Okay, I'm going to have a whinge here - and it's a big one, so you've been duly warned.

I am sick to death of television programs that hold fat people up to ridicule!

( The rant goes on... )

Ever since I started this, I've had people asking me if it really is as fun as the name 'Fun Run' makes out. For some reason, there seems to be this perception that doing a fun run must be, by definition, some kind of exquisite public torture and that my participation in it was actually more about having some kind of mid-life crisis with the fun run being my rather warped version of the red sports car, hairy chest and thick gold chains.

( Read more lunacy about running if you dare... ) Running back towards the city.

 
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Hard on the heels of Kerri's blog yesterday on the evils of food additives, today in The Age, there's a story about research being done on how Fast Food is addictive.

And no, we're not just talking about how that squishy Maccas burger just tastes so damned good you have to have more. We're talking real, bona fide, brain-altering-chemical addiction.

The study was done on a group of rats, who were fed all they could eat quantities of biscuits, chips, sugar-loaded cereals and cheese and bacon flavoured snacks. When their diet was changed to normal pellets, they grew anxious and ran around a lot more than the normal rats.

You can read the whole article here.

The study says that the rats would rather eat nothing than the healthy food if they couldn't have their junk food, and that when they couldn't have it, they seemed to suffer from withdrawal symptoms.

This study actually agrees with another one that I read earlier this year, that studied the effects junk food had on brain chemicals, showing clearly that dopamine levels (the 'feel-good' chemical in the brain) spiked when junk food was consumed. In other words, it acts on the brain exactly the same way as heroin. So when you try to give it up, you suffer from withdrawal.

So when you're thinking giving up that pizza is hard - you're right!

After my fabulous hiking triumph on Sunday, all this week I've been rather ill. I started sneezing and coughing on Monday and felt so dreadful I took the day off work, expecting a full-blown cold to take hold. Only by Monday night, I was feeling okay. So I went to work on Tuesday, but by lunch time, was feeling very ordinary again and went home early.

( Don't worry, you can read more without catching anything... )

I rode the bike to work on Friday morning. It was an interesting exercise given how foggy it was. I had all my lights on, plus a torch attached to my helmet, and my irredescent yellow windbreaker on. It must have been enough as nobody drove into me. However, I found out very early on that I couldn't wear my glasses as I had to keep wiping my finger across them to get rid of the accumulated moisture - a finger window-wiper!

( Read more... )

 

The alarm went off at 5am, playing some wildly enthusiastic song that I couldn't quite grasp. I barely opened my eyes, but memory slowly drifted in, reminding me that this was the morning I actually had to get up, get dressed and be ready for when Karen arrived - because some idiot part of me (now in hiding, terrified) signed up to go run around the park with a few thousand other loonies.

( Read more... )

In just two short days' time, I shall be lining up with over 4,000 other mad people (out of about 35,000) to do something that is rather strangely called a "fun run". The course is 4km long and circles the Tan - the Botannical Gardens.

I do have an issue with the term "fun run". After all, if it was fun, why do you need to say so? Does anybody refer to going to the pub as "a fun pub night"? Or when we go, say, surfing for the day - do we refer to it as "fun surfing"? No, because the fun element is implicit in the activity.

Not so, I fear,  with running.

( Read more if you dare... )

Okay, this might be proof that I actually live in a little universe of my own - but am I the only person wondering what all the fuss is about with the whole Swine Flu pandemic?

( Read more... )

So, we heard all about my dreadful toothache and the awful amount of time it went on. Alas, from start to finish, I was in pain for exactly 7 days, which, in my mind was about 8 days too long, and felt like a month!

The good news is that the tooth has now gone. Although it took the dentist 5 injections to get the pain numbed enough to do the job, the actual event took no more than a minute, and was entirely without trauma of any kind. Just... suddenly it was done.

I can't tell you how thrilled I was.

After the gallons of anesthetic wore off, I was in a bit of pain, but a couple of panadol fixed that and today I'm feeling pretty chipper. My face is swollen and talking isn't easy (yes, I can hear people cheering from here), but all up, I'm doing much better than I expected. Even better, afterwards, the dentist said the tooth wouldn't have been fixable anyway, so I'm happy I made the right call.

Now I can get on with my Grand Plan - the next step of which is to continue training for my performance in the....


www.mothersdayclassic.org/

Yes, I don't know what weird thing fuzzed my brain, but I am registered to run 4km on Sunday the 10th May. Apparantly it will be good for me - but I'm reserving judgement until I cross the finish line in one piece, without first visiting the ICU.

If you would like to sponsor my tortured efforts, please click on this link. I'm trying to raise a few dollars for breast cancer research - so whatever you can spare would be great.

https://mothersdayclassic.trickytix.com.au/sponsor/view/2901/tracey-oliphant

And now that I can run without feeling like half my face is going to explode, I can go back to training...yippeeeeee 

Yes, the nagging strikes again. This time it's Karen M who's just joined up. You can friend her kneazle65.

Kerri, you have a lot to answer for!!! 

 Wow, did I pick a good time to try and do this. But then, I guess it's times like this week for me that remembering that I have things I can be happy about regardless of how much pain I'm in is really what this is all about. To remember that no matter how bad things get, there's always something you can be happy to come home to, to experience, to just be. And not just find a positive spin to put on something negative, which is what I think I did over the last two days. 

So, in that vein:

Day 7 (Thurs)
I was happy to get in to see my specialist dentist, and although his poking and prodding caused the most excruciating pain in my tooth, I was very happy with  how thorough he was and how he obviously knew exactly what he was doing. And he kept apologizing every time he had to poke or tap the tooth, saying he was sorry for having to do it and if I could just hold on a little longer that would make all the difference. I have to say, I've been around some surly, grunting dentists who couldn't care less how much they hurt you - and he wasn't one of them. For all that there was a negative outcome, it wasn't actually a negative experience. 
(For those of you interested, it was going to cost me over $3000 to save the tooth without any guarantee that it would be successful, with a rider, that it probably wouldn't)

Day 8 (Friday)
Which brings me to today. With the news that I need to have the tooth removed (I can't begin to express the horror I feel with that sentence) I was very unhappy to discover that my dentist couldn't fit me in for another week! When I mentioned that it meant another week of agony for me, they then pulled out all the stops to fit me in so I am very happy (in a horrified for my teeth kind of way) with the fact that I now have an appoinment on Monday afternoon to have the little bugger out. 

What has made me even more happy however, is the support and comfort I've received from friends, family and colleagues over my plight. It seems that alas, I'm not the only one who's suffered like this and although that in itself doesn't make me happy, the shared load does.


So it's been an interesting experience counting my blessings over the last week. I suppose if it had all be plain sailing that would have made it too easy, so in a way, I'm glad it's been so hard - I've learned a lot. Thanks Beky, for sharing the idea. Oh, and apologies to all those who didn't really want all the dental details. 

So I'm a day behind again - but I have a good excuse: See, for the last three days I've been stricken with the most god-awful toothache known to woman and I've been struggling a bit to look at anything in a positive light, let alone be happy about it.

But, in the spirit of the program, I'm going to do what somebody said about acting: learn to use the difficulty.

So, Day 5 (Tuesday):
I am very unhappy that I have a dreadful toothache - but I am deleriously happy that I can get into a dentist for an emergency consult on the same day I make the call. I am incredibly lucky that I live in a western country that actually has properly trained dentists, and that I have access to them. I'm also fortunate that I can afford health cover to (partially) pay for it. So much as I hate the pounding, throbbing, red-hot-poker jabbing into my jaw, making the whole side of my face swell up (and no, I can't take coedine so no painkillers actually work for me) I am exceptionally happy that I am in a position to do something about it. I know that the problem WILL be fixed eventually. I am not looking at months of this agony as the tooth slowly rots away.

Day 6 (Wednesday):
Okay, not so happy today because my dentist couldn't actually do anything about my tooth, so I've had to go through another day in agony. But my happy comes from the fact that I managed to get an emergency appointment with a specialist for tomorrow morning! It would normally take a week just to get him to look at it, not even treat it - so I am very lucky and extrememly happy that my timing was perfect. This time.

Mmmmn - is it me, or am I sounding a tifle peevish. I'm not sure that was the point of the Happy exercise. I am doing my best. It's just very hard to be happy when somebody is relentlessly pounding a jackhammer into the side of your jaw. 

Oops, there I go again. I'm going to sign off now. I'm hoping tomorrow's happy will involve the marvels of modern day dentistry and my instantaenous cure at the hands of my specialist. 

Cross your fingers for me.

I meant to post yesterday then forgot all about it. Anyway, here's two for the price of one - and that's got to be a good thing, right?

Day 3 (Sunday)

Went out to Ferntree Gully again and went up the Lyrebird track which runs parallel to the 1000 Steps Kokoda Walk. Most people don't realise that it's actually more steep and longer than the 1000 steps, which is why I torture my body with it on a weekly basis these days. Anyway, the happy part comes when I actually shaved 5 minutes off my previous personal best! The good thing is that when you get to the top, it's all downhill from there! For those interested, I took the Bellview track back down, bringing the total distance to around 8km. Okay, so it was soggy, damp and cold, but I had a chai late in the cafe at the bottom and that made all the difference.

Day 4 (Monday)

Okay, apologies up front if this sounds like bragging, but I'm a big believer in celebrating your own successes. There's nothing like positive reinforcement to keep you motivated. Anyway, my happy for today is that I got my mark for my most recent Uni subject - and I got another HD!!!! Woo hoo!

Best bit is, I have no idea how I did it, given I thought I'd done a fairly ordinary final assignment and wasn't sure I got more than about 22 out of 40 on the multiple choice exam. Still, I'm not one to pass up a high mark - so that goes onto the tally. I'm now 11 subjects into my degree, with only 13 more to go. That's... um.... XXX more years at this pace.  

I have been trying to get myself to do this for a few weeks now and today I finally got out of bed, got dressed and headed out to McKinnon sports ground so I could run around it. Sounds odd, I know, but I have this idea that setting interim goals will keep me working hard until my goal in October, so I decided I was going to try doing the Mother's Day Classic Fun Run - 4km around the Botanical Gardens. It's only three weeks away and I thought I'd better see how I went running that kind of distance before I committed myself. Well, I ran about 1.5km without stopping today, and did about 3km all up. Given I was deliberately not pushing myself because I'm going hiking tomorrow, I'm really happy I finally got a chance to try out my solo running skills (without my dogs running across the path in front of me and being generally annoying).

Good thing is, I discovered I actually rather enjoy running, so I'll be adding that to my shopping cart too. 

EIGHT DAYS OF HAPPY!

1. Post about something that made you happy today, even if it's just a small thing.
2. Do this every day for eight days.
(Thanks to </b></a>bekytg for this)

I think this is a marvellous idea - so this is my day 1:

I rode my bike to work again today. This is only the 4th time I've done it, but today I noticed that going up the first big hill that I did it in a higher gear than I had previously, and it wasn't very hard at all. It's a huge pleasure to actually notice my body getting fitter, especially so quickly.

There's nothing that riles me up more than the deliberate misrepresentation of facts, or the calculated omission of crucial information for the purposes of manipulating people's ideas.
( Read more... ) 

Anybody who knows me knows how much I love travelling - and also knows how much I enjoy telling stories about the sometimes overwhelming challenges that travelling throws in your path. It can, at times, take all of your good humour to simply get through the day.

Or you could be a Pom.

( Read more... )

I typed "unfortunately Tracey" into google and this is what I got:

Looks like my career and life is on the skids...

Unfortunately Tracey got too close to the notorious Ferndale Strangler, and she was abducted by Joey Henderson on her way home from the gym. ...

 Unfortunately, Tracey’s amazing contraptions often cause havoc and she constantly has to think her way out of tricky situations she has created for herself. ...

 Unfortunately, Tracey's desire for intellectual discussion was met with brutality and cruelty. This troubling event happened at the College, ...

 Unfortunately Tracey is always rooting for the wrong team (red sox). Now that she has started her life in the Big Apple, ...

 Unfortunately, Tracey has never switched on a computer in her life – so she may miss seeing what a ‘Phat’ hairstyle she could have! ...

 Unfortunately Tracey isn't capturing the audience and the reverse is happening as the same issues continue to pile up daily and seem to even ...

 Unfortunately, Tracey’s meat machine squirts scalding grease on users. With a crowd gathering and Frank holding up a tape recorder, ...

 Unfortunately Tracey missed a gate in the first hazard and was eliminated.

Unfortunately, Tracey didn't find anything that was exactly right. However, the mall also included a Cadbury's chocolate outlet. ...

Thanks, Kerri! Good to know that I at least finished with some chocolate!

Four Places I Go Over And Over:
- My computer
- My exercise class
- my work (only wish I didn't have to)
- my brother's place to spend time with the kids (what can I say, I'm a doting auntie)

Four People Who E-mail Me Regularly:
- My sister
- CR
- VWC
- That same man who tries to sell Viagra to Kerri (gosh, Kezza, we have a lot of friends in common!)

Four Favourite Smells:
- Bacon and eggs
- Sandalwood and patchouli incense
- Opium (perfume)
- The back of my doggies' heads (if you like dogs, you know exactly what I mean. If not, I know that just sounds weird)

Four Places I'd Rather Be Right Now:
- Anywhere
- Anywhere
- Anywhere
- Anywhere

Okay, you want actual place names?
- Nepal
- Greece
- Alaska
- Cocos Islands, lying on a deserted beach with a georgous man, being waited on hand and foot, a cocktail in one hand, good book in the other... okay, better stop right there.

Four TV Shows I Watch:
- The Mentalist
- Life
- Time Team
- House

I'm feeling very chuffed with myself today. After nearly two and a half years, today I finally got around to riding my bike to work!

I've been meaning to do it since I moved closer to work, it always seemed so difficult to arrange, and although I'd done a practice run on the weekend, it still seemed quite a distance away. Since then, I moved house, shifting about 2km closer to work. Then my work moved about 1km closer to home. So I had absolutely no excuse...

( Read more... )