Albert Park Lake

I took the two Andrews running at Albert Park Lake this morning. They were both ready when I arrived to pick them up, but being 13 and 12 (less 1 day) respectively, neither had thought to bring any water. That organised, we headed off into town, chatting about the run ahead. They are both keen sportsmen and enjoy running, so they were really looking forward to it.

I made good use of the info I've learned from the running course, and gave the boys a proper warm up. We discussed stuff like checking how your body is feeling during the warm up and deciding whether or not you should run. We weren't on a time schedule and I didn't remember my HRM, so we had no idea of the time or pace. We just headed off at a nice steady run after our warm up. One of the boys has the remnants of a nasty cough and we had to drop back to a walk a couple of times so that he could cough properly but the rest of the time we jogged happily along. At the end, just to show that we could, we surged to the car, which the boys loved. I just ran along behind them, enjoying the fact that I still had energy left to run strongly. We finished up with some stretching and then headed off to breakfast.

It was a little chilly. I had expected to be too hot, as the temperature was 13 degrees, but the breeze kept it a fair bit cooler. There were quite a few runners out and about, but the boys were definitely the youngest runners out there. It's interesting watching how people treat them. I've noticed this before when I've been out with the boys. When I'm running with adults, groups of three or more people will share the path to go past two abreast on each side, but they don't make the same concession for the boys.

We had an amusing encounter with a small dog. I spotted a group of people walking with two small dogs up ahead and warned the boys about the dangers of tripping over dogs. We slowed down a little as we ran past but the walkers made no attempt to keep their dogs away from us. One behaved beautifully and ignored us, but the other one dashed straight up to one of the Andrews, who tried to dodge unsuccessfully and ended up jumping across the dog, at which stage it decided it was interested in the other Andrew. The acrobatics were hilarious. Eventually the owner called the dog away.

We later saw someone walking a couple of huge dogs, and the boys had great fun working out what they'd do if those dogs decided to run towards them. I was half hoping they would as I think it would have been highly entertaining to see the two Andrews attempting to hurdle the larger dogs. Fortunately for the dogs and for the Andrews, the dog owner had them safely on a leash.

Even though I've lived in Melbourne on and off for twenty of the last thirty years, I've never gone around Albert Park Lake before. It was a fabulous run. We all enjoyed ourselves and I'm sure we'll be back to do it again. We had a chat about our next run, and we'll probably go back to the Tan as only one of the Andrews has done this run. We also talked about fun runs, and they are both keen to come along to a fun run with me. That's going to depend on all their sporting commitments. Fortunately for me, cricket season hasn't kicked off yet so I was able to have them both this morning.

I treated the boys to breakfast, giving them the choice of a bacon and eggs breakfast or Maccas. They chose the bacon and eggs option. We headed down Clarendon Street, where we found the Groove cafe. The food was delicious and both boys managed to polish off enormous breakfasts. It's great being an aunty and being able to spoil my nephews.

By the time we finished breakfast, we were a little late for getting one of my nephews to church on time, so I decided that I'd finish my birthday shopping and give Andrew his present a day early. I'd bought him a skateboard yesterday, but I wanted to buy him knee guards to use with it. He's been really excited about his birthday, so he was more than happy to start it today. I won't get to see him tomorrow, so it worked out really well for both of us.

All in all it was a successful expedition, and the three of us will definitely go running together again.