Australian Running Convention wrap up

So yesterday I hit the road, or the rail track to be precise and headed to Melbourne to the Australian Running Convention.  I had been told I should wear my running gear and I'd say 95% of the people also did the same.  I tell you what, my grandmother would have turned in her grave if she knew I was walking through the streets of the city in my running gear, it was never the done thing, you "dressed" for the city!  ha.

But seeings that it was 0 degrees when I left, I opted for long tights and a t-shirt and my running jacket and must admit I also wore a scarf on the train.  We left the south-west in thick fog but it ended up a beautiful day in Melbourne.

Because of train times I was going to be arriving after the start so I knew I would miss the first workshop.  There were different workshops and seminars throughout the day.  A quick message to Sarah from the Runners Connect group and she mentioned something like 'don't worry, I'll find you, it's only small' and when I got there my heart sank.  There weren't that many exhibitors, maybe 20 at most, and it all fit in one (well quite large) room.

When I had arrived there was a seminar in progress so I slipped into a chair at the back.  It was a coaching session about planning your running year.  Quite interesting, mostly about working out what type of race and distance you are aiming for and then working back as to what you need to achieve to get there, setting goals and targets.  He was very knowledgeable.  And it was interesting that he spoke about ensuring you get the distance run over the week, and if that meant breaking up some of your longer runs because of necessity then that was okay, it was more about getting the total distance in your legs.  Ideally there would always be a long run a week, but there are times that that is just impossible, and that was okay.

I then stayed to listen to the next seminar on sports physiotherapy - run yourself well.  This was an interesting discussion from two fellows from Freedom Sports Medicine and combined information on your footwear and prolonging the life of them, staying injury free, some interesting information about our ankles and early detection of injury.  The information he gave about our runners, in that if we used them day after day we weren't giving them time to 'recover' for want of a better word, the inner foam wouldn't get a chance to decompress.  He extolled the virtues of having a couple of different runners, it not only gave your shoes a chance to recover, and in turn ensure they lasted longer, but it also gave you a chance to ensure different muscles were used in your running, if you were running with a different shoe, a different drop, whatever.

I soon realised that it was the seminars and workshops that was going to make this day what it was, it wasn't just about the exhibitors, they were nice to check out, but it was the goldmine of information I would get from these seminars that would make the day worthwhile.

Soon after that was done Sarah found me and it was so nice to finally meet her.  She had her friend Louise with her and as soon as I saw her I recognised her from reading her blog!  Ahh the blog fame.

We moved outside into the glorious sunshine and soon found ourselves on mats on the grass and taking part in a yoga and injury prevention session.  I have often heard that yoga is really a runners best friend and it was a lovely session, although not as graceful as I would have hoped, and a few giggles as well.   This pic was taken at the start of the yoga session.

We had a quick look around the exhibitors after this and soon realised that the canvas bag that they gave as at the door was to hold the bounty of goods and paraphernalia we would be collecting.  I ended up with a gel (which I've never tried before), some chocolate protein powder, a pair of Feetures socks, lots of discount vouchers to different stores, and information, and a copy of Women's Running  I had mentioned I subscribed but it hadn't come yet, so she gave me a copy anyway and told me to pay it forward when mine arrived in the mail.  :-)    Some of my free goodies, not including what I also purchased!!!

We headed back outside to take part in the next workshpo which was strength training for runners, run by a Pesonal Trainer who was also a runner.  As well as showign us the correct way to do different techniques she had us doing three sets of squats, lunges, v-sit ups, push ups and the dreaded burpees!  I was spent!  But she was very knowledgable and pointed out exactly how these specific exercises would help us in our running.  

There were some good lunch options with healthy cooking provided and then after another look round and a few purchases I sat in on another seminar on psychology - the powerful mind of the runner.  A psychotherapist here spoke about a belief system and priorities.  It wasn't quite what I was hoping.  I guess I was expecting he would give us some magical mantra so that when the going got tough we could utter the magical words and abracadabra we would be running with the grace of a gazelle.  Not quite.  

After that was the feature discussion which was brilliant.  They had four special guests:  

• Tristan Miller: 52 marathons/52 weeks  
• Kelly Hetherington: AU 800m champion
• Oska Inkster-Baynes: NZ ½ marathon champion    
• Brendan Davies: AU Ultra Runner of the Year 2012

They were impressive to listen to, completely candid in their stories about overcoming advertsity during the darkets times of their lives and how running got them not only through it, but took them on to accomplishing some amazing things.  It was such a treat to listen to their passion.

Now remember I paid $29 for this ticket, I got $10 off the early bird price, and there was a rolling increase until if you bought your ticket on the day it was $59.   I must admit I am happy I got this day for $29, even $39 I would have paid, but I would have been a little annoyed, or actually a lot annoyed if I had paid $59 on the day, I would have expected more exhibitors I think.  The venue was a little noisy, but this is the first Running Convention held, it can only get better.  And kudos to the organisers for putting it on.

Father's Day

So today was Father's Day in Australia and what a treat for us that Tab and Aaron came for a visit with the little man.  As you can see Grumpy is caught well and truly under a spell, and I'm pretty delighted too, well okay, a LOT delighted!  He is such a cuddle sponge.

And here's the proud daddy enjoying his first Father's Day.  Isn't Saxon's little shirt a hoot, does he even know that he is the centre of everyone's love and attention right now, ahhhh the joys of being a baby.  Such a beautiful family unit.

 

So yes, well only a stack of new photos were taken today, what can I say when there is an adorable little model like this!  

And I remember my own dad today.  He's been gone for well over six years now, I can't believe how quickly that time has gone and all the things he's missed out on.  

Miss you dad. 

Scrapbookers Blog Tour

I have been nominated by my good friend Amy Mallory, to take part in the scrappy blog tour.  You might know Amy by her scrapbooking online name of mymalloryboys.   Amy is an incredible scrapbooker and home schooler.  Her pages are about family and love and her three boys and now one little girl will never have to wonder how much they are loved and adored, it’s all there on her pages.

I was also nominated by my friend, the amazing talented digital scrapbooking designer from Designer Digitals, Lynn Grieveson.  I was lucky enough to meet Lynn when she travelled over from NZ some years back and I can report she is a dynamo.  She creates beautiful products that I’m proud to use.

Right so the scrappy blog tour asks me to answer six questions.

1.     What am I working on right now?

I will be a rebel and talk about a couple of things both scrapbooking and non-scrapbooking related.   As you will know if you read this blog an addition has happened to the family by way of a beautiful baby grandson, so my pages lately have been all about him.  I want to try to keep up as best I can.  But he’s so darn cute, I am taking hundreds of photos!  

I also started a ‘Fifty before 50’ album, with the big one coming up quicker than a steam train.  I was scrapping 50 fun and fabulous things I was doing or what was important to me in the year before I turned 50.  Hmmm, made it to page 4.  I do aim to finish as I have been collecting the photos as the year has gone on. 

And then there was the trip with Esther to the US last year to meet the Designer Digitals creative team, I have only just started on that album, thank goodness (as of yesterday!!) So many projects so little time. 

And non-scrapbooking related because these questions could relate to that too, I’m in the middle of making a chevron crochet black and white blanket as part of a crochet-a-long with my scrapbooking friends Steph, Doris, Chrissy and Mollie.  See, that’s  kind of scrapbooking related too!   (I really must take a new photo, I'm up to about the 7th colour change now, I tell you the black is hard going!!  I usually wear my husband's head lamp of an evening when I'm crocheting the black.

2.     How long does it take to create a project?

I mentioned about the Fifty before 50 project and my US photo book, enough said!   I tend to pick these grandiose projects and it seems to take forever to finish.  But finish them I will. 

3.     What are my fave things I love to create with at the moment?

I’m not one to go with the latest fad.  To be honest I am a big fan of the DIY products that Lynn Grieveson makes and you'll often find them on my pages.  Love that we can put our own spin on them by adding our own colours or papers, gives us so much more flexibility in getting a page exactly how you want it to be.  But then sometimes that’s my downfall, then comes the indecision – will I use this shade of blue or that shade of blue.  And if you know my scrapbooking you’ll know there are very few pages without a brad or two on them!

        

4.     How does my writing/creating process work?

I’m a journaller that’s for sure.   One thing I’ve found over the years that it’s nice to pick up a scrapbook I’ve done, and lovely to see the photos and reminisce, but it’s the words that truly bring the page (and the memory) to life.  I'm fortunate in that I host the Story Scrapbooking Challenge at Designer Digitals, this month's challenge is to tell a story about a birthday (hmmm I wonder why??) so if you're reading this, do join in.  I've linked up the blog challenge.  

I write like I talk too.  I might ask Mike what does he think about a page I have up on my screen, and he’ll start trying to correct the grammar.  Nooooooo!   I meant it to run into one huge humongous sentence Mike, cause I don’t talk with commas or fullstops!    

5.     How do I become inspired and stay inspired?

Oh I lose my mojo on a regular basis, and sometimes I think I have sooooo many photos I want to scrap and am almost paralysed at starting.  But something will (hopefully) just click.  It will be the colours or tones of a kit.  It will be something I want to say.  I’d like to say I use Pinterest for inspiration but I really don’t.  That’s just more for fun.  I think it’s usually I have something to say and then the page just comes.  I do get inspired by the team at DesignerDigitals, those ladies are amazing with the pages they spin out. And for my non-scrapbooking friends reading this, if you are still reading this!! all these scrapbook pages are done digitally, all on the computer, despite so many looking three dimensional, it's all done with pixels.  I also like to check out Gallery Standouts to see what the wider community are creating.    Scrapbooking is so rewarding, and digital scrapbooking for me more so because it’s all I’ve known.

6.     What is my signature style?

I look at my gallery and wonder that.  I really don’t think I have a signature style.  I truly don’t think I would be able to pick my own page in a digi line up.  That sounds weird, because I would have made the page.  But you get what I mean.  All I know is that 9 times out of 10 there’ll be a story on it, cause that’s what it’s all about for me, telling the story.

So I need to pass this blog tour onto some other scrappers.  Having said that I see this blog tour is doing the rounds of the quilting community too as my friend Sharon also tried to tag me.  So everyone I approached has already been tagged, so I'm going to say (and yes this is a cop out) that if you are reading this and if you would like to answer these questions regardless of what craft you do please feel free to consider yourself tagged.  Let me know in the comments if you are playing along so I can check out your post.  Your post will need to be popped on your blog next Friday 12th September.

Another day in paradise

What a weekend, first day of Spring tomorrow but it made an early appearance this past week.  And what perfect running weather.   Saturday I took off about lunchtime and headed over to Terang and did two laps of the dry lake.  This has become one of my fave runs.  Different scenery on each side of the dry lake - which incidentally is the crater of an old volcano. 

This is the face of happy having done 8.7km.   Oh and no Bessie and the girls this run, the cows were in a different paddock, but there were some beautiful horses grazing as I ran past.

And the wattle was out, it was absolutely beautiful.  Wattle is such a happy flower I think, who can't be happy when they see all that glorious yellow.

All throughout this run there are farm gates, I think I've mentioned that before.  A lot of this is private property you run through, and kudos to the farmers for allowing it.   It's also a good chance for a bit of a breather when you have to stop and open and close and chain the gate each time!!

As part of the Mind Body Motion "multi-staged kilometre-athon" training, the past week we had to take a photo/s representing MSKA (for multi-staged km-athon).  I took the challenge very literally but the S truly alluded me.  Try as I might I could not find anything to represent an S, so in a moment of desperation, after my 8.7km run above, when I got home from Terang I grabbed Lucky and we went for a walk/run and I mapped out the shape of an S for that!  Whew, mission accomplished.  I feared that the local constabulary were going to be called when I was peering into people's yards during my run.

Here's my MSKA effort...

M = bike rack outside the supermarket.

S = my run/walk with Lucky, as a last resort.

K = okay so it's dodgy at that, but a road sign as you approach the highway, I can see a K, can't you?

A = a picnic table at the lake.

And I am very VERY pleased to announce that we in the G house have gotten through to the end of August and have remained completely clean in the No Junk Food August Challenge.   I have found it easier as the month went on and will continue with it.  Mike had some challenges but has remained completely clean also.  Although I believe he is planning to eat chips for breakfast tomorrow! ha.

So all about challenges at the moment, I'm now signed up to the 30 day wellness challenge being run by The Wellness Nurse on facebook.  The wellness nurse is a nurse from our Runners Group, but I'm all up for challenges and getting new and good habits in.  Although I've already failed at the first challenge because I don't have any lemons to start my day with lemon and warm water.  So I'll need to do it with warm water alone and make amends on future days.  

Tomorrow is September.  My favourite month of the year.  What's not to love, Spring AND a birthday month all rolled into one!

A beautiful almost Spring day

Such an exquisitely beautiful almost-but-not-quite-Spring day today.  Still a few days till Spring but today it was spectacular.  I decided to go out around lunchtime and run and this time decided to run way out of town to a road that is at the base of the mount.  It is a lane full of undulating ups and downs, plus there's a nasty sausage dog in one of the houses.  The sky was the most magnificent colour blue today so even the sausage dog didn't scare me.  Okay well you would be scared too if you heard the yap it made, but I was ready for it as the only other time I'd run up this lane the darn dog chased me (by the way that pic below is not the lane, that's on the way leading up to where I turned off).  So I made sure I mustered the reserves and when that yappy thing started down it's driveway towards the lane I sped on by.  Ha!  Take that sausage dog.

So anyway the reason I wanted to run way out of town today was due to the funeral I went to yesterday.  A dear old man, a farmer who lived on the mount, always had a nice word and a twinkle in his eye and called me "darlin'".  Actually he called everyone "darlin'" but he always made it sound like you were special.   So I wanted to run up there as I knew it was a hard slog and it was where he lived so it was with Eddie in mind that I ran today.  And how absolutely fitting as I was heading past his house that Loch Lomond by the Borderers came on my running track.  Timing is everything as this man was Scottish.

Don't you just want to bottle that blue sky, it was glorious.  So I was at the very far point of my run and had hit Ararat Road, which I don't like running along because there are big trucks that lumber past, so had to get over on the grass a number of times.  So here I was ready to turn and head back into town.  Glorious day.  A nice cruisey 7km run.   Felt good.

So apparently yesterday was National Dog Day and I kept seeing pics flooding facebook of people's dogs.  So I decided it should be International Dog Day and join in.  Although laugh's on us, as every day is dog day in the G House!  Pics below taken yesterday of the terror and his old sister.  Molly was giving me her "if I must" look!

And on the scrapping front I have to share this page I recently put together.  Saxon's dad took this really funny pic and it was too good to pass up, it needed to be immortalised in a scrapbook page.

Supplies by Designer Digitals.

So end of the week tomorrow, I think a bit of shopping is in order, plus if I'm having a good hair day I might go get my driver's licence renewed and cross fingers I get a good photo this time!  Eeeek.

And PS to Chloe, the long Nikes  which I took out for a test run the other day were actually not too bad, the zipper wasn't a problem at all.  They came way way down, whereas my only other long tights are the 2XU ones and I show my ankle with those.  So maybe in the Nike world I would be considered a short stuff, who knows.  But all good, they are good cold weather tights for sure.

Four whole weeks !

Four weeks to do what I want.  Sooooo happy to be on holidays.   To wake up this morning when my body wanted to wake up, no alarm.  To just potter and do some scrapbooking and crochet.  I have a list, oh boy am I a list person, and I have a whole page of things I want to do.  Such satisfaction marking things off.  We'll see how much I get to.

One thing I know is that time waits for no one, and our gorgeous little grandson is already just over 2 months old.  I want to keep up with scrapbooking pages for his book and not get too far behind.  And I had all those wonderful photos from the night he was born, so put a double page spread together.  You can see how we were all besotted with him when he was only an hour and a half old !!   We thought when we arrived we would be in for a long wait, not so.   I get very emotional looking at these photos of my step-daughter, she looks so serene and beautiful and completely at peace.

Digital scrapbooking credits.

Can you even imagine how awesome it would be to have pics like this back from when you were a baby?  I think the youngest pic of me was a week or so old when I was brought home from hospital.  Nothing like brand new like these ones.

Forecast for fog tomorrow morning, yay!  Love to run in the fog, so an early morning run planned, we'll see how I go.  Will try out some new running tights I bought from Catch of the Day.  Some long Nike tights, I only have one pair of long tights and although we're at the tail end of winter, my legs are still getting so cold on morning runs.  These Nikes weren't exactly what I thought, I didn't see the zips down near the ankle in the photo, I'm thinking that's going to annoy me like nothing else, but shall wait to see tomorrow.  Me and my online shopping! 

12wbt brought us together

You'll know I keep going on about 12wbt and how it has changed the way I act and think and am, it's been life changing.  But one of the most unexpected by-products of the program has to have been about meeting like-minded people.  We have the wonderful Warrnambool & Surrounds 12wbt crew, people come and people go, but that core group, the ones that turn up to group activities and participate in our facebook group, they are the ones that inspire me each and every day.

We had a group activity today and 10 wonderful women got out there and worked it!  A couple of the girls ran 17km, one of our most inspiring women ran from Koroit to Warrnambool, a total of 19.5 km, we had Debbie and the dogs (well two dogs became three when she found a stray, too bad that one didn't realise it was going on a boot camp before heading to the vets for a microchip test), and Chloe did muscle exercise too when her run involved pushing a pram.  So whatever our goals, we divvied up and went and did it and all met back at the surfclub for brunch.

We accosted a passerby to take this pic, a couple of the girls had already run their kms and were going to head home to family life.  The rest of us were just starting.

And this was afterwards, when Kellie in the pink made it after her mammoth 19.5km run.  That's a long way to run for eggs for brecky huh?  And please excuse the mop top hair on me, looks like I'm trying out for a gig with the Beatles!      Needed to get this pic for another running group I'm in, the 12wbt Runners Connect.  We three here are in that group so had to share a pic for them.

I needed to do a 6km today as part of the MBM km-athon, it was a back-to-back run from yesterday, ouch!  Tired legs.  So I started out with Melissa and Alison, but soon enough I ended up following their tails, but that was okay, we're all at our own pace.  I ventured past Granny's Grave today and ran down to the Hopkins Bridge, I didn't even know the path went down to there, fancy that, all the times I've run along the foreshore.

Had to touch the bridge or it doesn't count!! ha.  There are some runs that you have to touch something, hopefully I'm not the only one like that.  Like the Breakwater Pier, I have to touch the wall at the end or it doesn't count.  I remember a fisherman on the end once looked at me strangely and I said ... "doesn't count if I don't touch it".  He just shook his head and kept on fishing.

Ahhhh back to the Surf Club for brunch.  Mmmmmm.  My favourite eat out breakfast is eggs benedict and I just knew I'd be getting that today.  Not that I eat out for breakfast much so it was special.  And so enjoyable to sit and chat to the girls.  As I mentioned, the best by-product of 12wbt has been to be part of this group, and become good friends with a wonderful lot of women, who I have often called my "health and fitness sisters".

So Mike has gotten better after quite a number of days where he was down for the count.  And I have been so lucky not to get even a touch of it (touch wood).  I'm now on 4 weeks break from work, yay!   I can't afford to be sick, I have lots of fun to be had.

One weekend, two very different runs!

So I was to do two back to back runs this weekend as part of the training for the Mind Body Motion km-athon.  So Saturday and Sunday it was to be.  And couldn't have been two more different runs.

Saturday morning was foggy!  Must admit I love running in the fog (dangers of running on the side of the road aside).  The fact that you run only 10 metres at a time means that your mind doesn't playing up, you don't see that long road ahead or the hill you've got to climb.  You're just running 10 metres or so at a time.  Plus there's something so enveloping, a silence, only hearing yourself breath, echoing in the fog.  It's really nice.

But ... cold !!!!   I went out first thing and when I started my run it was 2 degrees Celsius and I came home to a balmy 3 degrees Celsius!  

This was the scene as I got to the corner of my street and headed up to the highway.  

Highway?  What highway???

Then over onto the stock route, the track was fairly solid, I just had to jump some muddy bits.

Bit of cross training while I was running!!  

It may only have been 3 degrees by the end of my run, but boy I was hot.

The jacket had long since been ditched and was flapping about having been tied around my waist.

Hot and wet, the fog does weird things to your hair.  Frizz central.

Then take today.  I hung around till nearly lunchtime, because Mike had been quite ill this weekend (more about that later).   So for something different I headed over to Terang to do a lap or two of the dry lake.

I always seem to run this route clockwise.  Is that a runner thing?  I don't know.

Anyway off I start.

The bush track at the start soon turns into gorgeous countryside.

Soon enough I realised the cows were in the paddock I had to run through.  

There are lots of gates that you open and close during this trek.

I said hello to "the girls" and slowly ran through, didn't want to spook them.

The dry lake is actually a crater and I guess the top here is the rim of the crater.

And it's sooooo fun running down after you get to the top.  

Oh dear, got to the bottom part of the rim and there's the next gate.

But there's a cow in front of it, quite happily scratching her head on the post there.

There's a nice cow, move please I say.

It kept scratching.

So I waved my arms in the air and okay so I'll admit it, I actually "moo'ed" at one stage.

Well what do you say to a cow when you want it to move?

I couldn't go in front of it as it was really muddy on the grass, I had the Mizunos to think about!!

And I didn't want to go behind it, in case it kicked me.

So I waited it's pleasure, 2 minutes of it's pleasure, before it decided to move.

And off I set again.

So I mentioned Mike had been sick.  I came home on Thursday after work to see him looking really poorly, I was yet to decide whether it was man sick or real sick, but as the evening went on, he got worse.  Friday morning he woke up being very sick, praying to the porcelain Gods no less, and couldn't eat.  Of course being a man didn't want to go to the doctors!  More symptoms that I won't go into here, lest I put you off your dinner.  But I actually worried being that his heat plays up at times and so stayed home to keep an eye on him.

So all in all he has finally started feeling a bit more human by Sunday afternoon.  I was put onto a miracle soup by a friend of mine and made it, which was the first thing he was able to keep down.  Cabbage and Garlic soup, sounds atrocious but actually really delicious (I made it with savoy cabbage as it's all they had at our supermarket).

He spent most of the weekend sleeping either in bed or on the couch.  Lucky close by his side.  Amazing that dogs just know don't they?  Lucky snuggled in with him on the couch, very comforting.

So it's been one of those weekends, not much done, a bit of running, a bit of housework and playing at being Nurse Carol.  Lets hope next week is a better week for him.