Adult Tantrums

I go to the shopping centre every week day before work. I go to have a coffee and do the crossword quietly before the work day begins. This morning's peace and quiet were shattered before I'd even completed half of my crossword by a very frazzled mother. She was screaming at her 3 or 4 year old daughter, calling her some ugly names while the grandmother looked on. I watched the interchange for a while. The little girl was reduced to sobs from her mother's tirade. Grandma tried to placate both mother and daughter and looked a little embarrassed about her daughter's behaviour.

And why was the mother so upset? Her little girl didn't make up her mind quickly enough about what she wanted to eat and when she finally decided it was at another stall a few meters away. How inconvenient for the mother!

What that woman did really upset me. Her little girl did nothing terribly wrong and certainly nothing awful enough to cause such a scene. The mother's reaction was little short of child abuse. Screaming at such a young child and letting them know how worthless they are will leave scars that may never heal. We parents are charged with such an important role and it's essential that we act like the adults and provide good role models for impressionable minds.

I wish I'd had the balls to walk up to that woman and tell her to grow up and start acting like a mother.

The Road to Overtraining

Tuesday is Speed Day and being that today is Tuesday you can probably guess that I had a speed session this morning. It was another challenging session - but I've never been to a speed session that's been cruisey. We started off with a 1k warm up. Coach Chris had an evil glint in his eye so I was thinking time trial. I was right. We were starting off with a 2k time trial followed by a 2 min recovery then it was 4 or 5 800's depending on time.

I started the time trial conservatively. Age does bring wisdom. Too often I have blasted out of the start only to die within a kilometer. It makes for a miserable run. I picked one of the runners in front of me and just tried to stay in touch with him. It was a double 1k loop and I hit the first k at 4:32. I started to reel in my pace-maker on the second loop until I was just a couple of paces behind him with 400 to go. I considered passing then but decided it would give him too much time to pass me back so I left it till there was only 200m to go - breezed past him and left him eating my dust ( Have I ever mentioned that I love beating men ) 9:02 finish time which shows that my recovery is continuing.

The 800's hurt a little but they're supposed to. My first was the fastest(3:38)then it was 3:40 for #2. The last 3 were all at 3:43 - talk about consistent! I checked my times for the last 800's I did and these are definitely better. Yay

I thought I'd mention a bit about overtraining syndrome ( cause you asked Teamarcia) It was such a gradual thing that I can't exactly pinpoint when it started. I ran a couple of good races early July and in August but never allowed myself much recovery. I was really focused on Sydney half marathon and wanted to do a good time there. I was only running 4 times a week but every session I ran pretty hard. At the same time we were having a tough time with my Mum and Dad that had started around Easter and the issues didn't seem to be improving at all. It got to the point that I was call-screening my Mum and avoiding any contact with her. It was a heavy time emotionally and I was using running as a crutch.

My first indicator was a really bad time at a 10k run (50 mins - 4 mins more than I'd run earlier that month) It was a hot day so I thought that was the issue and when I got home I felt sick and vomited. So then I was thinking I'd caught a bug. This was 3 weeks before the Sydney half and I thought nothing of it. I was starting to NOT look forward to training, which is unlike me, and I wasn't sleeping well. And I'd lost a little weight. But I thought that I'd start to feel fresher when I tapered - I didn't.

Sydney half was a nightmare. I ran okay to 15k then the wheels fell off and I limped home. I felt physically sick again for 24 hours and REALLY tired. The next couple of weeks I continued to train but I was exhausted. I'd lie on the floor in the workroom and have a nanna nap. My heart rate was up all the time and I felt sick after every training session. So I went to the doctor for a blood test. Nothing wrong except my immunity was down a little. The doctor agreed that it was probably overtraining syndrome and I needed time off then to come back slowly. It's taken 6 months because I let myself go down so far.

I've learnt a lot from this experience. Mostly that you have to listen to your body and listen closely and you can't run away from your problems. You have to face them even if it's hard.

Happy Mother's Day to all of you Mums. I hope you have had or are having as lovely as day as me. My day started with breakfast out with my boys. Then I spent the next couple of hours finishing off my cupcake masterpiece for my Mum's afternoon tea and making pumpkin scones. It was such a lovely creative way to spend the afternoon - baking and listening to my favourite music.

Then it was off to Mum's for our traditional Mother's Day afternoon tea. All four of my sisters were there and all of us cook so it's a bit of an eat-fest. Julie, my oldest sister makes something like a calzone. It has pizza dough filled with haloumi, tomato and mint leaves. It's delicious! Then there were sandwiches, a cheese platter, scones, spring rolls, curry puffs, slice and cake. My poor Dad loves food (you can tell by the size of his tummy) and he finds it impossible to be restrained. He reckons he has to have a taste of everything so none of his daughters feels left out but we know better.

Anyway I promised a pic of my giant cupcake. I was a little disappointed with the actual cake part. It could have been moister. Next time I'll try a different recipe. But I was happy with how it looked. Unfortunately I managed to mess it up a little in transit by brushing it against my enormous rack! (I say that tongue in cheek) So I arrived at Mum's place with meringue and icing smeared on my chest.

So here it is.

Is Saturday the Best Day of the the Week?

I don't know if it's because I've caught up with my work but my happy days continue. I'm sitting here bathed in my post-run euphoria and I finished my run over 7.5 hours ago. I'm so happy because I ran the longest run I've managed since over a year ago and I finished it strong.

I was supposed to be running a 20k today but a couple of things happened to push it out to 24k. Firstly I was feeling really good. It was the coolest day we've had this year and I always run better in the cool. Secondly - we were running over the other side of the river and it's unknown territory for me. I was running in the lead group (and for a while I was taking the lead which means we were running pretty slow) and everyone in the group bar me were doing 24k. The route twisted and turned through the streets and, knowing how bad my sense of direction is, I was terrified of getting lost. So I just kept running.

I tried another gel this week. It was berry flavoured and I was quite looking forward to it. Yuk! It tasted like berry phlegm. Not too keen on the consistency. But I think it did it's job and even if it didn't I believed that it would. A psychosomatic effect is better than no effect at all.

I got home and uploaded all the running data from my Garmin - 24k in 2:08 which is 5:21 pace. The best info was that I'd used over 1700 calories which meant that my breakfast out was totally guilt-free.

You may not have picked up on this but I have a love/hate relationship with food. It stems from being a fat teenager (73 kg) who tried to lose weight by not eating, which worked to a point but I was never cut out for anorexia. I bounced from there to binge-eating and then bulimia for three years. When I became pregnant with my first the light bulb turned on and I realised that I had to eat properly for my baby's sake and I've been fine ever since. I still have some old thought patterns - I label foods as good or bad and I'm fairly disciplined but I do eat regularly and heathily.

So I had a great run and a lovely breakfast and I've just come back from Luke's first school soccer/football game of the season. They won! Go State High!! I have a walk with my friend Natalie this afternoon and then the unknown delights of Mother's Day to look forward to. I've put a special cake in the oven for my Mum. It's going to be a giant lemon meringue cupcake and it's a bit of an experiment but considering how my day has gone it will be a huge success. I'll put a picture of it up tomorrow if it works (no pic = epic fail!)

Life Is Good

Hhhhhhh! That's the sound of me letting go a huge sigh of relief. I have finally got my work orders under control. It's taken long days, weekends and the last two public holidays and now I can take my foot off the accelerator for a little while. I'm even thinking I may take a couple of Fridays off - at least until work becomes manic again.

I was back at hills yesterday after a week's hiatus (because of the late evenings of school concerts). Being that it was the first Thursday in the month we started on the top of the hill. It was pitch black except for our flashing red lights that we clip to our shorts for safety reasons (my sister calls them flashing red haemmorhoids) I found out yesterday that I'm the clumsiest runner in the group. I managed to almost trip not once, not twice but THREE times in the course of the run. The first was on a twig and the second and third were on rocks. No one else seemed to have any problems - must be that I hardly lift my feet off the ground.

We ran along the road for twenty minutes, watching the sun come up over the city and listening to the birds. It was beautiful and peaceful and it gave me the most lovely start to what was going to be a hectic day.

Today started with a sound that I haven't heard in a few weeks - Josh, my broken-hearted boy, came singing down the hallway, full of his normal energy. He was off downstairs to pump some iron. I think he's getting over his broken heart - not that he's over Teresa but he's learning to live with the pain and getting on with it.

So for today - Life is good!

Public Holidays

I HATE my boss! Yes, I know I'm self-employed but that woman can be such a b@#ch. I've just spent today working. Not unusual for a Monday except that this particular Monday was a public holiday. She made me work yesterday as well AND all of last weekend which was another long weekend. All the deadlines are rapidly approaching and I still have 20 unitards to make so there's every chance that I may have to work next weekend as well. But after the 15th of May I'm going to take a couple of days off - just because I deserve them.

I did manage to squeeze in a run before I started work this morning. It was one of my regular routes but I was able to start a little later than usual and I saw something that I thought was a little odd. A woman came running towards me wearing running shorts, running shoes and a boob tube. That's right - no running bra and no straps of any description. Granted she was young and probably still perky but how long does she plan on staying perky running along unfettered? The poor thing obviously failed Physics - being unable to grasp basic concepts such as Gravity and Newton's law of Inertia. I'm looking forward to seeing her in a few years time to see if the Physics I was taught in school is actually true.

Saturday Is No Day Off

Yesterday was huge!! It started at 3:30 am with this weird dream where I kept hearing a strange sound. My dear hubby was snoring and I'd managed to incorporate it into my subconscious. Seeing as I was awake I had to go to the toilet and then the dogs decided that they did too. It was a bit over an hour till I had to be up for my run and I tried snoozing. Failed!

Our long run was 21k and I was well rested because I skipped hills this week. Coach Chris emailed us about the need for nutrition on longer runs so I decided that I'd try one of the gels Jenny had given me for my birthday. Jenny is a big gel-user and couldn't believe I wasn't. I have tried one a couple of years back and it wasn't a pleasant experience (stomach cramps and urgent calls of nature) so I've been a bit scared of trying again. But if I'm to do a marathon I'm going to have to find some way of getting calories in.

I planned my gel-stop very carefully. It had to be near a water fountain and within reasonable running distance to toilets. It was around the 12k mark. Luckily there was no intestinal fallout and even more luckily the gel seemed to have a positive effect. I managed to run the last 9k with no pace drop-off (which is normal for me) and my last k was my fastest. Go figure! 21k done in 1:52:56. I'm happy.

After the run it was my usual Saturday breakfast with hubby and family then off to the markets for our weekly fruit and vege shop then I had to help out at a sausage sizzle. The squad is raising money for our yearly relay (500k charity relay in November) I helped man the grill for 3 hours and smelt of fried onions for the rest of the day.

Back home for a quick cup of tea. Into the city to pick up Luke from his school. Back home again to put up my tired feet. Then off on a two hour walk with my walking friend Natalie. We tried a different route to our favourite coffee shop. It was my route and I made a fundamental mistake. I took us down a road that was marked Private. It took us to a dead end so we either had to back track or go cross country through the scrub to reach the road. By cross country I mean pretty much a vertical ascent. We chose that option and our little walk became a quest for survival (okay I'm exaggerating a little - but it was tough) It was such a relief to finally reach the safe haven of the coffee shop.

I got back home around 8:30 pm, tried to stay up and watch a movie but kept falling asleep.

Today my feet are a little sore. I wonder why?!!