Kathryn and Jonathon welcome Jacob Daniel!

Well its finally happened after about 40 weeks and 6 days of hard work from Kathryn especially and me too, God blessed us with a healthy and very bright eyed Jacob Daniel, born at 1.57pm on Sunday 29th July at hospital by C-section. (We had hoped to go to birthing centre and avoid the hospital environment but due to the breech it wasn't an option, although the 5 weeks of antenatal classes there were a great preparation, along with the books from my sister Kristen who had a similiar experience last year). Massive! thanks to the family and friends who have encouraged and supported us both in many! ways in recent times. Especially want to thank Kathryns Mum and sister (and later on her husband), and also my parents and sister Sharon who shared this special day with us, and encouraged and helped in many ways, they have really been a great source of strength for Kathryn and I both on the big day and in the months leading up to it. So huge thanks to you!

We found out by ultrasound on Thursday 26th July that Jacob was in breech position, they tried to turn him to the correct position, but were unable to do so. We then booked in for a C-section in a weeks time. However God and Jacob had other ideas, and were obviously keen for Jacob to enter the world before then, so around 2am on Sunday 29th July Kathryn started to get regular labour pains. When I woke around 0630, I stopwatched Kathryns labour pains (contractions) at about 7-8 minutes apart, and lasting for around 30-40 seconds, and she experienced a "show" soon after. I phoned the hospital and we drove the 30 minutes there, which being a sunday morning wasn't a heavy traffic time, praise God! We arrived around 9am, Kathryn had another ultrasound to confirm he was still in Breech position, and then the process of emergency C-section began.

Jacob was born 3.4kg (7.5 pounds) and 50cm long, (click HERE for kg to pounds converter) and it was a reasonably traumatic process, as he was in breech position, and poor Kathryn had to go through a lot for him to get out. I really was hurting for her deep inside, and boy was he keen for a feed when I first got to see him. Kathryn eventually got to give him his first breastfeed and he got stuck into it for about 15-20min. So Kathryn began a rather long difficult recovery (in hospital for 6 days for starters), but Jacob was finally ready to say hello to the world, so below are four initial photos representing our brave new world. May post a few more later...





These photos from my Dad from last night and were taken a few hours after birth, I will have to do a whole webpage as I know there will be thousands more photos to come, and I am sure Kathryn will do some scrapbooking pages on our firstborn too! So something to look forward to in the coming months!

Here are some photos my sister Kristen took a few days after the birth;
...



2 weeks later Kathryn and Jacob have settled in back home for a week now, and he is continuing to feed well and gain weight at a fast rate. He is a fantastic, alert, bright-eyed little bloke!

---

Update; At 6 weeks Jacob is now starting to make a few cooing noises some non-verbal sounds (not crying), and moving his arms and legs around very strongly, His neck seems stronger too...He is very alert at times and grips your finger hard, sticks his tongue out at us sometimes repeatedly, and sometimes we see the beginnings of a smile...The steady stream of breastfeeding (Kathryn doing wonderfully well as a mother with that and other things!), and dirty nappies is chugging along like a steam train...

Tummy time seems to be helping and thanks to everyone for all the wonderful things they have given or lent to us. Also big thanks to everyone who has visited, or helped with babysitting, it means a lot to us! Exciting fantastic and challenging moments ahead!

Hopefully Jacob will one day grow up to know,respect and serve the Creator Triune God, and go hiking and climb mountains just like Kathryn and I have done...Maybe some kick to kick who knows.

here is a photo of our little family at church on the night of the "cradle roll" where Jacob was added to the list of little ones who might go to sunday school in the future. He got a book called "God made colours".

---

Hey this a running blog primarily but there is a lot of reasons why I wanted to post about this major event in our life...

Photos from my 2007 Perth Marathon

Perth Marathon photos from my Dad came this week, here are a few;



At the start of the 2007 Perth Marathon with Burswood Casino in the background in the photo below...





Near Como Beach jetty on the Swan River, alongside the Kwinana Freeway, about 34km done, about 8km to go, pushing into the north westerley headwinds at this point, but still hitting 6-7min per km and mowing down a few runners struggling with the infamous last 10km of a marathon...My stopwatch says about 3hrs 43minutes or something like that...


As you can see a few cyclists out there also. Photo above you can see one of the drinks stations ahead manned by the wonderful volunteers of the WA Marathon club Photo below I went for my last GU here, a coffee GU, and washed it down with the last of my mountain blast powerade...








After about 37km of running near Coode St in South Perth, its time to scull some cocacola to fire up for the last 5km...




less than 200m to go to the finish, about 42km done...


INSERT FINISH PHOTO from Fuse photography HERE...

coming soon (next few weeks)...






After the race in the Marathon club clubrooms with hundreds of other marathon and relay runners, happy to land my 4th consecutive Perth Marathon finishers medallion...in spite of those annoying blood blisters...



After the marathon with my training top to remember the occasion, and to remind me to keep training hard, and hopefully maintain the determination to do better next time...

even more photos coming soon...e.g. my actual finish with the clock above my head is on fuse photography will get it soon...

walk with wife, work and bandages off

Monday 16th July;
Went for a 20minute walk with the wife up a hill near our place tonight, she figured it might help to speed up the baby coming. My wife Kathryn is 39 weeks today, and the baby is officially due in a week next monday 23rd July, but could come any day now, my best guess is between 19th and 28th July I reckon, but baby will come when God tells Him too.

had a solid day at work today nailing my round in 6 hours flat, it was a pretty easy one for the most part, so much so that I just had the one powerade break about 2 hours in, and then just caned it through the last 4 hours or so. Took bandages and bandaids off my feet yesterday after a week of that, while Kathryn had a nice time with her baby shower afternoon. Good to see her happy catching up with a few close family people. Took a bit of a risk at work today with no bandaids on my right foot and just 2 bandaids protecting my left foot. Still can see all the dried blood under the skin, but did not have time to get to beach this weekend, just way too flat out, so figure I will leave the salt water treatment and cutting away of dead skin and dried blood until the weekend after I finish work. Its fairly likely the baby will came late this week, so keen to nail a few good days at work, to make sure we have essential expenses covered before I am busy helping Kathryn at Birthing centre, and with hopefully a healthy newborn....shoes,running, and cycling totally on the backburner right now, but hopefully I can sneak in some good session before Run for Gold, and maybe just maybe I can have a good race then...we shall see....

Run for Gold 5K likely next target race

Hope to ***have the money*** to buy some new shoes, (although I have had one offer from one kind person to buy me a pair) and some reps done in prep for the Run for Gold 5k/10k on Sunday 5th August at 8am at the WA Marathon Club clubrooms behind Burswood casino. At the moment I think I probably will go after the 5K, but we shall see, may do 10k depending on whats happening. I think little chance of me doing King of Mountain run, as I need time to put in place saltwater treatment on my damaged feet, get some money for shoes, plus baby should come soon, and that will take a lot of time and resources, so a good time too take some time off get my feet right...

Also in coming months have to save up for one of those prams you can run with, with baby in it Like the bloke in front of me in the 2004 Rottnest Marathon (he did a world record 3hrs 12) see here for photo. and a seat for bike also.


The other races I want to go after this year are the 6-inch 45km in December,
Freo 10k or 5k, Lake Gwelup 5k or 10k, Perth Half Marathon or 5k, City to Surf Half Marathon. Maybe Rottnest but unlikely. Some easy triathlons maybe. See TRIWA when the 07/08 calender of events is up, probably sometime after July 2007.

As I am very disappointed with my Perth Marathon time, if I have the resources ((i.e. win lotto (but I don't play it)) and can sustain the training might have another go in another Marathon.....so rather unlikely with new baby etc and my lack of money but its nice to dream, cos even if I don't do one, at least it helps to sustain a positive mental attitude...and attitude is everything....So hiho hiho, its onto marathonguide.com and coolrunning Australia calendar of marathons Here we go...used the Australia search function on http://www.marathonguide.com/races/search.cfm and the following comes up.....
5th August; Townsville Marathon,
12th August; Geraldton Marathon, 19th August; Alice Springs marathon, 26th August; Adelaide Marathon,Mudgee Marathon,Shepparton Marathon...(3 marathons on this day, but it also clashes with City to Surf Half marathon in Perth!),23rd September; Sydney Marathon (which Kelly Exeter did last year...)
7th October; Melbourne Marathon (a few people from Perth doing it this year and Widi did it last year), 13th October Fitzroy Falls Trail Marathon...sounds good, but not sure about 100m in elevation changes......., Toowoomba marathon, Rottnest Marathon......Christmas Island Marathon...etc etc...or wait until 2008...and continue with six Inch trail 45km in December, and six foot 45k (March 2008) plans, or postpone for a year or three, thats the dilemmas in the coming months...although realistically its unlikely I will do another marathon this year, and I wont run entire 6-inch unless things improve a bit...could still do 21k relay there though, if I could find someone mad enough to run half of it.......

Caught up with some people from RWCWA (racewalking club) the other day, was kinda surreal and special, nice to see some people I hadn't seen for a long time, and meet some of the new movers and shakers in the club. If I ever get the opportunity to get the needed surgery done on my knees (acl and cartilage), I might have another go at getting in the world racewalking cup , London 2012 Olympics (2016 Olympics will be determined in Copenhagen in December 2009) or something...after 2016 I reckon i would certainly be too! old!! (i'd be 42 then.) to make an international team, but then again some have done it older than that.... Even if I don't ever racewalk again, if I can find the time I'd like to help out the club, cos racewalking in general and RWCWA in particular has a lot of good memories for me......Or maybe I could make an international team as a runner, or maybe I should drop this pie in the sky dream...we shall see...

Blisters disaster results in PW (4hrs 33min) in my 4th Perth Marathon

Sunday 8th July; Ran Perth Marathon (42.2km) in 4 hrs 33min. Heart rate 162 at end.
Half marathon Splits; 2hrs.14.45/2hrs.19.13 (according to my new $10 stopwatch from Kmart).

Full results of Perth Marathon HERE...
I was 266th of 321 and 32nd in Mens 30-34 age group...
Database of all who have done Perth or Rottnest Marathons since 1979 @
HERE

Robert DeCastella was one of the most famous and successful marathon runners in Australia and in the entire world in the 80's. One of his quotes is certainly true for me today for me, despite the massive disappointment, and minor pains I feel very keenly right now. His quote was;

"If you want to experience life run a marathon"....

Today I experienced a wide range of emotions, many very positive, but some not so.
I was angry that due to blisters, my opportunity for a PB (which I think I worked hard enough for, and was fit enough for today), was taken from me mainly by the blisters on my feet and nothing else...Instead I ended up with a personal worst, i.e. the slowest Marathon race I have done. I think a 3.45 (maybe a few minutes slower or faster) was a very real possibility the way I was feeling today. Unfortunately I was unable to prove it today, and I'm beginning to wonder if I ever will....

I guess my resources in general are just not sufficient for me to race with a lot of success at the moment. If I had had the sense to tape my feet beforehand I may have got there, but I am not a podiatrist, physio or a doctor, and didn't anticipate the need, thinking I had recovered from the blisters in the Freo Half, as I have run a 16K timetrial, 10k reps and a 22k since that race without being aware of any major pain...But today I ended up in an ambulance 17km into the race getting large bandaids and stuff being put over massive blisters on both feet about the size of half a $5 note!!! I ran in the same heavy but well cushioned insert I ran my last 3 major training sessions in so what changed? Maybe it was the harder surface that reopened obviously not fully healed feet, I really don't know for sure. Maybe if I had bought new shoes I would have avoided 'em, or if I had used lighter inserts, but I suspect only bandaging my feet beforehand would have got me through the race without major incident. Feel better now I have expressed the angst, and the thoughts of frustration that have been swirling around in my head today.

So back to the race report (or should I say survival report). Loaded up on stacks of pasta and kidney beans last night plus some cheese and corn bread, and a lot of cereal and toast yesterday morning. Watched wimbledon tennis on TV, and despite going to bed at midnight and getting up at 0530, felt ok today, guess I am kinda used to that routine this year. Had to spend a very long time on toilet today, and as a result did not leave home until about 7am. Arrived at Burswood about 0723hrs.
Grabbed everything and for once it seemed I had all I needed and was well organised.
put bandaids on nipples and ran slowly about 1.5km to clubrooms (not much parking left by then), found my Dad gave him my carkeys and instructions on how he could provide support today, plus where my cellphone was. Then it was straight over to the start with about 1 minute to spare. Didn't like the starting point (they moved it this year!) very much, but got a good pozzie, and said hello to a few runners I knew...

Got away pretty well and as I had planned set off at a pretty quick pace at the rear of the second front bunch. Could see the leaders, and had plenty of room to run. Heard some "trailblazer" shouts from a bloke who shared a few comments for the rest of the time I ran any where near him. Don't know who he was, not sure I really want to. My 1km split was 4min.19 which was right where I wanted to be although maybe a touch slow. On the eastern side of the Windan bridge I had backed off a bit going through 2km in 9min.02 (4.43 split). I missed the 3km marker but was enjoying the early morning views of the east perth cove area as we saw dolphins frolicking in the cove about 10 metres away.

Hit 4km in about 18min 52 alongside the Swan river, and recognised Gary Carlton and Phil Webb cruising past. I was comfortably hitting about 4.50's so was about where I wanted to be. Tried to stay with Gary and Phil cos I know they are very experienced runners who are a good judge of the right pace needed to run about 3.20's...(or better) Finding it a bit tough to stay with them, and then Rob and Epi (blogger) came past soon after. Was hoping I could at least keep them in sight for awhile which I was able to do for the next 2km or so...
Hit 5km in 23min.39 (4min.47 1km split), which I was quite happy with, and was still feeling pretty good. Was hitting just under 5min per km consistently, and comfortably, which was maybe a touch slow but I figured if I could maintain that for another 10-15km and throw in a few 4.30's I'd be well on track for a P.B. somewhere in the 3.30-3.40's range, and maybe even the sub 3.30...
So looking ok at this stage. My splits from 6km to 9km I dont remember very well, but I think they were about 28min,33min, maybe 38min 35 for the 8km, maybe 43min 55 for 9km. About this time I started to feel a little minor discomfort on the ball of my right foot, and decided I must have a small gravel stone in my shoe, so i would stop after 10km split to get it out. In hindsight I probably should have acted quicker! Also I slowed down a little while preoccupied mentally with sorting out this annoying little slight pain...Split from 9km to 10km was about 5.38 which was about 30-50 seconds slower than I wanted. About this time Trent came past, didn't recognise him until he had gone past. My 10km split was 49min 33 which was a bit slower than I wanted but figured the PB was still in reach if I could ride the tailwind alongside the Kwinana Freeway to some consistent 4.40's....Physically feeling good, although keen to get to my first powerade which I thought was at 12.5km at Como Beach.

About this time I started to notice that the km markers were appearing well before I expected them too, so either they were put in the wrong spot or the course changes this year meant we were getting to them earlier. Pretty sure its the latter.
Anyway it messed up my drinks strategy a bit because I thought the Como drinks table was at 12.5km but it turned out to be at about 14.5km, plus I spent 3 minutes trying to remove gravel stone and anything else that was irritating my foot. Stopwatch said 54minutes and I was still confident I could put the hassles of the last few km behind me and go hard for hopefully a half marathon (21.1km) split of well under 2 hours, and keep my PB (3.55) chances for today alive...11km was about 58min 10, and 12km was 63min 29 (5.19 split), as I tried to reestablish my rhythm and get down to 5min flat splits again...Then I started to notice that my foot pain was coming back again...I knew I had cleaned everything out that could cause problems so I must be getting a @#$%^&* blister again...deja vu Fremantle half 2007 scenario all over again.....Felt angry as Tim from hills group went past...Tried to stay with a small group of runners there, but the foot pain was just becoming too much...

Figured I would regroup at Como Jetty ask my Dad to get me some bandaids, get some powerade and a GU into me and although the PB (3.55) was looking unlikely now, I could hopefully still go after a 4.10 or something like that, at least try and beat the 4.18 from last years mediocre effort. Considered ripping the bandaids off my nipples and putting them on my foot, but figured that probably wouldnt work, and would just give me bleeding nipples plus the bandaids may lose their adhesiveness....It seemd to take ages to get to Como Jetty, and I also had my GU too early having to run another 1km before I had some fluids to wash it down. By the time I got to Como I was extremely angry and thinking of maybe a DNF...but not too keen on that idea...Told my Dad, and started to find it harder and harder to run, it was Freo Half 2007 scenario all over again for sure now...Went through 15km in 1hr 21, 16km in 1hr 29 (8min per km! for this split), and it was now a frustrating painful shuffle,hobble, walk combination, and nothing seemd to be painfree....
As I went up Canning Hwy Bridge near the Raffles my left hamstring started to tighten up and feel slightly sore. So I stopped again at spent a few minutes doing some hammy and quads stretches, which seemed to do the trick and then I was able to start shuffling again. Was hoping Dad would show up with bandaids soon as I couldn't continue on like this to the finish, still had more than 25km to go....

Just after 17km I think I was flagged down by Dad and into an ambulance, where they
put some large bandaid/dressing/bandages (don't know the correct terms, just know they were white and they worked)on both feet, strapped them up and away I went...
Was able to run 6-7min per km for most of the way back from there...with a few faster and slower parts, despite the concrete section which I hate around applecross, and the headwind from canning Hwy to Narrows. Enjoyed the tailwinds near south Perth and at the finish. Some rain starting to get going in the last few km, but finished before it could affect me too much...enjoyed the majority of run...Heard a few spectators near the finish. Some more splits; 34k-3.43 35k-3hrs 50, , 36k; 3.56, 37k; 4hr02, 38k; 4.08, 39k; 4.14, 40k; 4hr 20 41k; 4.27 42k; 4.33... So as you can see consistently hitting 6 minutes per km for the last 8km..., and passed a few runners during this time...

So where to now...I think its a case of get my feet healed, buy some shoes, take a few weeks off running maybe, get ready for the new baby, and reload again when the time is right which could be weeks,months, or years away. Hopefully only a few weeks away, but the word I am hearing is that this baby caper is very demanding timewise and in other ways and it is a much higher priority, so it may be time for my running to take a back seat a lot at least for awhile...Its disappointing the result I am stuck with today, but what can I do...Feels like "the one that got away", cos I think the training I did in the last few months should have resulted in a PB today, but not to be... Not keen on racing again until, I am much better ready,trainingwise, financiallywise, so need to improve a lot of things before I race again.....no sure when that will be. Don't want to run another 6-7 hour or longer six inch 45km, or any more C to D grade quality times like I have mostly this year, so not keen on racing again until I am confident I am ready to go sub 5min per km or at least 5.15 territory with longer races, and sub 4.30 in the 5k and 10k races... Six Inch 45km in December and hopefully some short half marathon,10k,5k etc would be the next races I would target, but for now other things are going to be my main focus....

So my next blog post will probably be a boring weekend warrior 20-50km ride on the mountainbike or something which will be the norm for a few weeks I think...
Maybe I should get a really cool bike (the Red Baron I got from Ed is not bad but I need to fix the puncture on it) and do duathlons like Raf; http://www.rafaelbaugh.com/
doubt I'll ever be good enough or have the money, but its really cool to read about...


Photos from my 4th Perth Marathon experience will also be online eventually....
from my Dad and also Fuse Photography see Fuse Marathon photos and dial in 318 which was my race number when they come online which they have not as yet.

Update 10th July Tuesday; More than 48 hours later bandage has come off my right foot, so I took a few photos of the blisters on my right foot, the worst by far I have ever had, a lot of dried blood on both lateral and medial side of big toe.. Can see some sort of cut near medial side of big toe, a lot worse than i expected.
Also a lot of dead skin and a big hole in foot on ball of right foot...