Running etc

Yay - I've done 5km in 30min! Goaaal!

It was jolly hard though. I "hit the wall" at 20min and I really didn't think I'd manage to keep my speed up. I talked myself into at least finishing 4km before slowing down. Then I saw I only had to keep it up for 6min more and pushed on. My legs were like lead at the end and it took 5 minutes of cooling off to get my heart rate down to something sensible!

I'm very pleased. Now I can try to go faster, or uphill, or both perhaps! I have to keep it interesting or else I know I'll stop going. The best part about running 5km in 30min is that I have more cooling off time before I have to get back to work - 7 minutes more than when I first ran it!

Hmm what else in the weight/fitness arena? I resorted to living on juice for a couple of days this week to detox a little and kick some weight because I broke 70kg in the wrong direction over the weekend. I cheated a lot though - purists would be horrified - and bought all my juices from the supermarket! 1 litre of fresh juice in the morning, 1 litre of V8 veggie juice in the afternoon, 1 litre of water in between and miso soup for dinner. I dropped half a kilo and I'm sure just being off wine and starch and dairy was good for me. I may have had far too much salt though - I didn't realise how much was in the V8 until too late, and miso is definitely salty.

Now, as I say at least once a week, back onto weightwatchers! I really would like to look fab at a friend's wedding in October, and that's also the start of our sailing holiday. Bikini time!

Hard to think about bikinis today... it's cold and wet and blustery. The last few World Youth Day hangers-on look tired and cold and bedraggled. Poor things. When I come out of the office to head home to my cosy house I see them loitering about in the dark with their "pilgrim passports" slung around their necks. I keep getting visions of Paddington Bear standing alone with his suitcase and a note saying "Please look after this bear. Thank you".

Bless...
Now go home!

World Youth Day: why are you still here?!

Yesterday Milord and I came in to work together and we commented on how nice it was to have the streets clear of pilgrims. No roads closed, busses back to normal, sidewalks empty of non-suits - lovely.

Turns out they may just have been sleeping late... at lunchtime I took a walk to my nearest big park. Called "The Domain" it is a big green park on the edge of the botanical gardens, and at lunchtime is usually full of folk eating sandwiches in the sun, or doing a bit of boot camp or jogging. My intention was to grab a coffee and soak up some rays, as it was bitterly cold in the shade.

As I got close to the park I saw a clump of pilgrims. "What are they still doing in town?" I wondered as I gave them a wide berth. At the end of the street I ducked between a few old buildings and emerged at the edge of the park. Which was utterly overrun with the dratted pilgrims - thousands of them! They were behind a temporary fence, so I guess you needed a ticket to get in there. As it was I stood outside the fence for quite some time gazing on the spectacle. Not unlike being at the zoo.

I spotted some Saffa freaks so took a picture:


The atmosphere seemed cheerful. Singing and drumming and chanting and waving flags and parading... But seriously: what are they still doing here? I thought the WYD stuff was over. Isn't it time these people went home, or at least did a road trip to Queensland in search of warm weather? Go on - shoo! Get out of my city!

One of the funniest things I saw though was a boot camp trying to continue as normal in a tiny un-fenced bit of the park, right alongside all the festivities!

World Youth Day: go home already

This is doing the rounds here as "Darth Vader was in the pope's procession!":


Made me laugh, but the actual photo was taken in Iceland earlier this year ;-)

World Youth Day: today

World Youth Day is apon us. Whee. Woot. Squee. Pish. Pfft.
("Bah humbug" said a girlfriend of mine this morning, and she's catholic so I'm allowed to be snarky I reckon)

Pilgrims were swarming in Sydney on my way to work this morning, but when I popped out to the gym a little while ago it was strangely quiet. Just us suits and lots and lots of police... I think the pope is on the move - the TV screens in the cardio room (yes! I broke 31 min for my 5km run!) showed him on a boat - and all the pilgrims must be over thattaway.

I think his motorcade passes through the city later this afternoon, hitting the CBD (where I am) just as people want to go home. Way to thrill the workers, dude. "Luckily" I'm babysitting the testers tonight so I should miss the worst of it.

Hey I was wondering... it's full moon tonight (I noticed this last night because I had to walk home in the dark because my busses are screwed right now. Damn catholics). Did they take that into account when planning WYD, like for Easter? Why does Easter follow the moon phases anyway? Yes I know it's a pagan thing, but I don't get it.

World Youth Day: 1 day to go

Today at lunchtime I decided to soak up some winter sun and watch the pilgrim freakshow.

In three words: Colourful, cheerful, everywhere!

I take it back about the WYD not affecting the city much - it's taken the thing over! Everywhere you look you can see the distinctive red and orange backpacks, country flags, silly hats and official t-shirts. Groups cheer when they pass each other, which they do a lot because no group seems to be heading in the same direction as another!

I was near the Sydney aquarium in a very touristy part of town, so there were families and tour groups on holiday there too, but they were vastly outnumbered by the pilgrims. The pilgrims themselves comprise all kinds of people of all ages. I saw elderly folk and little kids in addition to the hordes of teenagers... and lots of nuns.

Gotta love people-watching. Sadly it's a work day otherwise I'd love to have settled into one of the restaurants with a bottle of wine and watched people all afternoon in the sunshine. And I always have the same thought when I'm watching people: "Where are all the good looking ones?"

World Youth Day: 2 days to go

Sydney is a ghost town.

We are supposedly inundated with catholic pilgrims, many important roads are being closed, police and protesters are rattling sabres, and anyone who doesn't need to be in the city is staying away. The place has totally lost its mojo and small businesses must be struggling.

Apart from more police around and hardly any traffic I'm not noticing much, especially as I walk to work. Sitting on the 21st floor of an office block I can't see or hear the fuss - apparently the Cross and Icon paraded down a street a block away yesterday afternoon and I didn't know. One of my collegues is hosting two German teenage girl pilgrims, which has earned her some gentle teasing.

And the weather is glorious - divine providence maybe!

World Youth Day

Next Thursday 17th July will be World Youth Day held in Sydney. As far as I can make out this is "come and see the pope in another country with 250000 like-minded young catholics". So we have a crazy number of "pilgrims" making their way to my town in the middle of winter (did I mention it's freezing here?) to see the pope and - um - hang out with each other I guess. Sounds like fun - I'd totally have been up for that when I was a teen (apart from having to be a catholic I suppose).

Sydney-siders are not impressed. It's costing us a fortune, disrupting the city, and they've passed special laws against being "inconvenient" or "annoying" that I bet don't get dissolved once this event is over. We've only just had APEC, which was annoying (pun unintended) enough - that event actually forced businesses to close for a day - as a contractor that's a good way to get up my nose!

Why not hold these things in the capital city, Canberra? Or the city that tries to be Sydney's "rival" (in their dreams), Melbourne? Yeah, right. The outside world only wants to come to Sydney. Before I moved here I honestly thought Sydney was the capital city! I asked Milord and apart from Uluru we can't think of any cultural icons that aren't in Sydney that a foreigner would know.

Apart from the possible disruption to my commute the only other downside to WYD seems to be the amount of religion in the news: victims of priestly abuse coming forward after 20 years; something about women bishops; half an hour of some cardinal on tv last night defending priestly abuse; pope this; condoms that; ugh.

One more week and we'll go back to normal...