The title says it all I guess. I’m not sure there’s anything more to say, other than to give reasons for the above statement.

He’s become so hard and seems to have lost his heart. He’s being an arsehole about Christmas. We’re having a massive family Christmas this year. Everyone’s excited about it, me particularly cause it’s my first Christmas at home for a couple of years. I’m excited to get together with everyone and to give gifts and share the experience with everyone.

I’m particularly organised this year and have most of my presents mostly done already. My brother’s getting a book. The exact book that he asked for. He had asked me a couple of days ago what I wanted. Today I sent a text back to him saying that I’d like a Scotty Cameron putter cover. I told him what colour I would like, where you can get them and also how much they cost. Then I sent one saying that if it was too much hassle or if they were too expensive (around about $50 – so not really all that expensive) that he could just get me something else, something smaller. I got a reply saying ‘lets not worry about presents. Can we just buy for M & D and let secret santa (our family-wide, keep the costs down gift giving experience) take care of the rest?’. I sent a message back along the lines of ‘no, that’s not what I or my sister want to do’. It escalated from there. He doesn’t want a present and doesn’t want to give one. I’m not sure if it’s laziness or tightness. It can not, rationally, be tightness when he’s no issue with going out at the weekend and spending $500. I said that I didn’t understand, but thought that it would be difficult to understand the meaning of Christmas, and the gestures associated with gift giving and receiving, unless you’d had one or two Christmases away from the family. That has made Christmas more special to me.

His drinking is also out of control. My sister lives in Vegas, round the corner from him. She can not even get him to come and help her put together her new flatpack furniture. That’s really shit. He didn’t come over cause he was too hungover, when he got there he stayed for about 20 minutes and she said he spent the entire time on the phone. She was ultra upset cause she overheard him talking to his friends about how he’s banned from the Normanby. That isn’t the most upmarket place about, but they don’t ban you for nothing.

I would have thought the ‘getting the shit kicked out of him, arrested, charged and fined’ incident from earlier this year would have taught him a thing or two about respect and not acting up when you’re out. Obviously not.

I’m told, by my FT 60 that this is to be an easier training week.  I wasn’t really all that sure why cause last weeks’s stats were down on what I considered to be an easier week, although I have smashed my training and body in the last few weeks.  No wonder it’s telling me it’s time to dial it back.

I’m grumpy as anything today and consequently saying the f word quite a lot.  I could eat the face off anyone who annoys me.  And nearly everyone is annoying me in one way or another.  I’m just grumpy.  This girl at work is an idiot.  She’s an idiot at the best of times but today she’s being particularly annoying (perhaps I’m perceiving that she’s more annoying cause of my lowered bullshit tolerance level) today, and she’s doing it on purpose.  FARK!!  Just laziness, and immaturity – she would rather ask for help before looking herself of trying to do whatever it is that she has to do. 

She’s 16, so I guess that explains the immaturity.  She quit school and moved out of home just a few months ago.  Her father also died earlier this year, and I’m not completely compassionless to that; I’m sure that it would be one of the things that I would most struggle to deal with; but that’s no reason for her to leave school.  Her english, and spelling, is terrible.  She really should be at school still, learning to spell and speak english properly.  I cam so close to telling her that she had the english of a 10 year old when she was pronouncing badminton ‘bat-minton’.  Idiot.  She’s a classic case of an occa who needs more education.  She also needs to be corrected when she says the wrong words, like ‘how are yous’.  Yous is not a word.

Anyway, she’s annoying me today, so much so that I needed to come to the other shop to get away a bit.  I think I’m also annoyed at my own performance last night.  I drank too much and didn’t sleep at all well.  Not cool.  We spent all weekend fencing – tearing down one fence and putting up a 6 foot colourbond fence in its place.  It was hot all weekend, and save for little bits here and there we were out in the sun all weekend.  Although I didn’t really do that much work with the crowbar I still felt as though I was tired – and in need of a drink last night.  The frosty beers were good too.

So today I found a rip in my trail running shoes/hiking boots.  Not happy Jan!  I promptly phoned Kathmandu in Brisvegas asking what to do seeing as how they are less than 6 months old and were purchased in Canada.  After much searching and very little success on the Salomon website I enlisted the help of Kathmandu again.  Head to this number and speak to this guy; and good luck I was told.

No bother.  The chick was really lovely about it after I’d explained the situation and she promptly set up for me to return the shoes to have them assessed.

These shoes are one of my favourite pieces of kit.  The Salomon XA Pro 3D I have, purchased in Vancouver for the bargain price (we’ll call it good negotiating skills) of $125 CAD. I really should have written about these little foot rockets before this, but well, I guess I just took them for granted, and didn’t actually have to think about them.

They are light, waterproof and provide excellent grip, in all situations that I’ve encountered while wearing them.  Covered in Gore-Tex, and completely waterproof, I would have thought they’d weigh more than 390g – but they certainly don’t feel like it.  The shoe is, infact, completely waterproof.  Wearing them to the beach a couple of weeks ago, the got all mucky so I just washed them off under the tap – my foot, dry as a bone.  They’re comfortable, courtesy of the Orhtolite sockliner.  Although these don’t make it feel as though you’re walking on little pockets of cloud all day, they fit like a glove.  Something to do with Salomon’s ‘Sensifit’ that “works to cradle the food providing a precise and secure fit”.  It works.  I’ve never felt slippy or unstable in these shoes despite the pretty much elastic lacing system.  I also like the laces.  It literally takes about 3.5 seconds to do them up, and getting them off is just as quick – just release the clasp and you’re pretty much done.  Another thing I really like about these shoes is that they’ve included a rubber toe-cap to ward off any nasties that come your way when wearing them – we all stub our toes from time to time.  I really like these shoes.

I also love the fact that after a bit of searching someone on the end of the phone was actually helpful with my warranty questions.  No questioning or bitching at all – just help.  I like that

Today was an easier training day.  This morning, feeling motivated, I pumped out 15k on the bike in 25:50.  Not a bad way to start the day.  This afternoon I went for a more leisurely stroll down the beach.  It was a walk without a purpose.  I just wanted to get out and walk for a bit, and what better place than my local 800m stretch of beach.  It wasn’t so bad.  Took my little phone and made the little GPS gizmo in it do some work.  I quite liked the walk this afternoon – it wasn’t too stressful, but most of the time I was working in zone 2, where I find it hardest.  That might become a regular event.  The high MHR is due to a couple of little jog stretches that I did.  Just to see how I went.

Just as I’d turned to come back a couple that were walking in the opposite direction to me as I headed south were walking about knee deep in the water.  A smallish white was came up and nearly barrelled the chick.  She actually did the pre-fall stumble, but managed to regain her composure without getting her hair wet (not that she was a prima donna or the like).  She retreated to the other side of her husband, and to shallower waters after that little run in.

I’m not overly sure what the hell I was thinking when I decided to do a crossfit style 300 workout today.  I must be insane.

As I said.  I’m not sure what the hell was going on in my head.  It hurt.  Like hell.  It was some form of redemption for the shit that I’ve been doing to myself since I left NI; but there’s still such a long way to go.  Thinking back, and looking at my polar stats and previous workouts on here I’m fucked.  I’ve nothing on what I had.  So much training was let go.  And now it’s going to be so much harder to get back.

I don’t know how on earth I got through it. I know when I’ve worked hard.  I literally laid on the tiles for about 5 minutes, listening to whatever was coming out of the ipod.  It was literally just on whatever it wanted to be on – I didn’t care.  I was just sorting myself out, wondering if I wanted to throw up.  Wondering if I was going to throw up.  Not wanting water, but then not being able to stop drinking it.  An hour or so later when I headed out to the range I was still feeling as though a big old rainbow yawn might be heading my way at any time.

I’m so so tired now, I just want to go to bed, although I’m afraid to go too early for fear of waking really early, again.  I’m exhausted, but there was a switch flipped at golf today…I’m now motivated.  It came back again!

Zzzzzzzz

Golf today.  Last night was horrendus – 3.30am I was still wide awake.  I’d shifted posts, from my bed to the couch in order to create a mind numbing effect that I hoped would put me to sleep.  No such luck.  I finally drifted off to sleep at about 5am; then woke with a start, in a panic at 6.20 to my alarm.

In the back of my mind I doubted the saneness of presenting myself for golf running on about an hours sleep.  I questioned my ability to concentrate for 18 holes, particularly while carrying my clubs.  They get heavy when it’s hot.  Surprisingly it was all good.  I honestly questioned my ability to keep focus through 3 hours, or more of golf, when I was tired; or suspected that I was going to be tired.  I wasn’t tired at all really.  My average heart rate was up for the session, probably a little to do with fatigue, but other than that I thought my concentration was fine.  I was hitting my gap and 60 well, but Mr 5 Iron isn’t working so well at the moment.  May head to the driving range this afternoon to do some work on that.  Also some chipping and putting – it can always do with work.  I putted quite well today – 35 putts for the 18 so that was good.  I had 4 x 1 putts and a couple of 3s, but was happy enough.  I kissed the hole quite a bit, and nothing really wanted to drop, but I was giving it a chance at least.  There were really only two holes that I lost concentration with my putting – think the rest just came down to whether the 2nd putt dropped or not.

End of the day I came in with 77 off the stick, which was +13 for the 18 holes.  I was shocked when I realised that I’d come through the back 9 only 3 over, but that included a nice birdie on the 18th (not at the end of the day due to the shotgun start) from at 5 – 6m putt.  Nice.

Something, somewhere deep down in me switched today.  It was like I had my eyes opened, or considered another possibility, analysed performance differently and suddenly was aware of this massive factor that I’ve been happily omitting from all golf analysis.  Fitness. I’m certainly not the fittest person in the world.  And I am certainly not the least fit person waddling around.  I’ve been thinking I get about alright, carrying my clubs and managing still to do ok.  While talking with the spy (so named cause I’d bet that she was one; in a recent life), discussing my round on Sunday I realised that it’s the back 9 that usually causes me grief (with the exception of today, given that it was a shotgun start).  It’s not as though I’ve been completely oblivious to the whole golf and fitness thing, I guess I just didn’t really recognise the impact on my game until I thought about it in comparison to my performance.  Looking back at my polar results from when I was playing in NI, even though I wasn’t playing as well, I don’t think that I was hitting the hump until later in the match – usually about the 17th.  Comparing that to my training later in the day (yes, this is an update of this morning’s blog) I was so much fitter back then.  I also used to carry a full set of waterproofs with me, every single match, and much more food/water than I am at the moment.  Indicative of higher fitness levels.

Went to the driving range this arvo to teach Mr 5 Iron a lesson.  Didn’t really work.  Was shagged from my mid afternoon session, and still not really sure whether I wanted to be sick or not.  My body just felt fatigued, and I had to work really hard to keep my ‘technique’ tight.  My average heart rate was also higher, despite standing there whacking it, and not carrying any clubs anywhere.

And I’ve decided I need some stats on my site.  Not from all up, from now – this time round.  Aussie golf.

Today, feeling as though I’m nearly in ‘last resort’ territory I emailed my cousin – a dietitian doing a PHD.  She’ll help me out I thought.  Away went the email and I’m now waiting patiently for a reponse.  I’ve not got one.

I arrived at work, feeling pleased that I’d done my morning run, but not pleased that I’d just waited too long, messing about, to make it to the gym before I came to work.  Although that might just have been a good thing – I’m starving, without doing the gym work.

At work I related to workmates how I emailed off, asking for advcice or a diet to help me get on track.  I’m needing this help, or feeling as though I need help because I feel deflated.  I feel that I’m not really getting anywhere and that it’s all for nothing.  Of course, I know it’s not.  And I know that I am getting results, I’m just getting tired of still being fat.  I know why the diets I write don’t work for me.  I’m not consistent enough.  I follow it like a deamon for a few weeks then boom – I’m over it.  Perhaps more variety is key.

I was at the gym this afternoon and greatly unimpressed at the quality of the gym members.  It was full of teenagers.  Ok, so not full of teenagers, but you get the point.  Most of them wandered aimlessly.  The girls doing cardio and the boys, trying to be big strong men in the weights section.  The clientel of the gym I attend isn’t indicative of the sort of gym that I want to attend.  I want to go somewhere where people work hard.  Where people sweat and swear and occasionally bleed – I want to go somewhere where there is passion for what it’s about, for health & fitness, for proper exercise prescription and somewhere that people go to work hard, not to chat on their phones.

One young girl walked past me and looked, judging me from the fact that I am a little overweight and that I wear a mohawk.  She was chatting on her mobile; wandered over to a reclined exercise bike then proceeded to spin her legs, without any urgency on the lowest possible setting.  There was absolutely no intention to work hard.  She wasn’t carrying a towel, or a waterbottle.  She didn’t put the phone down to either set up the machine properly or put in the ‘workout’ that she wanted to do.  Then she proceeded to have a conversation with the girl on the bike next to her; all the while still on the phone.  I could have taken the phone off her and beaten her about the head and face with it.

It wasn’t the fact that she judged me that made me mad.  I don’t care.  She knows nothing about me, she means nothing to me.  She’s just an idiot.  But she was rude and off putting to probably the majority of the members there, and more to the point, taking up a machine doing something virtually worthless.  I just wish that they would get the hell out of the gym unless they’re there to do things properly.

Wow.  What a big couple of weeks.  It must have been about that long since I’ve posted.  I don’t know why, and I don’t really have a reason.  I guess laziness, perhaps tiredness, maybe just not feeling it.  Not feeling like sharing.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been up and down a bit.  I think the training has caught up.  I feel tired, constantly tired.  Like my body just needs a rest, like I need some time to unwind.  I always feel as though I could just close my eyes and go to sleep.  I wish that that would make it all go away.  I can feel it more in my demeanour than my muscles.  A frustration settles over everything and I’m less able to deal with shit.  Like if the smallest thing goes wrong, or doesn’t go the way I plan, intend or want it’s all over and I get the shits.  Not that I react, verbally or physically, but in my head it’s like everything’s about to come crashing down.  I take the hump and go quiet, or resentful.  I guess that really reflects exactly how I feel about some stuff where I’m living at the moment.  The patient like mentality is really getting me down.  At times I feel like a maid.

I’m not sure if it’s the isolation that I feel at times.  That I’m feeling a bit at the moment.  At times I long for a NI winter’s day with nothing on – a day when you can sit inside all day and eat, or sit by the fire and chill out with your friends.  I guess that is the isolation that I’m feeling coming out – right there, in that statement.  While I’m in with those I know, I’m not ‘in’, which at times makes me feel out.  I’m not right in the middle of the group, not that I need to be, but I feel at times as though I do not belong.  At times I feel unwelcome, and unwanted.  I guess it’s good that there are some holidays coming up – that I’ve some time to myself.  That’s what I’m looking forward to most about tomorrow night – coming home to an empty house.

I’ve really backed off the training this week – this twice a day thing has really taken it out of me.  So I do plan to do an easier week this week, although tomorrow will be (maybe) a run, then swim, then gym in the evening – I’m just not sure.  It honestly feels as though I need the rest at the moment.  I guess it probably is bordering on burnout – I thoroughly spanked myself over the last few weeks, burning 4500, 5000 and 3800 cal per week for the last 3.  I guess that the way to look at it was that this is my week off – but I fail to do that.

I know that my diet hasn’t been spot on, that I’ve wavered too much.  I do find it difficult being in a household where I don’t have control over what food gets cooked.  The way I’ve dealt with that in the past (the first few weeks that I was into it) was to really ‘concentrate’ during the day in lieu of being more lax at night, although I don’t know what’s happened – I’ve slipped.  I think it’s getting out of the working routine that’s put the breaks on my diet and food consumption.  I’m planning to be spot on with it while I’ve the house to myself – I guess I’ve just got to find a way to implement that to the family situation.  I do find it hard when, when asked what I want for dinner, I give the option of ‘chicken & vegies’ or ’steak & vegies’ and then get told that I’m not very imaginative.  I don’t know why that annoys me so much.  I know that it’s boring; but I also know that it’s good for me.

I’ve also been having doubts about the results that I’m seeing.  I can, or could, see changes in my face – it’s getting leaner, but the rest of my body is taking it’s sweet time in catching up.  I know that this happens to me -  that I lose it from my face, shoulders, legs and arms first.  It’s ALWAYS something that gets me.  And I believe that it’s something that really stops me from achieving my goals.  What if I just held out – if I hold out another 5 weeks, worrying only about the processes, not the results – I wonder how much difference actually would be made.  I’m also trying not to weigh – but I had to the other night for my application form – nothing.  Nil.  Nada.  Zilch.  Zero.  That’s right – flogging my guts out for 3 weeks and there was no actual change in the scale.  Yes, I may have put on muscle, and my muscles may be holding onto water – but I’ve fucking lost nothing.  I can not believe that, and it is so disheartening.  I just don’t know what to do about this.  I know stopping is not the answer; but I’m not overly sure what I’d be saying if I was my client.

Actually, I do know.  Take a body fat test I’d be saying.  I guess I should do that.  One day when I’m home alone.  Will swim tomorrow – if I can find my adidas togs, but I feel as though they’ve gone missing.  In the car maybe.  For now I need to sleep to get this emotional crap out of my system.

So now that I’m not far from actually handing in my application a few questions are starting to appear.   It’s stuff that I have considered before, and stuff that I know will come up frequently in my (hopefully) new profession, but I wasn’t sure that it would happen this way.  The questions, or thoughts come mostly when I’m alone, when I’m doing something that only requires a mild focus.  I guess that’s the time when my thoughts will wander.

I don’t thinly that they’re doubts so much as my mind making sure that I’m prepared for this; that I’m sure that it’s what I want.  I guess it’s me making sure I’m ready to deal with the side of things that is not pretty.

How do I feel about carrying a loaded weapon for the rest of my life; or at least the majority of it.  How do I feel about potentially having to shoot someone; and having to live with that.

How do I feel about the possibility of confronting a potentially threatening situation.  Having to deal with violent, irrational and drunk offenders on a regular basis.

How do I feel about having to defend other members of the public from violent or threatening offenders?

It’s all there,those questions are all there.  They’re all things I’ve had to consider.  I’ve considered them willingly.  I guess that it’s a more prominent issue now cause it’s close to becoming a reality.  I think that it’s good that my mind is processing these without me actually thinking about it.  That, to me, means that it’s there; that there are risks involved, and there are going to be some situations that are incredibly difficult.  But the fact that I’m thinking about it means that I know about it and am willing to deal with it.  A little muddled, I know; but it’s all good.

Today was Innes Park again.  I played 18, carrying my bag again.  Didn’t play too bad either.  I think that I’d listened to my ‘be more aggressive with chipping/pitching’ note to self – more balls were closer, and my pitching at times allowed for one putt – nice!  I don’t think that I putted that much better today – I think it’s something that I still need to work on.  I hit more greens today, better.  on the 15th I drove to about 10m short of the pin, chipped on with a gap wedge that hit the top of the bank then rolled (as intended) then putted from about 4 foot.  Probably the best hole that I’ve played in a long time.  I’ve also developed a bit of a hook with my drive.  But that may only apply when it’s windy.  If we do Bundy again this week it’ll be interesting to see how things work out.

Really had fun at golf today, need to keep working on it; and I look forward to more practice.  Off for a ride.