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Hit by a bus

This post was meant to be published on the 20th of November 2004. However, it took until today for the wheels of the legal system to finish grinding. The bus driver pled guilty to Overtaking when unsafe.

Great little metaphorical phrase, isn’t it? Google gives 205,000 results for “Hit by a bus”.

On Thursday, I was hit by a bus. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a member of the Metaphorical Bus Lines fleet. I had just set off on my ride to work, flying along after a nice downhill at about 50km/h, when a school bus that I’d overtaken three times in the last 2km decided to merge left. Into me. Somehow I managed not to get forced into the parked car whizzing by on my left, but I slid down the side of the bus, the bike went from under me, and I experienced stopping from high speed using my elbow, shoulder and back as brake pads. I got up to see the bus disappearing over the hill. Bastard didn’t even stop. Luckily another cyclist had seen it happen from behind me and took off after the bus after checking that I was OK.

I didn’t appear to have any broken bones, just plenty of grazes and dripping blood, and was soon surrounded by drivers checking to see if I was OK. As a commuter cyclist, my view of motorists tends to get a bit jaundiced – there are so many near misses by motorists who don’t even check before they turn. But I take it all back. Well, most of it. A lovely lady called the ambulance for me, which arrived within a couple of minutes. As did the police (more about that later – I wouldn’t want to prejudice an investigation. The other cyclist got the rego of the bus.) Anyhow, Bruce and Barry the Ambos checked me out, gave me some Penthane (wonderful stuff – they should sell it in pubs!) and took me to Royal Melbourne Hospital. The hospital staff x-rayed my back and neck – all clear – and then cleaned the gravel out of my wounds and sent me on my way.

So, I’ll just thank God I’m OK. It could have been a lot worse.

I think I’ll slow down a little now. Maybe try a few sidestreets.

If only we could get all the cars off the road, it’d be a lot safer… 🙂

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Latest excellent movies

Have seen a few great ones recently:

Little Fish. Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving (utterly brilliant performance), Sam Neill, Noni Hazlehurst, Martin Henderson and Dustin Nguyen. I won’t say much about this one – to summarise it would be to insult it. Superlative performances from the entire cast in a heart-wrenching story from Jacqueline Perske.

Look Both Ways. Written and directed by Sarah Watt. William McInnes and Justine Clarke play two individuals connected by death. He’s just been diagnosed with cancer and trying to come to terms with his father’s death – also from cancer. She is obsessed by death and dying, imagining a horrible demise at every mundane turn (these imaginings beautifully illustrated by snatches of Sarah Watt’s art). They meet through the accidental death of a local man hit by a train. A wonderfully interconnected story.

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Daylight Shavings Time

Every year since 1997, I’ve shaved my head over the summer months.

When I first did it, I didn’t expect it to become a habit. I had long hair – mainly a reaction to being required to have short hair throughout school – but it was past its use-by date. I’d kept it tied back for the last few years, and I no longer had much of an emotional attachment to it. I’d sometimes contemplated the idea of shaving my head, and so decided that if I was going to get a real haircut, I might as well get a real haircut. I have a great photo of Deb’s hysterical reaction – laughter/tears/disbelief – when I returned home freshly shorn, in spite of the fact that I’d told her I was doing it.

To my surprise, I loved it. First, my “hair maintenance” overhead almost disappeared. Showers were now finished in two minutes. No time spent on doing my hair. Shaving took a little longer, of course. When it’s hot outside, it’s like having a fridge on your head. When you take your hat off (if you shave your head during an Australian summer, you’ll be wearing a hat), if there’s even a small breeze, the sweat on your head evaporates quickly, cooling it beautifully. Easier to apply sunscreen too – no hairline. You can also stick your head under a tap without needing a towel afterwards. And it almost goes without saying that you will never have a Bad Hair Day.

So now I begin shaving my head when we change over to Daylight Savings Time, and let it grow back when we change back to Standard Time. Winter is cold, so it’s nice to have an organic beanie.

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Halfway there

Today I ran my first half-marathon. Results should be on the website on Tuesday. I had wanted to do a full marathon this year, but was sick in July and August and missed too much training, so I decided to enter the half. My time was around 1:59, which I was extremely happy with. I slapped the time clock as I ran under it, showing 1:59:59. My actual time was about a minute less than gun time.

My goals were firstly to pace myself properly so I didn’t end up flagging terribly in the second half, and secondly to break 2:06 so I could beat 6min/km. An outside hope was to beat 2hrs. I was wearing my heart-rate monitor, which made it easier to set the right pace, and ran the first half-hour at an average of 140. The second half hour averaged out at 147, and I was feeling great through the half way mark. I was beginning to overtake runners that had passed me during the first half, but had gone out too hard and were now fading. At that point I was still on track for a 2hr finish, so I decided to maintain the pace. The third half hour saw me averaging 161, and I did two splits for the final half hour – an average of 167 for the first 15 minutes, and 178 for the last 15 minutes, which included a good sprint to the finish line – when I turned the last bend and saw the finish line clock reading 1:58:30, I just had to go for it. It was great to do a negative split – 57min vs 1:02.

The legs feel OK, but the knees are pretty sore. I definitely need to lose the last 20kg before I do the full marathon. Roll on 2006!

Running across the finish line
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Napoleon

Just saw Napoleon Dynamite. It’s great.

Feels like a list coming on…

Marty’s top movies of 2004/2005 (hey, I don’t get out that often):
Somersault
In My Father’s Den
The Human Stain
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Garden State
I Heart Huckabees
Napoleon Dynamite