Contemplating the big R

Back before Christmas, during a game of touch football, I managed to give the old hamstring a bit more of a work out than I intended. It led to this:

I did the right thing, had lots of physio, did my stretches, used the ice appropriately and son on.

It appeared to be going well when I made it out for the first pre-season training for soccer. I’d been for a run with Bel’s lacrosse crowd survived the training and was happy that I was back on track for another year of football.

Then touch football started again for the year. I went out and I was cautious. I didn’t want to ruin the pre-season for soccer so when someone took off past me, I remembered how I did it … chasing someone that was just the wrong speed. I let them go.

It was in the second half it went wrong. I wasn’t enjoying the game that we were playing and was resenting the fact that we didn’t seem to be subbing well. That meant too much time on the sidelines, too much of an opportunity to cool down. I made my way back on eventually and had the ball right near our scoring zone. I didn’t do anything silly, I simply stepped and passed the ball. In the act of doing that, the hamstring went twang.

I was pissed. Really really pissed. Not only was there the pain to contend with, but I knew that I’d just thrown away my soccer pre-season.

For the first time I started to consider that the R word might come into play. That’s right, retirement.

I think I may have played my last ever game of touch. For the first time last season, I really didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d like and so to have two significant injuries as well … I have to consider that maybe its over.

Worse, it made me wonder whether I’d even play soccer. I started to think that If I am going to run into another continuous run of hamstring problems that maybe it all just wouldn’t be worth it. The only other time I’d considered giving up the game I love was the time I was punched in the spine behind play.

I’d kind of been targeting playing long enough to perhaps play a game with Michael at some point. Given he’s just started playing U16s that would mean hanging on for another couple of years though and hopefully he’s better than me by then and can play higher than I will be.

The good news is that I cheered up. I took things slowly, then I pushed myself. Tonight I trained and didn’t think about the hammy much at all. On Saturday I’ll embark on another season. Fingers crossed!

Dream Modification

For quite some time now I’ve been pursuing a dream. The Porsche 911. I first started looking for one ex-USA while we were in Canada, but time got away from me, Caroline changed her mind and ultimately, registering a left hand drive car in South Australia was going to be problematic.

I turned my attention to the UK market because the prices were right and it seemed to be only a matter of time before the right one would come on the market. I had two inspected, both of which proved to be less than what I was looking for. I was being patient, well kind of patient. I was at least patient enough that I didn’t leap into too many more vehicle inspections, but with that itchy ‘I really want it now’ thing going on in the background. As I watched the market though, two things happened. The number of cars that I was interested in started to disappear and the prices of those same cars were escalating.

A vehicle came up locally and I enlisted the assistance of the walking Porsche encyclopaedia that is James to check it out. It wasn’t in great nick and the price certainly didn’t adequately reflect it. As we drove back to my place, James said something that I’d been considering on and off as I searched for my car.

“Does it have to be a 911?”

It was a good question. Ultimately the dream was indeed to get into a 911. I may even have been one of those people that dismissed the idea at times because I wanted a ‘real Porsche’, but as the prices rise, dreams sometimes need to be modified. I started looking at 944’s.This time it seemed like the timing might just be right.

At a better price point, there were more recent cars in even better condition available. There was one available locally that fit the bill … an ’89 S2. From the photos it appeared in good enough condition to warrant checking out.

I headed off on my own, just for a first pass. You know the signs are good that a car is loved and well maintained when you arrive at someone’s house and find a hoist in their garage. A hoist, an Evo kitted out to race and a 944 turbo race car in ‘the other garage’.

I had a look, I spoke to Caroline. I pondered and I waited. Then last weekend, I decided that it was well and truly worth another look. This time I took James along as well as the financial controller. My suspicions were confirmed. The car is in excellent condition. And the price is right.

So, meet my new addition:

Flightmare

I had to fly to Sydney for work this week and because of the early morning start time, I had to fly the night before to be sure I could make it in time. Being a public Holiday, I booked the last flight that I possibly could to maximise the time at home with the family.

We wolfed down a quick Chinese meal together and then Caroline and the kids dropped me off at the airport. As I ambled in to the airport the first thing that I noticed was that my flight had been delayed by about an hour. Yay. Oh well, it’s times like that that the Qantas club comes into its own.

I walked over to the check-in machine, certainly not worried about time anymore, and input my details. It didn’t recognise me and spat out some advice about going to the counter. That didn’t overly worry me as it wasn’t the first time something had been messed up on a company booking.

When I spoke to the bloke at the counter though, it was a little different from previous times. The flight was rated for 180 people, but due to the weather that was being experienced in Sydney it had been down-graded to 160 and that many people had already been checked in. I wasn’t going to get on the plane (and of course it was the last one). I was offered a travel voucher (and could have even stayed a night in a hotel had I really wanted) but I needed to hang around to collect a letter.

I called Caroline to turn around and come and get me again and whiled away the minutes. Caroline arrived back at the airport, but there was still no letter. She got booted and had to drive around with the kids (all super-enthusiastic about spending more time in the car) while I watched other people arrive and try and check-in to the flight.

It must have been a good half hour without the letters having arrived (how hard can a letter be? Surely there’d be some sort of template for these things) and I was starting to get somewhat annoyed when the customer service agent came up, checked that I was a single passenger and then asked if I’d like to get on the flight.

I was torn … the travel voucher would have been handy and the night at home would have been nice, everyone would have realised with the weather that I had a good excuse for not being there, but I really was supposed to be in Sydney. I took the seat that had become available because someone wasn’t feeling well and voluntarily gave it up.

I spent the next period in the Qantas Club watching the news. That turned out to be less than smart. All I saw was reports about how bad the weather was and the chaos that was being experienced at my destination. Maybe not the best thing to be flying into.

Anyway, I had a seat and at least with the reduced numbers the seat adjacent to mine was empty as well. Unfortunately the row behind me had a family with two young kids (one infant) and so did the row in front.

As the plane filled, I was exceptionally happy to realise that the infant that was sitting on his father’s lap behind me liked to stick his feet into the back of the seat. As much as a massage chair might be a nice thing, in the mood that I was in I just felt like snotting the little bugger. I endured. Eventually after the plane took off he must have been moved to his Mother’s seat because the kicking stopped thankfully.

Of course, then there was the two little girls in front with their father. Their Mum was across the aisle and managed to tune herself out from all that was going on. The girls weren’t bad per se, they were just annoying as all hell for most of the second half of the flight. With no screens on the Jetstar service, other forms of entertainment are required to occupy small children. These ones seemed to be devoid of electronics. That might be a great lifestyle choice for them, but let me assure you, it wasn’t for me. After all, the chosen alternative entertainment of singing nonsense on a plane really wasn’t appreciated.

They were just stringing together various sounds and singing them loud enough for me to hear (in one of those lovely small child loopy tunes that children create) despite the fact that I was watching my own electronically delivered entertainment. I was even wearing noise cancelling headphones, but clearly nothing was stopping that noise. They did it over and over and over again. At one point it evolved slightly to include “Nobody knows” over and again, to which I kept muttering in my head … “where the bodies will be found.”

The next evolution was the “Do Ray Me So Far La Tea Do” song from the Sound of Music. Talk about a treat. Especially when they decided to go for the 15^th run through!

Then we were commencing landing and I had to turn off my electronics. Then the captain came on to announce that the airport had gone to single runway operation and so we would be entering a holding pattern and delayed in our arrival by another 30 minutes. It didn’t stop the singing.

I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but to cap off the singing, the two girls had brought light-up light sabres onto the plane. They flashed. Let me assure you, just in case you weren’t aware that bright blue flashing lights quite happily penetrate closed eyelids, just enough to prevent one from sleeping. It does help with teeth gnashing though.

Eventually we landed, 2 minutes before the Sydney airport curfew. It was a God-send considering the alternate of being diverted to Melbourne and spending another hour or so on the plane. I was free. I left the plane and raced for my luggage and a taxi, after all it was now 11:30pm and I was kind of over the whole experience.

As I walked away to the taxi rank, I couldn’t help but notice that I was walking through about a centimetre of water. Inside the terminal. There were enough leaks that you didn’t have to make it outside to start getting wet.

And it was at this point that I heard the staccato slapping of small feet running across the tiles, followed by a big slap and a collective gasp from everyone in the vicinity. I turned just in time to see one of the two canaries take a 6 foot slide through the massive puddle of water that I’d just escaped. Fortunately she wasn’t hurt, but she was wet and sure to be miserable.

Karma?

Shallow Graves

As anyone that was in Adelaide the other day would not, it got very very hot. Stupid hot. Burn your skin, melt your icecream, turn you to gloop hot.

The biggest problem with the heat for us these days are the rabbits. The poor little buggers can’t regulate their body temperatures and so need lots of help to get through the days of extreme heat. Bottles of frozen water for them to cuddle up to, plenty to drink, shade and on the really bad days, trips inside to the wonder that is air conditioning.

We have 3 rabbits presently, Specs, the fertile male who is isolated from the other 2, Ginger, the non-fertile male and Pepper the fertile female. We’ve learnt to keep them apart!

Due to his location, Specs had a trip inside to the air conditioner as he has very limited access to shade. Pepper and Ginger we thought would be ok. With enough water and ice, their hutch is under the cubby house (and has it’s own roof and 2 levels and areas well out of the sun).

Sadly Ginger didn’t make it. 

I went out late in the day to check that they had what they needed to find the little guy collapsed against the door of the cage. Now a hot rabbit doesn’t look all that different from a dead one as they spread themselves out to try and cool themselves down. The big difference is in the blinking. Dead rabbits don’t blink. So I hoped as I opened the door to see him flinch (in all honesty I expected it). When he didn’t, i knew things were grim. 

Of course that left the two unenviable tasks of telling the little pink thing and burying the bunny. 

With one adult and several babies having already been sent on their way in our yard, I always worry that I’m not quite sure where the last ones were buried. There’s a collection of shallow graves out there and I really don’t want to be adding anymore!

Not what I had intended to write ....

So I was going to write a little piece for Christmas about Santa, belief and everything that goes with it, but to tell the story would leave too much out there for my kids (and possibly other people’s) so I can’t quite bring myself to do it. 

If you’re curious, drop me a line and I’ll tell you a story!

So in other, completely unrelated news, over the last month or two, there’s been some minor developments in the top order of the household. Every now and then when I’d catch Michael or Sam in profile, it was hard not to notice that the bum fluff was getting a little bit longer.

So Christmas eve was the day that Michael and Sam both had their first shaves and because Michael happened to be too engrossed in a computer game, Sam went first. I haven’t pointed it out to Michael yet, but for ever more Sam will be able to say that he shaved before his older brother. Even if it was by a mere 15 minutes!

Ultimate Backyard Cricket

I was at home on Saturday afternoon, happily roasting a couple of bits of pork on the spit, waiting for the time when we’d be leaving to take Sam to the movies with friends to celebrate his birthday when the phone rang. It was a friend of Sam’s Mum.

“Toby would like to know if Sam would like to come over to our place tomorrow night and play some backyard cricket with Ricky Ponting.”

For the foreigners (particularly those from that North American continent) that read this, that’s probably the equivalent of the national hockey team captain.

Sam had a bit of a funny grin on his face when he was asked. It was nothing compared to the silly grin that I had on my face as I was doing the asking. For a moment I actually thought that he was going to say that he wasn’t really that interested, but I think he could tell that it was unlikely that I was going to let him get away with no as an answer.

There’s probably a bit of an explanation required at this point, because when the call came through, I knew that it was genuine. So the more likely and response that would have come out at another time, Like, “Ha Ha very funny,” or something less polite didn’t even cross my mind.

Sam’s friend Toby is in remission and has been a recipient of help through the Ricky Ponting Foundation, run by Ricky and Rianna. A couple of years ago, when we’d just returned from Canada and after Sam had made friends with Toby, he’d had his picture in the Advertise with Ricky at the Adelaide oval ahead of the test match. So when Ricky is in town, he catches up with Toby.

On Australia Day the Ponting Foundation is organising The Biggest Game of Cricket to raise money for young Australians with cancer and their families so the opportunity was taken as part of the launch to have a game in the backyard with Tony and some of his friends – one of whom was Sam.

Needless to say, Mum and Dad both dropped him off and took the chance to have a bit of a gawk and meet the former Australian Cricket Captain. It was a great opportunity and I think that we’ll have to look at hosting our own game of cricket on Australia Day, especially since oval renovations have seen Adelaide robbed of cricket on possibly our most traditional day of cricket.

We managed to get Thomas’ bat signed as well as his cousin’s (on his birthday even, which was lucky since we skipped out of his celebration for a couple of hours to do so) and had a great time watching the kids get the chance to play cricket with one of their idols. It was very generous and an exposure to another side of Ricky to that which we usually get to see via the media.

And as we all pointed cameras at him whilst he played with the kids and sat and ate and posed for photos, it was also an eye opener into what it must be like to live a celebrity life-style! Far from private.

City to Bay 2012

Last year I set out to run the City to Bay with little expectation. This year two things were different. Firstly, I had a goal to run the 12km race in under 1 hour. It didn’t have to be a lot. I would have been happy with a time of 59:59. It wasn’t going to be an easy achievement. Secondly, I’d convinced Michael to enter the run with me.

I trained as well as I could have managed this year, fitting it in around soccer, life and other general commitments.

I had a training program. I even had a GPS unit that helped me train to that program. What I didn’t have was single-minded devotion. In order to have done that I would have had to have stopped playing soccer and avoided all those other commitments that I mentioned before. I haven’t reached a point where I am prepared to do that to meet that goal of running the race in under an hour.

What I didn’t set myself as a goal was beating Michael. It never even occurred to me that it might be something worth aiming at.

Michael didn’t train. He played soccer for the school and did PE and that was about it. A couple of weeks before the race I suggested that he might like to come for a run with me. We jogged around to the local park, running together along the way. That was the warm up. When we started running, off he went. Not sprinting away, but starting quicker right from the get-go. It was only a small park, about 200m per lap. I watched him gradually stretch his lead and then gradually mow me down. He went past me and just kept going.

I didn’t delude myself into thinking that I should try and keep up, or improve enough to beat him, it simply wasn’t going t happen.

I think he may have run with me on 2 more occasions after that.

The first of those, his second run with me was an exercise in speed which meant spaced runs at higher velocities. When you’re busting your gut to finish the session off, what you need is your 15 year old sun running along beside you, maintaining the pace, but darting off to the side to jump up and rip leaves off trees, bounce of trunks and generally letting you know that not only is he not knackered and in danger of a heart attack, but that he’s a little bored and looking for some fun too!

His third run with me was the nice ‘taper’ run that I did 3 days before the event. A relatively easy exercise, not meant to wear you out too much. Michael was running with me, but it was clear once again that he was holding back. The fact that he was running along the top of 3 inch wide brick walls was probably the biggest clue!

On the day, I had one secret hope, not that I was focused on beating him. The only thing that would give me a sniff was if he ran out of puff because he’d never run 12kms before.

My aim was to chew through the race at 4:57 mins/km which in theory would have had me over the line in 59:24. I would have been quite ecstatic. I asked Michael at the start if he was going to run with me for a bit and then take off when I was slowing him down too much. His answer was very noncommittal.

He did run with me for just a bit. Basically right up to the start line, then as we crossed North Terrace, he bolted like a rabbit out the gate, up onto the footpath, round a couple of slow-pokes and off into the crowd.

I was on pace until the 7km mark but it was around then the GPS started telling me to hurry up. It continued to do this until the end of the event when I crossed the line in 60mins and 43 seconds.

43 damn seconds. It’s amazing just how close that seems and yet I know that I simply didn’t have it in me to drag that time back. I was stuffed. And waiting for me just past the finish line was Michael. He’d finished in 57:57.

My only consolation was that he was in about as much pain as I was and complained that he’d had to walk a bit because he’d cramped up. Some consolation. He walked a bit and still beat me over the line.

The other thing I worked out when I downloaded the data from my device was that I’d actually run a distance of 12.2kms. The time I’d run the race in was actually pretty much bang on (actually a fraction under) 5 min kms. So if I’d been able to run the damn thing straight instead of around all the people that were slower than me and if it had actually been just 12kms I would have hit my target!

But I still didn’t run the race in under an hour.

Looks like I’ll have to do it again next year.