Marathon PB at Dubai Marathon, 27 January 2012

Yesterday at the Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon I crushed my running goal of 3:30. I crossed the line in a net result of 3:23.32 – which I’m very happy with. The time’s 15 minutes faster than my former best, in 2007; and 35 mins better than my last marathon just over 2 years ago.

I’m not sure why more people don’t run marathons. In the morning for breakfast I ate a whole family block of chocolate, guilt-free. I can justify eating almost anything providing it has high carbs. I guess as my running will now reduce, that diet will be a luxury of the past.

I’ve now run three marathons in three countries. And I’ll deny it if you ever bring it up, but at the starting line of each I’ve shed a tear or two thinking how fortunate I am to be in a position to do this.

My music collection didn’t really help me in such an emotional moment, hearing John Butler singing about having to believe. That was resolved with the next track “Don’t worry be happy” by Bobby McFerrin.

Sadly my iPhone lost its GPS signal for a moment, so my GPS girlfriend was overwhelmingly pleased thinking I was on world record pace. Once the distance is miscalculated there’s no recovery, she’ll tell wrong information every kilometer. This was a bit of a pain, as my phone had become my training partner for the past three months. It was now just a very distracting iPod. The music was at least helpful. Gloria Gaynor singing “I will survive” was timely and encouraging.

On the timing part, I did have the backup of my stop watch, so I could keep an eye on the times of my kilometer splits.

Marathoners generally have an A and B goal, so if things don’t go to plan, there’s still something to aim for. This year a guy ran wearing a 10kg rhinoceros suit to raise awareness for Save The Rhino. So most people also had a C goal in this run to not be beaten by a rhino. I saw him getting assembled at the start line, then thankfully not again for the rest of the day.

The run was fantastic. Although there weren’t large crowds of spectators throughout, there were still enough people screaming encouragement. Including my family who had come out bearing animal masks, vuvuzellas, and a “Go Daddy Go” sign.

The night before I asked the boys if they could write some encouragement on my arms, which I could look down and see if I got tired. Myles wrote “Go Ryan” with a smiley, Lewis scribbled all over the other arm, which allegedly said “Go Ryan” also.

It was probably not the most well-executed plan. When I woke up race day at 4am stumbling into the bathroom I laughed out loud when my eyes focused. My face had in permanent pen a mirror image of Go Ryan, where my face must have rested on my arm.
It did come off.

It was tough to stick with the plan of breaking marathon into three parts, running slow, not so slow, then fast. The first 7kms was relatively slow, but then I’d say the rest was a fast medium pace, until the last 4kms when I had to fight to not be too slow. The training prepared me well, but there’s no getting around the fact that 42.2kms is a freaking long way to make the body run. The crowd were cheering the loudest towards the end, which was appreciated. With 3kms to go I caught up with a guy from the club who was struggling. He came back with a bit of a sprint which helped me find an auto drive setting, which pushed me to the finish. On the line I couldn’t help but just stand in a triumphant, relieved, fatigued, blissful, agony.

My family joined me. Then I hobbled to the Dubai Mall carpark. It seemed like a second marathon – along the way giving an understanding nod to other runners hobbling also.

My mind was a bit of a blur also. As I was walking, I heard a voice behind me say Ryan a few times. All I could register though was, I know that name. It was a colleague who ran the marathon also. I cursed the fact he was walking so comfortably, perhaps the benefits of more experience – this was his fifth marathon in recent years.

Once home I cracked open a beer, had a lovely hot shower to wash off the litre of dried sweat, then had a very relaxing bath. My bath may have been 15 minutes, or 5 hours – I have no idea.

That night we had a bunch of friends over for a belated Aussie Day BBQ. I proudly wore my finisher’s medal, which got some mocking. The kids though were very impressed. They spotted on the medal the number 2 of the year, 2012 and assumed I finished in second place. I went with it. So Ayele Abshero Biza won the marathon in a course record of 2:04.23, then I came in next, 80 minutes later.

One of the 10 year old girls put it nicely, and said it looked like I just got out of bed. Quite different to all the women who just told me I looked like [expletive].

Realistically, I have no future running goals at this stage. I guess somewhere there is a desire to run the next marathon, and achieve the next PB, sub 3:20. Pain in my legs and one foot is doing a fine job to mask such desires for the moment.

Thanks everyone for the encouragement and well wishes. To state something beyond obvious, I couldn’t have run the marathon without the support of many people.

Movie: Van Dieman’s Land

I just finished watching Van Dieman’s Land. It was terrible.

Elle and I caught a trailer for the film some time ago, which gave the false impression it would be interesting.

And Van Dieman’s Land – AKA Tasmania – being Elle’s home state in Australia, we also thought it’d be nice to see some familiar beautiful scenery and hear some historical accounts. We were mistaken.

The story tracks the hardships of hardened escapee convicts through the hard Tasmanian wilderness. Then it tracked the hardships of hardened escapee convicts through the hard Tasmanian wilderness.

It was monotonous. Until things got even harder and food become more scarce. So, as you do when in this situation while bush walking through Tasmania, you start knocking off your mates one by one and eating them. The only piece of suspence was who was next to become stew.

In fact, as there was an absence of any other storyline, perhaps they should have named the flick, “Guys walking through bush, eating each other”.

Rating: 0.5/5
Tags: Australia, Tasmania, cannibalism

London 2012

It’s 2012 and it’s the Olympics in London ..

A Scotsman, an Englishman and an Irishman want to get in, but they haven’t got tickets.

The Scotsman picks up a manhole cover, tucks it under his arm and walks to the gate.
” McTavish , Scotland ” he says, “Discus” and in he walks.

The Englishman picks up a length of scaffolding and slings it over his shoulder.
” Waddington-Smythe , England ” he says, “Pole vault” and in he walks.

The Irishman looks around and picks up a roll of barbed wire and tucks it under his arm. “O’Malley, Ireland ” he says, “Fencing.”

Old London Town

London, what a magical city.

It’s almost indescribable, but there us a buzz to this place which I’ve not really experienced elsewhere.

Monday evening I woke up at 3:30am to Skype my family back in Dubai. Quite unexpectedly, when I came down to the ground floor at this ungodly hour, there were a dozen glamorous people partying in the hotel bar near reception where I used wifi. And the party-goers were not stopping any time soon.

We first arrived Sunday afternoon by train, then caught a couple different tubes in the underground to get close to our Hotel Russell accommodation. Actually, calling it an underground is a bit of an understatement. Where we got off at Russell Square, there was a 175 stair climb back to the surface. It was no surprise everyone took the lift.

My free time around the conference was limited. I was able to maximize this though, through going for a morning run. Running through a large unfamiliar city I focus almost extreme levels of attention taking mental images of my surroundings. It worked, I didn’t get lost. And I got to run along the Thames and see the Millennium Dome, Big Ben, Old Parliament House. In fact everywhere you look there’s historical things of interest. My boss, and tour guide, was describing a building as being “not that old”, it was built in 1901 – 110 years ago.

After my run I had time to check out a local newspaper. Well two local papers actually. The Times so I could read the local news, and The Sun so I could see some boobs. To be honest I felt like a bit of a prude seeing journalism mixed with nudity. Having said that, I probably couldn’t write on here the name of some of the adult magazines which the news stand stocked on the shelf above.

To be honest I was a bit disappointed by the quality of journalism overall. On the TV news the first story was about impending political elections, followed by an interview by a hopeful participant of the X-factor.

The news coverage of football went beyond impressive. I now believe people when they say that the UK sees football like religion, only it’s more important.

Once again i was spoilt by fantastic weather, OR people lie about the UK raining 90% of the time and it’s bloody awful the rest of the time. The chirpy weather girl shared that it’s been London’s warmest end to September since 1985.

Quick UK trip September 2011

I’ve had the opportunity to attend a two day conference in London. But I figured making the most of my trip, and using the Friday & Saturday of my Dubai weekend to also see Cardiff, Wales.

My flight to Birmingham was extremely busy – just like all our flights to the UK. I saw the passenger numbers, and there was only one free seat in the entire plane.

The flight route took us over Bahrain, Kuwait, and Afghanistan, before Europe. I managed to get a window seat, and enjoyed watching a lot of the country side. Afghanistan especially, looked incredible. It seemed to have an amazing variety of scenery. I particularly loved the harsh and mountainous terrain.

A sure sign of a good flight is when it seems to take no time at all – which this flight did. A good movie helps for at least part of the way.

Once I got through Customs at Birmingham, I somehow sparked the attention of a security guard. He asked many questions about my reason for the visit, my line of work, UK itinerary, and how often I visit Australia. He seemed happy enough with my answers to let me through after only a couple of minutes – no rubber gloves needed. I must have an untrustworthy face. When I was leaving Brisbane International Airport last time out of the 8 of us family and friends, I was the only one to get special attention from security, which involved a pat down. The guy was impressed with the Liverpool stickers adorning Myles’s suitcase – so perhaps he did spared me further attention. (And I suppose he did have soft hands so it wasn’t a total loss – joking).

I pre-booked my train tickets to get to Bristol Parkway on the way to Cardiff on the web. Everything was incredibly simple to get me there. One slight glitch occurred when I overlooked the fact that I was getting on the train an hour earlier than planned. I blame jet lag, or being stupid. When the ticket collector explained my mistake he was kind enough to lend me his phone to call my boss who would pick me up at the other end. Talk about English courtesy.

In just two days traveling from Birmingham into, and around Cardiff, I’ve already marked off quite a few of the items in my game of British Bingo:

“innit”
egg butty
“one should”
fancy a pint.

I’m still waiting to hear mentions of:

core blimey
pukka
“guvnor”.

So far I’ve visited the National History Museum, St Fagans; the absolutely awe-inspiring Wales Millennium Centre to see Welsh National Opera perform Don Giovanni; Millennium Stadium (which I can prove with an “I entered the dragon’s lair” lanyard). One disappointment of this fine tour was the stadium’s hallowed grass was completely gone. The pitch was well into the process of being removed by an industrious team of four diggers. Well I originally thought it was a downer, until our tour guide proudly announced the slurry of mud we were seeing was such a rare opportunity.

I also had a good look around the city centre. Sadly I missed visiting Cardiff Castle, due to the very popular “Cheese Fest” being held inside the castle walls this weekend. This (National) festival had so much interest the queue going inside began a few hundred metres down the street. It would have been nice to see, but perhaps I may come back some day with the rest of the family.

Wales has a rich and proud mining heritage. The mines produce coal and, judging by signage in the Welsh language, an excess of consonants.

The weather has been a real treat. Apparently I brought the weather with me. The week, and several weeks before I came there were many consecutive days of rain. I’m glad I could bring this for the people of Cardiff. Take it as part-payment for allowing me to have an enjoyable visit to the city.

Tomorrow we hit Old London Town, so I’ll be sure to have more updates then.

Midnight in Paris – movie

Once again I made the most of the best entrainment in the skies, and watched a movie in my Emirates flight – this time on my way to Birmingham.

Before the movie, I listened to a few hours of Don Giovanni – in preparation of watching it in the flesh tomorrow by the Welsh National Opera. My boss recommended this latest Woody Allen film, as I had asked him for a good Woody Allen film. I’ve seen that Allen is quite witty, and knew his creativity, but never seen any of his film.

To begin with I had trouble finding the film. I went through the whole list twice, all the while never expecting Owen Wilson to be the star. I’m used to his exploits in kids, action, or cheesy romantic comedy flicks – which is listed in my order of preference. I never expected Wilson to have the tools to cover such subtle comedy.

I was thoroughly impressed with the movie. It was brilliant. Such a unique story, such an awkward scenario, such entertaining characters spanning three eras.

A writer, riddled with self-doubt, is nostalgic for Paris in the 1920s. He magically escapes his unhappiness with the present day to rub shoulders with his idols from yesteryear.

He works out what’s right for him in the end. But not before falling to a new low with his already disapproving pending parents-in-law.

The film had some classic moments which made me laugh so loud I may have bothered my fellow passengers.

Ernest Hemmingway was exactly as I pictured him. His focus on courage was hilarious. After a few drinks and speaking freely, I loved his challenge “who wants to fight”.

Many of the other characters also had their own charm. I loved Salvador Dali wanting to draw Owen Wilson’s portrait infatuated with adding the rhinoceros within a tear – proving just a bit too peculiar for the others.

A very unexpected result of this movie was the strong desire to visit Paris. Many romanticize the French capital, which I’ve never subscribed to. Until now.

The artistic flair, the flowing of warm emotions, the desire to follow dreams. It all sounds and looks amazing.

I thought I’d probably enjoy this film, but mostly for some rich dialogue. It was a surprise to find such a sweet flick. I thoroughly recommend it to everyone.

The Workshops Railways Museum

We were in Brisbane for our final day in Australia. So we made the most of the day with a trip to The Workshops Railways Museum with the boys’ grandparents.

The weather was terrible, so we took two devices to keep the rain away. They’re called umbrellas.

The railway museum has become an annual visit each time we’re in town for holidays.

It’s a great place for people who enjoy trains – young and old. It’s nice to see Lewis now enjoys the workshops as much as Myles does.

The only slightly unfortunate thing (for people on the north side) is the museum’s all the way down in Ipswich.

Since Lewis is still toilet training, the hour or so train trip is fraught with danger. My nose was in overdrive. In fact, I quite regularly asked Lewis if he had to poo as I could clearly smell something very unpleasant.
After Lewis denied any activity for about the tenth time I noticed the horrid stench was actually coming from the guy that was sitting behind us. It was confirmed the next station when he got off, and the train’s odour improved markedly.

A couple of police asked to see our tickets on the train. They were impressed to see my boys wearing Junior Police hats that the boys’ Nannors bought them from The Ekka. The police got off the train with us when it terminated at Ipswich. And to our luck, they were happy to get a photo with us (see below).

Myles & Lewis as Junior Queensland Police, with real Queensland Police and me looking like a scruffy criminal

I couldn’t help but feel like a criminal with four people around me wearing police caps, and me looking quite scruffy and unshaven. It was probably unfair of me to suggest that on this end of the train line the hats could make Myles and Lewis targets for non law-abiding 6 and 2 year olds.

As it wasn’t the weekend or a local holiday, the workshops was quiet. It gave my boys the power to do whatever they wanted to for as long as they liked. So we drove a lot of train simulators for a long time.

We caught the train home, which from the Ipswich line can be quite interesting. Sitting in the next four seater was a huge Maori guy and his girlfriend. Lewis stared at him – which isn’t a good start – but then it got worse. Lewis decided to point straight at the guy and ask us why the guy “has a string there”. We didn’t know, and the guy who also heard this didn’t know what was meant either. Then after a few moments he realized Lewis was referring to his long thin “rat’s tail” of hair extending down, which the guy showed us. It was all quite jovial, thankfully. When Lewis asked why he had it, I asked why Lewis didn’t have one. I should have known better. Lewis now almost in conversation with the guy, explained that he didn’t have one cause he’s a boy. It was at this point he guys girlfriend laughed out loud. The poor (now almost demoralised) guy could only share with a wry smile that “he really got me”.

All in all a good day.

Now we’re at Brisbane International Airport waiting for boarding time to our flight back to Dubai.

Seeya Australia!

Tassie winter roadtrip

The weather wasn’t great for the start of our family campervan trip down the East coast, to the South of Tasmania. We’ve been to Tas plenty of times, yet the kids have never seen these areas. Our first stop for the kids to stretch their legs was Avoca – home to perhaps the worlds smallest police station. I’ll share the photo later, the office looked less than 3 metre square. The highlight for Myles and I was being able to warm our bums with the public restroom’s hand dryer. The rain had started, and the temperature was already cold.

On the next stretch of road we saw lots of colours, but they were mostly shades of grey.

People in charge of roads in Dubai should come to Tasmania to learn a thing or two about dealing with water on roads. Altho UAE only deals a week or so of rain each year, the roads flood terribly from a few mils, and it doesn’t disperse for weeks. Here in Tassie we’re experiencing >20 mils and there are seemingly swimming pools and swimming pools of water all over the land. Yet the road seems almost waterproof.

We stopped for pancakes at the famous Mount Elephant Pancake Barn. We risked the $2.20 surcharge for rowdy children they have up on the chalk board. Lady asked where we were headed as the police had called her to advise they were closing the road going back the way we had just gone through. Perhaps the Tassie roads aren’t magical afterall,

Went thru Elephant Pass Rainforest. When I saw a couple of kookaburras fly away I did my best imitation of their famous laughing call. It mustn’t have been good, Myles let me know there are no monkeys in the forest. Although I’m sure my impersonation could be improved, the fact is the boys may not really know about this iconic Australian bird. Lewis even struggles to say it properly, now when we ask what kind of bird it is, he calls it “kookabugger” – which is much funnier.

Day 2 we left for further down the coast.
We spent some time at a kids park at Coles Bay. It had swings and activities which I haven’t seen since 1981. Elle had been going there as a kid – probably since 1981 – and informed me they have all been there unchanged since then.

We went to the jetty where a dog did a wee on our tyre. I think it was showing off, it was so chilly I couldn’t imagine weeing anything but ice.

For a change we had lunch in a pub, the Iluka Tavern. We were one of 6 people in the entire establishment. Their chicken parmy was superb. Loved their sign on the way out, “We encourage people to drink in moderation, PARTICULARLY if you are driving”. Hopefully that kind of encouragement is enough.

We stayed the evening of 09th of August, 2011 in the Mayfield Beach Conservation Park. I mention the date cause it’s significant, it’s the night of the 2011 Australian Census. Although we’ve been living overseas for more than two years, we’ll coincidentally be counted and archived into Australian history. I think it’s sort of interesting that in 100 years, people can learn that we were staying in such a “dwelling” as this campervan at a tiny place on the East coast of Tassie. As a former forms designer I must say I was disappointed with the census form. Ours is completed and sealed, but I remember it didn’t cater for work location for people working overseas, nor did it allow for non-salary workers being on a holiday for Elle. And if I’m being really pedantic, their use of followup questions and not applicability was inconsistent and inefficient. And I’m no authority, but I hadn’t heard of Salvation Army as a religion before Regardless of such issues, we’re recorded though. And it was a bit if fun for Myles. He was quite proud when I told him I recorded the task he performs daily in his job is to talk about gross stuff.

We had the luxury at our camp to make a camp fire. As a Queensland boy, this is a very unexpected activity, it almost felt like something stuck in the days of my childhood. It may also be part of the reason why I struggled. Things were all resolved once we figured out it’s simpler to use almost an entire box of fire lighters rather than the few scraps of kindling we could muster.

The next morning when we woke it was surprising to see the cut up apple we left was untouched, yet Lewis’s spilt satay beef and basmati rice was devoured. I wonder if Mayfield’s possums have been run out of town at the hands of some Asian critters.

Today we saw a few nice natural sights. When walking through the bush at Archers Knob or Devils Kitchen, Lewis was helping Elle in the search for wombats in the little tracks just off the path into the bush. He had no luck – the boys inadvertently made enough noise to make sure of that. However as we were coming to the end of the path, he suggested to Elle that maybe we have a wombat in our van, then even more curiously added – and I quote – “maybe there’s a box of them”. So perhaps Lewis had something other than a wombat in mind.

After a while Lewis tired of nature, saying I don’t like these trees.

We stayed the night at the well-eqipped Port Arthur. The park has always been a popular place – maybe even more popular given the museums raised profile due to the atrocity in 1996.
The manger informed me in the summer the park gets up to 600 guests staying. Now in winter there’s only about 10-15 of us scattered around the campervan area. The manager only took over the place less than 12 months ago, and he said this has been the areas coldest recorded winter since 1968. He didn’t have to explain that to us it was freezing!

Place was scattered with potteroos, wallabies, and many friendly rosellas. The place was seemingly infested with small hopping animals. The manager said there’d be enough wallabies to fill two Olympic-sized swimming pools – which provides an interesting visual. The kids liked the animals, although Lewis was selective with the potteroos. He only wanted to feed the ones he decided weren’t bad. He warmed to them all by the end, even sharing his Milo with one of them. This sadly ended with Lewis trying to be helpful by throwing the cup at the poor animal. Once he noticed they were interested in the cup, I had to intervene as Lewis thought it would be a good way to catch one.

All in all, a great trip. Now we just have to go through our few 1000 pix across four cameras. And there could be more tales to share.

Movies aboard

I enjoy flying home to Australia. It’s a 15 hour stretch in front of the industry’s best in-flight entertainment. I usually make the most of it and watch as many movies as possible – which i must say is a bit of a luxury for me.

The first movie I watched was The Trotsky, a unique Canadian comedy directed by Jacob Tierney.

In it, the lead character Leon – played superbly by Jay Baruchel – believes he’s the reincarnation of Soviet Union architect, Leo Trotsky. And in a trying transition period between schools Leon uses the knowledge gained from Trotsky’s bio and seeks out the allies that Trotsky had. He endures some failures, but his ideas and resolve are unswerving.

Does he find success, does he emulate his role model? I can’t spoil it. However, one thing is for sure, he knows what be wants and gains the right counsel to navigate through the tough times.

I imagine it’s quite a unique concept to craft a movie about a student choosing to force Communism into the Canadian public school system. And the movie achieved a wonderful result and built the story exceedingly well. I enjoyed it a lot.

4 proletariat uprisings out of 5.

The second film I watched was The Kings Speech – after a reasonable interlude taking Lewis for a walk up and down the aisles a few times.

I had heard a lot about this film, perhaps as it stars Australian Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush. Incidentally young Geoffrey used to find himself around my grandmother’s table at lunch time, being from the once small town of Toowoomba – west of Brisbane. He’s obviously cone a long way since those days.

Everything I heard about the film was glowing. After seeing the film I must agree.

The film is about England’s King George VI, and his attempts to I’ve overcome a stammering problem. Rush’s character was the unlikely Australian speech therapist, who had some quirks which didn’t bide well with Royalty.

The scene was set in the 1930s, in a country on the brink of war with Germany. With the passing of his father, and his country under such harsh adversity, the King needed results now, more than ever.

The climax builds into will he triumph or stutter the country into an embarrassing position unmotivated for the challenge at hand.

Thoroughly recommend this film to colonials who enjoy a good story with a dash of historical references to the Monarchy.

3.5 sea shells she sells by the sea shore out of 5.

My Yourtopia

I was quite surprised by an online survey I completed. Well, I was surprised twice.

The first surprise was that I actually completed the thing. I find online surveys overly saturated, monotonous, and I’m very suspicous about a great majority of them providing any real value or insights.

The survey is from yourtopia.net (an Open Knowledge Foundation Project):

The idea: Construct a measure of social progress world-wide based on your preferences for development. Participate in a global effort to improve tracing of humanity’s progress towards the Millennium Development Goals.

In it you are asked to rate the importance you place on various factors of human well-being. It was interesting to contemplate if I place higher importance on things like household consumption over say poverty headcount. And to be honest, some of the items I don’t know in any depth – so had to take an educated-uneducated guess.

The ratings are calculated, and the output is your preferred country – based on your ideals and preferences.

The result for me was surprising. Out of the 186 countries featured, my ratings indicate my preferred country in the world is Australia – my home nation.

Screen shot of my results

Some could assume that Australia has a great standard of living, so it’s a likely result for many. Based on the site’s results though, Australia only features 8th. Norway is the list leader, followed by a couple of other European nations.

It’s nice to know that the pace and progress that Australia achieves with various human factors aligns to my priorities.

Although I left Australia temporarily for employment, fresh experience, and opportunities for my children, we obviously have a deep affection for Australia and will forever live and breath her ideals.

Ryan.Brinkworth.id.au

A personal archive of anything I feel worth documenting.