Wow! Hillary only won Indiana by two percentage points? That’s much, much closer than I imagined it to be. Awesome. (Sorry Grandma. I voted for the black guy.)
Role Reversal. It’s not often you see the media scrutinizing a man’s belly…
Still sick. I felt so crappy last night that we decided to skip the Neil Gaiman talk. I just couldn’t face the thought of standing in a crowded bookstore coughing and hacking all over everyone. Luckily, I can vicariously squee over Neil through crumpet, who saw him twice in 24 hours. What a fangirl. 🙂
Vodaphone announces it’s got the iPhone. As Snook just put it, “Tomorrow’s news: Vodafone no longer able to sell iPhone due to leaking info to the press.”
Remember our discussion about women taking their husband’s surnames? In the US, a couple just successfully sued the state of California on the basis that it should be just as easy for a man to take his wife’s surname upon marriage as it is for her to take his. And they won! Nice one.
The Knitting Fame-Whore strikes again!
This past Friday I went to Newtown after work to join Bex and the goth knitters for a stitch and bitch. We were waiting for a journalist from JJJ Magazine to show up to photograph and interview us. He turned up over an hour late, by which time all the real goths had gone home (leaving only me and a couple other not-so-goth Ravelers). He took a ton of photos, so you may see yours truly in the magazine next month wielding a pair of needles menacingly. Anyway, before all the real goths left, Fin took a couple photos of us all. Yes, I realize that the Argyle Kitty Kat Cardigan hardly qualifies as goth…
Wow. I know I’m supposed to be annoyed at the additional tax, but I can’t help but think that this new federal parental leave proposal is a Good Thing. Six months paid maternity leave at full salary? Sweet. And four weeks paternity leave? Hey, it’s more than you get in America. (Right, Sis?) Actually, I wonder if it would be possible to switch it, like if the father intended to stay home and the mother go back to work. Could he have six months leave? (She ponders thoughtfully…)
The good – actually GREAT – news is that I know I can run a half-marathon. I know this because I successfully ran 18.4km yesterday afternoon! (That’s nearly 11.5 miles.) And at the end, I honestly felt like I could’ve easily gone all the way to 21km, were it not for my sore back. I ran the distance pretty slowly (you’ll see why in a minute), taking frequent walk breaks and not pushing too hard. Still, I wasn’t far off the pace I need to finish in 2:30. I was well-hydrated and carried a water bottle with me, which I sipped on frequently. I also had my first trial of using an energy supplement. At the 6km mark, I had half a chocolate PowerBar gel and then finished it off at the 12km mark. It tasted like medicated chocolate toothpaste. The biggest effect it seemed to have was mental. At the end of the run, I just felt a lot more clear-headed than I had at the same point last week. I never realized how fuzzy and muddled my brain gets after 90 minutes of running. This time I just felt way more energetic and aware. With regards to my body, I didn’t notice any immediate jolt or anything, but I definitely had more energy in the tank at the end of this run. Like I said, I was honestly toying with going the whole distance. I was still tired and sore, but I didn’t feel like I was falling apart. (I’m also happy to report that the gel didn’t give me any stomach problems, as some people seem to have. I did get a bad stitch at the 7km mark, which I attributed to gulping down too much water to help digest the gel.) So all in all, this was a massive confidence boost before the race in two weeks.
And now the bad news. I’ve caught a cold. I’d been coughing a bit at night last week, but I assumed it was just irritation from the endoscopy. Sunday morning I woke up with the trifecta of headache, sore throat, and stuffy nose. Great. I spent the whole day sucking down water and trying to decide whether I should go for the run or not. I knew that the timing wasn’t that bad, because I’ve got two weeks to shake this thing before the actual race. But this was pretty much my last chance for a really long run, and I felt like I really needed that to mentally prepare. So would running make it worse? Since all my symptoms were “above the neck” (classic runner’s justification), I decided to go for it. So I dosed up on paracetamol and headed out. I took it easy on the run but I was happy to find that I still felt pretty good. My stomach got a little acidic but it was manageable. I even braved a few minutes in an ice bath when I got home to help out my legs. I feel pretty awful today, but I’m still glad I did it. Now I just have to concentrate on getting well as soon as possible. Anybody got any good home remedies for a cold?
My name is Kris. I’ve been blogging since the 90’s. I live in Sydney, Australia, and I spent most of my career in the tech industry.
No AI used in writing this blog, ever. 100% human-generated.
Woot, my knee-jerk don’t-overthink-it pub-quiz answer was Iran which seems to be [✓]. I ‘knew’ it was more populous than…
Congrats and to many more 🙌🏽
My home economics teacher taught us to use “J cloths” as press cloths. (Cellulose cleaning cloths). The upside of using…
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