A week off...

My week off work turned out to be 11 lovely days of doing not much culminating in our Easter Family Picnic today.

Erin and I shopped.

I read and watched TV.

I ran pain free.

I scrapped a tonne of photos.

I stayed up late and slept in.

I pulled weeds out of the garden.

Yesterday I went to the local ANZAC march to commemorate the fallen servicemen and women from the local area.

And today we braved a cool windy day in Ballarat to have our picnic.

 We walked around the Botanical Gardens after lunch and saw the Ex POW memorial with its thousands of names, and along the Prime Ministers walk. Kevin is the last addition, we want to go back and see Julia's bust when it is installed. I just did a quick google search to find out about Julia's piece and apparently it is finished but they are being slow about installing it.

 I had to take a pic of Mercury as he is the symbol of Chris' old Signals unit and meaningful to us. The photobombers were afoot.

We also recreated a childhood photo. Big Sister is no longer the tallest, the reverse is true in fact.

And I was reminded of this photo, taken on a different trip to Ballarat,  with our adored Nana in her winter coat while we feed the swans. The swans were about today and quite aggressive, not yielding to cars or humans. Not close enough for any injuries, just memories of intimidation.

Lots of memories triggered today.

Coaching...

I was able to attend a running assessment and coaching session with Will Wragg yesterday. 6 of us gathered at Albert Park and listened to his tips. Will is a very personable young man who made a lot of sense as he talked us through some adjustments to our running technique.



I found it very valuable and tested it out this afternoon on a very muddy river track. The style was very comfortable but I found I was running quite fast and getting out of breath. I am keen to share some of the tips with Running Buddy as we both seem to fall into the same problems.

Erin came with me so we could do some shopping in Prahran afterwards and asked me why I was doing the class. My reply was that 3 years ago I wanted to run so just started running but have never been shown how to do it properly. Seems that a bit of expert tuition is a valuable thing. Will is going to send us the before and after videos he took for our reference and I am keen to see this.

Seems I need to lengthen the torso not the hunch over style I've adopted, relax the lower body, not pushing off the ground with my feet and to lean forward for momentum. Oh and a good tip about the arms. I could have read (and probably have) these tips before but to be shown and then try it and get feed back is a great learning tool.

I highly recommend it.

Meerkats at the hospital...

I attended a Forum at the new Royal Children's Hospital and got to have a poke around the new 1 billion dollar facility.

It is light and airy and child friendly. It has lots of play areas for the patients and green retreat areas for the staff and families. The forum was excellent and I learned something new about blood.

I also learned about meerkats. There is an enclosure of meerkats inside the hospital and they are very cute and distracting. They are maintained by Zoo staff and we were told that they stand to attention when the helicopters land with sick children aboard. Much like Radar on MASH, they can sense the helicopter before anyone can hear them.

A lot has changed since I worked there but it is still very patient focused and a leader in paediatric care. I still have great memories of my time and my 11 years there really shaped the nurse I am today.

First trail run...

Running Buddy & I tried something new today, a trail run.

Perhaps our first run back after an injury shouldn't have been a hilly, slippery trail but we survived without incident (except RB rolled her ankle crossing the finish line)

The setting was the You Yangs National Park and the view from the top across to Geelong was magnificent at 8am this morning but getting to the top nearly defeated me.

My calf felt great and it wasn't that that slowed me down, it was my breathing. Just a 3 week break from running made a big difference. I don't like hills anyway and the trail was uneven, rocky in  parts and covered in leaf litter & twigs in others so you couldn't zone out and get into a rhythm, you had to pay attention the whole time. I enjoyed it though. The setting was lovely, the morning was perfect and PB events do a good job organising these smaller runs. I might not do another trail run but I'm glad I did this one

I'm back baby...

My leg feels normal!

Hooray I say, bout bloody time.And I can hop and everything so I am going to play tennis tomorrow night. I'll be stretching, massaging and then taping plus wearing my compression sleeves just for the reassurance that nothing will go awry.

Here goes!