Tuesday, 15 January - AV Shield

Went and saw my mother today in Ringwood and she seemed much better than yesterday, which is encouraging. She even managed to nag me a little so she must be feeling better. Could possibly be the weekend before she is home so will take another half day off and pop in on Thursday afternoon before training to see her

Got a lift back home with Kylie and organised for Rey to pick me up after he'd picked up Joel. Got to Aberfeldie and did a warm up lap. Legs feeling a little heavy despite the rest day yesterday. Flirted with the idea of doing a 100 metres to try to get my time down from a pedestrian 14.50 at the last meet, but that would have been a distraction from my goal of running a fast 1500 metres

As it was, we needed runners in the 800 metres so went in that as my first track event for the night. Went through the first lap feeling really comfortable and the split time of 67 seconds tells the story. Really tried to push - too early as usual - and was "content" to slip behind the leader with 200 metres to go rather than try to mount a serious challenge. The scent of blood in the water was strong as I slipped from 1st with 250 to go, to getting overtaken in the home straight for 4th place and 2:16. Just can't get any quicker than this over 800 at the moment which is frustrating

The 200 metres looked to be pretty light on for Coburg Harriers and on another night I might have entered it to make up the numbers but the 1500 was my focus. Lined up for the 1500 after putting my name down at the Discus, Javelin and Long Jump. Very nervous beforehand. Once again I went through the first 300 metres too slow - this time 53 seconds. I need to start a bit faster and get this to 51 seconds through 300. Felt get through the second and third laps, but way too slow at 75 seconds for each before finishing strongly with 71 seconds in the last. Finished in 9th place for 4:34. I need to be no slower than 72 seconds per lap, so again frustrating to be a bit off that. Not a great time but nevertheless my quickest for the season. And come to think of it my last for the season until the Vic Champs. That's a bit of a worry and I might now re-assess on whether that's what I should target for the Champs.

We had one guy do the 1500 metres after attending the first night of AFL boundary umpire training for the year. He did a great time considering. Also Joel did his first 1500 for a few months and he really trailed off in the last lap. Was looking good for most of it

Did my field events - 12 metres or so for both the Jav and Discus before 3.83 in the Long Jump. Small numbers but at the end of the day its valuable points for our lower division teams. Then went over for the 4 x 400 relay's. With all our gun sprinters available, I thought I could ease my way through my third leg. No such luck with two rabbits in Luong and Matty Mifsud in front of me. Luong handed over in third place so I had to put in a fair dinkum effort to at least maintain our placing. Thought I had the Western A's kid in front of me with 250 to go, but obviously he had saved a bit for the last half whereas I was pumped full of adrenalin at how well we were going and had gone out hard not saving enough for the end. Still, very happy with the time and I think we ended up third overall at the end of it, thanks to Brazza

Two warm down laps and I was done for the night. Home at 10:45 pm to relax, or so I thought ...

While I was off enjoying myself, my problem middle child Amelia - who with her brother had been put to bed from the car at 6:00 pm, both exhausted and already asleep - had woken up at 6:30 pm hungry. She proceeded to grizzle and tantrum through dinner before being put down again at 8:00 pm. She screamed and cried for an hour before falling asleep. Then at 9:30 pm, she woke up screaming and Kylie got her up. This went on for another hour before in desperation she lay down in our bed with Amelia at 10:30 pm. She was instantly asleep, which is surprising because we have never brought Amelia into our bed before. So when I got home, I found all the lights on, the television on and the computer on but no-one around. Eerie, let me tell you. I woke Kylie up, put Amelia in her own bed, then had some dinner. Going to watch Star Trek Next Gen for an hour to let my dinner settle then go to bed. Long slow run tomorrow maybe with Shane Jansen and Scotty Hutton

TOTAL DISTANCE = including warm up/warm down = 4 kilometres