More Thoughts From An Empty Mind

I'm loving Thursday evenings at the moment.

Not only is it almost the last day of the working week but I've also just finished three days of solid training and I DON'T have to set an alarm for an early wake up. Going to bed knowing you can sleep in until you wake up without loud beeping in your ear is a delight that I savour.

It means that I can stay up late on Thursday night and get up to mischief - and I did. 9:15pm and three episodes of Nurse Jackie. Then I went to bed and read until my eyes were shutting. Which, admittedly, wasn't very long because after you've woken up three days in a row in the vicinity of 4:00am then run about 40k in those three days you generally have no problem falling asleep. And then, when I woke up at 4:00am (which is when my body's alarm is set for now) it was just so glorious to be able to snuggle back under the warm covers knowing that I didn't have to shiver out on the cold, dark streets.

Then there's the weekly special treat of not having to cook on Thursdays because my Mum has us over (and by us I mean all of the sisters and the spouses and the offspring that are available) for dinner. Cooking dinner is not one of my favourite things. It's a necessary evil. So to have it cooked for me is bliss. And to catch up with my sisters - a lot of fun.

But all is not rainbows and sunshine in my little corner of the world. I've just got my next four weeks of marathon training from Coach Chris. Give me strength! There's a few hairy looking weeks in there. And by hairy I mean 40 Year Old virgin hairy.

There is going to be significant pain and possibly even bleeding nipples before the four weeks are over. I have a couple of weeks that top out at over 80k. More than I've ever done for a marathon before. But I'm running better than I have in the lead-up to any marathon (all two) than I've run before and Coach Chris knows this and has set the program accordingly.

So I'm likely to be tireder. And crankier (cause the two go hand in hand). And hungrier. And even more forgetful than I have been in the last couple of weeks. I call it Marathon Brain and I'm pretty sure it's a real thing. It's already starting to show itself in little ways. I couldn't do basic arithmetic the other day. Like really basic primary school stuff. And just today I forgot to put sugar in my scones. Luckily I put heaps of white choc chips in them so there's enough sweetness but I can foresee that there may be some culinary disasters before July the 5th. So for all the squad members having a birthday in the next few weeks I apologise in advance if your cake doesn't rise or I use salt instead of sugar.

Luckily, though, there were a couple of things that Marathon Brain didn't wipe from my memory banks. I did remember to wear clean, unholey undies to the Physio this week. I wore them under shorts so he probably didn't even realise that he had been so honoured. And (and this is the big one so drum roll please) I shaved my legs. I figure that if he has access to parts of me that he can inflict pain on, I should treat him as nicely as possible.