167min long run done.

Best heart rate and weight vital stats for this week;
RHR 44 Weight 78.4kg. Might be an idea to get some skinfold calipers one day as a friend from work mentioned the other week, as a way of monitoring body fat (versus muscle) percentage...

Sunday 17th July;
Ran for 167minutes 55 secs (HR 135 near the end) exploring new options for my "3 lakes" course.

A lot of exploring, detouring, stops and some walks along the way. Stopped to read some interesting information about some of the animals (fauna) that inhabit the lakes there. Came across one interesting one about a Whistling Kite that has an M shape on the underbelly of its wings, a good photo of this hawk type bird of prey here Also ran through the preferred habitats of the White Striped Freetail bats, which have an audible echolocation sound if you are nearby at night, and of course the Western Tiger snake and Dugite. Turned around at Adventure World and could hear and see the guns in the paintball skirmish place at one point. Now know the trails and paths around 3 lakes a whole lot better, and have some better options for long runs, although given the snakes, I think it might have to be mainly a winter course option. Also saw about 50-100 black swans all in one spot together in a secret lake location...

My wife is a bit happier after Le-Cras 12 goal haul for the eagles, which means that they now have some hope of avoiding the wooden spoon perhaps, and it should be a competitive derby in the next couple of weeks. ]
Freo managed to avoid snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, thanks to the goal from Ballantyne in the last quarter. Some nice marks from Hill and MCPharlap. Now that Barlow is gone, we need McPharlap and Tarrant (back next week) for sure firing for us, and people like Mundy, Hill and Ballantine will need to step up. We are hanging on to top 4 spot, but beating the Bulldogs next weekend is a massive challenge the way we are playing at the moment. Even playing finals we need at least 1-2 wins to be sure, so its not a done deal yet, and not much point in finals if we are not ready to attack them hard...

Runningwise so glad I managed to escape for my long run, really needed it. Originally I planned to run Lake Joondalup 5k or 10k race, but just wasn't up for it given the last few weeks we have had, and petrol money is pretty low anyhow.
Our hot water system blew up on Friday, so its all good fun with wife, 6 week old baby, 3 year old, and 2 jobs, struggling to pay rent, cold nights and no hot water for the weekend.
anyhow have to face the facts thats life sometimes.
However some big positives, and little Jordan is a beautiful little baby, and between, her, my little son and my wife, I should never forget how much I have been blessed, through them, and in some of the incredible experiences Ive had, there has to be some valley experiences as well as mountaintops.

Speaking of mountaintops, came across some incredible lookout points at work this week. One near Coogee, has amazing sweeping views of the new multi-million dollar Coogee Marina, Fremantle, to the north, and Kwinana to the south, any photographers out there you have to visit this lookout on King st...it is awesome!!!

Now that we have caught up on some of the bills, and hopefully our finances continue to get back on track, I can turn my attention to finding some training and racing attack again hopefully in the coming weeks and months. Have to say though that my knee soreness (and the ankle pains last week that seem to have cleared up) after my long run today was very bad, and I sometimes wonder how much longer I can keep doing this, without surgery (which I wont be able to afford time or moneywise for awhile, (havent been able to in the last 9 years since I injured my knees in 2000.)), but I push on, as long as God allows me to.

So its game on for the federal election, (just for the record I will be voting for the Ironman mad monk for sure!, and not for the union puppet/NSW right mafia pawn/eastern states robber of WA money (for the 100 million a day debt) backstabbing hair products facade ranga, I hope her team gets smashed by Freo next week.) and while looking after the world God gave us, and possibly even some climate change (although I am still skeptical as to whether climate change exists yet even with some of the bizarre weather we have had.), and sustainability of resources are massive issues for the next few decades without a doubt I think, there are more important issues like the ageing population in Australia, drugs (the scourge of methylampetamine, cocaine, and cannabis combined with violent alcoholism (brought on by this drinking game maybe...hahahaha not really...) are major, major problems, which thanks to God and my parents I have always avoided and always will) and crime, the youth of our nation, too many cars/trucks for our roads, rural issues, Aboriginal issues and most of all for me, exorbitant land and rent prices. Some comic relief here from 2007; Tony and Julia...Krudd...Crikey....some kruddisms and obamaisms; In due seasonsong...full of fear..Detailed programmatic specificity....
Stairway to Kevin....
kRudd gets it right on Pursuit Trivia...
Monk on pursuit trivia wishes he had a phone a friend...
BrownGreen learns something new on pursuit trivia...
Repeater Julia...
A serious appeal for a fair contest...and mention of the completely outrageous way an australian prime minister was removed...
and of how we can expect more losing the way???
or maybe we stand up for some real action for a change...

Hopefully its game on for my 4th Melbourne Marathon attack kicking off in August only a few weeks away now. I think the classic 1990 album Fire and Love by Guardian sums up my mood at the moment. Tracks like Power of love and Turnaround.

Desperate times... reminds me of a newspaper headline I saw; message to JUU-LEE-AHHH we are hurting...(and weve had enough of government mismanagement, massive national debt, and taxing the heck out of us while we struggle to survive and our rulers take another overseas trip.)...
Krudd spent almost a million bucks on taxpayer funded trips in first class going overseas in his few short years in office. No wonder Australia in debt at 100 million a day with that sort of fiscal attitude. While they are putting our country into massive debt for an education revolution we have to have, which involves massive waste of money on projects many schools dont really need, we are working 2-3 jobs to pay for their pointless watse of money, just so we have a house to live in, and maybe some food. Have to say in the last 2 years Ive had too many times (in the bad months while waiting for a tax refund in June and not getting enough work in December) when its been like my last year at Uni when I lived on potatoes and nothing else, when cashflow has been diabolically sluggish...
Peter Costello put it well; the time has come to boot out the ALP pleease...

So rant done for this week. Long run done for this week, and hopefully game on for Melbourne starts soon.