Runner's Dream

To run is to live, a Lover’s delight
At dawn, with the sun and morning’s first light
Friends hear the call during the frost coloured Fall
Amid the tint and the texture of leaves that enthral

It’s love at first sight, this runner’s dream
Of a long and lone road, across valley and stream
Back to Nature most virgin, our souls running high
She’s a beauty this morning gal, our hearts just sigh

And then there’s the breeze, Nature’s breadth as a truce
Her sweet and svelte touch, a ruse to seduce
She consorts with our senses, “Oh Nature you’re a tease”
“Run, run” she whispers, playing us with ease

The friends in our group, some run and some walk
We’re all a little different, but we all like to talk
What bliss, what joy, what indescribable glee
To run, at one, with Lady Nature most free

Tuggeranong Don
© 2006

What's next?

2006-05-26T18:32:00.000+10:00

I had another nice run with my Saturday running group this morning. It was about a 16k effort from Mt Taylor to Oakey Hill and return, along gravel roads and tracks. It was good to get out with the group as I had been feeling off-colour and run-down since last Sunday's SMH half. I was certainly feeling a bit fragile before the run and only wanted to take things very, very slow. But just being with my friends in the fresh air was a great tonic for clearing the cobwebs. I really needed the run.

Since I started with the group earlier in the year, the Saturday runs have become very important to me. After being a solo runner for a lot of my running career, I find the social side to running fantastic. It's not only a way to meet new friends who share the passion, it also makes me a better runner. Like so many runners, my Saturday group are a great bunch, always supportive and friendly. I treasure my time with them.

Jorex, Eddie, Portrunr, and 2p have all asked me what's next on the running agenda and actually it is a good question.

The Boston Marathon, April 2007 is my main goal, albeit still a long-range one. With my 3.16 at the recent Canberra Marathon I achieved an age qualifying time for Boston. I am determined to be there in Massachusetts on Patriot's Day next year. The Boston Marathon first caught my imagination after reading Jim Fixx's classic, The Complete Book of Running. I first read that book well over twenty years ago and have ever since been fired with the dream of running there. I visited Boston in September last year during our family holiday and liked what I saw. I want to go back.

In the immediate future, I've got a series of races coming up: the off-road half-marathon (1 July), ACT Cross Country Championships (22 July), Bush Capital Marathon (29 July), Vets Half marathon in August, the Sydney City to Surf in August, and the Canberra Times fun run in September. One exciting feature is an almost-confirmed trip to Europe for work in mid-June. I am kinda cherishing the thought of running in Switzerland and Austria in a few weeks. Hope it comes off.

Sydney Half Marathon

2006-05-21T11:17:00.000+10:00

Just finished my third SMH Half. I came in with a 93.00, which is not a PB and not even close. It is, however, my fastest half marathon for a year and I'm happy. I had limited prep and next to no speed work since the Canberra Marathon five weeks ago.

I paid the price for dithering too much with the first 10k, going out in a very ordinary 45.30. But I did a satisfying negative split to come home with a 43, for the second 10k. I felt strong throughout and my hill work paid off with Hunter and Argyle Streets posing no fears for me this time. As always, my pacing needs work.

As usual a great atmosphere out on the course. Despite predictions to the contrary, the weather, too, behaved itself. A lovely pleasant sunny morning greeted the runners. The SMH Half could learn from other races and introduce the Jackel drink sachets that are now appearing. Cups are ancient history I think. I also have queries over the distance markers, they are hard see and I am not sure of their accuracy.

I had the special pleasure to have a pre-race dinner with the famous Lucky Legs, along with Ewen and Bruce. It was a very nice evening and great to compare our various running experiences.

Overall, race wise, a good day but not a great one. Enjoyable nonetheless.

Canberra Half Marathon

2006-05-14T20:55:00.000+10:00

It's been a hectic week to date and finally I've got a chance to post my report on Sunday's Canberra Half Marathon.

Sunday was a beaut day, perfect for kindred spirits to get out and do their thing. I am tempted to say it was another one of those 'great to be alive' days but all of Canberra's days are like that for runners. The day opened with a beautiful blue sky, no wind, and a little morning mist rising from Lake Burley Griffin. The autumn leaves were everywhere, multi-coloured rose pedals that us runners would soon be sending into little eddies as we trounced and shuffled along on the bike track around the lake. Even the ducks that I noticed in Lotus Bay near the start seemed to be in duck heaven. Their cute paddles stirred the water just enough to break the trance the water seemed caught in. Ah Mother Nature, you've done it again.

Watching Mother Nature was all very nice but it was not what I was here for. My main goal for the Canberra half was simply to get in a training run as I prepared for one of my favourite races, the SMH half in Sydney on Sunday. As it was a training run, I was not going to bust a gut. I decided, instead, to do what others have done for me over the years and that was to be a pacer and supporter for one of my running friends, Michelle. She had a tremendous race. In only her second half marathon she took five minutes off her PB to do a sub-1.50 finish. She showed great restraint in the early stages, not going out too hard. She then maintained a good consistent pace throughout to finish strongly in a sprint. I ran beside her the whole way and it was great to see her run well. I remembered what Horrie and Speedy Geoff had said on the pleasure they had received after they helped their friends achieve their goals in similar situations during the Canberra Marathon.

Running with Michelle in the Canberra half gave a new dimension to my running. Previously I had only to think of myself. Now I had to think of someone else's running needs, and helping them achieve their goals gave me enormous satisfaction. Congratulations Michelle on a wonderful run.

It was great to catch up with Speedy Geoff, Griffin, Maria and Jim, Natasha and Oliver, Aki, Jen and Julien, Marg, Peter, Neil and Kerry. My virtual friends, you too were there in spirit.

The run itself was very well organised and it is a credit to all those involved. The supporters too, were fantastic. They seemed to be everywhere, including one lady I noticed who literally was just about everywhere. It was almost as if she had levitated from one spot to another, as I didn't see any visible form of locomotion. A bit freaky, but nice just the same. Then there was the toddler we saw with the bare bum. She definately wasn't levitating but was waddling around like the ducks I saw earlier. She was almost stripped down to the core essentials, the way Nature meant it to be. Apparently oblivious to the temperature still in single digits, she too was a kindred spirit in her own little way.

Next report: Sydney Morning Herald Half Marathon.

I'm in China

2006-05-12T22:16:00.000+10:00

I'm in China!

It's hard to believe that less than a week ago I was running with my Saturday group in the cold at the Cotter. Today, I finished my second run along the streets of Beijing in the world's most populous country. It's just a short work trip. I flew up on Wednesday and arrive back in Canberra on Saturday after the red eye special from Beijing, via Sydney. To complete the surreal experience, I will be running in the Canberra half on Sunday.

My two runs in Beijing were along the broad avenues of this massive city, amid the multitudes, bikes, cars, taxis and the city's smog.

Ah the smog!

I don't know what I have been breathing in since I arrived. My throat certainly feels a little gritty. I read in one of the newspapers that the air is especially bad at present because of dust storms in Mongolia. That's Genghis Khan territory. Think I will blame him for the way my throat feels.

I was talking to some Beijing-based diplomats about Beijing's bad air and my early morning run here. Of course, they had their horror stories. One told me about a friend who was zotted off to hospital with some severely polluted lungs. They said he must be a smoker; he said no, he had simply been gulping in the crappy air during his morning run. I felt the grit in my gob get a bit lumpier when I heard this! I also noticed some dirty blobs on my running shirt and shorts. This was a bit strange as I don't remember running through any puddles. I was told I probably didn't. The little dirt bombs more likely came down with the light rain that fell during my run. Umm....thanks. Are they really going to hold the Olympics in this place??

Still, life's too short to get hung up over Beijing air. I was really pleased with the two runs that I did in this place. I felt strong and relaxed and enjoyed the jaunts. Beijing's streets are very flat, with never a hill to be seen. I tried to get the heart rate going by running the rise to a pedestrian overpass. I also had some fun stepping down off the footpath and mixing it with the bicycle riders. Must have been a million or so of them on this particular street. I'm sure they thought they were seeing things, this tall white guy - with a gritty throat - amid a cocophony of wheels and other moving things. I got a real buzz when I outran one lady on her bike. She tried to keep up, but I was too quick. Yeeha! I got some really strange looks for doing that. (I'm modest, REALLY! I do try and keep my competitive instincts in check. I just can't help it sometimes).

Think I have some new visualisation techniques to try out during my run on Sunday. I will imagine all the runners are little old Chinese ladies peddling furiously on their bikes, trying to keep up with this mad white barbarian! (I've enclosed a picture of that mad white barbarian just after he had finished this run).

The Age of Aquarius

2006-05-06T13:07:00.000+10:00

I experienced something supreme with my Saturday running group this morning. It was one of those runs you just wanted to bottle, mark 'vintage', and place on your top shelf - rarely if ever to be opened.

Picture this. We all assembled before dawn in the car park of Canberra's Cotter Reserve, alongside the creek by the same name. It was cold, and the temeperature hovered around zero. I think we all felt like race horses. We were standing there in the dark, bouncing around, waiting for the call up for the first at Flemington. It was simply a pumping morning for running.

The task: a roughly 20k, 2 hour jaunt along gravel roads, up and down hills (big ones too!) and gullies, across creeks, around bends, and over fences. To Canberra's west and badly damaged by the 2003 fires, the area is a Canberra Mecca for distance runners. It's huge. From the air (as Google Earth also shows) it is a maze of crossing tracks, paths, and roads. It's the classic out and back course and never once would we have to retrace our steps.

The fresh chill air does wonders for the soul and a few k's into the run - and several of us had never done it before - we realised this was going to be something special. High into the hills, we all experienced a magnificant sun rise. There it was, this fantastic golden disk throwing shadows across the hills and gullies. There were blankets of fog in those gullies and we were above it all, watching nature come alive. It felt like we were at the dawn of creation and I thought of the funky hit song Aquarius from the 1970s muscial "Hair". Who remembers the lyrics?

This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius
The age of Aquarius
Aquarius! Aquarius!

As our hearts go beating through the night
We dance unto the dawn of day
To be the bearers of the water
Our light will lead the way

We are the spirit of the age of Aquarius
The age of Aquarius
Aquarius! Aquarius!

We had started this run virtually in the dark....I felt our hearts did go beating through the night.....we were doing our own special dance unto the dawn of the day....bearers of the way....with our light (the Sun) leading the way. At least this is the way it seemed to me this morning. And I promise, I wasn't smoking anything strange and the only thing I had had to drink was a swig of Gatorade shortly before the run started!

Are we an arrogant lot, we runners? There's a passage from Tom Wolf's book The Right Stuff where he talks about the fighter pilot's massive ego when he/she looks down from high on all those below:

How can all of them down there, those poor souls who will soon be waking up and trudging out of their minute rectangles and inching along their noodle highways toward whatever slots and grooves make up their everyday lives-how could they live like that...if they had the faintest idea of what it was like up here in this righteous zone?

Yes, exactly! How could they?

And yet it's not the fighter pilot saying that, it's me, the runner. How could 'they' - those in their slumber sleeping off last night's indulgences - not know the indescrible joy of being healthy, fit, and free. Being at one with the sights, smells, and texture of nature. Being on her turf, on her terms, seeing day replace night, seeing the same sun replace the same moon that our ancestors first saw when they climbed down from the trees...and yes, say it...started to run...and I think too, started to run for fun.

But back to the future, and us in the early dawn at the Cotter, sharing the spirit. This is what made the morning so special. We were runners and walkers of varying ages and gender, and of different standards. In my little group we had the injured Linda leading the way on her bike. There was Elle with her relaxed and efficient running style, working back into things after the Canberra Marathon. There was Michelle and Natasha, both looking great preparing for the Canberra Half Marathon in a week's time. And there was Leah and Emma, both looking superbly fit, with beautiful relaxed styles. Finally, there was me, simply trying to keep up. We ran, we walked, we talked. We had fun. Later we caught up with the rest of the group for breakfast. Very nice. Maria, thank you so much for bringing us together to experience all this.

Is this the dawning of a New Age? Is this the Age of Aquarius? For runners, does it get any better than this?

Unwrapping the dork

2006-05-02T21:59:00.000+10:00

Lucky Legs asked me what a dork is. Well I checked with dictionary.com and was surprised to find a listing. I found out that a dork was a silly, foolish, or inept person. I certainly felt like that after my weather forcasting efforts last Saturday.

Responding to my post on creative running Tesso asked if I started running when I resided in southern Africa. In fact, that is exactely the way I started. In 2000, I was in the third year of my three year diplomatic posting, in Zimbabwe to be precise. In September of that year, a very home sick Tuggeranong Don watched the Sydney Olympics on South African cable television and felt very uncomfortable. There was me: in excess of 90kgs, a sloth who breathed hard just thinking about exercise. There was them: these incredibly fit, superbly toned athletes, who seemed to epitomise perfection in the human form. Yet we are really all the same aren't we? Why can't I be like them?

And so it began.

One step at a time, one kilometre at a time, I started running. At first all I could manage was a short 2km puff, nothing more than that. But I kept going. The next day I pushed a little further, and then a little further the next, and so on. I had tried running before but no matter how hard I tried my efforts seemed to fail amid lack of motivation, injury or illness. This time, however, I introduced my two golden rules of running. Rule one is I never run on Mondays. Rule two is I never run the same course for two days in a row. I would always run a different route for each day of the week. Five and a half years on, these rules remain central to my running creed. I am not sure why these rules worked; perhaps it has something to do with variety being the spice of life. I don't know why; I just know it worked for me.

Anyway, nine months after taking up running at the age of 40 I had reduced my weight from 90 kgs to 64 kgs and was back home in Australia preparing to race in my first half marathon. In October 2000 soon after I started running I entered in a 10k race and my flat out best time for it was 59mins. Nine and a half months later as a much trimmer and fitter Tuggeranong Don I had lowered my 10k PB by almost twenty minutes to 41.30 (it is currently 40.09).

At an age when many guys are confronting widening girths and mid-life crisises I was becoming reborn. Aside from family issues, this was the most exciting thing to happen to me in my life. The angels started singing, manna came down from heaven, and the trumpets heralded my metamorphisis. This was my moment. I had arrived. I was a runner.

The dork!

2006-04-29T18:59:00.000+10:00

I did a another pleasant 16-17km run with my Saturday running group this morning along Isaacs ridge. Although not renowned for famous last words, I made the mistake of saying the rain had more or less finished early into our run. Result: low cloud and fog rolled in bringing more rain with it. Outcome: we all finished the run soggy, cold, and wet and me looking like a dork!

Creative Running

2006-04-28T20:52:00.000+10:00

I lived in Africa for three years and I recently came across an old South African edition of Runner's World when I was cleaning my study. There was a great article in it about the mental approach to running. While running to me is among my greatest joys, there is the odd time it becomes a chore. When it does I can draw strength from these pearls of wisdom:

Train creatively
Consider your running as a gift that you give to yourself. Make each bout of training and your races adventures that you look forward to.
Be light and playful with your running. Be grateful for each run as opposed to being fretful when a run does not turn out as you had wanted it to.
Always realise that your running is voluntary and therefore chosen, and if it is chosen it is what you wanted.
When you look for fitness, or speed, or strength, or endurance, what you are really looking for is joy. The mistake you make is to not go for happiness first. If you did, all the rest would follow.

Is the cat a saint after all?

2006-04-25T19:41:00.000+10:00

I had another lovely run this afternoon, which I enjoyed. Did 10k's from home into Tuggeranong and return for just on 50mins. I know runners can suffer from a case of the post-marathon blues. I can honestly say this doesn't seem to have happened to me this time. Perhaps I can thank the cat for this. My cat-induced back injury (see below) forced me off my feet, even though I was just raring to get back out running. This was in retrospect a good thing as it kept from getting over-motivated as a result of my post-marathon high. The fact that I am back on the road and injury free is enough now to make me feel good about my running. Not time for speed work yet, though. I will leave the hard-core stuff for another week or so.

What happened to summer!

2006-04-22T20:20:00.000+10:00

It was minus 4 degrees in Canberra this morning. What's happened to summer? It was a cold start and running could be tough in these conditions. Yet I had the most delightful run with my Saturday running group. We were all cold at the start and I couldn't stop shaking. I just wanted to start the run; anything to warm up. When we did get going it didn't take long for my blood-bourne central heating system to kick in, especially when putting in effort to handle the hills. And there was a lot of them on our 17km+ run around the ridge at Isaacs. It is mornings like this that make it so great to be alive - just to be running with friends, the intoxicating air, frost on the ground, fog patches here and there, and another cystal clear day emerging. My post-Canberra Marathon recovery continues. So far, so good.

On the road again

2006-04-20T14:04:00.000+10:00

Am staying with friends in Sydney at Tempe near the airport. Back is still a little sore and tight but I am back running. Went for nice run along the banks of the Cooks River To Dulwich Hill and return this morning for about 7-8 kms. Pulled up fine. Will try something a little longer tomorrow, perhaps to the airport and Botany Bay.

The Cat!

2006-04-17T14:28:00.000+10:00

I couldn't have been happier with my post-Canberra marathon recovery - that is until Friday. The soreness had evaporated and I was injury free. But just as I was warming up for my first run after the race, I hurt my back chasing the family cat. Three days later I still have a sore back and can't run. Not a happy Tuggeranong Don! The cat and I need to have a serious discussion about the important things in life.

Hands-on-House Half Marathon, Pennsylvania, 1.10.05

2006-04-14T18:48:00.000+10:00

Hands-on-House Half Marathon, Pennsylvania, 1.10.05
Originally uploaded by Canberra Smiths.

Me running through a covered bridge during a half marathon in Lancaster county (just to the north of the city) Pennsylvania, USA.

It had been a life-long dream for me to race in America and I finally got the chance during our family holiday to the US last year. The Lancaster half-marathon was a good one to pick. It took place in rural Pennsylvania among corn fields and Amish farms about 15 minutes drive to the north of the city of Lancaster. Peter Weir's 1985 movie "Witness" was filmed not far from where the run took place and the movie will give you an idea of the area's topgraphy. A really beautiful part of the USA.

Canberra Marathon 2006 - my report

2006-04-11T15:15:00.000+10:00

Absolutely sensational day and I really loved it out there. I came in with a 3.16.30, which is a couple of minutes outside of my debut PB three years ago but I couldn't be happier (today is only my second Marathon).

I had had a disrupted preparation with injuries over Christimas. Things started to come together a few weeks ago and today at the start I felt mentally and physically great. The cold start helped too, as did, as always, the wonderful volunteers and supporters. For a middle of the pack runner your cheers meant so much to me.

I continued to feel great throughout the run and had to continually hold myself back. I was aiming for 4.45 km splits for a 3.20 finish but found I kept running about 4.35-4.40 splits. The carbo loading worked a treat and I didn't deplete until I hit the 38km mark. The last 10k was the fastest part of the run for me and I still couldn't believe how great I felt and how quickly the kms passed by. If only I could repeat this feeling all the time. The best thing for me personally was to run an age group (45) qualifying time for the Boston Marathon, which I hope to run next year. I had clearly learnt the lessons from the mistakes I made in my one and only previous marathon in 2003. Yet I have still got so much to learn about this marathon stuff.

Congratulations to so many others who were there today. I loved catching up with everyone, from those in my ACT Vets club, my Saturday running group, to those from Sydney, and those from the Brisbane contingent that I met. You are all very special to me. The fraternity of runners is a wonderful thing!

Canberra Marathon 2006 - some thoughts

2006-04-11T15:11:00.000+10:00

I posted earlier but am still on my post-marathon high and the inspiring, wonderful stories of other cool runners have prompted me to share some more thoughts. I've got a lovely chardonnay in front of me, Chicago's "Please don't go" is playing on iTunes...I've got to get something off my chest....and here it goes...

It struck me reading all the stories that there was a lot of special things happening out on the road. Each of us faced our own challenges and demons; each of us had to stare down the nightmares and phobias that confront us humans as we seek to challenge .....what?....nothing less than our own limitations.

From the magnificance of Lucky Legs to Crabby's (Anne) tears; from Horrie's generosity to Clairie's fantastic debut, to Tesso's great sense and restraint to pull out when it must have been so tempting to go just a little bit further. Then there was Colin McLeod with his 3.04 at the age of 70+ and Trevor Jacobs at 54 with his incredible 2.47 (how do they do it!). There are just so many stories here, everyone of them worthy additions to the running Hall of Fame.

And to top it all there were all those magnificant supporters, so postive and encouraging that you just wanted to wrap your arms around them - most of them you had never met and were never likely to. Yet, on the day, they were our best friends. Courage, guts, glory, pain, fear, fatigue, passion, sorrow, excellence, disappointment, euphoria - all made an appearance. I think only Shakespeare could have invented better drama.

But were was the media? Where was Sixty Minutes, always so keen on its human interest story full of overwrought pathos? Where was the great novelist or poet to put down in print the emotions, the tensions, the soaring spirit so evident on the day? The Canberra Times to its credit did have some coverage of the event in its Monday edition. But why are the papers and electronic media so full of absolute twaddle concerning the mind numbing trivia of some footballer here, a footballer there, and so on.

We can all be so proud of what we did on Sunday. Isn't it bloody time the rest of the world noticed? Why weren't they there at Telopea Park on a beautiful autumn morning in April to see the best of humanity on show; to see ordinary people - you and I - do extroadinary things?

Thank God that we at least have Coolrunning.com.au to listen to us.

Hands-on-House Half Marathon, Lancaster Pennslyvania 1 October 2005

2006-04-11T08:51:00.000+10:00

Phew....glad that's over! That's me finishing the Hands-on-House half marathon in the USA in October 2005. I had a very disrupted preparation, which resulted in a very slow time. I still had a ball though - great course, great atmosphere and how many calls of "Good job, guy"' did I hear?

Back into the groove

2005-06-14T06:36:00.000+10:00

My plantar fasciitis injury seems to have a mind of its own. Most days it doesn't cause me too much grief but on other days, even when I am well rested, I can feel the damn thing. It's more a niggle and a pest but I can do without it. I had a good run this mornning - about 7 to 8km of 1 minute fartlek bursts with 45 second recoveries.

Back on the road

2005-05-28T10:04:00.000+10:00

Hooray, I am back on the road! I woke up this morning with my right foot still feeling sore. But to hell with it. I went for a run anyway. I did about 8 ks and hardly felt any discomfort. It's only when I stop and walk and only when the foot is cold that I really feel a problem. I suppose that is typical of plantar fasciitis. I hate injuries and I have been feeling irritable at not being able to go for a run. I feel better that I did get out today and fully intend to get out tomorrow. I will need to work hard to manage this injury, though. The calf stretching seems to help as does the icing.

Oh no!

2005-05-25T06:09:00.000+10:00

My post SMH-half glow is starting to fade as I have come down with an injury. My right foot, just forward of the heel is sore and tender. Feels like a case of plantar fascitis.

Saw my results in the SMH yesterday: 485th, net time 90.36; gun time 91.56.

2005 SMH Half Marathon - a reflection

2005-05-25T06:07:00.000+10:00

There's something spiritual about the Sydney Morning Herald Half Marathon. After all, it's held early on a Sunday and then there is the buzz of anticipation of runners at the start - runners at prayer.

I finished the SMH half and no PB. In fact, I didn't even break 90mins, which is a little disappointing to me (90.33). But I have still taken a lot of positives out of this race.

I was aiming for 4.15 pace but got thrown out by the 1 km marker that was clearly too short. I then missed the 2 k marker. I didn't establish my pace until the 3 k marker and was shocked to find that I was about one minute off the pace. I worked hard to try and get back on pace and my 1k splits were all over the place from couple of 3.50s to a few 4.20s - it was not very tidy (I question the accuracy of a lot of the markers). At the half waypoint, I was feeling low and by 14 k's I was stuffed and was struggling. The second time up Hunter St hurt badly. I saw some guy wandering off to the St John's Ambulance on the approach to Fleet Steps and I felt like doing the same thing myself. Perhaps a funeral home might have been more appropriate.

But I told myself to stay focussed and I dug deep. I was really, really pleased at the way I got back into the groove and I was running beautifully over the last 4-5 kms. I am uncertain of my km splits but I am confident I was doing 4min per k or a bit below from about 17 kms on. I was on a charge going down Kent St and took off down the slope from Napoleon St for the run home and I finished with a big kick. I probably did a 3.45 or thereabouts for the last km. Unfortunately, the damage had been done early on and I couldn't make up the gap - so 1.30.33 it will be for this year.

As the saying goes, is the glass half full or half empty? I badly wanted a sub-90 but it was not to be, not yet anyway. I turned 44 just over a week ago but I do really believe that my best running is yet to come. I have worked hard on so many elements of my running. Now I need to put it all together. It will come with patience and more hard work.

Yes, the glass is half full, that's what gives me satisfaction. Five years ago I was 25 kgs heavier than what I am now. I could hardly run 1-2 k and was developing the classic middle age girth from too much good eating and too little exercise. In October 2000 my flat out best time for the 10k was 59 mins. Yet here I was five years down the track running in the SMH half marathon with all those fantastic runners on a beautiful day over the most scenic course imaginable in the greatest city in the world. It was days like today that I really do thank God for allowing me to be a runner. In fact I think God was a runner too. I love my family, love my running, and love my life. What more do I really need?

SMH Half Marathon

2005-05-22T21:02:00.000+10:00

Ran the SMH half today. What a day and what a race. One of those great to be alive days with with wonderful weather and beautiful scenery. I was a little disappointed with my time of 90.33 which was a couple of minutes outside my PB. But overall it wasn't a bad effort and I did finish very strongly.

I will have a couple of days off before going back to training.