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Muddy Shoes

Planet Without Apes

Tonight Kristie and I went to a lecture at the Embassy Theatre titled: Planet Without Apes, by Craig Stanford.

Craig Standford is one of the lucky few who have studied under Jane Goodall, in Gombe National Park in Tanzania. The lecture was quite good and interesting, and it covered a broad range of topics from the branching point of our shared ancestry, to the plight of the Bonobos in the Congo due to Coltan mining.

Personally, I was hoping to learn a bit more than I did from this lecture, but I understand that in forums such as this, the lectures have to have a broad appeal to many different audience members; it will not often be a deep dive into a single topic.

That being said, I still really enjoyed it.

One thing that I thought was quite strange was after Craig Standford's speach, a faculty member of Massey University, who sponsored the event, got up to give a brief speech on the same general topic.  That wasn't the strange part... The strange part was while he was giving his speech, multiple people got up out of their seats, and left the theatre!

I thought: Wow! Not only is that really distracting, but it was incredibly rude!

Like I said, as an audience member I found these people going for the exits a distraction, I can only imagine what the faculty member thought as he was speaking.

Last night, we had an unexpected appointment, so we had to defer our evening run. But the weather is going to be turning to custard soon, so we didn't want to lose any good weather days for training; I am a total fair weather trainer! So because we had to defer that run, we decided to run first thing the next morning.

Love/Hate Relationship

I am of two minds when it comes to morning runs. Actually, most people would say I only have half a mind, but that is beyond the point.

Cons

On one hand, I absolutely hate getting out of a nice warm bed, and going out into the cold; it was only 5 degrees C this morning! Added to that is the fact that we've got to get up so frigging early! 5:00 a.m. not a time for exercise! 5:00 a.m. is barely even appropriate to go to the bathroom!  Speaking of which, there have also been a few episodes in the past, where the bathroom routine didn't correspond to the run. So half way through the run, I'm clenching like a pair of vice-grips, and still have ages to go before reaching a bathroom...not good!

Look, I know I'm a wimp; I know that I winge a lot, but....ok, I don't know how to counter that statement.

Pros

On the other hand, once we get going, I find that it turns out to be a very good run! The runs early in the morning, are generally done right by home as we don't want to go driving and then running...too much time! And because we're running straight from the house, we are pretty much stuck doing hills, which is actually a good thing.

Ngaio is a suburb that is pretty much nothing but hills. Actually, come to think of it, Wellington itself is pretty much nothing but hills...except for the waterfront.

While I find the hills more difficult than the flat (duh!), I also love the accomplishment of making it to the top of a hill. Plus, the half marathon in Sydney is suppose to have hills, so it helps with the training.

The final good point about the morning runs, is the fact that I generally feel energized for the rest of the day.  I feel euphoric for hours afterwards. It is like the feeling I get pre-migraine, but without the migraine.

Post running coffee is a total perk of morning runs

With only a few days left until we leave for vacation, we thought it might be a good idea to get Angus cleaned up before going into the poky.

Angus cleans up nice!