What I did on my holidays

Came back yesterday from two weeks at Caloundra. It was a great beach holiday with lots of surfing, swimming in the pool, cricket and tennis. Kewell (my 8 year old son) is non-stop go and certainly keeps everyone active. On top of all this I still managed to get all my planned runs in. Have kept up the morning running and was up around 5:00am on running days.

I thought I might have been able to escape the heat, but the humidity was still extreme, especially the first week. Only after the two nights of storms on Friday and Saturday did the weather become suitable for running and luckily it was my 30k long run on the Sunday. Only lasted that day though. We were staying on the headland north of King's Beach and we had a spectacular view of the storms over South East Qld on that Friday night. With a reported 17,000 lightning strikes that night, it was quite a light show.

Here is a list of my runs while away. The 10k runs were to Golden Beach and back, and the 15k runs were to Pelican Waters and back.

Mon 2/1
15K 1:17:12 HR 145

Tue 3/1
10K 54:07 HR 139

Wed 4/1
10K 51:54 HR 139

Fri 6/1
15K 1:16:05 HR 146

Sun 8/1
30K 2:42:20 HR 136

Tue 10/1
10K 49:14 HR 147

Wed 11/1
15K 1:21:15 HR 133

Fri 13/1
10K 50:17 HR 143

Sat 14/1
15K 1:13:31 HR 143

Loaded the new Amadou and Mariam album "Dimanche a Bamako" on to my Music Player at the start of the holiday. I had bought that album and the earlier 2002 album "Wati" in the middle of the year. I decided to listen to "Wati" first and it ended up one of my favourites of the year. The new album is a collabaration with Manu Chao and has had great reviews, so I was eagerly awaiting listening to it. I found it a bit lightweight with too much of Chao's influence. A bit disappointing and I listened to Wilco's "Summerteeth" just as much as it.

I had a goal to do 300k, between 19th December and when I got back to work on Monday. So far I am up to 284k and will hopefully pass that tomorrow morning when I do my 30k Long Run. I was on race duty this morning at the BRRC, so couldn't run then. Tonight the whole family is off to the football to see the Qld Roar play Melbourne, so no run tonight.

So a very early start on Monday morning will see me get the run in then. Should make for any interesting first day back at work as I have gotten into the habit of having an afternoon nap over the holidays. On Tuesday, I am having day surgery to remove some skin cancers so will need to have a few days off which will be welcome. I think I am more tired from lack of sleep than the running. With the hot nights it has been hard going to bed early and getting a good sleep!