Fervent February

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

This first week of February has been appalling for running. A combination of a still-dodgy calf, frightful 13 hour work days and terrible weather has left me runless for 5 days until this morning, and then all I could manage was a measly 4 kilometres, due mostly to the 95% humidity we've had no let up from all week (not even overnight). It's frustrating!

Consequently, I'm tossing out the training plan I had and will have to ease back a bit. Instead of a gradual build up of weekly kms I'll now focus on maintaining a decent base mileage for a few weeks and see how things pan out from there.

But first this weather has to change. I can cope with heat, but high humidity is not something I've learned to run in yet. Awful stuff!

Track du Jour: Bob Dylan's Liliy, Rosemary & The Jack of Hearts, which lasted nearly as long as my run did.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Sunday run made impossible by this: http://tinyurl.com/yzl2fb5 - we were 1 of the 1,000 calls made to the State Emergency Service last night after two of our rooms were inundated and one ceiling collapsed under the weight of 200mm (8 inches) of rain in just a few hours... I tell you, this country has more extreme weather than you can shake a stick at. Droughts, floods and sometimes seemingly not an awful lot in between.

So instead of running, today was spent mopping up and cramming two rooms' worth of stuff into half a room, in which I am now perching, squashed into a corner and looking wistfully at my training schedule having vanished in this week's rain.

Oh well. We got off lightly compared to Haiti et al. What's a little chaos and a messed up training schedule compared to some of the real drama going on around the planet? At least I'm dry now and everyone's safe and well here.

I'll start my training again in a couple of days time.

[Sweder]

As you say, relative to other disasters (and with no-one in your clan injured) no biggie; still a pain in the backside though I'm sure.
Book that swabbing in as cross-training though mate; it really gets your back after the first hour.
Hope you get back out there soon.

[El Gordo]

Sunday run made impossible by this: http://tinyurl.com/yzl2fb5 - we were 1 of the 1,000 calls made to the State Emergency Service last night after two of our rooms were inundated and one ceiling collapsed under the weight of 200mm (8 inches) of rain in just a few hours... I tell you, this country has more extreme weather than you can shake a stick at. Droughts, floods and sometimes seemingly not an awful lot in between.

And coming on the anniversary of the astonishing bush fires which I've heard a couple of radio items on today.

Bad luck old chap. I'm sure we all hope you get back on your feet, in every sense, before long.

[glaconman]

The last thing you needed after all the hours you've put in on your other house

Hope you manage to get sorted soon.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Regular viewers will know that the last 10 days or so have been particularly problematic for me and have thus resulted in virtually no running, which is a tremendous shame after a brilliant January which saw a personal near-record monthly total of kilometres run.

However I was back into it this morning with a gentle 8km (46 mins) in the pre-dawn blackness. There's no doubt about it - the days are getting shorter, and when Mrs MLCM's alarm woke us at 5:45 for her to get to her Thursday spin class, it was inky black. I stumbled out into the streets some 20 minutes later determined to get back on track after a somewhat major hiccup. Fuelling my determination has been an unexpected source of motivation: I've been listening to a different radio station of late - one that plays the songs that were "Top 40" when I was a kid. The reason it's been motivating me is because it suddenly struck me yesterday as I listened to it that the vast majority of advertising on this station is for "senior" citizens. In fact it was back-to-back ads for a denture clinic and a funeral director (I'm not joking) that got me fired up. I was just horrified/mortified/angered to think that the people who dream up ads for this station think children of the 60s are already one foot in the grave.

So it was with grim pleasure that I reinforced my youthful vigour on the streets this morning. Here's one in the eye of advertising copyrighters. Bastards.

[Sweder]

Right On brother! Oops - just wrenched my shoulder punching the air. Bugger.

[El Gordo]

How yer doin' cobber?

I'm starting to get twitchy about your absence, particularly as all sorts of natural calamities seem to be going on all around you.

Give us a wave.

[El Gordo]

MLCM is apparently still alive, if only just.

An excess of work seemed to be the gist.