Blasted Technology & Flashbacks

Walking to the train station after work today reminded me of something I wanted to blog about on Thursday afternoon and didn't get around to. Thursday afternoon, like this afternoon, saw the end of the work day arrive with me attempting to get a Government ID card from the city. Instead of walking back towards Central which is the opposite direction to the direction of going home I walked to South Bank.

To do so I had to walk through QUT Gardens Point Campus and across the Goodwill Bridge. Walking through my old Uni Campus on Thursday arvo was like walking into a dream. I hadn't been there since I left in 2001, or somewhere around then anyway, so it was a surreal experience. Memories came flooding back and seeing as my path through took me right past my old class buildings it was even more profound. Weird that I'd managed to dump from my active memory so many memories of that place, it wasn't that long ago after all. Was good to walk through again though and relive for a short time some of those memories.

The other blog worthy story of the day has got to be technology messing with me. Blasted stuff it is! :p

I decided, with original prompting from Bee, to go for a run. Normally what I've been doing is running for 12 minutes as suggested and following roughly the same path to see how far I could get in the same amount of time. Today I decided to go for 15 minutes and up the ante was it were and set a timer on my phone for 7 minutes 30 seconds.

The plan was to run in a new direction, just making up my route as I went along, and then turn around when the timer went off and go home. So off I went. After running for what seemed like forever I decided I needed to see why the timer hadn't gone off. Seemed silly old me had set a timer for 7 hours and 30 minutes and not 7 minutes 30 seconds like I planned!! Probably would have literally died if I ran for that long non stop before having to turn around and run back!!

Anyway when I checked it was about 13 minutes, yes only 2 minutes until I had planned on stopping, in and I was feeling ok. So I pushed on. In the end I ran for just over 21 minutes non stop and had to stop at the top of a mini hill as I was buggered. I walked shortly and then started jogging again until I hit another hill, got to the top and stopped. I forced myself to run another hill on the way home in amongst some walking. I was sweating like a trooper when I got home and according to Bee had quite a stink up ;)

God knows how much I would have stunk after running for 15 hours! :p

Weather changes and Training in the rain

Over the last week it's been like someone upstairs has suddenly remember it is supposed to be summer and flicked the temperature and humidity gauge right up. Then they decided they had to make up for lost ground and pushed it bit further up.

This summer up until about a week ago had been nothing like a classic Aussie summer. It was a lot cooler overall and on a couple of nights Bee & I were even reaching for a sheet or two. There were elements of the usual mugginess don't get me wrong but, by and large, it was a bearable summer... somewhat disappointing really for those of us who are fans of the summer weather.

Anyway as I said that is now all in the past. The last week has been very, very muggy and ridiculously hot. And, as is to be expected with consistent muggy, hot days it was bound to break with a good old fashioned thunderstorm. Guess what day and what time it decided to break this time? Yup about 17:10 on Thursday afternoon... I'd been home for approximately 5 minutes or so and was starting to think about getting ready for footy training and she broke.

Rain like we haven't seen a while was absolutely bucketing down. I was in my room getting changed out of my work clothes and I started to hear what sounded like maniacal laughter. I went back up to the lounge room and out the front door what do I see? A sopping wet, and I am talking completely saturated here, Bee running around dancing in the rain and laughing her head off. It was quite amusing actually, if only my adventures in the rain that day were quite as fun...

I attempted to call the coach to find out if training would be on or not but in the absence of success in that venture, and figuring they're AFL blokes who aren't a bunch of pansies, I got ready and headed down to the club. The rain had eased up to basically nil and I thought it would hold off for the training and it did... for a while. Even though it wasn't raining the fields were water clogged and doing laps in squelshy, soaked shoes and socks aint the most pleasant experience. A few poor souls wearing light coloured singlets/tank tops had tell tale mud splashes all down their backs from their feet, and others, flicking up wet dirt all over their backs.

Not long after the sprint & jog exercises, after the first lot of which I thought I was going to barf, it started to rain again. I think we'd all forgotten about it at this point as we were all pretty much wet anyway. I can tell you I think I did pretty well in the handball drills, in fact I think I did better than what I normally do in the dry!! During some of the kick drills later though I realised just how hard it is to catch a waterlogged piece of leather with your fingers up in front of you. You really gotta have hard hands behind it to knock it up and take it on the second grab or give up on proper technique altogether and go the chest mark.

Anyway as usual I felt good for going to training and even better because of how soaked and dirty I was. It somehow made it feel more rewarding as if I'd, like every training session so far, done something I'd never thought I could do. I'd again managed to push myself to that next level and I'm proud of myself for doing so.

Glorious Weekend

Well what a glorious weekend I've had this weekend. Nothing individually spectacular but overall it was an enjoyable, entertaining weekend.

Bee's brother Gavin has been staying with us for a few days and so we thought we should get out of the house on Saturday and do something as Bee & Gav have been cooped up inside most of the week. We headed over to Motorfocus, my diecast store where I managed to pick up a Russell Ingall model I didn't have. I love collecting these things and it is starting to become more of a passion for me than ever before.

Then we headed down the Coast for some putt putt. Bee took out a massive, early lead and people around the course must have been rapidly getting sick of me saying "She's sharking us... absolutely sharking us!!". At the halfway stage Bee was +2 for the course and had a lead of 5 shots over me and 7 over Gav... and that was only because towards the end of the front 9 Gav & I started getting it together. Unfortunately for Bee the back 9 was to become troublesome and in the end I scraped home victorious by 3 shots. Glorious weather to be down the coast but we were all thoroughly sweating by the time we'd finished, there was just no escaping the classic Aussie summer sun.

After returning home I had a dabble on ebay and snaffled a model I've been hunting for a very long time and had been watching all week. In the end got it for a reasonable price and with seconds to spare... there was some very furious bidding at the end and it's lucky I made it back in time from the coast to be there at the end!

Gav & I went out for some DVDs and returned to Brad & Lore being at our house discussing options with Bee for the night... so we headed over theirs for a swim and a night of movies and board games. All in all a thoroughly entertaining Saturday... physically picked up one model for my collection, won an auction for a very hard to find model for my collection, won putt putt, had a swim and played some games.

Today I woke up early to make my Twenty20 Cricket debut in a social comp down at the footy club. Even @ 08:30 when we were mucking around on the ground before play started it was ridiculously hot... it wasn't going to get better. I copped a cricket ball in the eye as it flicked off the stumps when I was doing some wicketkeeping but thankfully it didn't swell up too badly. We batted first and I got to go in @ #8 (we only had 8 with a couple of "repeat" batters) and thought for a while I wasn't going to get a bat. When I did I should have been given out golden duck stumped but I survived. I went on to score 12 runs not out from the few overs that were left.

With each side having only 8 players there were plenty of gaps so we were justifiably worried about defending a total of 130. But we did! I got to open the bowling and after getting a couple of balls tonked clean bowled a guy, taking the top of middle, with what I will call a gem. I took a catch in the field too so I feel I made some contribution.

The beauty of Twenty20 is it starts @ 9am and you're home just after midday. Sitting around for a bit after getting home then I got the call for a kick @ the footy club from Benny. So, for the second time today, I travelled there and had a kick with Benny, Dunc & Gav. Afterwards I was to return Brad's mobile to him, yet another example of why two friends who hang out heaps should never have the same phone, and I, in the process, invited us over for another swim.

So now here I sit, tired and worn out but content in what I did this weekend and the fun I had. Bee is cooking up some Bolognaise in the kitchen and it is wafting over me nicely as I sit here typing at the dining table... yum yum.... early to bed tonight for me but it was all worth it. As I said... a glorious weekend.

Blogging for the sake of blogging

Don't really have a theme or a point to tonight's blog entry. I am merely forcing myself to do so because if I don't I doubt I'll get to it for another couple of days. If you were to couple that with a lack of posting this week so far it'd be endangering me of being guilty of what I sledged Ben for... lack of blog content :)

Training has been good and tonight I feel happy with my accomplishments. Again tonight running was a majority of the agenda, and that's more than fair enough given how much you run in AFL. But I am also starting to enjoy a number of the skill drills which involve handballing and kicking. I am starting to concentrate and toward the end of tonight's session thought my skills had improved. Running is all fine and dandy but touching a footy and giving it a kick or a handball every now and then is enjoyable!

Personally I think tomorrow might be an interesting one as I can feel the tiredness in my legs and I don't think it is going to get better. Am going to have to do some stretches before bed, maybe in the morning and go for a nice short, relaxed run tomorrow to work the muscles out and ensure I don't cramp up too much.

With training two nights a week and dinner with Mum & Dad kicked off for the year my weeknights are getting full again. Which is good and bad. It's going to make the weeks go by faster and I won't feel like I'm in a rut as much but the downside is it means I get less time to spend with Bee. I think we might have to start what we had going a while ago and have a "couple night" every Friday or something.

Anyway I think it's time to me to have a bit of a relax and then it's off to bed for a good night's sleep. I didn't get one last night nor the night before so I've had two training sessions without a good nights sleep in between... hopefully tonight will be better!

Lazy Sunday...

... been a long time since I had one and while I can't say it feels good it was certainly relaxing. Apart from hanging out a couple of loads of washing the first time I stepped outside today was to go and get some Subway for dinner.

Did some washing, did lots of reading, watched some cricket and am now (am on a break while Bee is on the phone) watching Buffy before bed. After lots of running over the last week and a half and a couple of training sessions to look forward to I needed a restup. I did none of my desired weekend exercise but I will appreciate the rest I'm sure.

Hope everyone has had a decent weekend and is somewhat charged and prepared for the week ahead...

Survival

I feel like getting a T-shirt with "I survived a PreSeason Training Session" printed on it. I went last night, and more importantly, I survived.

There was an interesting assortment of activities at the session with the main emphasis being on running, and lots of it. There was also a lot of players turning up which even the coach intimated was a positive sign. I'd hazard a guess that there was roughly 35-40 players training which was pretty good to see.

It was obvious early, and more so later on, that the things I need to work on are the things I always knew I needed to work on. Primarily my stamina and increasing my ability to run for longer periods of time without stopping. I have been putting in some effort towards that and had thought I was making good progress, now I'm not so sure. When it comes to progress there is no doubt I have made some, it's now just an issue of it's still not enough. I guess deep down I knew it wouldn't be but I was kind of hoping to be able to make a better impression. I'll continue to strive at it and work at it though and I'm sure one day it'll be reasonable at least.

The other things I need to think about, and work at, are the other obvious requirements of AFL players. Speed and strength. I don't think I will ever be fast so I'm not deluding myself into that but I think a combination of losing a fair bit of weight and increasing leg muscle strength should help with speed. Strength will have to come through hard work, I don't think I want to join a gym as two nights a week of training and games etc will take up enough of my life as it is. I'll try to do more pushups, situps, dips, squats etc at home. Might buy a cheap weights kit for home or something...

Anyway I'm feeling surprisingly okay after last night, it certainly wasn't the "world of pain" I thought it would be... although I think that's not that far off. I'll continue to push myself hard during the training to get the most out of it and run/do other exercise in my own time to help out too. Maybe one day I'll even look like an AFL player and not just some bum in off the street!

Trepidation

Despite the fact I attended a fair few "training sessions" @ the AFL club I plan to play for this year last year prior to Christmas, I am today full of dread regarding tonight's training session. It's the first formal "preseason training" session of the year and I don't know what to expect... I think that is the cause of most of the trepidation.

The other training sessions were tough enough and I got the feeling they were more in the realm of "ensure everyone maintains some level of fitness during the off season" rather than "full on preseason training".

I've got this cold ball of fear in my gut right now that tonight is going to be a world of pain... only way to find out for sure and that's to show up... maybe I just shouldn't go ;)

Happy Belated Birthday Mum!

So Sunday was Mum's birthday and I am, only now, getting around to posting about it. Happy Birthday Mum!

We headed over to Kate's for a BBQ afternoon/evening and had a nice dinner. Kate's potato bake was incredibly yummy!!

Charlie as usual was the star of the show during the evening especially given he was having an outdoor bath while we all watched.



He really is an adorable little munchkin...


He had lots of Birthday hugs and play with his Nanny...


And then, as I said, we enjoyed a good feed...


All in all a nice relaxing night was had by all... I left absolutely falling asleep at about 21:30 but made it home safely :)

Back on the horse

After a few days off in a row (read: since the last time I posted about it) I went for a run again last night. I think two nights in a row of running last week, even though it was only a couple of kms each go, was a bit too much too soon. I was much sorer, as I posted, after the 2nd run and the next day a bit too. So I might try to take it a bit easier and not do so much "back to back" running.

Last night I ran the circuit I first posted about, got to just a little bit further than the first time in 12 minutes but felt a bit better for it afterwards in another sign my stamina is increasing. Although it was very muggy yesterday so I sweated more than I normally do... my new running singlet had it's debut as well!

In trying to describe to my Dad where I've been running I hacked a map from whereis to include a blue line to highlight where I run. Measured it (just the blue line) in the car and it is almost 2.1 kms. I can do the blue line without stopping and then I generally stop and walk up Venner Rd with some attempts at running little bits of it.


Going to mix it up and maybe just walk to the bottom of Venner and run up it, walk back down, run up it... do that a couple of times... am sure that is going to bugger me but will be good for leg strength!

In other last night news Ben invited Bee & I over last night for a dinner and a chat. We had some cheese with a red wine prior to dinner and a nice meal and more cheese and wine after. Was very nice wine and a good meal, thanks Ben! Also a very nice change for our social group and just sat and chatted for a couple of hours... was refreshing and spontaneous.

Bargain Day

Well Bee & I went shopping today as I saw some specials at Target that looked pretty good during the week. We ended up spending $208 but we left with a trolley full of stuff. For that money we got a Queen Sized Sheet (fitted, sheet & 2 pillow cases) set to help with our new mattress, 2 Bath Sheet sets (each has 2 massive bath sheets sooo soft), 2 pillows (one for each of us), a nice wall hanging photo frame for my Mum's birthday and a running singlet for me.

All in all we spent a lot more than we thought we would, or that we should have, but the Sheet sets were 50% off, the 2nd pillow was $1 because we bought the 1st one and the bath sheets were also 50% off. I think we saved somewhere in the vicinity of $167 just on the manchester themselves!! So it was worth it... and getting new stuff for your house makes you feel good a bit.

For the last time...

... I am about to go to bed on my crappy old mattress. Bee & I purchased a brand new Latex (yayy no springs!!) mattress last weekend and it is being delivered sometime tomorrow!! Wo00oOOttTT!!

This current mattress, which cost a hell of a lot less, has been with me ever since I bought this bed back when I was living @ home. So it has served me well, as that was at least four years ago and then some probably. But the springs are shot and it is lumpy and crappy. Lying perfectly still and not having moved for a few minutes can still cause springs to randomly pop! In fact Bee was downstairs just before and yelled out that a bed spring just sprung and she was:
a) in the bathroom

and

b) hadn't even been laying on the bed prior to being in the bathroom!!

Sooo for the last time I get to sleep on this mattress... and then sleeping heaven hopefully awaits.... I'm very excited!!

5-0 Whitewash!!

Well it's finally over and England can now begin the grieving process. What am I talking about?!? Are you living under a rock?!? The mighty, mighty Australian Test Cricket Team has just finalised a 5-0 whitewash of the 2007 Ashes series, only the 2nd ever 5-0 whitewash in Ashes history.

It has been an inspiring series which just goes to prove how strong Australian cricket is at the moment. It was also a very fitting end to the magical careers of four of Australian crickets dedicated sons; Justin Langer, Damien Martyn, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne. On behalf of a grateful nation (hmm am I trying out for a role as Prime Minister?) I'd like to thank these men for their efforts and performances in playing for Australia. I bow to you all deeply as legends of the game...

Yes, yes before people point it out, I admit I have criticised Martyn many times in his stint as a One Day International representative. But I don't believe I ever questioned his place in the Test side.

They will all be sorely missed but it will be exciting to see a new group of younger stars step up and develop... bring it on!!

For now though let's all sing together:

Five-nil, five-nil, five-nil, five-nil, five-nil, five-nil, five-nilllll!!!

Twice the success

Another day, another run. This time Dunc joined me and we returned to the original scene of the crime discussed here. In a much harder run today, I just couldn't seem to control my breathing or my technique like yesterday, I bettered my time from the previous post. Instead of 15 minutes 50 seconds with constant stopping and walking I managed a time of 14 minutes and 13 seconds! I also managed 5/6ths of the course without stopping, and even then it was only for a short walk to get my breath back and then back to the running.

So I improved my time by 1 minute and 37 seconds and instead of only being able to run less than 1/3rd of the course without stopping I made it to 5/6ths. Sure it's still a slow time and I'm not happy with it but it's a big improvement and I'm stoked.

After the run yesterday as well my leg muscles do feel tight and slightly sore and I'm feeling it wayyyyy more than yesterday... and I think tomorrow is going to kill me :)

Success

So finally, after thinking about it a lot, I went for the first of what will hopefully be many 12 minutes runs. After speaking to the coach at the last pre-Christmas training he suggested just trying to run for 12 minutes to build up my stamina base. So I finally did! I controlled my breathing the entire way and found it much easier to run without losing my breath. In fact my breathing and energy levels felt fantastic!! :))

There is no way in hell I'd have thought I could run non stop for 12 minutes. Now I know how far I can make it I am going to try and improve on that and get further in 12 minutes over the next few times. I felt really good about it when I was finished and wasn't even gasping and unable to talk afterwards. It truly was amazing. Whether that is down to controlling my breathing properly or the work prior to Christmas building up my stamina I don't know. All I know is it felt good and I am looking forward to doing it again!

Yes, yes I know you're all thinking "Ok, so who are you and what have you done with the real Mick?" But trust me it really is me... don't worry I'm sure it won't last long :p

Happy New Year Everyone!!

Well it's 2007 now and the year that was certainly created loads of special moments. I won't even attempt to list them all because my memory aint that good and I wouldn't want to tarnish memories by leaving them out should I forget them.

Thank you to everyone for their friendship and support in 2006 and I hope we can enjoy 2007 together! I hope 2007 brings you a lifetime of fun and memories... Happy New Year!!