Awe hell, this morning I ran to work, in fact, I feel like I'm still running to work.
Despite having got here ages ago and having eaten and showered I still appear to be kinda sweating from the top of my noggin and I have that dazed contentment of exercise. Running in the morning is hard work though and running with a rucksack full of a change of clothes (although no alternatives for the ugly shoes), a towel and two library books that need to go back, first thing in the morning is tougher still.
My plan had been to get up at 7 and do the shorter of my two usual runs, allowing me to shower at home and then walk to work, or perhaps even catch the bus - it's important to use public transport as much as possible, 'use it or lose it', that's my motto; it's a conscience thing and nothing to do with laziness, of course. But after getting up, hydrating and eating some toast for carbo goodness I fell asleep again. This only left me with the dreaded option of the run to work, something I have previously resisted as my paranoid mind doesn't like to run where too many people can see me, especially pedestrians, as I think they're judging me and thinking that I don't seem to run much faster than they walk. I hate this part of my mind, it's a fool, but obviously it has much sway over the way I think. However, today this thought was bullied into submission by a part of my brain that is petrified of a scaly adversary with gnashing teeth and fiery breath that is bearing down on me. Last year that could have been a clever reference to the Lava Larva creatures we put in a game called Hot Wheels: Battle Force 5 (fight together to survive, dontcha know) but this year it's quite definitely an obvious reference to dragon boating, the festival for which is this Saturday!
The thing I can't work out is why the run to work proved so hard, even with the world's poorest capacity to weight ratio rucksack on my back it's all downhill! Perhaps running is more quantum than Newtonian. Hmmm... that must be it. Damn you Niels Bohr!
Monday, February 22, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Like panthers...
On the day I bought the ugly shoes I decided it would be wise to go looking for some inspirational reading material. Looking through the catalogue in the library the one that stood out was Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All Night Runner by Dean Karnazes. It sounded like a splendid book, after all the man turned a drinking session and potential detour down infidelity lane into a midnight marathon. Sadly, the book was out, which scuppered all my chances of running across deserts, either baked or frozen, until at least next year. Instead I ended up buying a copy of One Step Beyond by Chris Moon, which is probably even more inspirational because he wasn't just a bit tipsy, letchy and excessively guilty about it, he was blown up by a landmine, losing his right arm and... the lower part of his right leg. Whichever way you spin it, losing any part of a leg must be a marginal impediment to running, especially a 137 mile race across the Sahara. I find it a bit of a faff just getting out of a sand pit.
When I say 'probably even more inspirational' I must confess that I am not really making an informed judgement because I haven't, as yet, read either of these books (too busy running, of course) but it's good to have Chris on the shelf, as back up, should I ever waver. Of course, reading about running might be a bit like all the books I've read about manned space missions, they're a great read, my favourite subject in fact, but I've yet to become an astronaut. How I curse my nationality, the odds of space voyaging would be so much better if I had been born in the US.A...
Next week, after reading these books: Gutted I'm not Kenyan.
Anyway, winding this back to where I started, like an expert weaver creating a tapestry of hallucinogenic innovation, it seems to be the word 'night' (from Dean Karnazes book title - am I pushing this too far?) that is the operative word of late. Although the days are still reasonably long down here in the southern hemisphere it seems that me and Rach have been doing a lot of running in the dark. My initial reaction to this was to not wear my glasses, as there wouldn't be enough to look at to make them worthwhile and I get sick of them sliding down my nose on the stream of sweat that comes from my forehead. The only reason I've worn them so much, even in daylight, has been because the abundant Pohutukawa trees have been in flower, turning their green canopies red, like giant, strange, vibrant, red-dyed broccoli. That's a terrible description but it might well be the best I can think of. They're awesome, anyway, and have proven to be a great reason to look up while jogging along. Sadly, the funny spindly flowers are now all gone.
If you do require spectacles then I suggest you learn from my mistake now and don't feel tempted to fight fire with fire, or darkness with blurriness, to be specific and not use a highly specialised and only narrowly applicable term. The darkness actually spreads without specs and the light bits all but vanish. I didn't actually come a cropper but the fear was ever present, for there are some dark spots on that route and the ground turned to blackest velvet for my poor pupils.
Also, when Rach got ahead of me by some distance, I could barely see where she was; I only caught glimpses of her as the road descended and twisted round corner after corner. Somewhere, deep inside, my protector instincts kicked in and almost made me fretful enough to speed up.
When I say 'probably even more inspirational' I must confess that I am not really making an informed judgement because I haven't, as yet, read either of these books (too busy running, of course) but it's good to have Chris on the shelf, as back up, should I ever waver. Of course, reading about running might be a bit like all the books I've read about manned space missions, they're a great read, my favourite subject in fact, but I've yet to become an astronaut. How I curse my nationality, the odds of space voyaging would be so much better if I had been born in the US.A...
Next week, after reading these books: Gutted I'm not Kenyan.
Anyway, winding this back to where I started, like an expert weaver creating a tapestry of hallucinogenic innovation, it seems to be the word 'night' (from Dean Karnazes book title - am I pushing this too far?) that is the operative word of late. Although the days are still reasonably long down here in the southern hemisphere it seems that me and Rach have been doing a lot of running in the dark. My initial reaction to this was to not wear my glasses, as there wouldn't be enough to look at to make them worthwhile and I get sick of them sliding down my nose on the stream of sweat that comes from my forehead. The only reason I've worn them so much, even in daylight, has been because the abundant Pohutukawa trees have been in flower, turning their green canopies red, like giant, strange, vibrant, red-dyed broccoli. That's a terrible description but it might well be the best I can think of. They're awesome, anyway, and have proven to be a great reason to look up while jogging along. Sadly, the funny spindly flowers are now all gone.
If you do require spectacles then I suggest you learn from my mistake now and don't feel tempted to fight fire with fire, or darkness with blurriness, to be specific and not use a highly specialised and only narrowly applicable term. The darkness actually spreads without specs and the light bits all but vanish. I didn't actually come a cropper but the fear was ever present, for there are some dark spots on that route and the ground turned to blackest velvet for my poor pupils.
Also, when Rach got ahead of me by some distance, I could barely see where she was; I only caught glimpses of her as the road descended and twisted round corner after corner. Somewhere, deep inside, my protector instincts kicked in and almost made me fretful enough to speed up.
Friday, February 5, 2010
How Much is Enough?
After the "nearly round in one" incident of last week I was eager to know how far I'd actually nearly run. Rach suggested driving the route as that would be quick and simple, but I hadn't used a website called "Map My Run" and it had been literally days since I was last required to faff around wasting my time registering at yet another website, so I chose the latter. Once registered and armed with a new point of contact for marketeers to hassle me I plunged into the heart of the site - the mapping of runs.
Considering the fact that the website is as ugly as ugg boots and about as easy to navigate as a polite conversation with a bigoted crystal meth addict the actual core of it, the bit where you draw a route onto a map, was relatively easy to use. Of course, it's worth pointing out that I work in a job where using software that's only just at the state of usable is a common experience, I'm used to trying not to hyperventilate when faced with such applications and have resisted throwing machines out of windows hundreds of times. Perhaps others wouldn't have such a generous view of it. In fact, looking back, I now realise it took me about 20 to 30 minutes to map my run, which really isn't quick at all, so you should probably ignore everything you just read. But I just had to know how far it was, what epic distances I had crossed, as if a giant in seven league boots, as if bounding from continent to continent like a huge mega-sized gazelle wearing breathing apparatus because it's head would be outside the usable atmosphere, or just a normal sized one on an undersized globe.
Mapping accomplished I observed the stats... Drum roll please... get on with it... 2.78 kilometers! What?! I checked the route, I checked the start and end point, I considered moving the start and end points but figured I was only cheating myself. My route was perfect and it was only 2.78 kilometers. Gutted doesn't even describe it. I really wanted it to be more like 4 (run further then Jon!) but it was less than 3. This means two things:
1. In the past, when I have walked this route, I am clearly dawdling.
2. My next goal is a 4km route,
Yep, at 4km I'll be running a whole 10% of a marathon.
And they say I have no ambition!
Considering the fact that the website is as ugly as ugg boots and about as easy to navigate as a polite conversation with a bigoted crystal meth addict the actual core of it, the bit where you draw a route onto a map, was relatively easy to use. Of course, it's worth pointing out that I work in a job where using software that's only just at the state of usable is a common experience, I'm used to trying not to hyperventilate when faced with such applications and have resisted throwing machines out of windows hundreds of times. Perhaps others wouldn't have such a generous view of it. In fact, looking back, I now realise it took me about 20 to 30 minutes to map my run, which really isn't quick at all, so you should probably ignore everything you just read. But I just had to know how far it was, what epic distances I had crossed, as if a giant in seven league boots, as if bounding from continent to continent like a huge mega-sized gazelle wearing breathing apparatus because it's head would be outside the usable atmosphere, or just a normal sized one on an undersized globe.
Mapping accomplished I observed the stats... Drum roll please... get on with it... 2.78 kilometers! What?! I checked the route, I checked the start and end point, I considered moving the start and end points but figured I was only cheating myself. My route was perfect and it was only 2.78 kilometers. Gutted doesn't even describe it. I really wanted it to be more like 4 (run further then Jon!) but it was less than 3. This means two things:
1. In the past, when I have walked this route, I am clearly dawdling.
2. My next goal is a 4km route,
Yep, at 4km I'll be running a whole 10% of a marathon.
And they say I have no ambition!
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