Running review: Brighton Beach

Length: 8 km (Parking lot to west end, back to estuary, back to parking lot).

Pros:

• Beautiful flat sandy beach (little camber)
• Generally unoccupied
• Wildlife: at the estuary end, plenty of bird life; occasional seals on the beach proper
• Other life: local harness racing trainers frequently exercise their horses on the beach
  
• The "out and back and out and back" pattern means that you can sensibly quit half way through if the conditions are poor, or you're not feeling well

Cons:

• Twenty minute drive out of town
• Fairly exposed, and lots of loose sand, so avoid in the wind
• Wildlife: occasional sea lions (you don't want to mess with these)
• Other life: popular dog walking spot (usually not a worry -- sometimes the sheep dogs think you're a runaway sheep though)
• The "out and back and out and back" pattern means that you can be a wimp and quit half way through if the conditions are poor, or you're not feeling well.
• No decent alternative routes if the tide is wrong (so -- you didn't check? Silly you.)

The beach continues for some distance east past the estuary, but to get there you'd have to get your feet very wet indeed. Conceivably you could run up the estuary to the bridge (just visible above) and then down the other side, but I've never bothered. One more image:

(Second image from DenisWilford.com -- taken in 1964, but it hasn't changed a bit)

Middle aged moan

It's no secret, and in any case would be easy to discover, that I'm in my mid-40's -- middle aged by any sensible definition (though I guess still slightly pre-middle of my adult life -- whatever). And there's one part of it I hate (no, not that one, get your mind out of the gutter). So, herewith a moan.

I was out running yesterday. I came to a small wire barrier (so that teenage drivers don't cleverly drive their cars onto a rugby pitch), which I routinely hurdled, as I've done a hundred times now probably. But, I caught my trail foot on the wire and went down on the grass in an undignified heap. (Cue laugh track)

In my 20's, things would have progressed as follows: I would have said “oh bother”, or words to that effect; looked around in embarrassment to see if there were any witnesses; and then picked myself up and run on. A slight sting from the graze on my elbow would have been the only consequence.

Now, things start out in much the same way. But, when I get up to run on, I discover that I've somehow managed to strain a calf muscle in my left leg, my hamstring in my right leg, and my left shoulder (which is not even the one I landed on) is absurdly sore.

Moan, moan, moan. Just another bad beat.

That was fun

Well, actually I'm just a bit sore ... well, perhaps more than a bit. But the weather was absolutely perfect here this morning and I really did want to get through the 15km barrier. As you can see I overdid it slightly. It may help with the resolution to open the image in a separate window. If I'd known it was going to be 17.94km I would have run the last 100m back to the car instead of starting my stretching and warming down at the corner! Then again, I'm going to claim 18km on the grounds that lots of the straight segments shown in the path aren't actually completely straight, I'm sure there were at least 60m in wiggles.

The funny little step pattern in the northwest corner of the run was a result of preparations for the Royal NZ Pipebands Association National Street March. And no, I wasn't trying to avoid it -- I was trying to see as many bands as possible in their warmup. Though it has to be said that the combination of the pipebands and my iPod was sometimes a bit peculiar.

In poker news, I've been trying one of those "20 SNG ladder" things, starting with the $3.40 turbos on Stars. I've played 15, and was freerolling after 12. Since then I've had another first, a seventh, and a bubble fourth (annoyingly having an all in with KQ called by a big stack on J3 offsuit -- had I doubled up I'd have been second in chips, but we know what happened).

What a difference a day makes

They're installing some new fibre optic cabling in our building (of course, we've finally been given new space to move to later this year, and now they're getting around to upgrading our network, but I digress), and one of the junction boxes is in my office, as a result of which there was much moving of desks, drilling of holes etc.

I took this as a sign that I could leave work early. It was a beautiful, crisp, early autumn day, so I went for a run through St. Kilda and St. Clair. Tide was high, and I couldn't run on the beach.

After I showered, I put together a French style stew for dinner (I'd call it boeuf en daube, but that would be pretentious), and left it cooking as I sat down to two tables of 25NL. Got up again a total of 100 hands later, $30 to the good.

Had stopped in at the university library earlier in the day, so I did some reading on Zen, Edmund Wilson's autobiography, and a bit of Evelyn Waugh, while in the background Delia Smith chattered away about traditional British puddings.

Folded my way into third place in a SNG. Knocked out in a bad beat, but was severely short stacked in any case. Even with a double up I would have been the short stack.

Put on the potatoes to cook, and donked it up a bit at low stakes triple draw, where I ran into somebody slumming.

Enjoyed my dinner. Read some more.

Oh yeah, there was still a bit of bad television.

You'd think ...

You'd think that The Time Warp would be a perfectly satisfactory song to have come up on your iPod while you were out running.

But you'd be wrong.

Why? I thought you'd never ask.

If you're of a certain age and cultural background, then the choice is between lurching spasmodically along as your brain fights nigh on thirty years of conditioning to resist:

It's just a jump to the left
And then a step to the right
With your hands on your hips
You bring your knees in tight
But it's the pelvic thrust
That really drives you insane

or alternatively, to give in, stop your run, and just do it with the strong possibility of extreme embarrassment should you be observed.