Running

I have hit over 500 pageviews! Woohoo! I put this down to you, dear reader. And my mother.


WARNING: Swirl, look away, I'm talking about running.

*A friend of mine, called Swirl, hates me talking about running. She disdainfully disapproves of those preachers who try to win numbers by recruiting friends and sympathetic listeners to "join them" (as a pack of vampires would say to fresh blood) in their running joy. This friend, Swirl, is a close friend and it is likely that she will read this post. This thus explains the introductory line and thus ends this explanatory note*

What do I think about running? Why do I do it?

This is a Paint-cartoon of me, running

This is a very good question, I'm glad you asked.

A couple of years ago, a person who I trusted told me that I could run a half-marathon. Up until this point, the only running I had ever done was once a week for a couple of months at a running club (whereby I would run on a Tuesday and spend the rest of the week limping and recovering). I can't say I hated running, but I can say I wasn't very good at it. I certainly had never DREAMED that I would run an event that had the word "marathon" in it. I simply had never considered myself running a half-marathon; I couldn't do it. I wasn't up to it - I wasn't fit, I wasn't strong, I couldn't run fast. I just wasn't good enough to do it. This sounds all a bit harsh, but I was quickly proved wrong when this person tells to me (a marathon runner himself), in simple terms, that I could.

Stubborn rejection and disbelief shielded me from believing what he said.

But only for a minute.

In paint, I erased all the shield bits

After a point, I came to realise that my bias couldn't hold up. I began to realise that I was mentally limiting myself from being able to achieve new, incredible feats that are usually put aside in people's minds as the activity of the super elite and pretty awesome (if you don't put marathon runners into that category, don't pop my illusionary bubble by telling me so). I could be a half-marathon runner (yes, I am channeling Flight of the Conchords "Most Beautiful Girl" here)!

But seriously, that's why I run. I don't run because I particularly enjoy running (although, I have seen some beautiful things while running that I simply wouldn't have seen without this habit). I run because by doing so I am achieving a goal: I am running towards the destination of being fit, healthy, happy, physically content. You know that lovely feeling when you get home after a big, smelly day and you have a shower and sit on the couch and there is just nothing better in the whole, entire world than just that (except, of course, if my lovely was sitting next to me)? Well, that's how I feel after a run and that's also another reason why I run. And every time I run, I do this awesome thing that leaves me feeling good, unlike eating chips that leaves me feeling bad.

I am not writing this to preach, as Swirl would accuse me of doing. And I don't particularly care if you also ran or if you didn't. I find conversations about running either boring or competitive or both. I am writing this perhaps to inspire you, dear reader, to unhook yourselves from your mental limitations. One of the only reasons why I didn't do this thing (running) I wouldn't dare do (because I couldn't) was because I didn't believe I could (and then I realised that I could).

On October the 14th, 2012 (my Grandmother's birthday), I will be running my very first marathon. Forgive me knees!

Wish me luck!

On being in love

So. Love. I think I'm going to write a blog about love.

Yep, part of my motivation to do so is because most of what is written about love isn't very good (and so I don't need to come up with any great ideas), but people (that's you, dear reader) still read about it because they are so infatuated with it. So, really, I am leaning on the great and grand meta-literature that has come before me. As google scholar itself writes "Stand On the Shoulders of Giants".

Figuratively, not literally, that is.

I love a lot of people. I love Swirl, Grooble, Bub. I also love calling these people their nicknames, partly because they don't love these names. But I am not in love with them (for those unknowing readers, I am related by blood, to Swirl, Grooble and Bub, so if I were in love with them, that would be incest).

But I AM in love with Stuck With It Now. Not the blog, though. The person who writes the blog. This lovely boy has a whole lot of cool nicknames, some of which I may suffer dire consequences if I mention, actually most of which. I don't think he will be too grumpy if I call him "Lovely" (as a noun, not an adjective). 

I also grew up, as an unknowing, gullible little girl,  watching those kinds of movies where love is depicted. Now, you might be thinking, depicted as what? Well, I am now of the opinion that any depiction of love is going to be utterly different and inherently misleading if it doesn't depict the exact experience of love one has with their partner(s) at any one point in their lifetime. How can a movie correctly inform me of "love" if it misses the essences of what my love for Lovely (see what I did there?) will grow to be? It can't. A movie can't anticipate what my personal experience of love is and so therefore any depiction of love anywhere is inherently flawed. 

Now I'm not talking about the kind of love we all know is wrong: the Bridget Jones' Diary kind of love; the Jane Austen kind of love; the Jane Austen Book Club kind of love. We know all that is a fake, sensationalised, a lie because it has been written to entertain, to strum the heart strings, to make people feel involved by appealing to their sensitive emotions. I'm talking about the French movie kind of love. I'm talking about those rare moments when a film actually gets it right and makes you remember a boy/ girl in primary school named Travis that you had a crush on and you loved and your belly went into butterfly overdrive whenever you saw him - um, or her. Yep, even that is a load of shit (not the crush, the movie that made you remember the crush). 

People are just really good at displaying a love that creates the meta-literature of love that in no fucking way resembles what love really is. Don't get me started on Disney. 

So. At this point, you've read my rant and you're thinking to yourselves: "Ok, guru, tell me what love really is". 

Well, if I did that, then I'd be a hypocrite, wouldn't I? If I told you my version of love to inform you of what love really is, then I, too, would be depicting a love that you won't experience. 

Love to you all. 

As swirl would know, I do love talking about my  lovely, so if you do want me to relate my particular experience of love (thereby becoming the hypocrite swirl so terribly hates) then leave me a message/ comment and I'll consider it. 

What will this be? Part two of Buttebox Canyon: THE CLIMB

What will my blog be? I was quite surprised by the reception of my first post - an introductory post. So, thank you to those people in Russia and America who have viewed my blog! And of course to those in Australia. 

So, this makes me think to myself - what will my blog be? Will my blog be one of those blogs that only have one or two entries and then fizzel out when the writer doesn't get around to writing another? I don't want it to be. In fact, I am so touched by the views of my blog that I have decided to write another one. And who knows? Maybe I'll write this for years; you'll be looking at my blog in a year's time to see where I started at. Well, this is where I am starting at: here, now.

Stuck With It Now's blog "Mt Hay Canyon (Butterbox) - stuck in the middle" just left us at the end of a massive abseil down a massive waterfall. Remember? We'd just abseiled halfway down to a rock wedged between the narrow walls of the Canyon, gotten our rope stuck and continued down to the ground, blind to what lay below us and unsure that the rope would see us to the bottom. 

And then we were out, and as Stuck With It Now said, there were still a number of abseils and a rock climb before we got out of the Butterbox Canyon.

So this was the bottom of the massive abseil (a picture you've already seen).

When we turned around and swam a little bit, this was the view that we saw:

 As you can see, we had some distance to drop. This, we jumped:




From this point, we emerged from the water, leaving the narrow, wedged walls behind us. This is how happy we were with ourselves of our achievements, unknowing of course of the challenges we had ahead. 

 































Now: onto the havoc ahead. 

We took the chance of the warm sun to idle a little and eat some dried mango(the food of champions). Then, it was time to walk down the river. 

Yep, that's right folks, we walked down the river. Now, there aren't any photos of this bit, so you'll have to use your imagination.

Imagine the material of the Canyon - rock, rock and more rock - in smaller bits, jagged and piled up. These were our stepping stones down the river. Now, as some of you might be thinking, if we start at any one point and abseil/ climb down a river, in order to get back to the said point, one must then climb up the distance they climbed down. 

And this is (not quite) exactly what we had to do:

So after a little hour or so of walking down the river rocks, we had to walk up a great big hill (this great big hill is not quite displayed in my picture, but to give you an idea, the top of the great big hill is marked with an great big X).

At this point, Stuck with it Now's two older brothers decided that we were running out of time until sunset (to explain, I was on a Canyoning trip with my boyfriend (who I'm Stuck With Now) and his two older brothers). More information: we had two options to get up, out and back to the car. The first option was about a 10 kilometre walk (that would take longer than the amount of sun light hours that we had left) or an epic climb up an epic hill (even further than the marked X) and a level 10 rock climb. 

So, back to the story, Brothers A and D run off to set up the rock climb, as this was the decided plan of action. We were going to attempt the rock climb and, if we couldn't do it, we'd walk the 10k. 

Stuck With it Now and I take the epic climb to the ledge (refer to the diagram) which was where we were going to start our level 10 rock climb. At the top of the epic climb, a little fatigued and awkward from crouching under a rock, I stumble a little bit. I stumple close, really quite close, to the edge of the ledge. A little perturbed, I take a look down. Maaaaaan, that is a steep drop. We (did not at all) calculate it to be 1,000m drop (so my diagram is out of scale). This was a view of the drop:

 

So, like I say, it was quite a drop. 

And like I say, I sort of stumbled before anyone saw.  This is important, for comic effect. 

Anyway, we are now on the ledge from which we were going to attempt a level 10 rock climb (refer to diagram). 


I have never rocked climbed a day in my life. 


With ropes that weren't quite rock climbing ropes (but abseiling ropes) and, on my part, without much, alright any, training, me and my group of Stuck With it Now and Brothers A and D begin our climb with this as our consequence. 

And it was then that I realised that Stuck With it Now was perhaps a little bit scared of heights. It all began with a tree. Let me show you a picture of this tree:

 

Now, do you remember the little stumble I had earlier? Well, I stumbled before I realised that there was such a great height to fall off. And because of this little stumble, I made sure I was sure footed and had a sturdy grip on something. So I checked the hold of this tree, shook it a little bit, made sure it would hold my weight, and then tentively leaned over to take a look at that amazing height. A yell makes me almost fall off. 

"ELEANOR! STOP IT! YOU'RE ABOUT TO FALL!" 

Seriously, I thought I was about to have a heart attack. All of a sudden, Stuck With it Now was telling me off, and saving my life and keeping me from the terrible threat of falling. Rather than pointing out that I was completely fine and a big kid who can ensure for herself that she wont fall, I realised a little bit of stress in my lovely's face, so I sat in the corner to settle him down. 

It was at this point that I thought that maybe Brothers A and D were also perhaps a little afraid of heights. I mean, it was a long way down, but we weren't going to fall, right? Brothers A and D quickly began telling me off.

Oh, I wish you were there. Words can't explain the natural beauty of the environment we were in. All around me, there were views people don't see in their entire lives.

And, I was about to rock climb for the first time in my life, with a backdrop of the beautiful Blue Mountains, were 1 metre to my left there was at least a 1,000m drop. Psychologically, this was more than a little bit off-putting. 

So, I lied. Rather than saying, I've never rocked climbed a day in my life, I said: "This climb isn't even that bad, I used to do this kind of thing all the time in my childhood". 

"Oh, phew" Stuck With it Now says. Though he later tells me he suspected a lie, he chose to believe it in the moment. And it was with this little lie that perhaps we all believed we could all do it. 

And what you believe, you can do.

This was the rock climb. Fucking vertical.

This was us.

Yep, I was holding out on the photos to create suspense.

 We really didn't have a lot of space.

Manic relief on their faces, perhaps?

Myspace moment. Stuck With him Now and Eleanor the Professional.

 

I am so incredibly proud of myself! 

And what an amazing, incredible day!