I know there is some debate on this subject, but I do feel I have some claim to being one of the world’s worst swimmers. Certainly, I was THE worst swimmer in Lindfield East Primary School back in 1985, not a year well known for its swimming exploits.

My technique can best be described thus: a great deal of thrashing around involving the arms, ineffectual kicking movements – when I remember – and (huuuugh) gasping (huuugh) choking (huuugh) desperate attempts to breathe in air, along with two thirds of the water in the pool. In short, a great deal of effort expended, and not much in the way of forward movement.

Sadly, in swimming, as in life, forward movement is a most important skill to master if you want to get ahead. What’s worse, the longer this aimless thrashing about goes on, the less confidence I have in making it to the end alive, and the more panicked the breathing gets. It’s a vicious cycle. By the time I get to the end I need a lie down, a stiff drink and a coronary embollism.

So, I don’t swim often.

This week, however, I’ve been to the pool twice, and almost enjoyed it. The secret is to go to a 25 metre pool, so I can stop twice as often.

Now, particularly if there are attractive young women around, you don’t want to look like a lazy slob, lounging around at the shallow end because you’re too fat and unfit.

Luckily, I had a handy prop. It’s true, an observant bystander might think it strange that I had to stop to adjust my goggles 25 times in a 30 minute period; I’m hoping there are no observant b.s at Croydon Pool during the week.

Anyway, I ran to the pool, swam for a bit, then ran back. That makes 9km of running and 600 metres of swimming. The 600 metres is VERY good, for me. The 9kms was just easy stuff designed to keep the legs ticking over while the various post-marathon kinks work their way out of my system.

Just like clockwork, the post-marathon blues have kicked in. This dose seems particularly bad: I’m feeling grumpy and short tempered, and my sub-conscious now thinks it is amusing to wake me repeatedly in the night with vivid nightmares of the final 10km of the marathon.

The nightmares suggest to me that the whole marathon thing has become too much of an obsession. It suggests the “get straight back on your bike” approach might not be the way to go.

I’m torn between running Melbourne Marathon in October as some sort of penance, a chance for redemption, and just having a rest for a while.

What to do?

The answer, in the immediate term, is nothing. I’ll just take it easy as I recover from GC, and think about Melbourne in a few weeks.

Running
An easy 9km this morning. Nothing felt broken or seriously problematic.

Le tour
My opinion – based on a few blurry moments watching the SBS telecast last night and little else: Cadel Evans is cycling’s answer to Peter Costello, destined always to come second. If he was really serious about winning the thing, he would have jumped teams last year or the year before.

Also, Alberto Contador made a serious error of judgement allowing Lance Armstrong to join his team. I can’t see LA ever playing second fiddle to anyone.

Well, that wasn’t a terrific day. I’ll make it brief.

The race
I woke on time, ate breakfast and made it to the start with plenty of time to spare, although I had to park about 2km away. The race started suprisinly on time, so surprisingly that I forgot to turn on my stop-watch. Bugger.

The first 10km were fine, with Monaghetti and his balloons bobbing along a few metres ahead of me. Then around 15km Mona had to duck off for a pee, which messed up everyone’s timing. I went through the half in 87 minutes, which was a touch faster than I’d anticipated. From 25km I had a nasty stitch, which I thought might hurt me, but I ran through it, breathing more deeply than I normally do.

From 30km onwards I started to feel nauseous. At 34km it got really bad, and I had to walk. From then on, it was a real struggle, with frequent walk breaks, and plenty of people overtaking me.

It was upsetting, humiliating, and one of the worst bits of running I’ve done. I struggled home in 3:10.

Post race
It didn’t get any better, post race. I was up at GC on my own, so had to struggle what felt like a km to the left luggage on my own. It took a LONG time. Then there was another 2km to the car. At that stage I had no drink or food and no money to buy anything. I also had the remains of a carbo gel stuck to my shorts and my left leg – looking really dodgy.

Later on I got locked out of the hotel. Then I lost my boarding pass for the flight home. To replace it, I needed to know my booking reference number, which meant a trip to an internet kiosk, which wasn’t where it was supposed to be, meaning I had to go through security twice. Then I couldn’t find a pen to write down the number. Then it turned out I was booked on the wrong flight anyway.

I should note: at this stage I was unbelievably tired and really struggling not to lose my temper.

Then, when trying to transfer my flight my credit card got declined. Then they couldn’t move it in the system, because I’d already checked in over the internet. Then I couldn’t sleep on the plane because I was I nauseous and cramping badly.

Apart from that, it was a nice day.

Thoughts
I don’t really want to think about this much. At the end I felt devastated. I still feel like I stuffed up, like maybe I should have been able to tough out the nausea. I also think that, while I was feeling better from the brochitis, maybe my system wasn’t quite up to the demands of running a 3 hour marathon.

With 24 hours to think about it, I guess I was due a bad marathon. I’ve had a good run of races in the last few years, but the marathon is a cruel, unpredictable race. That’s part of the challenge, and why we keep coming back.

This is probably my last post before the marathon on Sunday, so wish me luck.

As of Friday morning, I’m feeling pretty good about things. I’m pretty damn toey though, I’ve been pacing restlessly around the office, making everyone feel uncomfortable.

Tax
I don’t know what came into me, but I’ve already done my tax (and my wife’s) for 2008-09. I downloaded the etax software on Wednesday night then did the whole process from start to finish in about 30 minutes.

So my tax was completely finished on the night of July 1. Beat that!

Next I’ll get going on my Christmas presents.

Running
I had a pleasing 9km yesterday lunchtime; also an equally pleasing sleep last night. Both the run and the sleep indicate the worst of the bronchitis is out of the way. Yay. I’ll take the dog for an easy 5km tonight (easy for me, not for her, the lazy hound).

Race news
No news is good news, other than the weather forecast remaining positive. According to weatherzone, the forecast is for a low of 7 and a high of 19, which is peachy-keen.

I know – it doesn’t sound right. Most right-thinking people look at a site like Twitter and think “fad” and “stupid tool to soothe the egos of narcissistic politicians and Gen Y”. Trust me: in 2 years time, Twitter will be so 2009.

Because, really, who wants to know what I, or anyone else, am doing at any one point in time? My family might, occasionally, my friends and workmates – from time to time. But it’s pretty limited. If they want to know what I’m thinking, they can just ask.

So, I’m not a fan.

That being said, I’ve just stumbled on a little tool that uses twitter that’s actually moderately useful. It’s called TweetTabs.

Give it a go.

You can click on the top topics, and it will show you all the tweets on that issue. You can also search for something that interests you, and then all the tweets mentioning that will show up, as they happen.

For example, I searched for “Gold Coast Marathon” and I discovered a bunch of people feeling nervous or excited, including Anna Bligh, the Premier of Queensland.

There, that was useful wasn’t it?

Running
9km scheduled with a friend this lunchtime. I’ll do another 6 km tomorrow, and that’ll be it before the big day.

Nerves
I’m starting to get butterflies in the stomach, although it could be breakfast not agreeing with me. I remember the night before the Melbourne Marathon in 2007, my stomach was so queasy I could barely force down dinner and sleep was VERY difficult. Nerves are good, but there are limits. This race is different to normal, as there are a whole lot of extra things to get stressed about – flights, accomodation, picking up the race pack, blah blah blah.

Note to self: must chill out.

At least the Americans who get to appear on Fox News.

This guy, bless him, seriously suggests America needs a full-scale attack by Osama Bin Laden to make them “safe”:

Sheesh! It makes Andrew Bolt look positively reasonable.

Australia, presumably in the grip of some temporary insanity, invested god knows how many millions of dollars in the lottery recently. For two people, it paid off rather nicely. The rest of us are left a little poorer, and feeling slightly foolish.

I respectfully suggest: many, if not most, of the people who bought tickets should on no account be allowed to own that amount of money.

Take this selection of people who wrote in to the Herald sun website over the last 24 hours.

Bernard of Toorak, who doesn’t quite seem to understand how much money was on offer:

I will buy a new toothbrush, a box of toothpicks, a years supply of tissue from the $2 shop, a new spark plug for mower, a back scratcher, a welcome mat, a monthly all zone train pass, a new garden hose …….gee list goes on and on. I would sponsor a child on world vision and shout everyone into “Bruno” Gold Class. On top of that I would shout my friends to all they can eat at Maccas. Its no use hording it all you must spend it.

Note his use of “I will”. He seemed confident. I wonder what he’s doing today?

Then there’s Paul, who said:

I’d buy my girlfriend some plastic surgery. But not from Tori Spelling’s doctor.

Paul’s obviously out to win friends.

Tass of St. Albans is another one who doesn’t quite understand the numbers we’re dealing with:

I would get my Camry re-sprayed and maybe a reconditioned motor. Then I would have a BBQ where I would pay for all the beer and the chops.

So generous. $100 million and he/she will pay for chops, but not sausages?

My favourite comment has to go to Andrew of Docklands, who said:

I would buy every Denis Walter CD…and get him to sing at my house!!!!!He is FANTASTIC!!!!!!

Six exclamation marks. That’s pretty fantastic.

So, the question is, what would I have done if I won the lottery? That’s easy, I’d have Haile Gabresellaise’s legs, lungs and heart implanted in my body, then win the Gold Coast Marathon this Sunday.

Running
None so far today. Bloody work. Bloody rain. I’ll get out for a stroll tonight.

The emotional roller coaster that is the week before the marathon continues apace.

If you’re one of those people who have high “emotional quotient”, you might have detected between the lines, a touch of grumpiness over the last week. In fact, it was a lot more than just a “touch”; I was about as low, emotionally, as I go.

Today, however, I’m happy and bouncy and generally chipper. The antibiotics I started taking last night would seem to be extremely fast acting. Last night I had something close to a good night’s sleep – only the one early morning coughing fit. Today I’m feeling even better.

News from the Gold Coast is helping the state of mind no end. The weather forecast is for a low of 9 degrees and a high of 19, sunny and no mention of significant wind. Touch wood, that’s good news.

In amusing news, according to the Pat Carroll website, Lee Troop will be pacing a 2 hour 20 minute group. Phew! What a relief! I bet there’ll be hundreds of people lining up for that.

The 3 hour pacer, who I’ll hopefully be hanging with, is Steve Monaghetti. Assuming it’s the same guy, that’ll make things pretty cool. Though, in a way, it’s a bit intimidating, as I still have vivid memories of running a 10km PB at a fun run a few years back and feeling pretty chuffed with myself, only to learn SM finished 10 whole minutes faster than I did. And I’m running with this guy??? I might have to beg him to go easy on me.

Running
An easy 9km today over lunch-time. Easy, but odd. I headed north, and it was like running into a hurricane. Then I turned back and almost achieved unassisted human flight heading down Royal Parade into town.

Celebrity crap
Apparently we’re all so obsessed with Michael Jackson that we have to endure almost a week of breathless commentary over his life and death. At one end of the spectrum are people who seriously consider him to be “up there with Mozart and Beethoven”. By the way, if you do meet someone like that, please be so good as to call your friendly local mental hospital: there are plenty of nice white padded rooms just crying out for these sorts of people.

At the other end, you have people, mostly those who actually knew him, who have been rude enough to mention some of the nasty stuff about him. You know, his peculiar sex life, physical deformities, drug addictions, questionable approach to fathering children and immense debt. How can you possibly be 500 million dollars in debt and not be considered bankrupt?

An interesting life, I guess.

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have apparently arrived in Melbourne, to make a fillum. I’m a bit disappointed about this. How is it that relatively innocent drug couriers and terrorists are given a hard time coming through customs, yet Tom Cruise, responsible for such horrors as Valkyrie and Mission Impossible 2, is let in without a question?

A trip to the local GP this morning confirmed what I already suspected: the little cold from a fortnight ago has developed into bronchitis.

Leaving aside the sleepless nights spent hacking up my lungs, I also have the Gold Coast Marathon to run this Sunday and I had my eyes fixed on a fast-ish time.

Sigh.

I’ll give you a tip: if it turns out this bloody bronchitis means the months of training were wasted, give me a wide berth for a few days. I will not be a happy boy.

Anyway, I told the doc to hit me with his most potent drugs, and I must have looked fairly frazzled. He obliged and I’m now full up to pussy’s bow with various types of antibiotic. Cross your fingers, that will hopefully do the trick.

The question is: is the coughing going to stop enough by Sunday to let me finish the marathon? Am I going to be able to run sub 3 hours? Am I going to be able to do that without having a heart attack?

Question, questions.

Running
On doctor’s orders (no kidding) I took a nice easy 9km run this lunchtime. It didn’t feel too bad at the time, but I was a bit short of breath afterwards.

I made a bit of a tactical mistake yesterday – driving past the RSPCA in Burwood with the wife and kids in tow. It was always going to be hard to say no. After I made a second mistake and drove into the carpark, it was going to be next to impossible to make it through the day without acquiring a dog of some description.

I managed to hold out for a bit, but it was hard when confronted with three simultaneous sets of puppy-dog eyes (plus all the actual dogs) as well as reasoning like this:

But I want a dog!
But she’s cute!!!
She loves you!!!!
She’s great with kids.
She’ll be a guard dog.
We won’t have to train her.
It’s up to you (with enormous, sulky puppy-dog eyes and pouty lower lip)
I promise I’ll look after her!!!!

That last one, from my wife, had already started to look a bit shaky this morning, when we discovered a largish poo in the backyard.

Anyway, her name is Buffy (not such a terrific name, but there you go). She’s not a puppy, but that’s good as we have enough trouble training little creatures as it is at the moment. She’s 3 years old, a part Beagle, part something else, toilet trained and incredibly good with our kids.

Here’s a picture:

She’s settled in well so far, but we’re going to have to do something about the sleeping arrangements. Last night I was woken 5 times by a dog’s slobbery tongue licking my face. I gather that’s her charming way of telling me she wants to go outside and piddle.

Running
I’m still feeling sick, with a bloody awful cough. It’s really getting me down and generally sapping my confidence. That being said, perhaps due to the lovely winter sun, I’m considering a brief run this afternoon. To test the waters.