A Run and a Funeral.

Today I have reluctantly held a funeral for three of my sadly departed toe nails.
Their death was quick but relatively painless and two of their close friends are likely to join them soon in toe nail heaven.

Life is short and brutal when you are the toe nail of a long distance runner. Farewell my sadly battered and bruised friends. May your next life be on the pretty little toes of Paris Hilton in her dainty little shoes and not in my muddy, smelly runners.

Susi No Bum with the two Chubby Hubbys. Nuff said !

Last Saturday's Trail.

Said toe nails received mortal wounds whilst supporting Moi's Barge Arse during the Sydney 100km. event, with the final blow being struck during the 32 km. Sea to Summit Race.
They had a good life ; never squeezed into those high, stiletto Tart Trotters some girls wear, nor painted layer upon layer like a Sara Lee Struedal. Nor did they suffer the indignity of having plastic pretend thingy nails glued on top of them. Nope life was good for them. Well travelled, dont you know , and treasured.

Our bush trails are already starting to dry out now Spring is here.

The trail running season for the Twisted Sisters is now coming to an end. Next Sunday is the Yurrebilla Ultra and in November The Black Hill Challenge. Then aside from our monthly social trail runs with SAARC most of our runs will be shorter 10 km. events.
Our extreme heat in South Australia , snakes and bushfires prevent us from doing any lengthy trail runs in Summer.

So we are now discussing some options to keep our training and fitness up during Summer and have decided upon;

• competitive bike riding.
• indoor rock climbing.
• beach running.
  
• road running.
• ?? triathlons.

But for now the Twisted Sisters and the Chubby Hubbys are still out on the trails. We haven't seen any snakes yet, but Spring is nesting time for the Magpies. These birds are very protective of their nests and they become very aggressive. They swoop down low as you run near their trees and attack from behind pecking your head. AND THEY HURT!!
It's quite a sight seeing runners out on the trails, running and swinging sticks above their heads. As a child I had six stitches in my head from a magpie attack, so you will understand they mean business!!

Last Sunday we had South Australia's biggest fun run for the year; the City to Bay 12km. event from Adelaide to Glenelg Beach. Nearly 31,000 people took part.

The Twisted Sisters take part in this run but we do not do this run as a timed event. Instaed we use this run to support our Chubby Hubbys or friends wanting to do a run for the first time.
My Chubby Hubby ran the whole 12 km. without stopping as did Susi No Bum's Chubby Hubby. But there were complaints from both of them when we then made them turn around and run back to Adelaide. No stamina in these boys. !!!

Me trying to run slow enough for the Chubby Hubby.

The Chubby Hubby breaking the 24 hour time barrier ! You go Boy!

Me and my friend Viv who ran her first ever fun run.

And so fellow runners who pass through my blog, love and cherish your toe nails as they are not with us forever.

Happy Running,
Cheers Karen.

Sydney 2010.

Sydney 100 km. finishing line. Luckily this is not a scratch and sniff picture !!

Never run with Chubby Hubby.

Last Sunday, a crisp spring Adelaide morning saw 144 intrepid trail runners abandon their cars at Mt. Lofty and catch a chartered bus down to Kingston Park beach to begin The George Driscoll Sea to Summit Trail run; 32km. with a total height gain of 1400 metres, all the way uphill and through some very rough trails.

Kingston park Beach.

Our Leader Terry at the pre race meeting.

This is where we left our cars!

The George Driscoll Sea to Summit Trail traverses the traditional lands of the Kaurna People and we were very lucky that some of the traditional land owners acted as volunteers on the day.
All the trail runners take turns acting as volunteers for our events and for this run I was the course Sweep, AKA The Grim Reaper! This means it was my job to run the trail at the back of the pack, set the pace for the slower participants and also remove the trail markers along the way.

Of course this meant that I was not able to actively participate as a timed runner, which was ok. But what I didn't anticipate was having the company of Chubby Hubby !
Now Chubby Hubby likes to participate in our events but usually I off load him to another group of Chubby Hubbys. However Susi No Bum's once Chubby Hubby ( but now just bad knees ) was unable to join us, so I was left with DH.

Now the politest way to comment on his performance is " he had a bad day in the office ". But OMG, I was almost reduced to total despair. He made very poor pre race nutritional choices and so whilst he started the run really well, hit the wall at around 16 km. and never got his mojo back. I'm quite sure I've seen corpses move off the autopsy table quicker than he was.

I was further disadvantaged by trying to support a small group of girls at the start of the race who were first timers. They were really struggling trying to keep pace up the hills and eventually retired at 6 km. I found a group of other runners who were lost and had to set them on the correct track and then in true Twisted Sister fashion also got myself hopelessly lost. A big Thankyou to a new group of runners who thought they would remove the course markers instead of leaving them for me and left me up SHIT CREEK without a paddle!!

DH knew I was getting very frustrated with him and was ready to push him over a cliff so he then tried the Smootchey Tactic.

DH: Isn't it lovely that we are doing this together.

Moi: No it bloody well is not. Just put one foot in front of the other and Move it !

DH: I'd support you if you were struggling.

Moi: W ell I'm not struggling and you're not even trying.

DH; I'm tired , SNIVVEL, SNIVVEL. I've got no energy.

MOI: Tell some one who FRIGGIN WELL CARES !

Fortunately Susi No Bum finished her run long before us so she came back down the hill to rescue me from The Chubby Hubby and to prevent a certain murder.

All that can be said is Thank God for Susi No Bum and Lofty Coffee.

Moi, collecting the course tags.

The Chubby Hubby with a well chosen sign holding him up !

Thankyou for visiting my blog.

Cheers Karen.

Hexagons to the Rescue.

Whoo Hoo, 2 posts in a week. I'm on a roll.
Yes I'm totally hooked on these little suckers called Hexagons.
I so enjoyed making my hexagon bag a couple of posts back that I just had to find another project using them.

I found this project in the current edition of the Australian Quilters Companion no. 44 and just had to begin it straight away. The process of making these hexagons is so relaxing, and I love working by hand. I'm not the best of friends my Bernina.

I'm thinking this project has come just at the right time as my feet have been very sore and battered since the Sydney 100 km. event. It's been good to have an excuse to sit and quietly sew with a Jane Austin DVD

Isn't it lucky my feet can't talk.

There are 48 very tiny little diamond shapes to be paper pieced and I was quite happy to sit and stitch them. However DF Lorraine at Hetties Patch introduced me to this little glue pen.
Now while I'm thinking gluing fabric is cheating, I must admit it has made the process much easier and quicker with the smaller pieces. Only a small dab of glue is needed, it dries invisible and the templates are very easily removed after.

I've fallen badly behind with my goal of doing one block a month of the Shores of Hawk Run Hollow. Lost my mojo a little bit with it. I enjoy stitching it but am finding it very intense. Also I am very new to cross stitching and when I kitted this project up I didn't really understand the different counts of fabric. I'm doing it on 28 count instead of the recommended 40 count, so it's going to be huge when finished.


Me thinks it is going to be too expensive to have framed so I may cover a European Sized pillow with it. And well betide if either of my 2 boys; DH or DS get any where near it.

Despite sore feet and general fatigue the Twisted Sisters are back out training for our next event. We are all still running a bit like epileptic caterpillars , but need to get our act together by Sunday for the Sea to Summit. 33km from Brighton to Mt. Lofty, elevation over the course 1,4oo metres. OMG.

Thanks for visiting my blog.
Happy Stitching or Running.
Cheers Karen.

Hawkesbury to the Harbour.

Moi, Tracey, Babette and Sue.

Eye, yai, yai, yai, yai, The 100km.trail run from the Hawkesbury to the Harbour in Sydney was definitely not what we were expecting. NO FRIGGIN WAY!! The advertising write ups told of a pleasant trail run through the bushland of Sydney. The grid maps we studied showed elevations of only 300 metres and as we have been training on elevations of 700-8oo metres we were confident. So you can imagine our concern when soon after the start of the event we were confronted with little more than narrow goat trails full of rubble, steep drops on one side, and a significant amount of rock climbing to be done. OMG.

Our wonderful support team; Kevin, Dianne, Daryl and Mike.

Kevin made this banner for our support vehicle.

Tracey and Moi early on in the race.

The hills were quite piddly compared to what we are used to, but we were definitely not prepared for this rugged terrain.


Twisted Sister Babette dislocated both her hips early on in the race falling on rubble but in an act of truly astonishing bravery was able to click them both back in by herself.


I experienced unanticipated night blindness on the rugged terrain in the dark and my reduced vision together with a chronic balance disorder meant that I struggled badly on the rocks and boulders at night. Tracey and Sue became my guide doggies and DH also joined in to give me extra support.


The night temperature dropped below zero and many runners needed treatment for hypothermia. One runner needed retrieval by helicopter and several others were stretchered off the course with various fractures and injuries.


Despite the rugged terrain the scenery was amazingly beautiful, the Hawkesbury River provided some spectacular views as it meandered around the Sydney coastline.


A Twisted Sister Team finally crossed the finish line in 27 hours and 13 minutes. That was a placing of 212 out of 497 teams. The fastest team finished in 12 hours 7 and the slowest in 46 hours 25.

Seriously who would put this in just before the finishing line?

Our support team were truly wonderful and nothing was too much trouble, even when we were feeling somewhat grumpy.
The official checkpoints were also brilliant with plenty of food supplies plus access to medical, physiotherapy and podiatry services.

Twisted Sisters Sue and Tracey are now keen to tackle the 100km. North Face Adventure race next year. I say they can have it to themselves. DH and I plan to do the 100km. in Melbourne or Sydney again next year, but take down time during the night hours to avoid me needing to run at night . Interestingly many teams stopped and camped over night in Sydney and resumed running in daylight, which I think is a pretty smart move.

All in all the event was a brilliant experience and I was very proud with what I was able to achieve and that we raised over $4000 for Oxfam.

Our next events coming up are;

September 12 : sea to Summit. 33km.

September 19. City to bay. 12km.

October 3. Yurrebilla. 56km.

Thanks for dropping by. Please leave a comment if you visit as I value your comments.

Cheers Karen.