Umm…

We hit the autostrade and she whisked us away for… an afternoon in Venice. Venice! I know it’s been ten years and I should be over the novelty of countries with famous places crammed close together, but when you grow up with endless boring roads of dirt dirt dirt sheep dirt dirt dirt small town kangaroo dirt dirt it’s endlessly exciting to just zap into an iconic place for a wander. Even if your damn TOES get sunburned to little pink stumps, despite being marinated in SPF 50!

After that unexpected adventure my nerves were gone and POW, I was fired up for the Up & Running retreat to begin.

Bologna is a brilliant wee city. I love the porticos and the tortellini and how it’s Italian as f*ck, but not stuffed with must-see sites. So you’re free to roam around, oggling the food and medieval buildings, without that nagging sense you should be doing something worthy.

Here’s just a few of my highlights from an unforgettable retreat weekend…

- Drooling over the beautiful fruit for sale.

- Tessa at the bootcamp, wearing her brilliant Trust Julia – She Promised I Wouldn’t Die t-shirt. She designed it during her Summer 5K Course in 2011. The Bootcamp was fantastic. I picked up some great tips from the Coach, even as a bumbling walker!

- Just flopping around at the B&B with the retreaters, chatting or dozing or munching on delicious fresh strawberries. I think I cried half a dozen bloody times over the weekend, from conversations deep, intense, heartfelt and/or silly. There’s something so incredible about getting a group of women together like that… I can’t find big enough words to capture it. I feel totally homesick for that feeling of chilled-out connectedness.

- I especially loved listening to Julia talk the retreaters through a video analysis of their running. It was so inspiring to hear how much our veterans has progressed since last year.

- Watching the pink balloons drift over Piazza Maggiore just before the Running Festival race began.

- Thunderstorms were predicted for the race, but didn’t arrive until an hour after it finished. Even thunder doesn’t want to mess with Julia! She fashioned herself this emergency cardboard-box-and-plastic umbrella for her dash from the race to the B&B. Resourceful woman!

- After all the tearful goodbyes on Monday morning, we headed back to Casa Julia in Modena… with a pitstop for delicious tigelle. Oh man, I could seriously get addicted to these little fellas.

- Souvenir shopping for Gareth – tortellini, Italian craft beer, balsamic vinegar and honkin’ huge wedge of Parmigiano Reggiano. Hubba hubba!

- Finally we picked up Julia’s son from school and she asked us, “Do you want to go for ice cream?”. I totally out-cheered Evan on that one.

So, one last gelato (with a flop of whipped cream and a drizzle of warm Nutella on top, whoa) then back to Scotland, already dreaming about Bologna 2014.

Huge thanks to Minna Artimo for use of her fruit and Sara/Julia pics!

I confess I’d been too obsessed with the chatting, the goodie bags and the pre-race banana supply for our runners to really think about the race part of our retreat weekend. This was great, as I had no nerves or expectations at when we arrived at Piazza Maggiore. I was just thinking about what flavour of gelato to choose afterwards!

Team Up & Running! Photo courtesy of Clare S.

It was very crowded at the start – heaps more walkers this year, including many stylish Italian dogs and grannies. We could only manage a saunter for the first couple of kilometres.

Love the bandana dog and the matching couple hand in hand!

Initially I felt really stiff and clunky. I’d slackened off with my training in the second half of my Spring 5K course re-do. Also, I’d abandoned my ageing trainers in Sydney to save room in my suitcase but not got round to buying newies, so I was in my gardening shoes (Scottish mud still attached). I felt a bit panicky that I was holding back Clare and Honor, my excellent walking buddies.

Bologna is such a beautiful city. Incredible cheese and tortellini lurk down these streets!

But then around 2.5 km we smelled cigarette smoke. A streetside cafe? A bustling bar? No, it was the three ladies walking in front of us in their Running Festival t-shirts!

Puff puff puff

Is this where you want to be? I thought, Back with the grannies, dugs and chain smokers?

I pondered that awhile as we plodded on.

Around 3km Honor said, “I think we could overtake that lady with the big handbag… what do you think?”

So we overtook the bag lady. Then we overtook the  Lady with Two Bum Bags. Then we quietly and methodically picked off a bunch more ladies we gave snarky nicknames to.

By then we had a really nice rhythm going. The killers within had awakened!

I could see on Runkeeper our pace was quite fast for a walk. I felt emotional that Clare and Honor were with me – they’ve long inspired me and I wanted to put in my best contribution to our wee team. It was time to set aside the angsty mind chatter and go for it.

As we neared Parco Montagnola our pace was on fire and I calculated if we really motored, we could sneak under an hour for the 6km. We really powered up the hill back into the park. I was gasping like a gaspy thing, eeking out every last bit of energy. I thought I was going to cark it. It made me realise how much I doddle along without pushing myself when I’m on my own!

Then I suggested we run the last wee bit to make sure we sneaked under 60 minutes. It was hilarious seeing Julia’s face at the finish line as we ran towards her. And we did it! 6.02km in 59:06! We made it under the hour, at an average pace of 09:46 min/km, which is faster than our 2012 pace. I was chuffed considering how slow the first couple of kays were.

Now all you proper runner types out there, please don’t laugh. This is progress for me! There’d been so many ups and downs since Bologna 2012 that it didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere, so it was such a brilliant surprise to see improvement twelve months on.

Onward…

Still dreaming of this post-race gelato

I’d really meant to write those words! But first…

… I had to catch the bus to Edinburgh. Rhiannon and I were the only ones on board without silver hair. But we’ve always thought like silver-haired people: get to town early and beat the crowds.

… then we needed breakfast. We went to our old neighbourhood from the backpacking days. The deli where we’d discovered Cream O Galloway ice cream had turned into a Sainsburys. The Wok 2000 takeaway was gone, which is a shame because instead of sounding outdated as it had in 2003, it’d be retrotastic now.

There were swanky new cafés. We chose one with muted colours, rustic tables, rich coffee and hip artwork. But the whole effect was wrecked by the menu board. It was grey and Vistaprinty with a rubbish sans-serif font. It did not belong with artisan coffee and sourdough toast. It would be better suited to a more mayonnaisey establishment. After all that effort with the decor, the menu board seemed vommed up at the last minute. Who let that happen?! It totally put me arf my eggs.

“You know,” my sister interrupted my thoughts, “That font is ruining the whole thing.”

“YES!”

United by font disappointment, we marched on.

The sky was clear but it was cold, with gale-force winds. I’d come out without a jacket in a moment of recklessness and had persuaded Rhi to do the same. After a couple of weeks in Australia, you forget that blue sky doesn’t necessarily mean pleasantness, but the whiplash from you scarf soon reminds you.

… then we had to buy some cheese. I was too intimidated to go inside the cheese shop when I found it ten years earlier, but now I was inspired by the shirtless young man. He was sitting out on the window ledge of his first floor flat, strumming a guitar and gazing soulfully up at the sky as though he was somewhere hip and gritty, like a New York summer. The effect wasn’t quite as cool as he was above a granny-filled tea shop, but he reminded me that you need to take risks, even if you might look like a bit of a knob.

“Do you know what you want?” the cheese man asked witheringly, as we froze before the various wheels and wedges.

Hey! I wanted to say, Don’t look at us like that. I wrote a crappy article for our work magazine about French cheese so I recognise at least two of these things. But I just said, “Nothing too stinky?”.

… then we had to go home and eat the cheese, while catching up on three episodes of Paul Hollywood’s Bread. He’s quite mesmerising with those big forearms and twinkly blue eyes and won’t-suffer-fools manner. And when he kneads that dough he really gets his back into it doesn’t he? Crikey.

… then we had to go for a walk.

… then we had to Skype chat with the Mothership.

“Hi!” she said. “But your generation doesn’t say hi, do they? It’s yo. I read it in the paper. So… yo!”

… then BBC Four had three random music documentaries back to back: Bananarama, The Smiths and REM. I can’t resist random music documentaries. Whatever the genre, you always come away with a new appreciation of the artist. Turns out there was a Bananarama Greatest Hits-shaped hole in my life.

… then suddenly it was 2AM. It was only as I headed up to bed I remembered that I’d forgotten to write the morning pages.

My 750words streak! I broke it again!

On Day 49, AGAIN!

That bloody Phoenix Badge is further away than ever.

Update: I’ve now got it back up to 14 days but I still feel like this inside:

I’ve just returned from a brief trip to Australia and I’m nutty with jetlag, so this is your Warning: Excess Emotion Ahead!

Because of the time constraints this visit was about small country towns and family. I have a bad habit of “freezing” everyone in their 2003 state, but things have changed. There were just a few wrinkles when we left, but now with illnesses and all the things that come with getting older, there was an urgent need to get my butt over there.

It was strange being back without Gareth exclaiming over the wildlife and making terrible attempts at an Aussie accent. I couldn’t hide behind him as the rellies cooed over his Scottish tones. But I reckon this ended up being for the best. That physical and mental distance from your everyday life helps you appreciate it so vividly. I love a bit of long distance longing.

Random thoughts…

• The Mothership still drives like a maniac. I’d forgotten about her rally driver U-turns and the comedy sound effects she makes when executing them.

The Big Merino with winter scarf, Goulburn. How can a sky be that blue!?

• It’s startling to see the difference four years can make with your loved ones. One was saying how much they love the Queen Mum. Realising they thought she was still alive and kicking was quite a jolt.
• The first few days I felt like a hapless foreigner. None of the money made sense; the slippery notes and hefty 50 cent pieces. A shopkeeper asked if I had change and I stared at the shapes in my wallet and said “no”. Took a day to to remember that chubby little fella is $2!

I hope the duck was claimed

• The Australian sun is pure evil. I was coated in sunscreen but somehow my face got baked on a twenty minute car journey. My feet had sandal stripes. I’ve always burned easily but my skin has become a total and utter wussbag after a decade in Britain.
• Aussie mozzies now leave giant red lumps on my skin, like the Scottish midges do. Double wussbag!

Counter lunch at the pub. The rissoles were ace!

• Despite the climate wanting me dead, after 48 hours it felt like home again and I wondered why the hell I’d ever live anywhere else.
• Especially now that I drink coffee. Oh lordy!

Australia! Your cake and coffee cannae be beaten!

• Looking at the whopping Queensland Blues lounging in Mum’s sun-riddled garden, I realised I’m never ever going to grow a decent pumpkin in Scotland.

Tasty Queensland Blue

• Mum’s husband Ray (a.k.a. Jeffery Garten) is the bee’s knees. I heard him refer to himself as our stepfather while chatting to my grandmother. I grinned like a dope realising, So he is!  I’m so chuffed that Mum has someone who loves her for who she really is.
• He also arranges the goods very neatly when he BBQs, which I greatly admire.

Ray’s tidy BBQ. So nice to sit outside to eat!

• My grandmother gave me her engagement ring. She ordered me to, “enjoy it while [she's] still alive”. I really wanted to say, Dude, you are 77 and far too young for that kind of talk. But instead we had a very teary hug and I told her how cool it was to have this little object to forever remind me of her and Poppy and how much they loved each other.

We found this pic of my grandfather. What a dude.

• I don’t ever want to wait so long to visit Oz again. The trip was far too short and I desperately want to get back soon with extra time for friends. Australia is like a big sun-drenched magnet, deliciously dragging me towards it. A big sun-drenched magnet that’s determined to prematurely age the complexion, but I love it all the same.

I’d hoped to write some profound reflections on this unexpectedly long Scotland stay but looking back through my 2003 mega Book of Lists I found the long-running one below, where I noted new-to-me words. There are so many things I love about this country, but the juicy words it’s added to my vocab may be the most golden prize of all.

Try them on your friends today

Disclaimer for the pedantic: These words may not all be of Scottish origin, I just first heard them whilst living here.

All the definitions in quotes are courtesy of the Scottish Vernacular Dictionary.

• numpty – “a useless individual”
• bawbag - “a useless individual”.. Or a scrotum, obviously. Or an affectionate greeting in our household, “Awright bawbag!”
• dug – a dog
• dobber – “A tube, a bampot” which are also terms meaning ”a useless individual”… are you sensing a theme?
• pish – it’s a verb and noun for urine/ation but it’s most useful as a descriptive term for something that is rubbish, boggin’, pants, terrible. I dunno how I survived so long without being able to say, “You are talking pure PISH”.
• fanny – lady parts but mostly usually “A stupid or clumsy person”.
• coupon – pronounced “coo’pn”. It’s your face. I most frequently hear it as, “You’ve got a bit of tomato ketchup on your coupon”.
• shoogle – to shake. Gareth says this when cooking dinner, “I’m just going to give the oven chips a shoogle”.
• skelf – a splinter. One of my favourites! I was confused the first time I heard Gareth say, “I’ve got a wee skelf and it’s driving me daft!”.
• jobby – a turd! I actually loathe this word. It is almost onomatopoeic and makes me want to run from the room. See also the loathsome phrase, “turtle’s heid”.
• baffies – slippers. It just sounds comfortable!
• skive – to slack off from work; or bludge as the Australian goes. “I skived off school today”.
• clarty – dirty, unkempt. Correct spelling “clatty” according to the dictionary. Gareth often says this to me, “What’ve you spilled on your shirt now, you clarty bastard!”
• stooky – correct spelling: “stookie”. Plaster cast for a broken limb. Isn’t that a brilliant word? Sign mah stookie!
• belter – “Something that is very good – ‘that’s a pure fuckin belter by the way’”
• pan – verb – to break
• windaes – windows. There was a local band that had a song called “Yer Windaes Are Panned” which is just bloody brilliant.
• boak – to vomit. “The thought of breakfast with this hangover is giving me the boak”. Endlessly useful word.
• spuggie – a sparrow! another all-time favourite. Such an energetic wee word for an energetic wee bird.

I wish I’d kept this list going over the years, there’d be SO many more since then!

* today the exchange rate is £1 = $1.45 AUD. Reverse pain.

Back in January I chose “focus” as my Word of The Year, a way to set a theme and intention. I’m doing regular MIFL Reports to keep me on the straight and narrow.

Ol’ Carnegie catching the last rays, during Up & Running 5K Workout 1.2 today.

. . .

1. Bandwagon Muesli
A friend of mine in Canberra declared it “porridge weather” the other day so geographically that must mean it’s time for me to commence yogurt season. It’s 4′C/39′F so not exactly toasty but, feck it, I’m sick of porridge. I ransacked the pantry for scraps of ye olde nuts and seeds bought under the influence of trendy healthy living bloggers and stirred them all together to form a kind of muesli. It’s got chia seeds, oats, unsweetened coconut, almonds, sunflower seeds and a few stray cocoa nibs. Very very tasty and none of that annoying dust you get with commercial muesli.

2. Full-Length mirror
I bought one from IKEA last week. There have been no full-length mirrors in my life since I had to give up kickboxing and I don’t think it’s been helping the mind-body disconnect. So far I like being able to have a good gander at reality. It’s not where I want to be, but as ol’ Tony Robbins says, “See it as it is, not worse than it is.”

Monday I did weights with an eye on the mirror, wearing a Reebok sleeveless tank they gave us at Fitbloggin. The tank showed off every roll, but it also showed off the muscle trying to reassert itself. It’s a nice metaphor for the me that gives a crap about me who’s busting to make a comeback.

3. Lard latest
A mere half a kilo off in February. I haven’t been on the scale since, as I was letting it mess with my head. I assure you I’m not in denial. I’m sticking to the 3-2-1 exercise plan and MyFitnessPal-ing, but really need a break from that other contraption.

4. Commute walks
Back in January I got a “year in review” email from Fitbit, telling me that July 22 was my most active day in 2012 and on average Thursdays were my least active day. That’s the day I work longer hours so it was a bed > car > desk > car > couch > bed  formula of sloth. In order to combat that I’ve started walking home on Thursdays. It only takes 45-60 minutes depending on my route, compared to 20 minutes by car or bus. So I’m saving money, moving my butt and it zens me up after the working day. I’ve started doing it on other days too. Simple, but effective.

5. Speaking of Fitbits
So many of you folks told me Fitbit had great customer service, even if you launder your device like a nitwit. I didn’t want to look like a Greasy Blogger Demanding Stuff so I wrote as a civilian (snort!) saying it was entirely my own nitwittery and I’d tried putting it in rice and all… and they said, “Nae bother, we’ll send you a newie”. So I am back on the Fitbit and loving it. But being extra careful to keep it out of the laundry basket!

6. Up & Walking
I wrote on the U&R blog yesterday that I’ve joined the Spring 5K Course! Walking it, of course. I’ve got some travel coming up and thought it would give me structure, especially with the Bologna race just eight weeks away. Also, our latest batch of runners are so charming I want to have even more legitimate excuses to skulk around the Forum. I just finished Workout 1.2 today and already I want to deck the Runkeeper lady and her bossy voice.

7. Morning Pages tragedy
I use 750words.com to do my morning writing. It’s a private space with a nice blank screen and a word count. You can win badges for various achievements, like speedy typing or building up streaks of writing days. BADGES!

I’d never managed a streak longer than 31 days so when I hit 58 last month I felt sure I was finally on the road to 100 days which means… THE PHOENIX!

But after the glorious January morns of tea and typing, my pages were becoming more afternoon and evening. There was a smelly big work deadline then the Up & Running course prep ramped up. I shoved the writing further and further down the list. I was doing the pages later and later then on Feb 27 I was in bed with the laptop at 11.50pm desperately tapping out the words to make the cut off. Then on March 1, I woke up and the horror hit me. I’d just plain forgotten to write on March 28.

I was fizzing with rage! Now I was back to day zero! You may say, it’s just a stupid badge. But I want that Phoenix, dammit.

Well, the real reason it rankled was the realisation that yet again I’d lost focus of my priorities. It’s not out of a sense of martyrdom, putting everyone else first like a sniffling cold-and-flu advert lady with a child on one arm and a briefcase on the other. I just forget to remember the personally-important things sometimes. I love my morning pages, they keep me calm and 76% less nutty. Gotta make ‘em happen.

So I’m building up the morning muscle again and I’m on a 12 day streak. It’s all about habit. Focus focus focus. I’m coming after you, orange bird thing!

• Penny would like the ability to sleep and an empathy gun
• Caitlyn would like to control the weather
• Jerilyn wants to clone herself
• Lilliam longs to clean her entire house with the snap of her fingers
• JJ wants the ability to predict the stock market

Thanks everyone who entered and congratulations to the winners – I’ve emailed you with the details.

Missed out this time round? There’s still time to join in – the courses start next week!

Back soon with February MIFL Report, etc. In the meantime, if you fancy a stickybeak into the life of an Up & Runner, I’m chatting to the magnificent Marci G over on the U&R blog today. Smokin’!

I was dabbing away tears but Gareth’s face looked more, “Space! Rockets! Stars! COOL!”

It’s twenty minutes long so perfect for a quiet afternoon with a big cuppa! (via Sas)