I did end up going for a run with Anja last night, we did 11 1/2 km. There was another loop we could have added to take us up to 15km or so, and I so wanted to do it but gee my legs were hurting. So, we called it a night. I’m going to the physio tomorrow so maybe with some stretches we could try the longer distance next week. I’m not sure I like running along footpaths after dark. Lots of shadows make it hard to see irregularities in the surface and I worry about falling. I’d much rather run trails at night where you are guaranteed irregularities and can expect to fall!

 I took the dogs to Kroll Gardens with my friend Sarah and her dog Holly this morning. We also had our three kidlets with us. Kroll Gardens is around 5 acres of off leash park with trees and agility equipment, and it’s fully fenced. The dogs had a ball running free, it’s so relaxing going there with friendly dogs, given my last two dogs were aggro and hard to keep under control. Then, we had arvo tea before Sarah had to leave. I think that will be a regular outing for the dogs. Guinness could really stretch out and run free!

Here’s my beautiful new website: Dog Poisons In The Home I think it looks great. Many thank you’s to my friend Aldian in Indonesia who created the blog theme and coded it all for me. Isn’t the internet a wonderful place - there are no physical boundaries in the way of friendships. All I need now is some traffic, that will take a little time. I’ve also picked up a writing project - 1 x 500 word article a week for an easy $15 cash via paypal. It’s in the veterinary field so won’t take me long to do that at all. A few more like that and I’ll feel better about giving up my Friday night at work.

Andrew, you  may be pace-centric but I’m definitely distance-centric!! My hubby showed me his Garmin after his run the other morning. It read 28.99km and he said to me, “you couldn’t do that!”. Umm, yeah, I know I can’t do 28km yet. “No no”, he said, “I was referring to the .99 on the end”. He’s so right. I would have staggered, crawled, even rolled along the ground for that last 10m to get it to tick over to a nice round figure. I remember once I was going out to do an 8km run and when I got back, the Garmin said 7.94km. That really annoyed me for the rest of the day - I kept thinking I should have just plodded on for that little bit more. Maybe we’ve all got our obsessions, LOL.

It’s looking a bit grey outside, maybe it will rain and I can skip dog agility tonight, I wouldn’t mind an early night. I’m also thinking of skipping my run in the morning, give my sore legs a rest. Perhaps I will hook up with Anja for some weight training instead.

I had a great day at work on Saturday, everybody arrived on time so we weren’t running late, all the animals had conditions that were very straightforward, and nothing tried to bite me. So, a good start to the weekend.

Hubby dropped the dogs in the kennels, and we headed down the coast. It absolutely poured on the way down. The “resort” we were staying in was far from a resort - there was mould in the bathroom, the bedsheets had a tear in them, and the toilet flush system wasn’t 100% - the half flush button wouldn’t work at all and when you pushed the full flush button the water ran for a fair while. A late night party kept me awake until after midnight, and even after calling reception in the wee small hours, nothing was done. The icing on the cake was finding out that if I’d booked directly with the hotel instead of using an online booking service, I would have saved around $40!! There will definitely be follow up on that.

The run was okay. As usual, I started mid pack and it took me a while to get across the start line. The finish was chip timed but not the start I think, so my “official” time will be slower than my Garmin time. I honestly found it quite boring. Running along streets and around golf courses, it really doesn’t enthuse me much. I think running the trails has ruined me for regular street runs! I’ve also found that having a goal time doesn’t do it for me. I was out there running, watching my pace so I didn’t go too fast to start, and stay around my goal pace. That took a lot of the fun out of it, it was too much like hard work, I didn’t really enjoy the run. So, thinking about doing the Brisbane half in under two hours, I don’t know if I can be bothered working it out. I think I’ll hook up with a pace runner and not bother about my own pace, and just enjoy myself. If I go under 2 hours, great. If I don’t, well, I doubt I’ll lose much sleep over it.

My time? Well, while I was running, the Garmin ticked over 10k in 53 min and forty something seconds, so I was happy enough that I’d managed to go faster than ever before. The whole run was 10.19km in 54.53 but when the run was downloaded to the computer, the software said I’d done only 10k in 54.54. So, which one is accurate? I don’t really care much, it’s either a 4 minute PB or a 3 minute PB, both of which I’m happy with. I’ve done a bit of maths using my average pace and distance as detected by the Garmin on my wrist, and I’m claiming a new Audrey record of 53.48.

Miss 8 and Master 5 both had a run in their respective junior dash, and looked dashing in their new club singlets. They had a ball. I was particularly impressed with Master 5. He’s been quite a shy lad, and getting him to do things in public, well, it was like pulling teeth. He was obviously nervous out there, but he did it, and he said he loved it. He’s maturing and I guess it’s just an example that some children just take longer than others to become independent, and it can’t be rushed.

We picked up the dogs from the kennels in the afternoon. The kennels had charged my credit card $14 more than they quoted me. Said I must have been confused and what I was quoted may have just been a booking fee. No way around it, I was wrong. What they’d quoted me was cheaper than their usual rates, but I figured that was because I’d dropped that I was a vet (I usually do, I figure they’ll be even more meticulous about caring for my dogs). So, I won’t be using them again, that left a bad taste in my mouth too.

I was planning on taking the children to see our favourite country music singer, Tom Curtain, last night at the local Urban Country festival. I had checked when he was playing and we would be there in time for  7pm, see the show and come home at about 8.30. We bumped into some friends while walking the dogs, who reminded me that the Urban Country festival was usually on the long weekend in May. Came straight home and checked, and yep, it is. I would have dragged my poor tired kiddies up there to an empty town square with no concert. I have no idea why my dates were so off, but I’m glad we bumped into Geoff and his wife.

As for the rest of the week, I’m running with Anja tonight, which means I need to go and sort out some dinner for tonight. I’ll take Guinness out for a run on on Wednesday morning, Thursday night is club and Saturday  morning is an 18k hilly trail run. Wednesday is my physio appointment too, which is good because I was so darned sore after that 10k, I really need to get my legs fixed.

Guinness has eaten the face off a small stuffed dog.

Nothing eventful happening at the moment, which is almost a good thing. I didn’t do the tasks we were set at CRR last night, instead taking the advice of the physio and reducing my intensity. So, I just loped around the outside of the track, chatting to some of the other girls. Legs were uncomfortable but I didn’t go fast enough for them to be painful. I figure that’s what the physio means. They had some ladies running singlets in stock - Hubby had bought me a mens singlet, but the armpits were just too low to be discreet. The ladies singlets were seriously small sizes - I’m wearing a large and Miss 8 is wearing a small. A singlet had been made for one of the other children and it was very small for him too, so I snaffled that for Master 5. They’re really excited to be wearing them on Sunday morning for their Sanctuary Cove runs. I’ll have to take a photo of them.

Today is a chore day - aren’t they all? I need to get some stuff done because tomorrow I’m working until 2pm, then we head down to the Gold Coast. We’re staying in a motel overnight, and coming home on Sunday after the races. The dogs are being boarded in a kennel, and it’s not a whole lot cheaper for their accommodation than for ours! Should be a nice weekend.

I’ve entered the Brisbane half marathon so there’s no going back now.

After a pathetic effort this morning where I did 2km at a 7.20min/km pace, and was just too sore in the calves for it to be fun, I made an appointment with a sports physio for this afternoon. Nice guy, seemed quite competent. Turns out I have lots of muscle imbalances, and my quads are the only muscles in my legs that are functioning normally. Even I could see the difference in range of movement between my legs. Great. So not only do I have dud feet, I also have dud legs. Tight ITB left leg, tight hamstring left leg, something different tight on the right side. I’m surprised I can walk in a straight line, LOL. I’m going back next week to get a series of exercises which will specifically stretch the tight muscles on each side, and he reckons that 4 weeks or so of consistent stretching then a recheck, and all should be good. Hope so, it’s really no fun when the pain outweighs the pleasure.  We were talking about stretching before a run; I never stretch before running and I was wondering if I was doing the wrong thing and perhaps making my legs worse, but he reckons that stretching cold muscles doesn’t achieve anything. So, I don’t have to start doing that, but after a run, after a shower, anytime my legs have a bit of heat in them, then I have to do my stretches.

 So, to compensate for my lack of run, I spent an hour on the elliptical trainer with my mp3 player. I listened to an Oprah interview with Eckhart Tolle about finding your life’s purpose. I don’t mind listening to some new age stuff, and I’ve read one of Eckhart’s books before, “The Power Of Now”. It was a good concept, but such a hard read; I really had to battle to finish it. Anyway, this interview went for an hour so it was perfect as far as duration goes, but it was, in my not so humble opinion, drivel. I had downloaded the next three interviews in the series to listen to later, but I think they’ll be meeting with my delete key this evening.

Guinness did graduate from his Preagility 1 class last night, he actually did really well considering he was going for almost two hours. By the end he was starting to lose whatever focus he had! But, I can really see some potential in him, he’s such a fast learner and covers the ground so quickly. I really should put in some time with him at home to train him - he seems to thrive on it. I think with Guinness needing training snippets and trying to fit in several stretch sessions a day, I really need to manage my time better so I can get it all done comfortably. The days are just flitting by and I’m not feeling very productive.

After quite a long time (many many moons) of thinking and occasionally looking around, and sporadically sending an email here and there, and sometimes even asking people if they know anyone, I have found a bagpipe tutor close by with whom I can work to get my piping back up to speed. I absolutely can’t wait - I love my bagpipes. Those of you who know me will know I used to play BC (before children) but it’s a whole lot harder to practice on the Great Highland Bagpipe when your baby is napping. Geoff plays with the QLD Irish Pipe Band and while I don’t plan on getting back into the band scene (although street marches are such a hoot!!), he’ll be able to whip me back into shape. It’ll be interesting to see if my improved lung function due to running will make it easier for me to blow. Probably not. With the ability of websites to integrate multimedia clips, you may well be serenaded by me in the future via an uploaded wav file or mp3. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Guinness will graduate from pre-agility 1 tonight, and start pre-agility 2 straight after. He’s a bit like me, I used to do well at school without doing any homework, LOL. He hasn’t had much of a run of late, so he’ll enjoy the outing tonight. I will have to get him running this week, he should be able to get up to 15km easily enough and I have a route mapped out on gmap-pedometer.

I suppose I should write something running related. Had a rest day yesterday, and was supposed to do a 3km time trial today, but since I did that last week, and my calves are still a bit achy, I’ve decided to skip the pavement pounding and spend some low impact time on the elliptical trainer today, and do a speed session tomorrow.

Now I’ve got Billy Ray Cyrus running through my head…”don’t tell my calves, my achy breaky calves….”