Run to the water

Mastedon: Lofcaudio album; "Run to the water" 1990
A song I liked in the early 1990's, especially after a bad day, very relaxing, encouraging, but infused with a determination of a hope for better things, which sums up where I am at in some ways right now as I try and get back to the improvement curve I was starting to hit in 2008 until my tragic ankle injury in Melbourne Marathon, which seems to have healed significantly (have not strapped it since December 21st) but is still hanging around at this stage.

Sunday 11th January 2009 AD; Cycled for 60min on exercise bike at low intensity (HR 115 after), and allegedly (according to dodgy ex bike computer) covered 30.68km, and burnt 511.5 calories...been a stressful tricky week...but neg0oiated it fairly well I think...and some major life hassles to deal with in next few weeks. Have to move house by February 2009...!!!

Monday 5th January 2009 8AM;
Ran 2km in 8min 55, HR 171. (4min 27 per km)
Jammed in a quick run on Hull park course, before going to Hopman Cup tennis tournament with my wife Kathryn to watch Australia v Germany. (Kathryn and I have been to this 4 years in a row now, love it!)... Pushed the pace, and pretty happy with this run. No problems injurywise, and got out there before the heat kicked in.

One of my favourite, favourite players, Leighton Hewitt won his match in impressive fashion against the dangerous and talented Nicholas Kiefer. Thrilling match going for about 3 hours. Hewitt on comeback trail in his first game for 5 months (following hip surgery after Beijing Olympics), was brilliant, and although he lost the first set in a tiebreaker and played a few games which had about 5-10 deuce points! looked back to his best, dominating the 2nd and 3rd sets despite some incredible serving and all court play by Kiefer. Unfortunately casey Dellacqua despite looking the goods was unable to deliver on the crunch points at the end against a higher ranked opponent in Sabine Lisicki, but hopefully will be better for the experience, and will nail the big points in future. Thought she should have beaten Lisicki, and should do so if she is mentally tougher next time. I played doubles against Caseys sister Brooke in social tennis at the Kingsley club a few years ago once...


While I am on the subject of pop-metal/mellow soft rock from 1990 that I liked at school, came across Mastedon label mate "Guardian" (which is one of my top 5 favourite pop metal bands), so here is links to a few of their tracks from the Fire and Love album of 1990; Time and time again Time stands stillForever and a day
the Rain,

Then there was the really, really, SOFT rock stuff with deep lyrics from Kerry Livgren/AD 1988 album; Prime Mover (which I also have on cassette tape somewhere); Portrait II, children of the shadows(we will stand against the night), Wandering Spirit, I'll follow youand his band AD (eg the 1986 reconstructions album; One golden thread), which a mate from school Rick Rowe (should have become a studio drummer, Rick should have, he was that good, love to know if he got himself back on track these days), got me into a bit...
Rick also introduced me to the music of secular muso legends like Steve Morse, and Dave Weckyl, and some cool Christian bands like X-Sinner, Barren Cross, and through his friend Chris Rae; the incredible brilliance of extreme hardcore death metal (but classical music infused) band Believer and extreme thrash metal band (also very classical music influenced) Tourniquet (still going now thanks to another of one of the worlds best drummers (and a Christian) in Ted Kirkpatrick)...Tourniquet(here is "tire kicking" and "ark of suffering" tracks) (and Believer to a lesser extent) is still one of my all-time favourite metal bands by a long way!, and also the cool melodic metal tunes of Canadian legends Angelica. About that time I also came across one of my top 5 extreme metal bands in speed metal legends Deliverance e.g. Flesh and blood from WOOW!!!!!!!, or their cover of Silent night...One local Perth band inspired by legendary bands like Mortification(e.g grind planetarium, a fav tune in my head when struggling in a long run or walk for at least 15 years now for me)), Tourniquet, and Deliverance, in the last few years is now doing their third album, this band is Grave Forsaken 1, 2,TV 3, episode 4, epi 5...the 3rd album..this day forth... imo one of the best things ever to come out of Perth, Western Australia; some of the many good older tracks include; Perish the thought (outro of TV episodes), North Wind, Warriors of light (intro of TV episodes),Harder to hate, Road to Damascus, horror and sadness, and Destined for ascension.

Livgren and John Elefante were both ex-members of a popular secular 70's band called Kansas before they became Christians and started to move in different directions lyrically...Kerry Livgren liquidity...not heard that before, just discovered it now...
then there was the whole Petra obsession that heaps of people were into in the 1980s...some of the last good hard rock tracks from Petra was "beyond belief"...and Creed, which thinking back to my anglican days, I think is pretty much based on the Nicene Creed lyrically...although possibly a bit PETRA-afied hahaha...or "I am on the Rock", then tracks like Counsel of the holy (based totally on one of the Psalms), or one of their most aggressive tracks; Minefield. One of their last songs called destiny I remember listening to on the plane on the way to Australian Championships as a teenager...Petra came just before Stryper of course, early 80's. Stryper was my favourite pop/glam metal band as a 14 year old in 1988, and along with Petra were the first cassettes I bought, although SHOUT and Whitecross (Rex Carroll total guitar legend) were also right up there and Rockin Rabbis from here in Perth. Some Stryper songs include; Free, To hell with the devil, In God we trust, Allright enough going off on my music tangent, but found some pretty cool links there, brought back a stack of good past memories from 20 years ago or so for me...

Start meter reading this week, so need to adjust to that, but try and up the volume and intensity of my training at the same time.