Happy Easter

Australia is having a really long Easter break this year. Because it's so late in the year, Easter has collided with Anzac Day so we're having a five day break. Well, most of us are having five days - some of us are only having three or maybe even two days off because we have imminent deadlines looming. And yes, that someone would be me.

Despite working my butt off over the past 10 weeks I've found myself in my usual situation where holidays are a luxury I just can't afford. This year I was on top of my work but a last minute decision by my machinist to go away for all of Easter has meant that I'm left a week's work short so it's heads down and bums up and work, work, work!

That's why I begged (nagged) so hard to get a run this weekend. And I mustn't have been the only one, because at 4:50am yesterday 11 of our group met to tackle our new route. Coach Chris had mapped out a doozy. We were heading west and within the first kilometer we'd hit our first hill of the morning. It was the first of many!! In fact, this new route makes last weeks hilly route look almost flat. But I loved it!!

It was a low-key run. We tried to stay together as a group despite pretty big differences in speed and this meant that I got to stop fairly regularly to let the slowest catch up. It took us through the middle of Brisbane Forest Park where we stopped to fill up water bottles and listen to the Bell birds.



I got to smell the distinctive smells of the Australian bush - the lantana, the damp soil, the dust and the rotting road-kill - and it took me back to when I was 10 years old going on bush walks with my Grandma from her farm. I can't say it was one of the fastest runs I've ever done - 26 k in two and a half hours - but it was one of the most enjoyable.

I got home, showered and wrestled myself into my new compression tights. Beth of SUAR fame had reviewed 110% Play Harder tights a couple of weeks ago. I thought they were GENIUS. Compression with ice!! The perfect recovery tool. So I'd gone on-line and ordered a pair as had Sam (exercise physiologist son). Great service from the company - we had the tights on the other side of the world in less than a week.

Putting those ice packs into the pocket - heaven on my tired stiffening muscles! We were heading out to our usual Saturday breakfast so I had to throw on a skirt to look respectable but no one at the cafe would have known that underneath that skirt a whole lot of recovery was going on (except that I lifted up the skirt to show my sister - I'm classy like that!)

And this morning my legs hardly feel like they did anything out of the ordinary. Plus I've pre-paid a heck of a lot of calories that I'd like to redeem in the form of chocolate eggs. So Happy Easter to us All.