Whew! What a week that was.  Last Saturday I went for a little 12km run, the last weekend run before D day.  Oh that's right that was after Friday night at Peter and Mary's to celebrate Peter's birthday. The rest of Saturday I think was just doing chores outside, mowing bits etc. Oh we also took Biscuit to the dog wash in town, and let the kids buy some new toys. Saturday night the kids had another movie night, and Sunday we all went for a big family walk up to Taradale (with Biscuit) and stopped in at the cafe, before spending an hour at the playground mostly with the kids enjoying riding on their scooters in the skate bowl.

Did it!  Left at 8:15am, arrived 4 hours, 59 minutes and 18 seconds later at Elephant Hill.

My legs are SO sore.  I can't really walk.  I hurt.

But I did it!

Recognition awards, for displaying one or more of the school values of ‘Caring’, ‘Collaboration’ and/or ‘Curiosity’ have been awarded to the following students. Congratulations and well done to:

Room 1: Van Farquharson, Tennessey Apiata-Spark

Room 1B: Joseph Mooney, Mackenzie Meeuws

Room 2: Jake Burt, Charlotte Burt

Room 3: Bethany Harman, Levi Bayley

Room 4: Daniel Jonson, Bella Kirkpatrick-Thrower

Room 5: Carter Kelly, Jana Todd

Room 6: Edmund Every, Xander Breeds

Room 7: Brooke Jenyns, Chloe Jarvis

Room 8: Isabella Clayton, Kaiza Mita-Williams

Room 9: Lucy Beaumont, Mason Murray

Room 10: Zac Robinson, Paige Guilford

Room 11: Tairell Pearson-Tareha, Bruce Carswell, Deanna Hatton-Heaven

Room 13: Capri Apiata-Spark, Lucas Casbolt

Did a big run on the Saturday just gone, 33km.  I had a false start when I got to the end of the street and realised I'd forgotten to put bandaids on my boobs.  If you don't do that man do you get some mega chafing that hurts.  But yup, I set off, it was a perfect lovely sunny day and I just went for it.  I'd done all my training runs during the week and was pretty much over the cold so I went really well.  3 hours and 33 minutes, not too shabby.  There was one section that was really hard because I'd run out of water and there wasn't anywhere to get a drink, so I slowed a bit there.  Hopefully on race day the drinks stations keep me going.  The main thing I stuffed up was the end point, usually I try and have it...

Went for a big run on Saturday morning.  I was hoping to do 33km, but at 25km I really just hit the wall.  I could feel even before then that I was getting stuffed!  It was a really sunny morning which was great for running, but I got pretty hot.  Plus I'd pretty much taken the week off because of Easter and not really feeling that great with a flu.  Anyway, I hope it's no an omen! Only 3 weeks to go now, time really has flown.  I will do some long runs Tues/Weds/Thurs and then see if I can do a comfortable 30k on Saturday.  If I can then I'll feel ready and happy.  

We've just got back after a long, wet drive from Rotorua, after a lovely weekend away for Easter.  We had a really great time, so I'll try and remember all the things we did!

Friday the kids woke up late, which was fine because it was a holiday anyway.  I fed them breakfast then while they were getting ready I took Biscuit to his Holiday Home.  I wasn't sure it'd be busy at the Kennels but boy oh boy was I wrong.  It was mental, there was basically a queue of people lining up to drop their dog off.  But I said goodbye to Biscuit and then headed home, grabbing some coffee on the way.

Well the big news (is it big? Maybe not) is that I ran 30km today!  Thirty Freaking Kms!  It's only 4 more than I did a couple of weeks ago but it was a huge metal barrier that I'm glad I've done now.  I was actually shaking and a bit nervous when I left this morning, I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to do it.  But I did.  It was hard going, especially towards the end.  Luckily I had my phone (and my watch) which has paywave on it, so 23km in I quickly stopped at the Z petrol station and bought myself a Poweraid.  Filled up my running bottles on my belt and drank the rest.  It was very cold and I nearly chucked it right back up on the forecourt, but managed not to.  And then yea, made it all the way down Taradale road and back up the bike track to home.  Beth and Theo came running out to greet me which was pretty neat.

We're back to boom time both at work and at home.  Feijoa sales are going mental, it was raining all day yesterday, an annoying windy drizzle, but that didn't slow the Feijoa sales at all!  That said, it's slow going today, I haven't made any sales yet.

What's been happening?  Well, work has gone right off the tree and is now going to be mega super busy for the next 4-5 months.  So that's good, it's better to be super busy than to be sitting around wondering if we're going to get paid in the next fortnight or not.  I went down to Wellington Wednesday/Thursday just gone for my annual review, that went as well as it usually does, no problems or any complaints from my managers.  I asked for 5 weeks leave instead of 4 and I was granted that, not that it really means that much because they...

Well first of all, I powered off beaker.muppetz.com last night.  That Virtual Machine has served muppetz.com and tjharman.com website for the last ~9 years.  But now all the mail lives on a DigitalOcean Droplet, and my websites are hosted on the mini-server in the cupboard under the stairs.  Migration of everything seems to have gone OK, Sarah's work emails are still working which is the main thing.  And I can still type this story.

So Friday, yes Friday.  Friday was Chris' funeral.  Thank you very much Dad for going on my behalf, it sounds like it was a great sendoff for a great friend.  Farewell buddy, I'm gonna miss you.

Friday night Sarah came into work to meet up with her friend David for drinks.  I took the kids and Biscuit to Ahuriri to play for an hour, then went home and ordered Pizza due to a cock up in...

Well it's been a busy last week.  As you probably know Chris passed away on Friday night.  I knew he was getting very weak, my last few messages with him on the phone his replies had been one or two works.  Still it happened a little quicker than I thought it would, only ~24 hours before passed away he was still sending me (very short) messages.  I got the phonecall from Simone's Mum while I was out jogging on Saturday morning, I was 8 and a bit km into a 21k+ run and her name popped up on my watch, I didn't realise who it was at first but when it dawned on me I stopped and rang back.  And she gave me the news that I thought she was probably going to, that Chris passed away at 11:30pm on Friday night.  I talked to Simone for a minute or...