"Buster"

The above photo is of Craig Mottram running in the heats of his event at Osaka last Thursday. Doesn't he look fit and ready for the next race!

I'm looking forward to tomorrow evening as Craig Mottram will be running the final of the 5000m. Such a time for Australian Athletics and having the race here, my adopted city, is all the more exciting. The Stadium where it will be held is less than 20 minutes from my house here in southern Osaka and I often go there for my speed-work sessions.

How is the hype in Australia about this race? I'm sure my fellow bloggers will be watching tomorrow. I would have gotten tickets and gone to see it had anyone of you wanted to come over and see this race but as I'm the only one here, at least among my family and friends, that really is interested in this particular event I will just watch it on TV like you guys. I did try to get a ticket to the stadium for this, this morning but they already stopped selling them and at $200 AUD a ticket my wife was happy they had.

Anyway, good luck Buster!!

Just a note it will be 36 degrees tomorrow here and probably around 30 degrees when Craig runs in the early evening. The Marathon girls start at 7:00am and by 9:00am it will be close to the max for the day, they will find it all the more difficult. Still they all must have trained with this in mind.

Back

Got back home last night. I'll write again soon and start catching up with your posts but just wanted to let you know I'm OK. The photos here are of the place where we stayed. The first one is of my youngest son at the one bed cabin on the beach we stayed at for most of our time, it was really wonderful.

 

 

 

 

Another day older and deeper in...

Hope you`re all well. I`m fine enjoying my holiday with the family and clocking up the Ks. Running between 10 and 18kms a day not doing anything fancy, no speedwork, hills etc, just happy to be getting in the miles.

When I go back in Sept I`ll get a bit more serious and plan for my coming races starting in early Oct with a full marathon in December in Japan.

This brings me to my point.(bloggers rule #1 "have a point") This Thursday the 16th I turn 43 and I was hoping I could get a little advice about how you reckon I should proceed from this year on in relation to my running life.

Sure I will and should take my own decision in regards to this but I would be interested in your comments along the lines of "If I were you I`d ......"

Just a brief history, for those that don`t know this will be my 4th year running and apart from a short cross country career when I was 15 and 16 I didn`t run at all up until I was 39, unless it was from someone I upset. Well that`s not entirely true I did a little chasing over the years, wink, wink ;)

You know my PBs, listed on this blog, and I can tell you that I want to go as far as I can go in this sport. While I will not rule out divorce I`m not sure if willing to give up beer ;)

Anyways any advice will be appreciated, thanks in advance.

"Malaysia Truly Asia"

Well just starting to settle into the holiday. We got ourselves a cabin on the sand and been enjoying swimming at the beach all day and eating tasty Malaysian and Indian food breakfast, noon and night. I truly love South East Asia and this place is the perfect location for a family holiday. I will post some photos when I get home.

As for my running I have been doing it on the beach in the mornings. Where we are staying, it`s on about 2km long strip of beach I`ve been doing laps of this coconut fringed white sand beach and it`s quiet the novelty. I have never ran on a beach before, well not along it, only ever down to the water to go for a surf. I`m sure you have all had this experience but I never have so I`m going to make the most of it and only run on the road once a week or so.

The exact location is Langkawi Island, do you know it, have you ever been here? I have been almost all over Asia but it`s my first time here.

Anyway back to the duty free beer and a afternoon nap, it`s too hot to do much else.

I`ll be in contact soon.

Here today, gone......

Yes, Tomorrow I'm leaving on holidays. I'll be back September 1st. I'll be able to continue to read and comment on your blogs which is great, I don't need a holiday from you lot, yet ;)

And I'll continue to run so all I can say now as I sink the last bottle of beer in my home frig, pack the sun tan lotion and a spare lycra thong, is "I love yous all!"

Talk soon.

Can you guess where I'm going? A souvenir to the person that gets it right. The photo above and this post are the only clues. If that is not enough I'll leave you with my favorite Sherlock Holmes quote as said to dear old Watson "You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear."

Time for a holiday

I thought I'd post something that I could relate to. This is from a blog of a woman "Binary Blonde" I read her blog every now and then but never comment, shame on me, anyway It's good to know that apart from "runners" there are many interesting/kind/sensitive/funny people out there.

Some cheese with that whine.

Recently been reading about how cold it is in Australia now from those there and I sympathise as I know how hard it is to get going on those cold early mornings.

Here it is the end of the monsoon season about 30 degrees and 90% humidity. Running it this is certainly a challenge and it's only comfortable between 3 and 4AM. Still we all have our crosses to bear ;)

I fell off the high mileage wagon last week with a BBQ and hangover and a bit of ITB pain I thought I'd better have a bit of a rest. So now day 4 without a run and not only do I feel out of condition, I feel a cold coming on. And to top this off I've put on close to 2kgs in 5 days!

It's really a constant battle , isn't it? Just got to keep moving to even stay in place. Well no matter what I'm back into it tomorrow I can't let this go on too much longer as I don't like feeling like this anymore. Now I can't be happy unless I feel healthy and fit. I fear the consequences of inaction and I'm no longer much tempted by the lure of inactivity.

Warning: Not a substitute for human interaction

Hi sorry for the delay in posting. Although I don't think I'm upsetting too many people ;) I'd like to get more comments but I think that's not going to happen until I either get a decent personality or break 2 hours for the marathon.

Anyways, things are good here building up my weekly mileage without breaking down. 68kms last week and going to go close to 80kms this week. I want to get up around 100kms a week and do this for a few months before my racing season starts in early Oct. We will see how it goes I have never done a 100k week. I usually run pretty low mileage but I think that it's time to try out this high mileage stuff everyone is talking about. You never know I might thrive on it, Tesso tells me that she does, when she's not nursing an injury that is.

This means running in all conditions and I had an interesting experience today in relation to this. A big Typhoon is on the way here and they locked the gate on the track at the local university today. It was pissing down and no one around so I jumped the fence and begun with 3kms of warm up 6x 100 sprints and some 800m intervals. I had done two 800s the 1st 2:59, 2nd 2:49 when a couple of guys in suits with huge umbrellas came in and asked me, ever so politely, to leave as it was dangerous to run in such weather.

It wasn't dangerous of course but the Japanese are so bloody anal (perhaps why I like it so much here I'm a tad that way myself) they just get freaked out when things are done differently than usual. Still so polite they didn't ask me how I got in through the locked gate and who the bloody hell I was, and they looked quite pained to ask me to leave. I perhaps could have argued the point but I didn't have any right to be there even on a dry day and they were so bloody nice about asking me to go I just had to be nice back, and go!

Great thing about Japanese people on the whole is that they know that force will meet with force and often try to get their way with a softer approach not like the typical "white male" who will be abusive first and aggro later.

I don't include you white male runners with that lot. You're all just pale Kenyans to me. ;P

2000~2007 before and after running

Thanks for your positive comments vis a vis the youtube videos, I will tell you how I did it next post but believe me it's the easiest thing, otherwise I wouldn't of been able to do it.

Anyway I'm also experimenting with web albums and I put together this one of my progress from before I started running until today. You may agree that it has been a positive thing. To be frank I hardly know the old me anymore as I've change both inside and out.

Take a look at it here.

Just click to enlarge photos and follow the progression.

The Gold Coast Marathon is being held as I type, I really wish I could be there :(

Testing, very testing!

Testing One Two...

Rainy Season

The rainy season officially started last week and this means, you guessed it, lots of rain. It should rain almost everyday for a month or so but usually we get a few dry ones in between.

I've probably mentioned it but I do like running in the rain, especially warm rain like now. One of the reasons for this is because it was a warm rainy day around 4 years ago that I got up off the couch and did my first run, that is, the first one that began this present obsession.

By the way if you want a Japanese lesson go ahead and download it from the box to the right.

Home sick

Thanks for your nice comments. I really am happy that I started this blog as I'm able to be in contact with such cool people! Thanks, here is a song cause I feel home sick. I'm sure you all like this! thanks again.

Looking for signs

My Grandmother, the one I told you about recently, passed away yesterday morning.
I was thinking about her all day today, about what constitutes a "life" and what remains after one has gone.

I left for my daily run a little later than usual and when I arrived at my route, it was 9:00pm. The ground was wet from a big storm that had been battering the Osaka region all day, but the storm had stopped by the time I arrived it was humid and sprinkling lightly. In the dark the lights from the nearby houses and apartments reflected off the glassy lake. I began on my first loop of my usual 3k track.

I was still thinking about my grandmother and sort of wishing that she would be able to show me a sign that everything would be alright. As soon as I started I noticed a group of ten or so tiny bats swirling and swooping just above and around my head. Was this a sign?

I was not yet into the 2km when a weasel dashed across my path, this has never happened to me before. Was this a sign?

On my second loop I noticed how calm and quiet it was, not a soul around. Was this a sign?

On the final loop not yet seeing a ghostly vision I started to think I was being stupid looking for such signs so I instead focused on my breath and the way I was feeling running through the darkness. I could feel each breath going in and out, each step bringing droplets of water down on me ones that had gathered in my wet hair. I concentrated on the moving of my chest and arms and by the time I hit the 10km mark I was really cruising. Racing through the dark wet night thinking to myself, this is a sign, I'm alive, I'm healthy and doing what I love and none of this would have been possible without my grandmother.

She continues to live in me and as long as I keep her in my memory and do my best I am honoring her memory by living as she did, the best she could.

Teach them well and let them .....

I went to my youngest son's sports festival on the weekend just gone and was pleased to see that he seems to have some talent for running. Well at least he is not as awkward as his older brother and Dad.

In my family my Great Grandfather won the Stawell Gift in Victoria, my Father qualified for the Melbourne Olympics, but didn't go, he was too young, and my elder sister was going to be a handy runner too but bronchitis and a boyfriend derailed her career.

As for my Mother and most other members of my family and me when it comes to sports we are pretty good at watching them, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that a bit of sporting talent jumped a generation in my youngest son's case.