Back in the saddle

Sort of.

Activity: run

Distance: 2.5km

Time: 21min

I'm back to only running 3-4min at a time, but overall it's pretty good. I need to check my bike over this week - adjust a few cables & give it a grease & I'll be back cycling to work, fingers crossed.

Lacking the crucial part...

...motivation. Not to do the exercise, strangely enough, but to write about it.

I've recovered (mostly) from my cold, so this last week has been pretty light on the exercise. Swim with mum (short, but with aqua jogging on the end), short run during the week & lots of walks during lunchbreaks.

Climbing went well, with C in Aussie we were down to two, which is always tough on the arms, so P brought her husband along. He proceeded to show us up on every climb we did, using brute strength. Infuriating, but challenging.

I went skiing with Mum & Dad yesterday, and I'm still paying for it. The snow was great, and the crowds very well managed. Lift lines were just long enough to give a good rest! My legs gave out just after 3, which was a pretty good day.

On a different note, I spotted this toy phone in one of those cheap junk stores in the mall, and it made me laugh so hard I had to spend the $2 to get one & take some photos. I suspect I'll give it away to the Girl Guides, along with some more Barrels of Slime.

Day out

On very short notice I managed to cobble together P, K and myself for a day's skiing at Porters yesterday. We've now discovered that P's husband's vehicle is most satisfactory for getting into the mountains - a little fluffing about with a very stiff gear lever to get into and out of Low ratio 4WD and we were set. Though a roof rack may be needed if we want to take four people.

There was snow on the ground from Springfield, and our ambitious early start meant many cries of "I should have brought my camera" from K as we started up into the foothills with an amazing red sunrise. The light cloud burnt off and we arrived in the carpark at 8:45 to find we were about the 10th car - not bad for the first day of the school holidays!

Being the first day of the season for all three of us, we were pretty unfit & sore, especially since we were riding T-bars all day. We soon settled into a routine of 3-4 runs, then a rest break. Luckily the car was in the front row of the carpark, so we'd just sit in there & have a munch.

The snow was excellent, though off-piste was a bit chopped up and T1 got quite shiny by lunchtime. We pushed on up to T3 after lunch and had several runs on the groomed up there before heading round the back way and coming all the way down. We finished early, but we were all buggered and wanted to get down the road before the crowds started piling up behind us (first time driving on the snowy access road - we wanted to take it slowly!)

Being a Canterbury ski area, we all met people we knew, and had many catch-ups with old friends. All in all, a great day, and I'm off to the gym this afternoon to work on my leg strength so that I can cope better next time! What do they say, it's a fine line between pleasure and pain? So true!

Detour

Trigger warning: I really can't hold back on this, so I recommend thinking hard about whether you want to read my take on a particularly disgusting and violent attack.

Since I'm sick, I'm taking this opportunity to note something that's making my heart race in an entirely un-aerobic fashion: the Clayton Weatherston trial. Move along if you're not prepared for a rant.

Being in a volatile relationship does not excuse going around to your ex-girlfriend's home, into her bedroom and stabbing her over 200 times with a kitchen knife that you brought with you. You do not get to plead to manslaughter for attacking her in the very parts of her body that you verbally abused her about while in said volatile relationship, and continuing that attack after she has bled out on her bedroom floor.

I don't care if she was promiscuous (it has no bearing on the 'incident' in question). I don't care if your friends thought she was a "psycho bitch" and she was prone to temper tantrums.

There's all sorts of red flags here: the university tutor and the student; the screaming, yelling, throwing items; physical, verbal and emotional abuse. The repeated visits to each other after breaking up. Guess what? None of it excuses the act that took place.

I was reasonably calm about this trial until today, when the character assasinations started. I lost a bit of hope or something when I saw the defense basically fall back on the "but she was a bitch" line. Clayton's a grown man, in his thirties, university degree. Did he really think that the only course of action open to him was to kill his ex? Can he really claim that it amounts to manslaughter when he took the weapon with him, barricaded the bedroom door and effectively tortured Sophie to death?

I really hope the jury sees through the posturing. I want them to be able to focus on the events of the last day of Sophie's life, not the months prior. Sophie Elliott may not have been a 100% stable, angelic human being, but nobody deserves to go like that, and her killer needs to be held accountable.

Slack, slack, slack, slack, slack.

Sunday, June 21

Activity: swim

Distance: 1200m

Time: 30min

Thursday, June 25

Activity: run

Distance: 3.5km

Time: 30min

Yes, I have a bit to catch up on. Life's been getting in the way, not necessarily of exercising, but posting about it. I just haven't had the urge to follow it up. Hopefully I'll get over this cold soon & be able to get back to a routine.

Schedules

Activity: run

Distance: 3.5km

Time: 30min

I've decided that the only way to get over my fear of intersections is to face it, so I've extended my running route. I've also discovered that my cycling top makes a good nighttime running top (long in the body, long sleeves, day-glo green), and that my usual "hidden" track is not a good place to run in the dark. It's not lit, so knowing where you're putting your feet is tricky, especially when the track is full of slimy leaves & puddles.

Round & Round

Activity: swim

Distance: 1300m

Time: 30min

I'm getting better at tumble turns, though they're pretty untidy. I just have to work on linking more of them together in succession now!