City to Surf 2008 (Perth)

I was one of 37,000 people who braved an early morning chill to put my running shoes on and run 12ks for charity. It is the second time I have attempted this feat and this year I am glad to say was a whole lot better than last year. One, I managed to run the whole thing, no breaks and two, I am pretty sure we smashed last years time (go team).

I was definitely paying for it yesterday and so today took some “recovery” time to recouperate, my knees and back are thanking me greatly.

The only things that bothered me were:

• The amount of people that were nowhere near their starting group.
• The amount of people who were in groups that they shouldn’t have been in

I will break it down so you understand why I am being a bit of a jogging nazi about it.

There are several groups in which you can run/walk. If you do the half marathon (by the way good on you, props to you that shit is hard!) you are orange and because you have further to run you start at 7.00. Then there is group A, they were coloured green and should be expected to run the 12ks in under 40 minutes. The next group was B and they were pink and should be completeing the 12ks in under 50 minutes and group C (yay my group) yellow in colour and able to run at under 70 minutes (which I think we did which is about a 15 minutes less than last year and when you are talking records, for me that is pretty staggering). Group D were blue and should be running at 70 minutes and over. The 12k walkers were hot pink.

What I continously saw was D’s and walkers all up in the B and C area and when your trying to run, dodge, swerve and avoid crashing into and past a whole bunch of people taking their sweet time or not in your group can really frustrate you. frustrate you enough that you want to throw your cups of water at them 9it was an accident really!) If you chose to start in D group or walk please, please go to the back where your starting area is because I can guarantee that everyone in B or C and maybe even A where you have slotted yourself in is not happy having to dodge you while concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. If you wanted to walk and take your time go to the back because one that’s where you should be starting and two everyone overtaking you is not happy that they have to because they shouldn’t need to in the first place.

I also had problems dodging people who werent walkers but were walking. If you know you can’t run a full 12 ks dont put yourself in a running group, go in the walking group or D group and get your arse to the back. I could have shaved 30 seconds to a minute off my time if I wasn’t practicing to be a formula one runner and overtaking on the sly. I am quite surprised no one ended up arese over tit because they were having to overtake a walker and were being overtaken themselves and then the walker pulled out in front of them. It is a very dangerous activity runnning.

I did let everyone around me know this was how I felt because when you’re sweaty, out of breath, tired and there is some slight chaffing going on and you are only half-way done you are not in the best of moods. Maybe those people who were walking felt the same way but I have no sympathy because I kept running and I didn’t stop no matter how much I really really wanted to. And I really really wanted to.

Being the jogging nazi I am I have been wondering what if Hitler was into event management and coordinating community activities and not taking over the world the city to surf would be run so precisely and noone would dare step out of their starting group, or maybe he would revolutionise it by starting the groups at different times, staggering the start so the runners can run to their hearts content and the walkers, well the walkers, I don’t imagine “event management Hitler” would even have walkers they aren’t good for progress.

Birds are crazy.....like fully mental!

Today I had to do one of the hardest things I have probably ever had to do. Forget running 12ks (which I will do tomorrow) or sitting through a 3 hour exam or sitting on a aeroplane with gastro or losing your teeth by a kick to your mouth or even falling of a bunk bed and splitting your chin open.

None of it compares to trying to subdue a pink galah named Percy while you try to cut his nails!

Percy isn’t a particularly friendly bird at the best of times, if you try and give him a scratch on the head he might just try and take your finger as a token of his appreciation. After my efforts today I have an arm that looks like it has been inserted into a box full of whipper snippers. In hindsight though it probably looked quite hilarious. Cale and I chasing a pink and grey bird who is pelting as fast as his little bird legs can carry him, trying to escape the bath towel that we are unsuccessfully trying to throw over him. Meanwhile he is up and flying around like a tiger moth until he is hiding in the corner like a poor puppy when he is finally out of breath and has no room to go. He even put his little foot up as if to say “pleases pleases don’t hurt me!” I felt like a horrible ogre right then.

But as my parents used to say, “its for your own good!” so we finally caught the poor bugger and clipped his toesies or at least his raptor sized claws. I kid you not his nails were ginormous they could have been props on jurassic park.

Percy did survive his encounter with the two terrible bird hunters/groomers and was duly duly rewarded with an awesome toy with plenty of chewy things and strings to occupy his little beak and newly trimmed feet.

A few of my favourite things....(kittens and mittens etc)

Sometimes I think it is essential to remind ourselves of those things that make us smile, give us joy or make us feel warm inside. So in that spirit I will indulge you with a few of my favourite things……these are not in any particular order

Cats

Yes I am a crazy cat lady and damn proud of it. As much as I love furry, cuddly animals, cats make me go all mumsy and giggly because they amuse me greatly. They can be so attentive and so disinterested all at once, they always land on their feet (a talent I wish I had) and they have a different meow for every occassion. If you want a pet to love you unconditionally get a dog but if you want a pet that you can love unconditionally always get a cat.

Biscuits

It was a toss up between biscuits and chocolate. I decided that no matter what type of chocolate you get it always tastes like chocolate but biscuits, biscuits are truly a flavourthon. My personal addiction of late are scotch fingers (mmm half a tablespoon of butter in each biscuit!) but I have become addicted to rasberry shortcakes but I also love mint slices, monte carlos, gingernuts, tim tams, iced vo-vos, tick tocs, venetians, melting moments and well I am getting carried away a bit here. i think you get the point though.

Hot-water bottle

I can’t think of anything better than warming my toe-sies on a freezing cold night with a hot water bottle. As I am generally cold most of the time being as if I am made of ice, a hot-bot warms me through and I can survive the frosty winter without having to escape to a tropical hideaway up north. Ok being poor is the other reason I don’t escape to my tropical hideaway.

A good book

If you find the right book it can absorb you to the point that when you awaken from the self induced paperback coma you realise that several hours have passed, your tea has gone cold and you are squinting at the words because the light has faded past what your poor eyes can stand. Enough said.

Flannelette PJs

I sleep….a lot. I think that a good nap is great for just recharging your batteries or just forgetting the world for a little while as you snore (which i have been told I do) away in a dream place that can be whatever you wish, from a resort in the clouds with pools filled with marshmallows or an all you can eat buffet where you never gain a kilo. But you can’t have a nap or even a proper sleep without the right outfit and for me that is a comfy pair of flannos.

A good friend

They say that your friends are the family you get to choose and its very true. there is noone better to talk to then someone that gets you and will either say what you want to hear or give you the rough and guts of it because thats what you really need. A good friend will listen to you prattle on and your happy to do the same for them.

Chicken dinner

Chicken Treat chicken dinner with chips, nough said.

Music

I love music, naff 80s, songs from musicals, a bit of rock or maybe a sappy ballad. Music conveys for us what sometimes words cannot, as much as I like singing in with my out of tune caterwauling, it is easier to listen and get sucked in to the beat or swaying to the tune. I imagine that if everyone had a song that could be called their song, the song that would be the headliner in a soundtrack to their life mine would be either “wake me up before you go-go” by Wham or “we go together” from the Grease soundtrack. You know the one, “we go together like ramalamalama gadingy a dingy dong, shoo wop shoo woddy woddy ippidy boom de boom.” I think it makes no sense just like me.

Jeans

Every wardrobe must have a good pair of jeans. Not only are they comfortable and able to be worn many times in a row without washing (so long as you don’t spill anything on them and give them a good spray with deoderant every now and then) but they make you feel good. You feel good because they can hide your butt and your muffin top or they make your legs look slimmer or they’re the only pants you can slide in and out of. However they make you feel a good pair is a  jean-ius investment.

and last but not least…..

Holidays

Sleep-ins and absolutely nothing, thats what holidays are and thats why I love them. It means doing whatever you want and sometimes for me it’s about doing nothing.

and that’s a few of my favourite things and I have a few more but thats 10 I could think of. I probably should have rambling on the list. Because I can dribble my fair share of crap and really I only need to be able to do it in a forum where someone might pay attention.

So is anyone listening?

Did I mention I also like validation?

Truth and relativity

I like to think that I have the world figured out and that you sometimes shouldn’t believe everything you see or hear and I don’t get sucked in (too much) because of advertising but human nature is to be selfish (perhaps there is a gene for it) and even I forget that sometimes what I believe or perceive may not always be how it was intended.

I recently went and saw the musical Wicked (this was an excellent production and I have been singing “Wonderful”, “Popular” and “What is this feeling?” far more than i should). I guess you could say the theme was along the lines of misconceptions. Why is it that we think what we think? and are we always right? It definitely makes the world a much harder place to understand because suddenly you might have another option, another choice to consider.

Now the circumstance that brought this line of thinking on for me was what started out as a normal conversation which developed into me getting upset and yelling out out something which I believed to be true (I also said that I need therapy, so clearly I was not happy). Upon reflection and a much calmer conversation I was given a different version of the story, one which I had never even thought of. Whether this version of events is true I couldn’t say but it did enough to get me wondering when I had become selfish enough to think that this person might not want the best for me? If there were now two sides to the story who is right or how do you come to agreement or what do you do if you can’t? It’s that whole scenario of the victors write history.

It’s given me a bit to think about and maybe it will help me be a little less sensitive about certain things because I have now aired those things I bottled up but then again that could just be who I am but then again how I see myself may very well be completely different to how someone else sees me.

Sometimes too much thinking is where the problem lies, if we could just say this is right and this is wrong then we would all know where to stand when the line in the sand is drawn. And if we gave up thinking we might all enjoy ourselves a bit more because we wouldn’t be spending all our time worrying an considering things.

Sometimes I think I just ask to many questions.

I wonders and what if's

I had moment yesterday, nothing special, nothing particularly striking but it got me thinking and gave me a bit of enough shock to not sleep well over it.

I saw something from way back when and it brought me back to a few years ago when I could have walked a different path had I just made a different choice. I suppose now it is of no consequence but I am guilty of this as I am sure most people are, I sat and wondered and imagined what if?

It’s like that episode of Futurama where the professor fine-tunes his “what-if?” machine and right at the end you find out he really wanted to know what if he invented the fingerlonger. Do we ever stop wondering about how things might have been?

Whether that particular point in each of our lives was one of joy, a moment of embarrasment or guilt at something we may or may not have done to or for someone and if whether we have shut it from our conscious minds that we almost forgot it was there doesn’t really make it go away. So how do we learn to live with it and live in our present and not wonder about what ifs and maybes?

I wonder…..

Discovering yourself (in a non-sexual way)

Do you remember when you were little and you had grand dreams (now delusions of granduer) about what you wanted to be when you grew up? I remember wanting to be a teacher, then a journalist, then I got into sci-fi and then I wanted to be an astronaut and when I had finally decided I really didnt know what I wanted to be I settled on Queen of the universe, a job position not currently filled (there is after all only a MISS universe contest) and possibly one I would never dream to fill.

I also remember in high school being told to pick a study stream based on what occupation I intended on getting into after school and not really being able to pick something other than what I was expected to pick (thank you parentals for high expectations and damn me for wanting to please people too much.) I chose my course of study and I followed it right through uni and out the other side and not really into something I imagined doing. Then again I had never had any concrete visions of what I wanted to be doing.

Currently I am having one of those occupational (in a literal sense) dilemmas where I know I am destined for something big or at least something that I excel at and makes me genuinely happy to go to work, but it eludes me. I don’t have any illusions that everyone is happy at work all the time even a ice-cream taste tester (which would be a great job), I am pretty sure ice-cream headaches and an expanding waistline make that job a hard one to handle at times.

It also makes it a little hard deciding what you really want to do when you are not sure how it will turn out until you try it. Imagine training for years to be a ballet dancer and becoming so great that you got to perform for hundreds of people instead of small groups and then suddenly you developed stage fright? And all of you out there saying “surely you would know before because any sort of performing makes you nervous?” its an example and the best I could think of when I havent had any lunch.

Then it begs the question are we also supposed to do get the jobs we want? I really don’t think anyone imagines being the person who changes the sanitary bins in the ladies toilets but someone has to do it right?