Trail Fun

Today I ventured off-road to race one of the Salomon Trail Series. I'm a complete novice with the trail scene - today marked the first time I have ever run on trails, let alone race them. I had no idea what to expect. A few people mentioned stubbed toes, trips and falls and a couple of slides. Cool - I could handle that!

On arrival I was really surprised at what a chilled atmosphere it was. Triathlons are generally high energy events with a definite buzz through the air that keeps you on edge; here, people were smiling and milling around calmly, there was some live music and people were chatting to each other. Neat. I was already loving it. (Note: These organisers also knew the toilet deal. Heaps of port-a-loos for all!)

There was some nutty loon as the announcer in a camouflage one-sie. It was awesome. He was cool, pumped us up and then ran with us for a bit. I was in two minds whether to start with the "fast" group or take my spot with the designated "leisure" runners. About 20sec after my race start (the 10.8km medium course), I figured you only live once, and skipped off at the back of the fast group. My goal for this race was just to run hard and strong and not give up. So from the first step I ran. And ran and ran as fast as I could.

Within a minute we hit the first hill and I pushed the automatic thought of "oh man this is gonna be a long 10km" aside and surged up it. And surprisingly passed some people and just kept going! Trail running is an interesting game. You surge, then slow through narrow little haphazard sections, then climb and feel like your about to pass out or your heart will explode then just before one of those things happen you hit a downhill and life's great again. You skip over rocks and pray that you don't twist your ankles. You navigate little rock walls, jump over tree branches, prey your foot doesn't slip and never take your eyes off the ground.

The trouble with never taking your eyes off the ground is these big mother-ass climbs come up outta nowhere and you try and be a hero surging up them, but then you end up heaving like a smoker in a coma and doing the walk of shame to the top. Trail games. So much fun :)

I felt so great finishing. I wanted to turn up, run hard and compete and not give up and I felt like I did that. Everyone is so polite and trail etiquette is second to none. People were stopping to make sure others were OK, stepping aside on the trails to let you through and so many people cheering at the finish line. Really fantastic feeling and warm crowd.

The trail finish line - Great spot!

I would hands down do another event - tomorrow if I could. I only fell over once and skirted a rolled ankle 3 times (ankles are tougher then I thought). Amazing training and I feel like this is the way to get great run strength

Me after finishing. Spent.

Perfect morning. Thanks Melbourne. You do behave when you need to

Its also been a hard cat day too.

#thewholebookaustralia

Dating 101

A girl I know is 31, single and Jewish. I am learning a lot about Jewish cultural dating practices. Basically, there is one rule - Jewish women must marry a Jewish man.

Now as someone who is fairly relaxed about being strictly aligned to any religion, this rule begged many questions. How could this be? Surely there are exceptions? Doesn't love (even if love comes in a non-Jewish, Anglican form) conquer all?

Apparently not and for so many reasons that I have come to understand and respect. But being a single girl in Melbourne is hard enough; overlay another condition that prospective partners must come pre-set with particular religious tendencies reduces a very small pool of eligible men to a microscopic one.

I am weeeellllll aware of the brutality of dating. I have dated every version of men, sometimes twice (maybe three times.....I'm a slow learner). I've read and re-read the book on charmers, narcissists, extroverts, the over-confident, the under-confident, those with Peter Pan syndrome, those with mother issues, the liars, the fraudsters, the users and the abusers. And after wading my way through that mud swamp for 10 years, I stumbled across a kind Englishman on a bike ride who just wanted to make me happy. So I know the drill. Well.

What I can't fathom is how hard that drill must be when you're swimming around in a petri dish size of choice. My friend laments daily. She's now taken to the Internet to see what the anonymous murky trails of the world wide web have to offer. Frankly who hasn't. But this particular social experiment involves a little website called J-Date.

For the uninitiated, J-Date is a specific Internet dating site for Jewish men and women. Here is what I have learnt about J-Date:

- Older Jewish men seem to think that young Jewish women will give them one if they offer to buy them a car.
- It is completely normal to suggest you pack up your life and move to another country in pursuit of Jewish love.
- J-Date has an OUT OF OFFICE function. For real. So dating is a full time job now? Is your Internet personality in such high demand that you have to manage people's expectations?
- It is acceptable to list your Internet name as "ihaveabigone" while simultaneously yearning for true love in your profile. Apparently most Jewish men have a big one (judging by their profile names).

This just tells me one thing.

It doesn't matter how old they are, where they live or what their religion is.

Men have no idea*

Please, men, some tips:
- Be honest, kind and respectful
- You are never so important that you don't have time to be polite
- Women are lovely. Treat them accordingly
- The path to true love generally doesn't start by reference to your large wiener.
- Brains are full of interesting information and stories. Most women will be excited to tell you about theirs if you ask.

#thewholebookaustralia



*Most men. I fully acknowledge some men are kick ass amazing (looking at you Pauly).

Reputation

At work, there is an acute awareness of conduct that raises reputation risk. This is the sort of thing you never want to be involved in, run if anyone wants you to help with it and vigorously advise against anything that could damage the brand reputation or goodwill a company has built. That shit is valuable; it takes a long time to develop and getting it involves engendering trust in your market, clients or consumers. Reputation really is everything.

Which is why I look at the joke that is Federal Politics and wonder what crackpots are giving the government advice on how to protect the reputation of Australia.

Australia, a wonderfully rich and beautiful country with a huge queue at the door, heaps of cash, decent jobs and - lets face it - an all round awesome lifestyle. We have a pretty decent publicly funded healthcare system (suck it America), big grassy backyards with swimming pools (hear that UK?), brilliant summers (umm yep that's for you UK), cities where you don't need to commute 2 hours each way and can be employed as an executive and still see your kids play soccer (are you listening Japan?) All in all, we have it pretty damn good. And I'm confident the rest of the world generally knows that too.

If Australia was a company, it would be employing an entire corporate affairs team to work overtime to make sure that glowing reputation stays firmly put. It would feverishly iron out 'misunderstandings', align itself to initiatives that enhanced its reputation and develop a strategy that required a general understanding of all involved that there would be a need to toe-the-line. The executives of Australia would be unlikely to engage in conduct that could negatively impact the goodwill Australia has in the eyes of the world - the last thing you want to do is slide down the customer satisfaction scale and lose points to London.

So. What the fuck is Labor doing.

This whole leadership....disgrace....spill....overthrow......whatever you want to call it.....is the corporate reputation equivalent of a leaked internal memo from a big cheese company saying its using child labor in Myanmar. In other words, reprehensible, embarrassing and behaviour that those involved should know better.

There is really no excuse. As an Australian, I have sat back and watched this pathetic bitchy infighting and have thought of only one thing - what an embarrassment for Australia. I couldn't give two shits what is going on between Julia, Kevin and the rest of the party. As the governing party, I am shocked that this game of leadership tennis has gone on this long. The reputation of Australia is, in my view, irreparably tarnished during a period of political history that should be celebrated as a time where Australian's entrusted leadership to its first female prime minister. Instead, my recollection of this period will be one of utter embarrassment for our country, both in the eyes of its community but to our allies and those in other countries. Australia has fought for a long time to be seen as a strong and trusted ally and I can't help but feel this crap (this is what it is - crap) has damaged this image.

No company would come close to sanctioning conduct that is even close to what has played out with Labor for fear of reputation damage. Here, we have a government that isn't even sanctioning - its facilitating the conduct - without regard for how this image is going to carry with Australia. I'm sure the Labor die hards will say all of this is for the greater good of Australia. My only answer is how could it be.

#thewholebookaustralia

Time

I really struggle with time. Lost time, not enough time, wasting time, finding time, time management, you name it.

It all comes down to the fact that I love pottering; I love nothing more than enjoying breakfast and scrolling through my favourite websites (read: wasting time; other: procrastinating about work), eating lunch at my desk (time efficient!) while checking Facebook or Twitter (not so efficient). I'll stand on the pool deck for 15min staring at the water, dreading the first dive in rather than just getting on with it. I'll sit on the couch and zone out to trashy TV for 2 hours rather than getting things ready for work and training the next day. I'll spend solid hours on the internet browsing...... for nothing. Just pottering.

Bottom line is I suck at time management. I'm a leave things to the last minute kinda girl (packing suitcases is my particular specialty for last minute activities). I don't write lists. I turn up to the grocery store and stare down an aisle, mentally reconciling my fridge contents with the shelves before tossing items in.

I'm put to shame by people who menu plan, buy in bulk, cook meals on weekends, fake tan on Thursday nights (ready for the weekend girls!), have a standing 5 week appointment at the hairdresser, pay bills on time, use Coles Online and outsource laundry. I know some women who don't buy any clothes unless they pass the impossible-to-crease test (who has time to iron anyway??)

There's a lot of pressure and emphasis put on being time efficient; being organised, getting things 'sorted out'. But I can't help but think that some of that efficiency and organisation comes at a cost - to relaxing, enjoying how life rolls out, being content to just be and not be worried about whether you have 3 meals prepared, 5 loads of washing put away and clothes laid out for the morning.

Life's not perfect. We can battle and struggle against that, striving to have a perfect life, or at least a perfectly prepared lifestyle. But it isn't sustainable and as soon as one day closes, another dawns with more mess, more excitement and more challenge. I want to focus more on doing things I enjoy, and not worry about whether I'm wasting time or should I be doing something different. One day that choice will be taken away from me so for now, I'll relish my pottering.

#thewholebookaustralia

Chapter 2

I used to be an avid blogger. I started a blog (you can find the remnants of it here) and posted with enthusiastic regularity. I started blogging when I started taking triathlon seriously. You know, signed up for the big race and started being a serious athlete. I wanted to document that experience and it was my therapy, self medicating myself through words because I didn't really know what I was doing and I basically shut up shop on my social life to train for my big race. I really didn't know how else to deal with it.

I look back now and honestly, it is another version of myself. I took myself, the sport, my training, so seriously and didn't give myself zip in the way of flexibility or fun. Its how I've always operated whenever I committed to something that was big and scary so I just rolled out what I knew worked for me. As it turns out, it didn't really work for me.

I did my big race (Cairns 70.3) in June 2012. I finished in 5:42 and change and was hysterically disappointed. The result was so much worse then I had mentally and physically expected. Basically, I failed. Full stop. I took to the bed, cashed in my training and spent close to 6 months doing nothing but slumming it and sleeping. Oh and eating. That's the all or nothing approach to triathlon that is guaranteed one result - dismal failure.

I then spent another 12 months fiddling around with things. Was I a cyclist? Maybe I was a runner. Or maybe I'll be one of those girls who is happy going to yoga classes, body attack and some brisk power walks. A flash of bright light got me distracted onto something else. Christ. Who made sport so hard?

Me.

As it turned out, I made sport that hard. Why? Not sure. Partially because I didn't want to suck at it so I thought if I did that and only that, then I wouldn't suck. Well I proved that theory wrong.

Then I realised something. I liked other stuff! I liked coffee. Hanging out watching movies. Drinking wine. Working late (sometimes) and having good old bitch session with colleagues over a drink. Playing with my cat-dog. Sleeping (a lot). Cooking (and eating it). Wasting time surfing the net. Playing with my friend's babies. Taking photos. Contemplating life. Lots of stuff that isn't sports related. Why wasn't I doing this cool stuff more often?

So. This leads to this. The Whole Book. Three words that symbolise life. Its not just about one chapter, one hobby, one passion, one person, one job. Its everything, thrown in together, mixed up and spat out into this crazy busy bunch of fun. And it will give you the most amazing time if you let it and don't take it too seriously.

This time, you can expect different stuff:

- Some rambles about triathlon (cause I love it, its kinda interesting and who doesn't like a sport that makes people vomit (sometimes) and squish their private bits for hours on end....for fun???

- Gibberish about work. It's a given. 10 hours a day people, and I have some good material

- My cat-dog. I'm not a crazy cat lady, just a lady who loves her cat (big time)

- Cameo write ups about Pauly (aka cyclist extraordinaire, aka by BF)

- General philosophising about life, people and other things that pop up in my head that I think are SO IMPORTANT AND RELEVANT that I feel the need to write about them.

#thewholebookaustralia