Misery guts

I found out why my new laptop is being a bum – it’s riddled with viruses and shit.  I have no frigging idea how that happened since the only stuff I’ve downloaded has been from official sites – Abode Acrobat and programs like that.  I never open email attachments or anything.  I had my old computer for about 2 years and never got a virus on it but this one gets all manner of stuff in a month?  Seems dodgy to me.  I hate you, viruses.  I will destroy you, you just wait.

Other than that, I had an okay-ish weekend.  Went to the Guggenhiem exhibition at the Arts Centre then dinner then to some very cool bars like Madame Brussels.  Very cute and Alice in Wonderlandish with yummy cocktails.

I bought a new phone on Saturday morning.  A nokia 6288.  It’s awesome.   Then I lost my bag with my phone and ipod on Saturday night.  Oops. Then I rang the pub yesterday and they had my bag with everything still in it.  That was a veritable rollercoaster of emotions.

Oh yeah, I got an anti-virus program when I got my phone.  It keeps telling me I have the viruses but it can’t delete them.  WTF?  I don’t need a program to tell me I have viruses.  I need something to kill them. I’m getting to the point where I might have to burn all my stuff onto CD then do a complete reformat and re-install.  Arrrgghh!~

18 kms

Today’s long run was definitely better than last week’s.  We managed the 18kms (3 laps of the Tan and a lap of Albert Park lake) without too much difficulty.  And we knocked 25 minutes off the time even doing an extra km – of course not having to stop and limp helped a lot.

The fortress of elastoplaster on my heel kept the blister from hurting and the skins kept my legs compressedly warm.  I’d actually like to say that the skins made a huge difference to my running since they cost a small fortune but it’s hard to say.  They definitely made a difference though when it poured down with rain then turned windy – at least my bottom half felt okay.  I’ve kept them on since I got home and my legs feel spritely – I even tidied my room and have been pottering around instead of sitting around groaning.

You know, I feel really good about today’s run.  I mean 18 km is only 3 km or so short of  the half marathon distance.  If I can run 18 km, I can most definitely run 21.  I just need to run it faster.  Of course we did have a few stops – to remove clothes after the first lap and to do a blister check after the second lap.

The whole band aid/elastoplaster industry is such a gyp – do they make products that actually stick?  I used to buy the elastoplaster in a roll which was awesome and stayed on until you got the courage to pull it off but apparently they’ve stopped making it.  I spent nearly $30 at the chemist on blister related products and, while it kept me out of pain for the run, they kept sliding around.  I’m not sure what the best solution is but I’m thinking gaffer tape.

Anyway, since my Amazon dvds turned up today, I’m thinking of doing a “10 minute yoga solution” to really stretch out the legs then a shower.

Shopping

I actually made it to the shops tonight – headed to Northland after work.  The only place I really spent any money though was Rebel Sport.  All the clothes shops seem to have the same stuff and it all makes anyone over the age of 12 look preggers.  Although I did pick up a couple of work skirts for cheap.

I got some Skins which is a mighty huge investment and few other things and a Sherrin.  I’m so excited about the Sherrin, I’ve been meaning to get one for ages.  We’ve been handballing it and kicking it around the house.  On the weekend we’re going to go to the park and have a kick.

One thing that amazed me tonight – since when has it been acceptable to walk around shops eating and drinking?  It’s disgusting.  A shop assistant in Valley Girl leaned on the counter eating KFC.  I made damn sure someone else served me.  I didn’t want her folding up clothes I was paying for with her greasy chicken fingers.

Life

It seems for once in my life I’m earning money faster than I can spend it.  Mostly because I can’t get to the shops except for when they’re insanely busy.  It’s a good thing because I’m such a spendthrift.  I’m doing what I can with online shopping but there’s only so much you can buy without seeing it in real life.

There are many things I could buy but I don’t really want them all that much so I think I’ll just keep my money in the bank for a while.

Tonight we did 1 min fast, 2 min slow on our run.  Except I couldn’t run fast because my blister hurt.  Ouchies.  So I did 1 min kinda fast, 2 mins slow.   I got a stopwatch from Coles to time it but it didn’t work real well on account of it being dark and the stopwatch not having a light.  But it was only $5 and I can use it to time my sister doing simple household tasks (actually since she’s fatigued, I don’t really need a stopwatch).

I think my blister and heel problems are caused by having an abnormally jutty-out achilles tendon in my lower leg.  It just sticks out and gets in the way.  I need all this damage fixed pronto so I can do my 18 km run on Friday.  I’m really looking forward to it cos last week’s long run was so awful that this week’s has to be good.  I’m just going to splurge out on elastoplaster and make a fortress around the blister so it doesn’t come in contact with my shoe.  That should work.  I’m also going to buy some of that disgusting smelling brown stuff that you put on blisters (that I’m technically supposed to put on any broken skin being diabetic and all).

Happy…

Since I was all ranty yesterday, I thought today I’d talk about some of the things that make me really happy at the moment:

• Tangelos – yum.  They are so cheap at the moment and magically delicious and tangy.  They taste like a punch in the mouth but in a really good way.  I have one every day for my morning tea.
• My run this morning was awesome.  I thought I’d finally do my 5 km block in under 30 minutes.  I’ve been trying to do that for ages and this morning I really felt capable and strong.  I got to within a km of home and some galah decided to turn down a side street in front of me … really, really slow.  I had to stand around away waiting and it made me very angry, but it also made me realise how spoilt I am.  Whenever I run in my neighbourhood, cars tend to stop and let you cross the road and give you lots of consideration.  I think because lots of people in my area run or ride bikes so they understand.
• Sunny weather – we’ve had enough cold, it can keep being unseasonably warm for a while.
• I went to the dentist this morning (that didn’t make me happy – I got a monsterous quote and didn’t like the dentist much – I figure if I’m going to spend that much money, I want a dentist I like so if you know anyone good and cheap and sensititive to my pain in the Northern Suburbs, let me know).  What made me happy was afterwards, I went to a cafe to get a coffee and had a slice of Pritikin fruit bread.  It was the most awesome fruit bread ever and incredibly filling, even if Pritikin is terribly ’80s.  Oh and the form at the dentist’s was full of grammatical errors!  I can’t let someone who doesn’t know proper capitalisation work on my teeth.
• Going to go-go dancing tonight.  I haven’t been for ages and it’s lots of fun.

Rant-a-rama

There are two things that I really detest in this world.

1. When I’m driving down my street looking for somewhere to park my car and some dickweed behind me toots because I’m driving too slow.  I’m on my own freaking road and if they don’t like it, they can cut through someone else’s street.  I don’t know what they are trying to achieve – like that’s going to make me speed up instead of slowing down and doing the most traffic-obstructing reverse park possible.  Seriously, there have been a few times when I’ve felt like slamming on the brakes and punching their lights out.  I’m not a violent person but that just shits me so much.
2. When I’m in class and someone starts arguing with the teacher after the official class finish time.  Why the hell do they do that?  Like anything is so important you need to make the class run over time.  We’re studying editing – I’m sure any thorny editing issues can wait a week.  It’s always the same people too, the ones that constantly ask for things to be re-explained because they don’t understand.  I hate that too – if you can’t can’t get something by the second time around, see the teacher after class.   We were late getting out tonight and I nearly snapped.  Considering it’s three weeks into semester and this is the first class I’ve been to and I only turned up because I couldn’t think of a reason for wagging three weeks in a row, my motivation for being there wasn’t that high in the first place.  An extra 10 minutes nearly killed me.

One thing that did make me happy today – I have a map of Australia on my desk at work for some reason and even on that whole map my run from Sandringham looked a long way!  Go me.

Btw I never realised until I had that map on my desk just how big the Great Dividing Range is.  I thought it only went up to Sydney but it goes all the way to Cairns.  Who knew?  They should call it the Freakin’ Awesome Dividing Range.  I’m such a dunce when it comes to geography but then I grew up in Tassie so I only learnt about the Central Plateau and stuff like that.

17 kms of Hell

Went for my long run today along the beach from Sandringham and it was awful, awful, awful.  I got a blister around the 3 km mark and my shoes rubbed on my toes.  Not only was that uncomfortable but made me worry about running in them for the City to Surf.  I’ll try them with band aids next time cos I surely can’t afford new shoes… again.

It felt like we’d ran forever and I kept asking ‘do we have to run as far as…’ whatever landmark, and Simon would tell me, ‘yeah, way passed that…’   Every step hurt and every step I wanted to be home in bed under my doona.

A few times Simon asked if I wanted to turn around and head back and I was like NO!

Then I got really thirsty and needed a drink.  We ran past picnic grounds and toilets and all kinds of places that SHOULD have drink fountains but couldn’t see any.  At one point, I stacked on a bit of a turn cos I just wanted a drink of water (I said the ‘f’ word, in front of little children… oops)   Mostly I tried not to whinge too much though cos I hate being that person.  I just kept quiet and whinged in my head.  Whinging in your head is okay but whinging out loud just makes things worse.

Finally, after about 62 hours, we got to the turn around point.  Woohoo!  Except that meant 7.5 km back (we’d done 2 km in the other direction before we started).  I told Simon to go it alone cos I felt bad about slowing him down.  He did offer, most kindly, to drive back and get me if my blisters were too bad.  Again I said NO!  I’d decided I was doing 17 km and nothing except serious injury would change my mind.

We’d run most of the way out along bush tracks but I decided to go back via the cement path near the road.  I was really limping from blisters by that stage plus it had gotten awfully cold and I didn’t have a jacket.

I kept having all these horrible, negative thoughts like maybe I should quit running and that I wasn’t fit enough or good enough and why did I even try running when I could be like all those people just sitting around eating chips.

I want to curl up in a little, wimpering ball at the side of the road but that would have got me nowhere so instead I turned up the ipod and decided to run one song then walk one, figuring it hurt as much to run as it did to walk and leastways I’d be finished quicker.   Then decided to push it to 2 songs, then 3.

I knew we’d parked in the car park near the pub and I could see an orange BWS bottle shop sign in the distance.  I told myself it was a different pub cos if I’d got there and it wasn’t the car, I’d have lost it.

Then I saw the pub sign.  Definitely the right pub.  Woohoo!

Funnily enough, I got back only 5 minutes after Simon.  He’d mapped our run using the road to work out the distance and that makes me think that the windy tracks we’d ran on were much longer than the road, so we’d done well over 17 km all up.

After all that pain, you’d have thought my feetwould be bleeding stumps but no – I have the two most pissweak looking blisters you’d ever see.  We got medicinal coffee and medicinal blueberry muffins and I felt much happier.  18 kms next week, arrrggghh!

Piggy

I’ve finished reading Harry Potter so no need to combine that with my run tomorrow.  I’ve spent the day laying around reading and eat – what is it with reading that makes you eat so much?  I feel like I’m on the express train to Lardsville.  I don’t normally eat that much when reading but then I normally only read at bedtime.

Right now I’m waiting for my sister to finish reading to see if she want to go to the pub and watch the footy cos I’m feeling the need to get out of the house.  Too much time inside drives me crazy.  I want to go and tell her she won the ‘Who Will Die First in Harry Potter’ betting but that would totally be a spoiler.  And yes, my family bets on everything – the ARIA awards, the little league at the footy, TV shows, everything.  Except tattslotto.  And the pokies.  And the horses except on rare occasions.

Totally unrelated, one of my housemates moved out today.  That makes me so happy.  Now I just have to get rid of the other one.

Happy Harry Potter Eve

I can’t believe people have leaked the Harry Potter book on the internet.  That’s just evil and wrong.  I bet they used to snoop for their Christmas presents too… and I frigging hate that.  My sister used to try and make me do it (so she wouldn’t get into so much trouble if she got caught) – I don’t see the point.  It ruins stuff.  I hate spoilers and they deserve a special place in hell, a place that’s awfully like sharing a prison cell with Paris Hilton.

I doubly hate book spoilers – they should try writing a freaking novel and see just how hard it is.  The gruelling, back breaking, soul destroying wretchedness.  Then they’d feel guilty.  People compare writing a novel to having a child but it’s nothing like it.  A novel won’t survive being left in the car with a packet of Samboys while you’re at the pub*, a novel won’t go to the shop for you, a novel won’t support you in your old age (well actually it will if you are J.K. Rowling).  Don’t steal novels.  It’s wrong.

Talking of children, my darling son has always been a stubborn little shit.  If there was a stubborn little shit olympics, he’d win the decathalon.  Stubborn and independent and a wee bit cranky at times.  At every stage of his life, he’s ignored my teachings and guidance (ie. nagging) then, when I get sick of talking, he goes off and does things himself in his own way.  Like toilet training, I tried and tried but nothing worked so I thought bugger it… if he wants to stay in nappies his entire life, he can.  Once he gets to school, he’ll soon change his mind.  So a week after I gave up, he decides to use the toilet.  Same thing with walking and reading and just about everything in life.

Tonight, after a year of nagging and finally giving up, Andrew says he’s taken up running.  I bought him running shoes over a year ago and we went running once then he’s never been available to go again.  Now he’s been doing a walk/run lap every night.  I’m so pleased cos he’s put on a weight since he’s left home and done no exercise.  We have a family history of heart disease and diabetes too.  Hopefully he’ll keep it up.  He’s pretty motivated cos he wants to play cricket this summer and footy next year.

Other than that, I’m shitty with him.  A while ago, he loaned me his PS2 and I got totally hooked on Guitar Hero then he wanted it back for a while – now he wants to keep it and I want it back.

Now I have to go work out how I can fit in my Bikram yoga class and a 17 km with reading the HP book over the weekend.  I might be the Queen of Multitasking but even I have to draw the line somewhere.

*disclaimer:  I never left Andrew in the car while I was at the pub.

Oops

Woke up this morning feeling poorly so I stayed home from work but felt okay by lunch time so I went to the gym and did a killer workout.  Going to the supermarket and carrying a basket around is NOT a good idea after that!  My arms felt like they would drop off.

I haven’t felt like eating today, maybe because of feeling sick.  I find it confusing.  On the one hand, I know skipping meals is bad but don’t want to force myself to eat when I’m not hungry.  I think I’ll have some soup for dinner and not stress too much.

Tonight I have to go get my photos for the Runner’s World organised by really I don’t want to leave the house. I guess I must though.

Arggghh, I’m having lap top issues.  I keep getting random system errors – when I start it up I get a program exe error so I’m thinking it’s some program that is starting up automatically that is dodgy or else they didn’t install Windows properly.  I want to take up back while it’s under warranty but am worried that it’s something I’ve installed.  I’ve taken a heap of shit like msn messenger off it and still get the errors.  I also get Internet Explorer errors when I’m not even using IE – damn it.   I don’t get that shit, you’d not think I work in IT cos I’m so dumb with system stuff.