About Bo

Dog lover. Runner. Although very slowly. Keeping up with the stresses of running and life...

The Urge to Run – I’m guilty

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Bo

Lately, something’s been bugging me. Eating away at me. Making me feel more and more miserable every time the thought enters my mind. My running. Or more specifically, the lack thereof.

To be honest, after my Two Oceans victory, my running has slowed down. Dramatically! Since April, I’ve only completed the RAC 10km, Pirates 10km as well as the occasional 8km Sunday run on the ~~deathmill~~ treadmill. If I have to be truly honest with myself, my running training has slacked off, partly due to Winter, but mainly due to pure laziness.

I am constantly complaining about my running speed. Yet, unless I get off my butt and do some training, I will forever be stuck keeping up those damn walkers!

So when I got home last night, I consulted the big Bible of running – Tim Noakes’ The Lore of Running*. I thought that it might help me to pick up a few hints and tips on how to get back on the road, how to motivate myself again and where to get started.

I immediately turned to the 15 Basic Laws of Training. Four of the Laws caught my eye.

Train frequently, all year round. If you want to be a good athlete, you must train all year round, no matter what. What is really required is a lot of exercise, constantly.
Start gradually and train gently. Nearly all of us dash in to it, hoping for and expecting results which are quite unwarranted. Nature is unable to make a really first-class job of anything if she is hustled. To enhance our best, we need only, and should only, enhance our average.
Don’t set your daily training schedule in stone. Don’t set yourself a daily schedule; it is for more sensible to run a weekly one, because you can’t tell what the temperature, weather, or your own condition will be in any day. You need to listen to your body.
Keep a detailed logbook. Quite embarrassingly, my logbook (Garmin) ended with the Two Oceans. It’s as if once I had conquered the race, the need to log my runs and to push myself fell by the way side. Yet had I continued to keep track of the log, I would have noticed that my running had slacked off and I might have put in measures earlier to make things right.

Ironically, these laws can be applied to my daily routine too… Too many times, a problem nags at me and all it takes is me sitting down and putting some plans in place to fix.

In a few weeks’ times, the weather will be a lot warmer and the sun will be setting later in the evenings. There will be no excuse to get out on to the road for a run. I have to start sometime. Even if it’s 3kms – 5kms around the block or at the gym, it’s a start. And a start is all I need…

(* Noakes, Tim. The Lore of Running. 2010) — Yes, this is the Librarian in me coming out!

Watching children talk to birds…

Posted on August 21, 2011 by Bo

I find looking after someone else’s child one of the most stressful things to do. Not being a parent myself, it doesn’t come easy for me.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t want to do it. I just find it the most frightening thing to do. To be handed over the responsibility of taking care of a child who that parent considers the most important thing in their world – it’s overwhelming.

What if something happens to the child while it is on my watch? What if the child chokes? What if it trips and falls, breaking a leg? What if the child goes missing in the mall? *shudder* I would never ever forgive myself. Never. Unfortunately, kids pick up my stress and I am always guilty that instead of just enjoying the time together, I am focussed on the wrong thing.

I didn’t come with the built-in mommy manual. I do not know how to soothe a crying baby. I do not have the energy to run after a toddler. I find making conversation with children difficult.

Needless to say, my 9 year old niece still manages to twist my arm and come over to stay for the weekend. As all aunts and uncles do, we tend to feed her lots of junk food, we take her to Spur, she watches hours and hours of Disney channel and we let her do pretty much what she likes.

The atmosphere in the house is definitely different. KK and I are comfortable with silences. However, my niece talks non-stop and comes full of opinions.

We tend to stick to a pretty rigid weekend routine. With my niece staying over, everything is thrown on its head! Clothes and books lie scattered all over the floor. The TV is on loud. We go to bed at different times, we don’t get to go running, we skip gym, we eat junk food. It’s the clearest indication to me what our life would be like if we had kids. Everything would change and would revolve around our child.

The funniest thing is that Annie and Emma (my dogs) do not appreciate our attention off them and onto this little person. They come running to me constantly, as if ‘tattletailing’ on my niece and vying for attention and love.

Today we decided to venture out and take my niece to the Monte Casino Bird Gardens. What a lovely place! I highly recommend it. It is well-kept, clean and entertaining. It has a calming, quietness about it.

The thing that stood out for me most is that I was not stressed. I loved being surrounded by all those birds!

My niece ran around, unafraid of anything. Not even the birds of prey or the spiders or the snakes could shake her confidence. In fact, as she informed me, the black mamba didn’t scare her at all. And the anaconda? Pfft, she’d seen bigger in her lifetime.

I need to take some lessons from her.

My niece fell asleep in the car on the way home. The only thing she appears to remember is that a bird crapped on KK’s hand when we were eating lunch.

But the important thing, I hope, is that she enjoyed herself.

I know I did…

Friends come and go. But that’s okay…

Posted on August 19, 2011 by Bo

It suddenly hit me the other night that the people I used to call my “Friends” had somehow disappeared from my life. The girls I had matriculated with, the ones who had been with me through my studies and into my marriage, the book clubbers – they’d all gone off and had kids and left me behind. Having made the decision not to have any kids of my own, I guess it was bound to happen.

I’m just not sure why it took me so long to notice it.

It’s as if, once my friends had kids, they also moved into different circles: Moms n Tots, Soccer Moms, Playgroups. My husband (KK) and I were suddenly left off birthday invites. We were suddenly excluded from the weekend plans and when we did get together, we started to have less and less in common with our friends.

KK has been struggling lately as to why I am “never” home. Friday night drinks after work, supper with this one, coffee with that one, evenings spent with ‘the girls from work’, bloggers meet-ups, tweetups… It all came to a head when I sat down and realized his frustration with me being out all the time was that it was happening every week and with people that he had never met.

The fact is that the people that used to be my friends, I hadn’t actually seen for months, even years in some cases. I had started spending more and more time with new friends.

I had also developed networks, relationships and friendships with total strangers through Twitter. In fact, Twitter has introduced me to some of the most fascinating, interesting and amazing people that ordinarily I would never have met. Spending time with them has enriched and changed my life. I didn’t think it was possible that at the age of 36, my circle of friends would have grown like it has. (yes, even if some of them are virtual.)

The ironic thing is that I ran into an old friend this morning. A friend I hadn’t seen in almost 2 years. And it was lovely to hug and catch up, even if it was only 5 minutes.

It made me realize something very special. I realized that I had in fact not “lost” any of my old friends. In my heart, they are all still there. They have built me and molded me into the person I am through the many times we’ve spent together, the laughs, the tears, the trials, the tribulations, the divorces, the marriages, the deaths of loved ones – each one contributing to the person I am today.

I would not be the person I am today had it not been for the lessons each one of them has taught me.

To those of them who happen to read my blog, thanks for the wonderful memories. Maybe we bump into one another sometime soon. Let’s do coffee and have a good laugh.

To those of you I see and speak to everyday, thanks!

I am grateful to have so many friends in my life…

The Rotten Tree

Posted on August 14, 2011 by Bo

When KK announced that he was cutting down the skew tree in the garden, I was heartbroken. The tree stands in the corner of the garden, next to the garden light and water feature. It is also home to my bird feeder which has brought me hours of joy as I’ve watched the birds from my kitchen window.

When we planted the tree about 5 years ago, it was a little skew. We didn’t think anything of it at the time, but over the years, it has unfortunately grown so skew, that it had now begun to fall over.

In my view, it gave the garden some character and life. But to KK, an engineer, it wasn’t right. Things in life needed to be perfect, straight, in line (yes, even in nature).

As the tree began to fall over, its huge branches started to suffocate the other plants around it. The garden bed became very dark and the branches blocked the lamp. We eventually had to turn the water feature off because the leaves kept dipping into the water, splashing it over the edge, requiring the fountain to be filled daily – a chore KK was not keen on.

We were unable to plant any flowers under the tree because it was too shady and lately, a disease was eating at its leaves and even though we sprayed with insecticide, it didn’t help much.

The tree was rotten. It was not healthy. It was growing skew and could not be helped. I kept making excuses to keep it “alive” but I could not carry on making excuses anymore.

Armed with a wood saw, axe and pruning shears, it took KK a mere 2 hours to cut the tree out. Even most of the roots pulled out easily, proving that they had started to rot.

As we removed all the cut branches and cleaned up the leaves, I stood back to assess. I was most surprised to find that the gap where the tree had been all of a sudden looked clean, fresh, sunny. By removing the tree, so much light and sun was able to shine down on that area. (I’m thinking seedlings might grow here now!).

I know it’s my imagination, but the other plants looked like they were “free” and could stretch out, breathe and be seen.

The rotten tree reminded me of all those rotten people in my life: the negative people who feel like they are strangling me with their narrow-minded views and opinions. The people who claim to be my friends, yet emotionally abuse me and who hurt me. The people who do not care about anyone else but themselves and bring nothing positive to my life.

I make excuses for them, keep them in my life, accepting who they are, and yet I know that they do more harm to me than good.

Sometimes, I need to realise that some relationships are not worth saving and only by removing them can I make way for new ones.

KK said next week we’ll go look for a new tree to replace the rotten one. In the meantime, I need to look for a new place to hang my bird feeder…