cold and wet

Today was on the chilly side, but not too bad, and as I wasn't able to go out over the weekend I strapped on the old running shoes and plodded up to the riverbank. As I left the house I noticed it was raining a little but as I got to said riverbank I realised it was also a tad blowy. After about 2km along the top of the bank I realised that it wasn't actually 'a tad blowy', it was a fecking winter storm with wind blowing in from the Urals and throwing rain drops at me at just under the speed of light. It's been a while since the whole side of my face went numb due to the cold. But I finished the run, though I only did a 5.3km instead of the usual 7.3 as I was getting too damn wet. 26m 11s if you're recording these things. Right knee is quite painful now, though, in fact it has been all day - not a good sign

On Saturday, after organising health checks for 230 kids, I went to watch the Bledisloe cup game in Tokyo. Had I been in a position where I had to pay for the ticket I would not have gone (indeed I had not brought a ticket even though people at work had). However when the NZ embassy gives your school a bunch of freebies then what sort of person would I be to decline? (A silly one).

So I went along but, to be honest, it was a bit underwhelming. It wasn't England or Japan, for a start, so I didn't care who won. It was played at the old national stadium near Gaienmae which is big, 45,000 were there, but you feel a bit far away as it's an athletics stadium so you have the tracks around the pitch so everything is distant. Also as I had been working I couldn't meet up with people I knew so I ended up watching by myself (with 45,000 people of course), and whilst I chatted with the Japanese people next to me a bit, it wasn't quite the same.

Anyway NZ won although Aus made a decent fist of the first half. Now both teams are off to Europe. As Japan is hosting the 2019 Rugby World Cup and they want to expand the game and its popularity beforehand I expect I'll be able to watch all these games on TV, or at least on Sky... but no, no coverage and the nz/aus game on Saturday was on an even smaller pay satellite channel - these people have no idea...