The Run!

Yesterday I ran a half marathon. The weather forecast was so bad that I nearly chickened out. But I am so glad that I didn't!

It was a freezing morning. As we lined up in the starting shoot it actually started to hail. "Eye of the Tiger" was playing quite loudly over the speakers. But then it started to rain, and the music changed down in tempo to "Chariots of Fire".

Now hail is exciting. Do you remember running outside to play in it as a child? Hail bounces off you leaving you unscathed, especially as most us were wearing sufficient clothing to avoid the little red stings it will leave on bare flesh (I was very glad to be wearing my trusty running visor). The crowd reacted to the hail with an almost frenzied excitement. Perfect strangers turned to each other and shared nervous grins and said "We must be mad!". The crowd bobbed up and down to the music, bouncily jogging on the spot to keep warm.

But rain is not exciting. It does not bounce cheerily off you. It seeps into your clothing, dribbles into your ears and makes your gloves useless at keeping your fingers warm. The mood of the crowd dampened and the bouncing changed to shuffling. Fortunately some perceptive organizer changed to music back to "Eye of the Tiger" just before the starting time but that elated feeling was gone - at least for me.

The first 17 minute where dreadful. I was cold, my breathing labored and my fingers numb. I felt disproportionately cross at having to dodge the cheeky walkers who had started too far forward in the line up. It all seemed too much. Impossible. I felt a bit disorientated and had no idea how far we had run.

Then suddenly, I kid you not, the drizzle stopped, the sun emerged, glorious in its winter yellow, and ahead I noticed the 3km mark as if highlighted by a sun ray! As we whizzed past it, at just a few seconds over 18 minutes, I finally realized "I can do this"! I felt 10kg lighter, my breathing settled and I started to look around and notice the other runners padding along with me.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that my friend and I fell into a nice and easy 10kmph pace together. We had never jogged together, and I had expected her to be way ahead.

I said "No matter what time we do this in, we will have done better than all the people who slept in this morning". She heartily agreed. As did another runner who fell into step with us for a short while and was our 3rd musketeer for a few hundred meters. And we started to feel like we were not mad. In fact, surely we were the sane ones and those missing out on this exhilarating run where the crazy ones.

5km: the drink station was manned by the Kaiapoi Neighborhood watch crew. So I go to say hi and be cheered on by a few familiar faces.
10km: we pulled out our energy gels (fortunately brought along - considering the 10km drink station was out of Leppin!)
12km: ipod on, not too loud, so that I could still hear the occasional remarks from my friend and reply appropriately. (She had her headphones in already so I was not breaking any running-mates-codes).
A few songs of Gavin Degraw, and a bit of Britney helped me keep to good form for a while, but soon after the 15km mark I started to feel heavy, some hip-pain and quite tired. A quick switch to Greydon Square, and ahh, that feels better. A beat I can run to and words I can think to. The next 4km slid past without me hardly noticing.
19km: a quick sip at the drink station, I turned up the volume on the ipod and spurted ahead.

I finished feeling strong and very, very pleased with myself. Friends cheering from the sidelines gave an extra boost.

Yes I still had some unburnt energy which would be unthinkable to a more competitive runner. But really for me, an enjoyable run with a friend (and avoiding too much post race stiffness) is much more important than shaving a few minutes of my personal best.

Hooray for Ghent!

Have you heard about this? The Belgian town of Ghent encouraging it's citizens to go meat free for one day per week.

I want to move to Ghent! Not only because it is showing some leadership on this very important issue but also because it is gorgeous! Good work on the part of the city council - great for the environment and lots of free publicity!

Here is a link to a good article on my favorite news story this week if you want to read more. I have been a bit irritated by some of the news stories getting side tracked and focusing on an "animal lovers" approach to vegetarianism an ignoring the crucial point that this is a serious environmental issue.

I love this:
"You could say, 'Better a vegetarian in a four-wheel drive than a meat-eater in a hybrid car,' but nothing beats a vegetarian on a bicycle," the website said.

Power Politics

I have just finished reading "Power Politics" by Arundhati Roy.

It is a a collection of her excellent political essays and is definitely worth reading. She is obviously very passionate about advocating for the disadvantaged and taken-advantaged-of masses, not just of India but of the world. I have included links to some of the essays in case you want to read the whole thing - they are not too long and are easy reading.

"Power Politics: The Reincarnation of Rumpelstiltskin" is a thought provoking critique of the insatiable beast of globalization.

"The Algebra of Infinite Injustice" is a biting but fair attack on the foreign policy of that other insatiable beast, the USA. While Roy clearly puts the blame on the rich and powerful puppet masters, she does not completely exonerate the "average American" and drops a few of her poetic bombs their way. My favorite example:

"Here's the rub: America is at war against people it doesn't know (because they don't appear much on TV)."

To make sure you get her point, she prefaces it perfectly with a very telling quote from a newscaster on Fox News, September 17th 2001:
"Good and Evil rarely manifest themselves as clearly as they did last Tuesday. People who we don't know, massacred people who we do. And they did so with contemptuous glee." Apparently the newscaster then broke down and cried.

And in "War is Peace"*, referring to the government rhetoric/spin doled out via the mainstream media as medication she has this to say:
"Regular medication ensures that mainland America continues to remain the enigma it has always been -- a curiously insular people, administered by a pathologically meddlesome, promiscuous government."

While I would love to fully enjoy a virtuous and contemptuous snicker at the expense of these "curiously insular people", I am also acutely aware that I too am curiously insular and that just occasionally reading about injustice is not the same as opposing it.

* Interestingly "War is Peace" apparently had a different, and delightfully more provocative title originally: "Brutality Smeared in Peanut Butter. Why America Must Stop the War Now."

Dinner from our Garden

Home grown veggies are the best! You can take my word for it.

Our tomato plants just keep on producing, despite our garden care bordering on neglect for he last 2 months. Our initial enthusiasm may have waned but it seems that the efforts we put in at the beginning were enough to establish a lot of the veggies and they have just kept on growing. (Well, when I say the efforts "we" put in, I must admit it was mostly my husband who got things going.)

Here are some pics of our lovely tomatoes and a meal that I prepared from them:

Neapolitan sauce - with tomatoes, onion, basil and parsley from our garden. (Garlic from the fruit and veg shop but we will grow our own next time).

The final result: just added some broccoli from our garden, and some red kidney beans and pasta that I bought at Bin Inn. Delicious!

Our broccoli crop has been fantastic and we have had some lovely meals with it including Broccoli and Blue Cheese Soup. Yum! My husband recently planted some more broccoli so we will be having many more delicious soups through winter.

Next from the garden: Pumpkin soup. I will try and remember to take some pics of the process.

Please cover your mouth when you cough!

Swine flu, swine flu, swine flu! On every radio station, in every news paper, all over the net, and apparently all over the TV news (though at least I managed to miss that).

Two things are really bothering me about all this and have me all steamed up for a rant.

1. Why does the ho-hum, mega-profit-making Tamiflu get so much air time. While the amazing, highly effective, population protecting, basic health messages get so little mention, if any, on most reports.
Surely the most important message for our benevolent media to carry is: "Cover your mouth when you cough, wash your hands, and stay home if you are sick". And pity for you if you happen to actually contract the flu, and your only source of information was our media. You would think that Tamiflu is your only hope and would know nothing of the benefits of bed rest, fluids and paracetamol to reduce your fever.

2. The other thing making me cross and raising my skeptical hackles is that while people panic the pharmaceutical companies are making even bigger profits? Interestingly Tamiflu (by Roche, Switzerland) is the only brand name I have heard mentioned in NZ. I have not come across the name Relenza (by Biota, Australia, but under the GSK umbrella) even once in the mainstream media here. Roche's massive advertising/promotional budget is obviously paying off!

But there is still some good sense out there and this site made me chuckle! The well respected medical giant, the Mayo Clinic, advocates chicken soup as a remedy, and says it can really help by breaking up congestion. I love it! Though I don't think GSK and Roche need to worry about this simple advice effecting their profit from the current "crisis" too much. I wonder what the vegetarian equivalent is for chicken soup. My husband makes a to-die-for cream of mushroom soup, but somehow I don't think the cream content will allow it to pass as a health remedy.

Well, at least GSK and Roche are happy.

Oh, and please don't cough into your hand and then touch the door nob to my office, or anything else for that matter! If you are unsure of the correct cough etiquette please check this link.

The Story of Stuff

Have you seen this? If not you can download it here.

It's beauty lies in being a simple, succinct, introductory overview to a wide range of linked topics.

I think it would be a great idea to show it to all school students. Unfortunately one teacher who had this idea was soon having to defend herself to the school board. But hopefully not all school boards would be quite so narrow minded in their response.