Day: October 8, 2010
Training log: 8 October. Shake out, sprints and stretch
Last week I took my training easy resting my legs as much as possible. Training last week was spent in the pool mainly doing sprints of deep water running for extended periods and light periods of stretching.
My legs had tired over the previous weeks, and were beginning to show the stress of overtraining combined with a lack of sufficient stretching.
Warming up tonight, and setting off for an initial run I felt as though I had a new pair of legs. Well rested and prepared for the start on Thursday.
Tonight after a warming up of stretches, light aerobic activity and dynamic stretches I went for a slow job followed by interval training of 12 x 200 m sprints along the waters edge of Sydney Harbour. The long nights of daylight savings with the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background made it very enjoyable.
I finished up with a slow 5 km jog ending with an extended period of stretching. Over the next few days I will focus on my diet and building up fuel for the journey ahead.
The Near Bank of the Bridge: Wrap up from New York
So what came out of the United Nations High-Level Summit to discuss the Millennium Development Goals late last month?
The irony of spending a lot of money for people to gather together and talk about poverty is something I am still thinking about…
The drama and grandiose of visiting the United Nations in New York must be appealing. Certainly this was reflected in Meredith Burgmann’s comments in an Op-Ed published in the Sydney Morning Herald. Meredith Burgmann, a former NSW ALP MP, is president of the Australian Council for International Development, and was part of the Australian delegation to the UN Conference on the Millennium Development Goals.
Disappointing progress in many areas.
Many failed promises blamed on the global financial crisis.
The meeting was overshadowed by Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, alleging the September 11 attacks were an American conspiracy in a separate meeting a few days after the Conference.
The New York Conference marks the beginning of a bridge I am defining for the 10 City Bridge Run.
It is the near bank.
Where we cross first.
The far bank defining the other side of the bridge is the G20 Summit.
Another important meeting of institutional and national leaders.
The G20 describes itself as the premier forum for international economic cooperation: “Our goal is to strengthen the global financial system and build a global economy rooted in sustainable growth and prosperity for all”.
The span, the bit in between, is all of us. All of us. Our global village.
I contend that what happens between us is as important as what happens at the two institutional meetings.
That is what the 1o City Bridge Run is about.
It is all about you, and me, and everyone else. We are responsible.
Meredith made an interesting comment about the MDG 3 which I am focusing on today:
One of my particular passions – the third goal, which promises to promote gender equality and empower women – is hardly mentioned. Maternal deaths seem to be important but not the empowerment of women. Tucked away in a side report was the astonishing information that of the nine countries that still have no women in parliament, six were in the Pacific. The percentage of women in Pacific parliaments is 2.9 per cent and even the next worst, the Middle East, has 12 per cent. It is a total disgrace and unless Australia begins to use its influence with the male leaderships of these countries, nothing will change.
Meredith wove the importance of how there is interplay between the MDG:
Rudd is particularly concerned with goals four and five, which deal with maternal health and child mortality. Improvement in maternal death rates has slowed dramatically. More than 500,000 women die each year of pregnancy-related causes. Australia announces that it is part of a newly launched public/private global alliance with the US, Britain, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to meet goals four and five and pledges $1.6 billion to this alliance. Rudd also promises to allocate $5 billion to education, $1.8 billion to food security and $1.2 billion for action on climate change over the next five years.
Check her article out here.
It is interesting that the embedded video is about Australian domestic political point-scoring. Is that a tacit commentary in itself on the importance and impact this conference had on a broader level back home in Australia? Interesting to note that many of my friends still have no idea of what an ‘MDG’ actually is. I think we will all know in 2015, although will this be for the right reasons?
I Dare You
The most powerful force of change on the planet is a girl. (Thanks to the input from my friends Judith, Anne and Billy who challenged this statement. I would reword it replacing ‘force of change’ with ‘force for change’. What do you think? Does it make a difference?)
6 Days to Go. 8 MDG: MDG 3- Promote Gender Equity and Empower Women
Spotlight on gender equity and empowerment of women today.
Yesterday, my good friend Tiffany sent me through a video The Girl Effect: The Clock is Ticking. Worth a look- go on, check it out and I will wait here until you return.
So how was it?
In the Millennium Development Goal (MDG), the United Nations (UN) have set a target to Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015. From the video and thinking about this, already the symbiotic relationship between these MDG should be more clear. These are not stand alone stove-piped objectives.
So why should I care? This year I am also an Ambassador for the White Ribbon Foundation which looks at Australian men stepping up to end violence against women. Earlier this year, another friend of mine April, informed me about the atrocious prevalence of rape and sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DROC). Rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war and control. Statistics so high that they top the world. Nothing to boast about.
As an Ambassador of the White Ribbon Foundation, I would hope that these statistics are seen as ugly as they are, and that through this we men can reflect this back into our own communities and behaviours. If it is not ok for us to put up with violence against women here in Australia, why should it be any different in DROC? We should be outraged!
Back to what the UN have to say about this MDG 3:
- For girls in some regions, education remains elusive
- Poverty is a major barrier to education, especially among older girls
- In every developing region except the Commonwealth of Independent States, men outnumber women in paid employment
- Women are largely relegated to more vulnerable forms of employment
- Women are over-represented in informal employment, with its lack of benefits and security
- Top-level jobs still go to men — to an overwhelming degree
- Women are slowly rising to political power, but mainly when boosted by quotas and other special measures
So what should we make of this? It would seem that there is an opportunity to advance this forward through much of the excellent advocacy and game changing approaches through microfinance groups by organisations like the IWDA.
The video presents an opportunity. Can we harness this? And when will we consider those women and girls subjected to appalling conditions of rape and sexual violence as neighbours within our broader global village, the global ‘dongnae’ (Korean for village)?
Please consider sponsoring the 10 City Bridge Run. Please sponsor $24 to make this journey possible.
Building Bridges 