Round 5 - Day 48

Ran 9 km on Saturday. Couple of shaky moments here and there, some thoughts of capitulation, but got it done in the end. Next week I get to run 10 km. I'm actually looking forward to it, and I might buy some new sneakers for the occasion, seeing as though the ol' Adidas' are getting a bit frayed. They have a massive heel too, which goes against what POSE running is all about, mainly keeping off the heel and running as if you were running barefoot. It's funny when you think of it, but humans went millions of years running barefoot, or certainly running with footwear that offered little protection, and then we invent sneakers and put 1 inch of foam on the heel, so now everybody runs making contact with their heel first, smashing the force of that impact up the whole leg. It seems natural to go back to what we used to do as cavemen chasing our prey. So I want to buy a nice pair of sneakers with as little heel padding as possible. Maybe not the five-fingers deal, but something close to that.
What else. Not a great deal, actually. Missed my X stretch on Friday because I was tired, but apart from that, did everything on schedule. Might even squeeze the stretch in tomorrow. Tired tonight, so I'll skip the workout and have an early night.
Watched "The Descent" last night. Holy shit that was scary. A good B-grade horror movie.
The kick bar, or kick pedal, or whatever it's called (the thing on my motorbike I have to kick over to start the engine) busted a couple of weeks ago. I was riding home from work in the dark and in the rain and I was waiting at a set of lights when my engine stalled. I ran out of petrol. I flipped the switch over to the reserve tank and tried to start her up again, but she wouldn't even turn over. I was a little worried. When it runs out of petrol it usually gives you a little warning by spluttering and carrying on, giving you a few seconds to switch over to the reserve tank. In most cases the engine does not stall. (BTW this is all normal procedure. Most basic (cheap) bikes don't have a fuel gauge - you just ride until the petrol runs out, switch to the reserve tank, then fill up at the next servo you see. You usually have about 20 km of petrol left). But every time it has run out I have been actually moving. This time I was at the lights and the motor just cut out dead. Got my attention. So as I was trying to start it up and it wouldn’t turn over, I was thinking, maybe it's not the petrol. Maybe it's something engine-y. Then, that concern suddenly became secondary, because the kick pedal (that's what they call it in Japanese) broke. It didn't snap, but a side of it at the joint sheared off, and a ball bearing fell out, and it just went limp. Things just turned to shit in about 10 seconds! No chance of being able to turn my motor over, and even if I could, the thing wasn't starting anyway! I pushed my bike onto the footpath.
I haven't felt this feeling since Uni, since my old Cortina. A churning in the guts. How the fuck am I going to get this thing home? Then I tried what I used to try with the Cortina - a jump start. I've never tried it on a motorbike, but it was my last shot. So I pushed my bike along as fast as I could, hopped on, put it in first gear, and let the clutch out and gave the throttle a turn. Yes! First go! Got home no dramas. Apparently it was the petrol.
It's not much of a job to fix it, I just need a new part. Checked Yahoo auctions and was the only bidder for a Honda CB400SS kick pedal and got it for about $25. (Interesting aside: EBay is basically unheard of here. It's all Yahoo auction. And no PayPal either. Bank transfer (like Bpay) or COD.) This was over the weekend, so I haven't got it yet. Next I wanted to take the old part off. I have no tools, and I remember growing up with a dad who never had any tools so I decided to do something about it. Actually, he did have tools. They were in a bucket which was black with grease and full of old nuts and nails, with a ratchet bit here and there, but never the tool you really needed to get the job done properly. So I bought some nice tools. And not cheap ones, either. Quality. Will and I went and got a tool box yesterday and put them all in there. I was going to get a big set, but that would be full of crap I would never use, like wire strippers and stuff like that, so I'm just going to buy stuff when I need it, and buy the good, expensive stuff. Kyoto Tool Company seems to be the best here. One ratchet (no bits, just the ratchet) was about $60. Bought that and a few bits. It did the job, so I'm happy with it. So now I'm just waiting for the kick pedal to arrive, and then I'll wip it on there and be riding again. The chill is out of the air, so it'll be nice to get on the road without freezing my tits off.
Yesterday Will and I gave the bike a wash, and I loosened a few bolts and got him to tighten them. These are the moments boys remember for ever, aren't they? Working on the car or the bike with dad.
When the weather is nice I'm determined to go for a long rode. I say that every Spring, but this time I mean it.

Round 5 - Day 42

Hey. Still working out. Day 42 already. Holy shit, nearly half way through. My next run on Saturday will be 9 kilometers. It's funny, but the 7 k run a couple of weeks ago was tough, but the 8 k run last week didn't feel so bad. Still hurts my right calf though, every time. I really should buy a new pair of sneakers. With the resistance workouts, my numbers are up there with where they were at the end of last round, which is nice. Now I can make some gains. Oh yea, there's going to be sequel to P90X this year sometime. "P90X:MC2" MC means muscle confusion. Looking forward to that. I should buy it, really. Give Tony some of my money.
I'm reading "The Hunger Games" at the moment. Really enjoying it. The next "His Dark Materials" maybe? They'll definitely make it into a movie. Let's just hope Nicole Kidman isn't in it. I have watched 127 Hours, which I loved. The Pat Tillman Story, not as good as the book I read about him, but it was good to find out more about him.
It's starting to warm up finally. We had a real cold blast a couple of weeks ago with lots of snow, but now it's nice and sunny, and I almost bought a chilled can of coffee this morning, though I think that's because it's so hot in my office. Will and Jo Jo are going great guns. Will's Michael Jackson fever has abated, thankfully not as severe as cousin Joshie's was. Back to Dinosaurs again. Jo Jo can say apple, bee, ball, mama (food), and hikouki (aeroplane) and he's trying to jump, which looks so funny.
The kick bar on my motorcycle snapped last week, and I'm thinking of buying a kick-ass set of tools to fix it up with, and anything else I might want to do later. Cheap = better than expensive, but expensive = quality, which also = good. Age old dilemma.
I'm really interested in what's going on in the Middle East. Bush's Children of Freedom anyone? Cairo was portrayed as something it wasn't, and when Lara Logan got raped, fuck 'em, they don't deserve it. China and Bahrain are where it's at. I hope China falls apart, because the whole world is depending on this criminal Communist regime keeping 5 billion people ignorant and dirt poor so they can make our iPads for cheap, and that isn't right. And Bahrain, because there is a real chance that the revolution could spread to Saudi Arabia where we buy our petrol from and where they hang teenagers for being homosexual and stone women to death. $2 a litre for petrol will slow things down, that's for sure. Put things in perspective. Interesting times ahead, anyway. 2011, what a year, and it's not even March yet!