Happy Birthday To Me

A late afternoon invitation from Lisa meant I had dinner with the Keegan clan last night (minus Dad, plus Mum's parents) which probably beats my original plan of cooking my own roast dinner and cake. I don't know if corned beef actually counts as a roast, but it is a singular lump of meat and that's not all that comment in my house. And sure, I made the cake the day before but that's not the point. (I actually made two and took one to work. Apparently people seem to think there's a rule that says I'm not supposed to make my own birthday cake?) So yes, I had butter chicken and a whole myriad of cakes for dinner (because everyone made/brought cake - a cheesecake pavlova [Lisa], chocolate cake [me], sponge cake [Nanna]).

Mum's present is a swirly-type painting (ok, maybe swirly is the wrong word - it looks a little like flames if you hold it the right way) which will probably hang in the stairwell. It's pretty and orange-brown-like... and I don't describe artwork very well. Greg and Lisa gave me a one of those Lonely Planet books with lists of places to visit. Full of interesting trip planning ideas :)

What else? Met up with Mel after work (who gave me cooking stuff and a Thai phrasebook that I think I'm supposed to study). Thanks Mel! Jasper and Caddie (the dogs) were insane last night (I think it's all the people). Saw Bill and Betty's shiny new laptop. Filled in my tax return. All pretty normal stuff really :)

Kim And Nicole's Birthday Party

Kim and I both have birthdays in mid to late August so Saturday night we headed out for a joint birthday celebration. There were eight of us in total: Kim and Josh, Dennis and Jenesse, Mel, Dylan, Sarah and I. We met up for dinner at Campari's who were very accommodating in allowing us to order a banquet (despite them not really offering those anymore) and providing us with some fabulous Italian food: antipasto, pear and rocket salad, seafood risotto, beef and orrechiette, garlic bread and fettucine with salmon and dill in a vokda cream sauce.

We then moved to the outdoor tables for a few more drinks (long enough to make fun of what I think was a hen's night group with a girl who was really only wearing a shirt) before wandering around to West End. The Lychee Lounge (our intended destination) was packed so we wandered across the road to the Pavillion for one drink before heading back and snaring seats out the front. The Lychee Lounge loses part of it's appeal when it's so busy you can't move, and everytime I go there it's busier than the time before. Also note, the passionfruit vokda infusion is better than the toblerone one (which when mixed with milk doesn't really have any flavour).

Sarah, Dyland and Mel all left by about 11.30, and the rest of us only hung around for another 45 minutes or so. I ended up walking to the Myer Centre before realising the night buses don't leave from there, but seeing as I had about an hour to waste before the bus came I dawdled back to the Cultural Centre to wait with the other 50 or so people at the station.

Bridge To Brisbane 2007

I've been meaning to enter this for a few years and always got "too lazy" or just never got around to filling in the entry form, but decided to run it this year.

A few months back I had a plan of running the 12km in under one hour (well, I could do 6km in about 30 mins, how hard could it be to do 12km in an hour with all those months of training), but after my running training became more walking training (for the Kokoda Challenge) and I injured my knee (on KC) I kept telling myself to be content with jogging the whole course in about 90 mins.

So yesterday morning I got back into the routine of waking up well before dawn and attempting to force feed myself breakfast, and joined the other 30,000 people out on the course. Possibly the toughest part of yesterday was standing around at the foot of the Gateway Bridge waiting for the start.

It took me about a minute or so to get to the actual start line (trying to dodge walkers as I went), and the jog up the bridge was also fairly slow (again, dodging walkers - why there were so many up the front I don't know...). As a whole the speed picked up a little down the bridge and heading into the first water station (about the 2km mark), but I still felt like one in a mob of stampeding people for at least the next few kilometres. I don't remember much of the surrounds - once or twice I'd look over and think "hey, there's the river", but as a whole I spent most of my time looking for spaces and avoiding other people's feet. Also at one stage had to duck because the guy to my left decided to pose for a photographer by throwing his arms out. Thanks, mate.

Around the 7km marker (it was one of the few I noticed on the way) I felt as though the pace picked up a little (or perhaps I'd just run past more of the slower paced runners). I remember trailing near the pink pace runner (70mins?) and then just deciding to pick random people in front of me to catch up to.

Somewhere after we turned into Longland St I saw a sign that I thought said 2km to go (and having no sense of direction in this part of the city I believed it) and decided to just dig in an push my way to the finish. I don't know what that sign was actually for, but it wasn't a 2km to go marker because maybe a kilometre later I came across the 10km sign... By then everything was beginning to hurt (lungs mostly - I began to pay more attention to my breathing for the first time in a few kilometres) but I just stayed with the other runners and occasionally ducked through gaps when I found them. Those last few kilometres aren't wide enough for the number of people trying to crush through them at times!

But I eventually found the finish (actually, I made it to the funky "200m to go" arch and then realised I still had more to do.... sometimes it bites not wearing glasses when running :) ) - the clock showed 1.06.46 but I imagine I'll find out the official time sometime during the course of the week (1.03.34 is the official time). All in all it's a good run, and I'll definitely be back next year!