21.1kms

The two-oceans marathon goes around the Cape and runners go past the Atlantic and the Indian oceans. Two oceans - simple huh. I didn't see either ocean as I chickened out and just did the half marathon - 21.1ks.

Let me stress - I am not a runner. I hate running. Running is something people who are not co-ordinated enough to play a ball sport do. It is for people who have been bad. Very bad. for people who need to punish themselves.

I am not one of these people. But I have done the Argus (109km cycle) and maintain that anyone can do it and I wanted to see how bad THIS was. And the answer...

It wasn't that bad.

Did I train? Well, yes. I had five training runs. None longer than 10ks. Two in Ireland and three in SA - up to cath's house. You see, I really hate running. So why should I train for something I hate doing? I needed to finish in three hours - that was the cut-off. That is why i did my initial training run - to see how fast/ slow I was. I finished the 10km run in one hour. In my mind that meant that come the day, I only had to do another 11kms in 2 hours - and I reckoned I could walk that fast - so why train more?

I got the heads up from my boet and other runners... vaseline round the groin and plasters on the nipples are a must... chaff can cause bleedy nipples and no-one wants that. Plasters? didn't have any. but Cath's mom had some... so I ran with the little mermaid plasters on my nipples. Nice touch...

You know you want to see that, don'tcha?

In the end I ran with Tim and Kim Lambley - and we did it in about 2:30. The important thing was that I beat Tim. And I would have run faster but he held Kim and I back. He's such a wet panty. I kept saying 'let's push on guys' and he'd say 'No, Alan, you're too strong for me, slow down damn you, you iron man you'. Yep, that's what he said. Ask Kim.


Dave (Cath's boet) has spotted me and runs alongside his muscular hero.

The guy in the black top behind me actually won the race. This was me catching and passing for second place at the time. But I then stopped and chatted to Cath for a while.
Winning isn't everything to me.

These photos were in no way posed by the way.

This was going past Cath's house. She gave me an energy drink and some bar-ones.
Tim needed the energy drink more than me so he glugged it all down but I ate the chocolate - Cath HAD gone to all that effort. I chatted to Cath for about 20 minutes, I reckon, and I also read the Weekend Argus and a short novel before carrying on, and then caught Tim and Kim in about five minutes.

All in all it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be... the worst part was getting those bloody plasters off my nipples.

Boulders and the penguins

Well with Inge and Martin and the fam out, we needed to take the kids to the beach to show them what a real beach is like. Apparently Kiara had nearly drowned at a friend's house when she jumped into a pool and got such a shock by the temperature - she was only used to heated pools! Well Boulders past Simonstown certainly wasnt't heated, but it was the real thing and the kids got to make sandcastles, chase the wildlife and eat sand - like all little kids should!

The rental... with no aircon. What a crime!

So Mart and Kiara - he's using her to hide his tummy. Don't be fooled - he has a spare tyre like mine.

And Inge and Jake. He's a naughty little monster if ever there was one. I'd say he'll be trouble when he's older.

And the Valkenburg boys whacked the stuffing out of a tennis ball or two. Beach bats. Sigh, I missed that.

The kids got to wander around a bit and check out the wildlife. Jake went chasing penguins and Jarrod (Megan - my cousin - her child) checked out a dassie.

The nice thing about this beach is that, even though it is a pay beach, you get to get really close to the penguins. Like this little guy.

Photo on left... three hot chicks.

And just in case you thought there were only a handful... think again.

Kiara really put her foot in it...

Kiara a bit scared of the chilly water... toughen up girl.

Jake the adventurer.

A parting shot as we left...

Alan's work farewell

Yes, this crazy bunch of people are the work dudes...
The Irish Examiner crowd... these are the people who write (and edit) tomorrow's news... scary when you put it like that isn't it.

Now because I didn't wanna seem like a complete tosser, I didn't take my camera to work and get the 'around the office' pics (even though I wanted to). I settled, instead, for the 'in the pub' pics, which still make me a tosser - but not such a big one. I really wanted to get a piccie of the old fogies who steal like four egg samies (that's just greedy) and then go back for more but a photo wouldn't do the moment justice.

So this is some of the work crowd at my farewell - they gave me a mega-cool front page of the paper replica with articles written about me and some good photo-shopped pics of Cath and I (and a few other colleagues) and also did a generous whip-around which will certainly help with a nappy or two. Good okes these.

Last weekend in Cork

So we were starting to get ready to head home and the weekends were running out before we left - we had like three weekends left and we wanted to spend one in Dublin seeing the Dubs crowd, we were in Rome for one and .... well what better way to say goodbye to Ireland than go for a freezing walk up a mountain in Kerry in the pouring rain.

Now some people couldn't handle that - but my girl could do it at six months pregnant (or somewhere around there!) - WHAT A TOUGH COOKIE!

You can see she's got a bit of a bump at this stage but my doesn't she wear that bump well. So this is us walking around near Torc mountain. Only about four of us did this walk - the other's ....puck, puck, pwaaaaaack (those are chicken noises for the uninformed).

I couldn't take pics on the top of the mountain cos the wind was whipping in so fast and hard I would probably have damaged my camera.

So that was the Saturday....

And then on Sunday, Linda, Liam and Loughlin decided to take us for a drive around a bit of west Cork... which is stunning. There were spots of rain but nothing too bad and I managed to get a photie here and there.

This is a stunning spot and it turned out that we'd actually been here before... it is like something out of a famous five book... little fisherman's cove, beautiful surrounding area, etc.

The Cashman clan treated us to lunch at a lovely little spot and we sat by a fire and ate awaylooking out over the bay / inlet.

Bruiser and mom...

... then posed for a pic or two outside.

Then we went to one of the nicest beaches in Cork... and did the photo thing again. Had to take a million of this photo cos Cath kept closing her eyes at the vital moment... sigh.




And then Liam decided he wanted to be in a photo too...
The women were stealing all the spotlight!

This was the view the other way...



And then just like that, that was it. Linda and Liam... you rock... thanks for such a cool time... we'll never forget you or your kindness and we'll always have a bed for you at our place. Well, maybe not a bed, but a couch. Well, a blow up mattress. Look, the floor is really comfy once you get used to it too....