Happy Christmas (somewhat belatedly)

First and foremost, I want to wish all of you who regularly dip into this blog our best wishes for this season and for the coming year. God bless you in everything that you're aiming to achieve, and God bless you in everything that happens regardless :-)

TA & I had a wonderful Christmas, with Macro & his wife staying over on Saturday night for TA's birthday (ably catered for by Angel and yours truly - Ginger & Lemon Prawn Won-tons, pepper Kangaroo on a bed of garlic mash with side greens, Sorbet for dessert and finishing with a fruit and cheese platter - and all of this before Christmas!! Lucky I've learned to eat a bit more carefully this year! :-) Anyhow, we had a really nice Christmas day with TA's family at lunch and mine at tea, and then we get to see mine all again (plus a few more interstaters) at my Nephew's wedding next weekend. It never rains, but it pours :-)

Now, as this is supposed to be a running blog, it's time to head down Quarry Rd. I've never run the Quarry Rd track before, and knowing that I wanted to do a longish run on Saturday, when I saw Horrie's invitation to CRs for a Christmas Eve run, I took the plunge. Though TA had to work, she really wanted to come up and say g'day to the 30+ starters, but alas, real life (ie shopping for Christmas fruit) intervened. I started out with Mr WT and the Professor, and for the first k I was wondering whether I'd be able to stay with them. However, I hung in there and before too long the pace came back to my kind of level. That was a good thing, because it would have been a bummer to try and run on your own. It was already thirty-something degrees at 7am, and those hills have to be seen to be believed. However, with a bit (a lot?) of judicious walking up the hills, we finished the first lap (12.5k) in 1:26. After about 10 minutes recovery fluids kindly provided by Horrie & Belinda (I'm a convert to the benefits of coke :-), we headed back out to met WildThing. We found her 3km in, bade farewell to the Prof who was continuing on for a complete lap, and turned back to finsh with her. All up, 18.6k, 2.5 hours and about 1000 degrees :-). For all the heat and hills, I really enjoyed the run and can't wait to take TA back there when the time is right.

Alas, at the moment the time is not right for TA. This niggle in her archilles is just not shifting, so she's put herself on to a diet of zero running until she comes back from Cambodia in three weeks, and booked in to see Dr Pain the day after she gets back. Till she goes, it's swimming, cycling and dog-walking only.

Yesterday morning, we headed out with a friend to ride from Pennant Hills along the M2 and as far down the M7 as we felt like at the time. As it turned out, 'as far as we felt like' turned out to be a fairly leisurely 36km in 1:30, which is entirely adequate as a post-Christmas-stuffing settler. The major discovery of the day was that there is no obvious way from the M2 onto the M7's famed new bike/running track, so we did the whole outward journey on the road, and only found ourselves on the track by taking one of the exit ramps when we went to turn around.

In the evening, TA had a training session with WildThing, so Mr WT & I had a pleasant chat around the bay (trying out his new pod, so we had three distance measurements we could choose from - my Garmin, his pod, or Action's infinitely more accurate markers!). Averaged around 4:40s except for the last 2k when the headwind brought us back to 4:50s.

Total for last week was only 36k - aiming for 45 at the moment (46, 45 & 45 in previous weeks), so smack hand and get on with it this week.

sfG