Spar Women's Challenge 2011

Yesterday was an interesting day. My mother and I donned our green t-shirts and made our way to the Centurion Supersport stadium. We were ready to take on the Spar Women's Challenge. And before you feel too impressed, we did the 5 km fun walk. On the other hand, as recounted in my post on the quest for Abinger Harvest the slopes of Unisa were too much for me and my knee.

Spar Women's Challenge 2011: mother and daughter (frangipani) team

Thanks to the measles and so on, the only training I did for the event recently, besides jumping to conclusions*, was running around at a friend's batchelorette and dancing for hours at the wedding the week after. However, my knee made it and my mother and I completed the fun walk without resting along the way despite the hill (roughly between the 1 and 2 km mark - see picture below). Some people turned back at the hill - so it's basically Polly Shorts for the unfit. The women (and men dressed as women) and dogs were kind and encouraged each other to keep on going. I had to slow down, but otherwise the knee made no complaints.

Route map - taken from www.ladiesrace.co.za

The residents were also full of fun and Afrikaans music. Before the watering point (marked with a tap) a kind gentleman had his hose out to give water to dogs, children and me. The water was divine. Some of the other neighbours either held the hose over the wall to cool runners down or put their sprinklers outside for the same reason. I enjoyed the cooling down immensely.

Despite the length of the prize giving there were some highlights. I found out that the kind runner who smiled at me as I hit the water after finishing my walk was none other than Zola Budd! She won her age category in the 10 km race. I can't believe that I was in the same race (different category) as a former Olympic athlete.

My other moment at the prize giving is when they had a lucky draw. I won a shopping voucher!

Everyone who finished was awarded a medal

Thank you to all the organisers and paramedics. I'm just grateful that I didn't have to bother any of the medics as a patient :)

*expression appropriated from my GP. I once asked him if I should gym.  He looked me in the eye, kept a straight face and said: "Exercise is for the birds. All exercise I get is jumping to conclusions and running from responsibility". I love his sense of humour.

Gnaws: more adventures in reducing jeans

Master's
No progress. See previous post.

Gnaws
I am very proud of myself. So far I have not introduced my pet rabbit into discussions of weight loss and dissertation writing. I'm officially blowing my cover. I am, according to a good friend of mine, a "crazy bunny lady". You see, I have a pet house rabbit. She roams through the house. Sometimes I think I have it wrong and that the bunny has me as her human. She sleeps on my bed if it so pleases her and she has attempted to devour the corners of my Master's notes. Unfortunately some of the attempts were successful.

I will spare you paragraphs describing how cute the bunny is and just add a photo instead.

The bunny in my rabbit hoodie by SIN BIN.

Anyway, she tried to help me by reducing the amount of material used in one pair of jeans even further (see Shrinking my jeans) by thoughtfully gnawing some rather large holes in them. Naturally, she chose the more expensive pair to devour. She also chose the areas in which to reduce coverage carefully.

• There are two holes located over the buttocks.
• She thoughtfully removed half a belt loop (presumably as an indication that I should apply myself to the sewing machine or a message to binge eat until the pants fit again). Perhaps it has become less comfortable to sit on my stomach.
• There's also a nice gash on my outside thigh. 
• She made no adjustments to the legs.

In the pink

It's been a while since I last updated my blog. Why have I been so quiet? Adult measles. Fun fun fun.

The title of the post comes from a wonderful cream that I remember from having chicken pox as a child. If you lived in South Africa and have had a rash of some sort, you've probably been anointed with calydryl. It is a very pink cream and makes the rash look much worse, unless you plaster it on so thickly that all you see is pink. I took the picture below once I got to see the humour of the situation.

See the pale pink? That's the cream. The dark circles are all me.

And the sense of humour is what made is so tricky to sit in a dark room for a fortnight. I can just see how a dramatic teenager would enjoy the situation - sitting isolated in the dark, unable to go forth for fear of spreading infection, not able to work on the Master's since even the illumination from the computer screen hurt my eyes.

Last week was spent away from the interwebs since ill me put my modem in a "safe place". I don't know if I'm the only genius who chooses impossible safe places. Perhaps there's a touch of craziness that bubbles out when I really don't want to lose something. I carefully stashed my modem with my sewing supplies.