For what seems like the tenth time this fortnight I’ve got itchy eyes. It’s at least the fourth time that it’s woken me up so I decided that I really had to do something about it.

Aaron gave me some Zyrtec tablets the other day and I think they’ve helped, but they take about 30 minutes to get in my bloodstream and act on the enflamed area, which would be fine if I had a half-hour headstart but it’s a pain when I want instant relief. So at 4:00AM I jumped in the car and went to the chemist in Mt. Lawley looking for some eye drops. On the way I passed the Gull petrol station that’s 2 minutes from my place so I checked there first, and as luck would have it, they had some Murine.

I’ve now coated my right eyeball in the light yellow liquid and I’m waiting for it to not hurt when it closes before I can got back to bed.

Taking action - though it’s almost two weeks late and would have helped me all along - feels better than being the victim. I now fear I might have skank eye (the type without the skank-jizz), though according to Wikipedia I’m probably only a few days away from my body healing itself.

I joined the Facebook group “The Patrick Bateman 1000 crunch super six pack Spartan Challenge” a week or so ago and haven’t logged any progress. My last visit to the gym I knocked out 150 crunches in sets of 25 with about a 10-12 second rest period. I didn’t push that hard. Today I did 250 and probably had another 50 in me, but it would have been hard work getting them out.

The crunches I’m doing are “choke crunches” which involve keeping your legs raised with your feet crossed (but not your ankles, or you’ll be ankle-locked by the blue-belts) and your calves are parallel to the ground. We use them for keeping people in your guard and applying a cross-label choke, with the crunch pulling them down into you/you up into them.

I’m going to aim for 300 next time, which is the title of the movie that the challenge is named after.

I missed the Sunday morning run today - when my alarm went off I felt achy (breaky hearty) from jiu-jitsu yesterday so I messaged Mark and Emma and told them to go without me.

Maggie and I went to the gym this afternoon. We normally do 30 minutes of cardio and about the same of weights/machines/abs and today was no different. 10 minutes on the bikes together (I used to hate the bikes but they’re not so bad now) and then 20 minutes on the treadmill for me, but only 10 for Maggie and she hits the cross-trainer. Being heterosexual excludes me from the cross trainer so I spend more time running.

The Nano has a “Powersong” feature which is activated when you hold the centre button for a few seconds. Mine is “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins :) I normally sit on an easy pace of 10km/hr and sometimes take it up to 11km/hr for 3-5 minutes, but with the help of the Powersong today I blasted out the second kilometre at 12k/hr so I was pretty happy. I set the run to “20 minutes” and at significant points throughout the run I was informed how long to go, and what mark I’d hit by the lovely Apple girl. I belted the last minute and a half out at 13km/hr and felt great. When I finished I was told I’d beaten my best time for the mile by Paula Radcliffe, who holds the current record for the womens marathon.

I think I’ll work on my speed in the short term rather than my endurance. The long runs just don’t interest me all that much and I enjoyed running for a time rather than a distance today. My favourite distance in the past has been the “Mini-bridges” course from my place, down to the river, along the Causeway, through East Perth, over the Graham Farmer bridge, along the river past Burswood and back up Albany Hwy. I might try and get a few of those in during the week. I know I can hit longer distances but it’s just not exciting for me… kinda like Mags on the snowboard I suspect.

Lastly, I did get a little bit of EIPH again when I was going 13km/hr but I think that’s to be expected. I had some Ventolin before the run and that really, really helps.

I decided to start my weekend with a quick run. I had planned to do the 3.5km circuit that takes me down to the bus interchange, across to McDonalds, up Berwick and home. I made it down to the bus interchange and something wasn’t right. My breathing was really off and I could taste blood in the back of my throat. I decided to push on and as I hit the park near Mark and Emma’s I regretted it.

It felt like someone had stuffed cotton wool in my lungs and I couldn’t get a deep enough breath so I headed back home, running past Mark and Emma’s and up the little hill.

I puffed down some Ventolin when I got home and the situation was solved almost instantly. Using Google I found this biking forum’s thread that looks interesting, and one that describes my symptoms… just for the wrong mammal.

The worst thing is that now my Nike + profile shows I only ran 2.19km so I look like a pussy.

These are really tasty. They’re Woolworth’s Select brand which is their gourmet range and you’ll find them in the snack foods aisle. So taste-tacular.