Yes correct I have posted for a long long time. Many things have happened in my life since my last post.
Most significantly the death of my dear wife, Helen on the 9 May 2021 almost 12 months ago. I posted this on Facebook:
It’s with great sadness I advise of the passing of my wonderful wife, friend, companion, work partner, mother, grandmother and the absolute core of our family.
Helen and I had been together for close to 52 years. We met in 1969 when she was still at high school. We studied together at Sydney Law School with Helen obtaining an Arts and Law Degree, married in 1977 and then travelled around Europe where she met family in Austria and the Ukraine. We returned to Australia in 1980 and had our children Matthew, Nicholas and Gabriella in 1984, 1988 and 1992 respectively.
Helen started her legal practice in 1985 as the principal, until she retired in December 2019. She was an independent, intelligent, strong and trailblazing woman.
Helen passed away peacefully at home early on Mother’s Day, after a long battle with lung cancer and more recently dealing with the significant effects of a stroke.
Notwithstanding her cancer and the significant side effects, she still happily travelled with me to all my marathons and never failed to wait at the finish line for me. Her friends, myself, her three loving and caring children and her two young granddaughters will miss her so much as she leaves such a gap in our family, now and forever.
But life must go on and I have tried to resume my life as best as I can. I have retired as Solicitor 12 months ago. I thought that would be very difficult but it was not and I do not miss being in the office, going to Court etc. I still teach full time for the College of Law and that is wholly online and that suits me perfectly.
I have also resumed running marathons although at the moment ver slowly. I hope, now that I have resumed the Blogg I will post regularly.
My last marathon was last weekend and her is the report. My next one is on Sunday at Newcastle.
Saturday 26th March 2022
#340 Sri Chimnoy (Canberra AIS Track) : 6.12.23
I have run this event a few times and it is one of my least favourite events because it is 101 laps of a running track. I much prefer to run on the road as the distance seems to go more quickly. Off course that is not true but it maybe the repetition of the laps. This one was much more difficult that any other because it started at MIDNIGHT Saturday night.
I drove to Canberra to arrive at about 3.00pm. I then settled into my room, pulled the curtains, and tried to sleep and rest so that would be as fresh as possible for the start. I have never started a marathon at midnight, so the preparation was unique. I was not planning to leave until about 10.30pm and so I essentially dozed most of the afternoon and evening. I did read for a while, watched some football, and had some tea. The time went quickly before I had a shower got ready for the 340th time and tried to get my head in the right space.
The weather was 14 degrees at the start, and it was expected to stay at that for the whole night. There was no wind and in fact it was a perfect night for running. But coming from Sydney it was cool and I was perhaps overdressed (too many layers) but I was comfortable as I was not going be moving too fast.
The plan was to run 4k and walk 1k. I kept to that until about 34k and then I just run and walked but much more running that walking.
