A Surprise Gift

I have a group of friends.  We all met well over ten years ago when we were planning our weddings on a wedding forum.  Well our weddings came and went but a small group of us remained tight and created our own private forum.   Over the years a couple have dropped off, but our small group remains.  We check in with each other and chat almost daily.   We've been through ups and downs, highs and lows, we've been through births and deaths, tragedies and celebrations, and we've met up,a few times over the years too, despite us being from all over Australia - Victoria, NSW and Queensland.

So imagine my surprise yesterday when a huge box was delivered to me from my friends, and inside was a gift to Mike and I and a huge beautifully wrapped gift to my stepdaughter Tabby.  I can't wait to catch up with Tabby to see what they have given her.  However the gift to Mike and I had a card enclosed to "the Grandparents to be" which had written "Your first editions for Nanna and Grandpas new library for the little one!"

 

How beautiful and what wonderful friends.  I'm so lucky to have these girls in my life.  Thank you Victoria, Cheng, Polly, Penny, Kylie and Lucy.

Coming to you from Beastie Boy !

My new super sonic runs like the wind ultra quiet computer.  So quiet I told Mike it wasn't working the other day, but I'd forgotten to turn the screen on and I couldn't hear a sound out of it.  I love that I turn it on and wham it's ready at the start screen.   And the programs, super super fast on my solid state drive.  Previously I'd click on Photoshop, walk up to the kitchen, boil the kettle, make a cuppa, bring it back down here and it would be just opening.  Not any more.  I click on Photoshop and wham, there it is.  I'm signed up to the Cloud now too, so I have Lightroom which I'm totally lost in, but will be studying up some tutorials.

I did a run today, my longest run ever.  16.6 km.  I was flipping ecstatic.  I woke up this morning, thank you alarm, how on earth can a person hit snooze when I have it set up like this ...

It was still dark when I left, but I ran through town under the street lights in the FOG !!  Hoping for a lovely sunrise, was not to be, the whole just over two hours was foggy, it didn't lift.  As you can see behind me here.  This was at the just over 8km half way point, before I turned around and ran all the way back to town.  I was sodden by this stage, a combo of dampness from the fog and (what we call) liquid awesome (sweat) !!

End result... ouch.  I am slow, I will grant you that, but I ran about 95% with only a handful of short walk breaks.  I quite liked running in the fog, apart from having to remain completely vigilant for the few cars that came out of the fog to make sure they saw me running up the side of the road, but the fact you can't see all the distance in front of you, so you don't end up psyching yourself out of hills or rises, or the long long road stretching out ahead.  It was like take each step as it came.  Worked for me.

Before I go, another update on my beautiful stepdaughter.  She really is just the picture of serenity.  I am loving creating these pages for her.

Credits Designer Digitals.   Now off to bed for me.

I took on the Elephant yet again!!

So yesterday I took on the Elephant again this year.  It was the second annual Derrinallum Market to Mount Fun Run, 5km from the Football Oval on the far side of town, a lap of said oval, then up the Hamilton Highway, through the town, past the Sunday market, out to Mount Elephant and then scale that darn elephant any way you could to finish on the top of the peak.

So to set the scene, the area around here is full of old dormant volcanos.  Kind of makes you feel a sense of thrill right?  They're dormant, not extinct, they could blow at any moment!!   So just so you know (Leitchy I'm not crazy!!) but I took these photos AFTER the race had finished and I was on my way back into town.  But just showing you them here in order as I would have seen them on the run, to set the scene.

So we ran out of town and hit a head wind.  It was nasty.  All I could think of was when I turned to head to the mount it would be at my back.  No, not so, the wind turned.  Gaaaah!  I hate that.

So here's the view of the mount as we left the highway.  It doesn't particularly look like it here, but in some angles it actually does look like a big old elephant laying down.

Continuing up the slight rise dirt road almost to the base.  The gravel was nice and smooth here, not too bad at all.

Until we hit the first cutting which in the photos above you can see diagonally rises from the base on the right up towards the middle.  It is nasty scoria and some of the rocks are big.  There was no running at this point, it was one foot in front of the other just to make it to the top.  Don't worry, we knew what the track would be like, we were warned well in advance, and I did this run last year so was expecting it.  Somehow though it felt harder this year .... hmmm perhaps because I'm another year older!!

You get to the top of the scoria and have a slight reprieve where the track dips down slightly and a welcome water station, and then rises yet again, but this time it's two tyre tracks and cut hay.  It was like we were heading up to the clouds!

Closer and closer to the finish at the top, one more turn around at the top and the flags were in sight!  Yep, it was steep alright!  And funnily enough I got to the top, saw the flags and took off at a run to finish and the Rocky theme started on the headphones.  How appropriate!  I resisted the urge at the top though to jump around arms in the air like a mad woman.  All I wanted was more water!

The pain soon subsided though when the elation of having made it took over.  I was on top of the world, you could look out in all directions as far as the eye could see.  Just to the right of my head there is the township of Derrinallum where I had come from.  I look really short in this photo, now I might not be the tallest of people, but this really is an optical illusion.

So times...

Last year I did the run in 47 mins 33 seconds.

This year the official time has just been posted today ... 46 minutes 55 seconds.

I beat my time by 38 seconds and that is a win in my books!  That's all I wanted to do was beat my time.

Plus I came 45th out of 64 runners so I was happy with that placement in the field.  I definitely wasn't last (not that anything would be wrong with that).  I might add that there was (at a guess) a 70 year old man ahead of me, he was remarkable, obviously athletic.  I told him at the top I was keeping an eye on his butt the whole race.  He was delighted!

And check this crazy elevation map out from my Runkeeper.  This is nuts seeing how the 5km panned out.  Mind you the steeper the elevation, the slower my pace got until it was almost non-existent!

So after a bottle of water and a banana at the top, I started making my way down again.  This was where I slipped and fell last year, so I took more care this time round.  We were able to get down to the base of the mount where there was a bus that would shuttle us back into town.  Pffft to that, I decided to run back into town, so all up a 9km day (5km out and 4km back) back to the market where I met back up with Mike and had the best egg and bacon roll for breakfast that I swear I've ever eaten!!  Then waited for the presentations.

It was a long day yesterday, we ended up travelling through to Ocean Grove to meet up with Mike's family for a farewell lunch as his sister and family are heading overseas for a wonderful holiday.  We decided to try an Academy Award style selfie a la Ellen deGeneres.  We may not have broken Twitter, but I don't think the kitchen chair fared too well at the back! ha.

Soooooo the next race I've entered is the Half Marathon at Geelong.  40 days to go.  Gulp!

Some more baby pages

A wee little update on some baby pages.  Tab is now 24 weeks.  My goodness, this is going so quickly now.  And she really is the picture of health.  I'm still madly scrapping the photos she is sending me through.  Here's the latest baby belly page back when she was 18 weeks pregnant.  I absolutely love this pic, she looks like she's from another era and how cute is that headband too.

And they have the cot and chest of drawers now.  I was sooooo worried that when they went to collect it, if it wouldn't have been what it looked like in the photograph, or if they opened the flat pack if it had a dirty big scratch on it, or if it was flimsy and not sturdy.  But it was everything they had hoped for and more.  It's absolutely gorgeous and A has done a great job setting it up.

I quickly sent a text to Tabby and said to make sure she got pics when he was setting things up for the nursery as Mr. A definitely deserves his own page in this baby book too.

Credits Designer Digitals.

I love that Tab is excited when she sees these pages, I can't wait to get a few more and then send them off for printing, when she gets the actual page from Persnickety, it looks just soooooo incredible having something tangible for an album.  Ahh heck, I might just do one more bump page and then send off for printing anyway.  Waiting is overrated, right?

Noorat to Terang

What fun last night.  Another great locally run event with a wonderful atmosphere.  Local runners all combined to run the 5.92 km race (sheeesh for an even number girl, that number really annoys me!!!  Why couldn't they start it 80 metres up the road, call it 6km and be done with it).  It was all very cruisey and low key, no timing chip, you got your race time on a slip of paper at the end for the certificate you would pick up.  It's all fun, run by the local Lions Club.  

I did another jump for joy at the start, don't mind the crazy eyes.  You may remember I did this last year too.  Looks like it will be an annual event.  (Mind you it took Mike about 10 goes to get this pic in focus, I was knackered by the start of the race!!)  Yes, this is a little country town, you'll notice the stone wall fences behind me.

And of course some of the fabbo girls from our Warrnambool & Surrounds 12wbt crew were there.  Sue here from the crew, and a friend from the town I live in.

And here's Jill and my dear friend Lynn who makes a regular appearance at these events on my blog.  

I'm also in a 1000 km Facebook group, which has the aim to run or walk 1000 km in 12 months.  My goal is to run it.  I'm up to 146 km for the year.  The group is all inspiring and from all over Australia, we just check in with our distances and a bit about what we've been doing.  However Adrienne here is a local girl, and we've never met.  I told her what I would be wearing and she found me.  Here's to new running friends!  Although I might say I didn't see her for dust, she took off and I was a plodder near the back of the pack.

Here's the race start, the walkers had taken off at 6.30pm and they would be using the walking track between the two towns.  The runners however got to run on the main road as the cars had been stopped.  Ready set, waiting for the starters gun, bang!  And they took off.  All except me.  I had started my Runkeeper and was fiddling trying to get my blasted phone in my Spibelt and I looked up and everyone had gone.  Mike was up a little bit waiting, waiting, waiting with the camera, wondering where the heck was I.  Then like a little red caboose I sprinted on past him with a wave and a cheer.

Here I am coming down the home straight, the finish line was in sight.  Hey you don't usually see a pic of me self-levitating, both feet off the ground, go me!

A look of sheer concentration, putting the sprint on to the end.  I had a PB to make.

Oh come on Mike, what have I told you about the bum shots!!!  There will be NO BUM SHOTS!

And winners are grinners!!!  I have no illusions, I will never make a a cracking pace, and mind you the pace did go out fast which saw me get a stitch and had to have a few walks along the way to catch my breath, ouch!   But I was extremely happy.  Last year 43:07.  This year 42:10.    Only 57 seconds faster, but I'll take that and run with it, literally!  :-)

Now I have to pay kudos to Mike, he took lots of photos last night, of friends at the start, of runners passing by, he was snapping like a wild thing, and that camera is heavy you know.  Scoop here taking a rest at the finish line!!

Seriously ... I love this man.  He's always by my side, always cheering me on.  He would have been running last night if not for his knee and ankle problem which he is working on strengthening.  He may have been a bit wistful as the runners ran by.  But I tell you he was there cheering me at the end.  

Next Fun Run is Derrinallum, Market to Mount, 5km finishing at the top of Mount Elephant ... 16 March.