The best and the worst of nature!

The Empty Nest!
Another week has gone and life has once more interfered with my blogging. Last Thursday it rained and it rained and next morning when I arrived at work I was devastated to discover that the baby magpies had disappeared from their nest. There was no sign of them on the ground and no sign of mum or dad. Neither has been sighted since. The nest remains deserted!

Saturday 27 October - short run
Distance: 8.22km
Time taken: 49mins
Average pace per km: 6:02
Calories burned: 482

Sunday - Vets' Handicap Run
Location: O'Connor Ridge
Distance: 8km
Time taken: 47:25
Average pace per km: 5:50
Place: 33rd
Handicap Group: 23
Calories: 488

This run was on familiar territory and in spite of the fact that I had an extremely late night, due to daughter-in-law's 30th birthday dinner party followed by an early morning due to the commencement of daylight saving, I really enjoyed the run aside from the tiredness. The surface was rough and there were lots of hills but it was challenging and I kept thinking if I hadn't eaten so much the night before and if I had more sleep, I could have run a lot better. Never mind, it was fun being surrounded by running friends. Later in the day I had a lovely time at Barb's get-together in spite of getting very lost finding my way to her new temporary home!

Monday - speedygeoff's training at Parliament House

Because of work commitments I didn't manage to go to the early session. However, I did run with the main group at 5.30pm starting with our usual warm-up lap. It was a great turn out and a good chance to catch up with a number of people. After the warm-up the main session was four x 640m repeats from the road and through the rose garden then jogged back to the start. Marg, Jodie and I only managed to squeeze in 3 repeats before the rest completed their 4. We then did a warm down loop of PH. After our warm-up we completed a number of stretches - yes, we are doing proper stretching at training now - great stuff!

Distance: 8:34km Calories: 530

After the training session I had to return home to clean up our deck. How fortuitous that daylight saving started the day before and I had enough light left for over an hour. A huge storm last night had whipped through our yard and our outdoor umbrella smashed through the glass topped table on the deck. I was left with one swinging enormous umbrella and shattered glass absolutely everywhere – shards of it on the deck chairs and shattered glass covering the deck. I climbed precariously up the step ladder to untie a million knots to release the umbrella off one hook and then it swung ominously close to my good ceramic pot so, wearing galoshes and leather gloves, I balanced myself pulling it out from the table frame (no glass top left at all) and then moved the ladder to release it from the other hook. Then the fun started – to try to fold up the umbrella. Oh dear, it went half way and stuck. I was almost in tears of frustration and ended up ringing Mr B (currently in NZ) who told me the ropes had to be loose and released so it would then fold. So I crawled under it in my running gear (must have looked an interesting sight if the neighbours saw me!!) and untwisted a very knotted rope from the inside top of the umbrella then after about 15mins it released and folded up on top of me!! So I pushed and shoved my way out from the umbrella and then rolled it up and dragged it into the garage where it now lies in state (but not nearly the same state as I was in at that moment)!! Then back to the garage for the outdoor broom, the kitchen shovel and lots of newspaper and bags. It took over an hour more to sweep up the glass and carry it through the house (cos I had shut the back door into the laundry and I had to go through the sliding doors and through the living area) holding a huge bag of several paper loads of glass and praying I didn’t drop the lot all over the carpet. I made it and for the next bag loads I made sure the back door was open!! I was utterly stuffed by the time I finished and it was now dark outside cos of course the outside light bulb had gone!! After all that I made myself some dinner and had a well-deserved shower!

Tuesday - Bodypump class at gym
I missed last week's session and found it really hard this morning especially as I decided to attempt to increase my weights. It was very painful!

Wednesday
Morning 6.15am - RPM - Cycle class
7am - 15mins killer-abs class

Our abs coach is being married in 6 weeks and is determined that we will all share her perfect abs. Consequently we worked extremely hard in that 15minutes! Her motto is "no pain, no gain" which may give some indication of how hard she works us!

After work - 5.15pm - Run with Ewen

Ewen met me at work and we ran down to the lake, over the bridge to the ferry terminal and on to Molonglo Reach doing a U-turn and returning to the start.

Distance: 14km
Time taken: 1hr 24mins
pace per km: 6mins
Calories burned: 830

It was another good run. I started off feeling very slow with my knees hurting after yesterday's gym session. I also had two pit stops which was annoying. However, the return journey was much better and we picked up the pace. At the carillon we stopped for a moment on the bridge and watched fluffy little goslings with their mum and dad - very cute. One of the highlights of our run, for me, was the tin mounted on a telegraph pole containing bags for 'doggie do' clean-ups. I have never seen these before and think they're a wonderful invention for assisting to keep our environment clean and fresh.

Tomorrow morning I'm meeting CJ for brekkie and I'm so looking forward, not only to catching up, but to that extra 45mins sleep in the morning!