My my, it's July.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

The internet of all things, even running.

It's 3:30 in the afternoon. I've just woken up and I'm thinking about 'the internet of things'. Soon I'll go for a walk to try to get my head around what just happened, but for now I'm inexplicably drawn to the inter-connectedness of, well, seemingly everything these days, and why that meant I didn't 'greet the dawn' until the day was almost over. It's the depth of winter, and in this old, cold house in which I live the sun has already dropped so low in the sky that the evening cool air is beginning to seep in, mingling with the previous night's frigidness which has almost, but not quite completely managed to hang around within the house, darkened all day against what sunlight there was by the closed curtains of my slumber.

I'm working the night shift again, but this particularly late start to the now nearly completed day was caused by having to work back an extra hour, meaning I didn't get home until nearly 8 a.m. That extra hour makes a big difference. The body struggles always with the demands of a constantly changing shift work pattern, but after a while it comes to know what's expected of a night shift, and so normally I can get home around 7 a.m. and fall asleep without trouble, awaking mostly in the early afternoon. Just an hour's difference however confuses the body clock more so than usual, and so I slept through until very late, and now my synapses are so befogged I don't quite know what I'm doing. Yet there it is ... the internet of things. I've been dreaming about it, or so I think, and now it dogs my mind.

After coffee, more coffee and a late afternoon breakfast, I walk to the post office to mail off my postal vote for this weekend's federal election, pondering all the while if I am in a fit state to cast a meaningful ballot. This is a double dissolution election, meaning we're voting in both houses of parliament, and the voting paper for the senate took up, quite literally, the full length of our kitchen table. With about 150 candidates from 30+ parties, not to mention the gaggle of independents, it required a lot of consideration, daunting enough when in an un-befogged and well-refreshed state, but right now it's causing my grey matter to liquify. And somehow I keep coming back to how it's related to what happened this morning, and why the simple premise of working back an hour later than usual has caused this state of confusion over my democratic voting right. As I walk to the post office, the envelope I carry takes on special significance and I'm pleased that I still have this right, but also annoyed that it's made so difficult by the particular circumstances of the day. Have I used my ballot wisely? I'll probably never know.

But back to the internet of things. The glib talk about the brave new world of interconnectedness usually talks about how your fridge will automatically order home delivery of food when stocks get low, or how your car will automatically book it's own service for you once the requisite miles or time have passed. This is not how I see things. Those are facile examples of a greater web of worth, and also of a more disturbing and subtle generational problem that is significantly changing the way we work in the world and with each other.

The reason I worked back late this morning was because my relief shift, who also happens to be my boss and who was a little unusually covering a shift for another person on a day off, forgot that he had rostered himself to do so. Whilst you might think this is a simple thing that could happen to anyone, it's actually a matter of pride and common courtesy among shift workers that you are never late for your start of shift, and trebly so when you are relieving the night shift. It just doesn't happen. But increasingly I see these sort of intransigencies occurring as a symptom of a deeper problem. You can see it on any train station platform, even walking down the street: people everywhere are immersed deep within their phones and 'devices', interacting with a totally connected world and drowning, seemingly happily so, in a vast tsunami of information. It's as if everyone has been hypnotised by a mesmeric world of facts, knowledge and worse still, opinion. The result is a lowering of standards as attention to detail falls victim to the overload of absorbing everything the world has to throw at you. It's not just middle managers forgetting their own diaries, it's a whole new generation of carelessness. I see lawyers and solicitors making simple mistakes, then spending so much time chasing small, forgotten details that everything takes three or four times longer than it should. Customer service has fallen victim to the endless frantic activity of service providers chasing their own tails just to do the basics.

This is why, as I walked the streets allowing the cool late afternoon air to clear my brain, I was thinking about my vote, and if I had made the right choices. It has never been a problem for me in the past, and I deplored the indecisiveness of 'swinging voters' who I thought were just apathetic and lazy. But now I really have to wonder if any politician has a grasp of what makes the world tick anymore and what they may be able to do about it. The economy seems to have been hijacked by obscenely salaried CEOs and automated trading systems that control the world's bourses. Resources are gobbled up at ever increasing rates of frenetic panic as companies seek to make a profit before the next wave of compulsive obsessiveness changes the world's consumption habits. And the ever-flowing total deluge of mind-crushing information overloading us every second of the day surely prevents anyone from making even the slightest bit of sense about anything. For every logical, sensible piece of rock solid information, there is an equally vehement opposing force from mongrel, nihilistic xenophobes and crazies who are given voice by the global phenomena of instant and global communication. It's a frightening situation that the likes of Aldous Huxley and George Orwell would be horrified by, despite their having glimpsed the possibility of it decades ago.

The walk though is doing me a power of good and I begin to turn my mind again to running. I should be running out here, not walking, the simplicity of it being an antidote to the world gone mad; a life-giving salve for my tortured body and soul. Never mind, I'm dressed for walking, and it's doing me a world of good. The air is crisp and my senses are now momentarily heightened. I can hear the rustle of every leaf in the tree being blown by the wind and it takes me back to my childhood, when I'd sometimes stand as mesmerised by the simple sound of wind in the trees as people it seems are by their phones today.

I make a point of not using my phone whilst standing on a train station platform, and never whilst walking the streets. This is not out of any sense of elitism, but a simple plaintive cry for freedom from the tangled web and insistence of everything that screams at me incessantly from my own phone. It bothers me that I, like many others, have come to rely on the phone, the tablet and the PC as constant companions, and as appreciative as I am for the ability to communicate so readily with the rest of the planet, I am coming to the realisation that I need more time off, more time 'unplugged'.

It's intriguing that even during races it's now not unusual at all to find runners talking on their phones. Mothers, especially, seem to take delight in speaking to their children, giving them continual feedback as to how they're going, and what chores she expects done before she returns home. Is this really necessary? Is this convenience, or communication for its own sake, gone just a touch mad?

I confess that it's beginning to dawn on me as I age that it seems almost compulsory to take a phone whilst on a run (I don't and never have), if purely for safety's sake, and I know the day will come when I will most likely be gently chided into doing so. I hope however that the day is yet a long way off. When the brain resetting function of a run becomes compromised by the need to take a little piece of the world's interconnectedness with me, then a piece of me will die. The solitude and joy of running is powerful and for me at least, those benefits are amplified by being unplugged from the noise, chaos and demands of the wider world.

I wonder if the recent Brexit vote was something similar, not so much a cry to be free of immigration and the overlords of Brussels, but a plea not to have to think about such things; a cry for simplicity if you like. Well, in fact I'm sure such things are never that straight-forward, but still I hope the world does crave the simple life sufficiently to put down the phone from time to time; to switch off the PC and the smart television and maybe just read a book (a real one, with paper); do some gardening or just go for a run. These are wonderful things to be cherished.

I'd like to say this was all written out on a notepad with pen and ink before being transferred to PC for the benefit of a wider audience, but of course it wasn't. Technology does have it good points.

Run on, friends.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Old trees and walking shoes.

By nature I am neither a raging optimist, nor a morose pessimist. I like to think I traverse a line of balanced realism, and yet it's true to say that if sitting on a fence is difficult for extended periods, then walking that precarious line is even more difficult again.

So when three unexpected weeks of night shift threw the proverbial spanner into the works of the machine I laughingly call a finely-tuned training schedule, it was no great surprise and caused no great alarm nor any gnashing of teeth in the MLCMM household.

As if to consolidate the negativity of that period, number two son, Stephen, has now announced a work-related hip injury which, whilst healing, is doing so at such a pedestrian pace that his training for this year's Point to Pinnacle race in November is unlikely to commence in time for the big event. In other words, unless a miracle occurs in the next few days, the race, for us, is already over. Entries open on August 1st and pretty quickly close again, the race usually being fully subscribed within a day or two.

To be honest it was with a slight sense of relief that I received this news. Whilst disappointing to close the lid before even seriously opening it on what would have been my fifth attempt at the noble mountain climb, to be relieved of the pressure of training for the event is not unwelcome, and has enabled me to take a more relaxed approach to my fitness regime. And so I have been substituting long, brisk walks in recent days which are genuinely pleasant and no trouble to undertake, even after the moral-sapping, life-leeching extremes of the dreaded night shifts.

And so it was today that after rising in the afternoon to find the day cold but calm and sunny, and having consumed a generous measure of café la vie don with Mrs MLCMM I 'donned' the walking shoes and hit the streets intent on re-visiting some long-ignored running routes and discovering some new ones, albeit at a walking pace and intent on enjoying the surrounds. This, as it turned out, was something of a revelation. I discovered a 400 year old eucalypt alongside a creek not so very far from home. This may not arouse much excitement in other parts of the world, but here in metropolitan Sydney it's really quite something.  To know this tree was standing, already an old specimen, before the Europeans arrived is special enough, but to have further survived the encroachment of a city of five million people is truly staggering. The tree carries an indigenous, aboriginal name, but of those occupants nothing seems to remain other than the name they gave to this tree. Nearby houses pay homage to its presence with patios and verandas carefully positioned to afford a view of this noble gum tree.

Speaking of houses, I spent some time admiring many of the fine abodes lining many of the streets through which I run. Some I have run past many, many times without ever appreciating their magnificence, but today I made amends. Also, I rediscovered some lost pathways and explored completely new ones, all fodder for future, stress-free runs, just as soon as I get through this latest batch of night shifts.

As an antidote to a world seemingly gone mad just at the moment, this was just the ticket.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Flat-footed and fat.

It’s 4 a.m., the streets are cold and dark and I’m skulking about my neighbourhood like a cat burglar, or at least that’s how it feels. In reality I’m running down the middle of the road wearing a hi-viz  fluorescent orange running vest with my feet making alarmingly loud flat-footed slapping sounds as I gallop my way around the local streets, short of breath, flabby of waist and so out of form that I’m glad no-one is around to see my pathetic, wheezing attempts to regain some semblance of athletic fitness.

This, as regular readers will know, is nothing new for me. My off-again, on-again approach to this business of running for fun and health has ensured that I know only too well the pain and embarrassment of starting over, and for this reason I am thankful that the early morning start at work means an even earlier run around the local neighbourhood, fortunately for the sake of my pride now bereft of life at this early hour other than the occasional possum crashing about in the trees and a few rabbits hopping around the front lawns and grass verges.

As is often the case it has been a string of long night shifts at work which has caused the break in my running routine, which then leads to a loss of motivation and another turn on the roller-coaster ride that exemplifies my approach to this sport. It seems to me however that each time I fall from grace and have to start over again it is that little bit harder, the loss of fitness having been quicker and steeper than before. I’m now only a few weeks from my 55th birthday, and if in my forties it seemed I had all too quickly lost the blush of youth, now in my mid-fifties I feel the onrush of my autumnal years with each muscle cramp and aching joint that so often afflicts me now.

Climbing back on the greasy pole that leads to ruddy good health and race-ready fitness is getting harder, there’s no doubt in my mind about that. And yet the harder it gets, the more important it becomes, and so here I am again on the street in the middle of a freezing winter’s night, miserable at the physicality of it, yet buoyant of mood in knowing I’ve once again begun to slay the demon of inertia that so regularly visits my being.

I don’t know what will come of this. It’s only two months since I was happily running half marathons and feeling on top of it all. But so much seemingly happens so quickly these days that all that good work is gone in the blink of a midlife eye with only another couple of dusty finisher’s medals and a few hundred more words in the running diary to show for it. It’s a tedious way to keep fit, but the life of a middle-aged shift worker allows no other way, or so it seems.

Enough of this maudlin talk, as July draws to a close with precious few miles in the running log I’ve fitness to regain. I’d better get on with it.

[marathondan]

GO MLCMM! GO GO GO! HELL YEAH!

[Sweder]

Mate, it feels like we're all strapped to this rollercoaster, this wheel of misfortune, when it comes to running these days. My own efforts pale by comparison, the shadow of surgery (abdo hernia, later today) eclipsing the occasional spark of renewed effort.

Good on you for getting back out there. The first step is the hardest, just keep going ...
The rest of this message can be found in Sweder's Running Cliches Volume II, available at all good car boot sales.

On, on ...

[Antonio247]

Good luck with your training, MLCMM! I haven't trained much lately due to laziness, heat, holidays ... but I intend to restart soon so that I can finish Almería half marathon on 5th February.