Monday, December 19, 2005

Big Yellow Taxi

Today Total: 20k
Week Total: 20k
Month Total: 104k
Year Total: 1467.4

I haven't been able to run since last Wednesday. What started out as a sore throat driving home late from work on Wednesday night had turned into the full ubangi by Thursday morning - lots and lots of yukkiness. So this morning (being the first day of my holidays) I thought a nice cruzy 20k around my favourite bay/bush loop would help me make up some lost k's and also burn off the dregs.

It was an absolutely gorgeous morning, coolish, clear and still. The sun was sparkling off the bay silhouetting the early morning rowers in an ethereal golden glow *cue music*......zzzzzzzzip, STOP, STOP, STOP, hold everything! This is a supposed to be a running blog not some bloody nancy romantic novel........ sorry ;-)

Anyhoo..... I was running pretty neatly, the four days off gave all the niggles a chance to heal (for a while) and having done some harder runs recently it is amazing how easy it seems to cruise along now on a long run when just a few short months ago every run was a chore to be survived.

I was in the best of moods but then my world turned upside down, my (and I use the possessive deliberately) Foreshore Trail is no more, the Western Area Health Service is "paving paradise" with not so much as a by your leave. No signs, no nothing, just a fence blocking the trail and a bulldozer working behind it. All those lovely, lonely, relics from the war years are being dozed into the ground and the best part of the trail where it gets a bit technical with bush steps and a lovely little rock face are now inaccessible. I feared this would happen one day and today is the day. The bit that really irks me is there is no detour, so I was left to my own devices to make my way through the labyrinth of Concord Hospital to link up with the track on the other side of the construction (destruction) site.

I can't change it so I just had to accept the situation and move on, it was too nice a day to stay in the doldrums. Coming up through the ANZAC Memorial Walkway I briefly flirted with the idea of extending this to a 30k run but fortunately common sense prevailed - don't want to relapse back to fluesville, so I cut up through Rhodes and bugger me if there isn't a new railway station being built! It's only been a couple of weeks since I was here and it seems everything is changing, though this change is probably for the better as there are more stairs on the new bridge than the old one :-)

The rest of the run went fairly smoothly through the back end of Bicentennial Park and up through North Strathfield for a total of 20k in 1.55.34 (av 5.47). Pulled up clearer in the head than when I started though my throat is still a bit raw, might have to get some Betadine.

9 comments:

Hilda said...

Enjoy your holidays!!
Sorry to hear that nice place, was closed... I imagine your dissapointness while finding out, specially if you were running.
A great part while running for me is what you watch, specially when you realized that some places won't be there for running, or that you will have to leave them someday. I enjoy this place as much as I can since one day I will be leaving. So don't think your blog is a "nancy romantic novel", at all.

Jen said...

Sorry to hear about your trail being closed but I am really pleased to see that you've recovered well.

Enjoy your holiday :-)

PS Keep up the "nancy romantic" writings ;-)

Dave said...

Progress marches on.....

Watch that throat, don't want to be sick through your holidays!

Lulu said...

I hate it when you get sick just before your hols start and then return to perfect health the second you have to go back to work :)

Glad you had such a good run and that the lurgy didn't slow you down too much.

I was enjoying the romantic novel myself so I hope to see it return in due course.

Bennyr said...

Bugger. I should've had a go at that trail while I had the chance.

I hope your revovery continues well.

Cheers,
Ben

miners said...

very poetic 2P - also glad to hear that you might be on top of Mr.Lurgy too after the scare at the end of the week.

Glad you enjoyed the concrete scramble through the labyrinth

Tesso said...

Oh crap, that trail sounded so nice. Even though you can't change things like that sometimes it feels a little better after a good whinge.

I wondered why you hadn't blogged, I thought you were away somewhere and was expecting belated posts about some exotic bush running. Bad time of year to be feeling crook :-( Hope you get well soon.

Katie said...

As a central sydney area health service employee that sounds exactly their style!!! Bastards! Great run after a lay off! I sometimes think the best medicine for a cold is a run... I usually always feel better! Have a great holiday!!!

Wobbly man said...

Bummer about your trail there 2P. I feel your pain - I would die if my coastal trail were taken away from me!