April Fuel 2014

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

A funny sort of day. A thin, high-altitude layer of cloud and unusually quiet streets gave the morning a very surreal feel. It was quite warm, but a gentle breeze gave a hint of the winter to come. For some reason it brought to mind three specific memories from childhood, presumably when conditions were very similar to today, for the memories were all of being at various places outdoors and suddenly being aware that the world seemed somehow ... "odd".

However odd it may have been, it didn't stop me running, although I did check the news services first to make sure the world hadn't blown up or something equally dramatic before I headed off up the street. It wouldn't do to be running the streets blithely unaware that everyone else was glued to their TVs and radios contemplating the arrival of Armageddon. Does this happen to anyone else or is it just me?

Anyhow, to the important stuff - the run. It was supposed to be a long run of 20+ km this morning, but after a bad night I slept in and had to curtail it somewhat to just 11.5km. Never mind, it was a reasonable run around the streets (surreal as they were) with loads of the usual hills (nothing surreal about those) and which netted me a total for April of 136km, about 30km more than March. Not where I want to be (nearer 200km is the aim) but a healthy increase without pushing things too much.

I was so glad I did this run. Work has become close to intolerable lately, and the day ahead turned out to be one of the bad ones; but having run in the morning I was far better able to cope with everything thrown at me without resorting to violence, tantrums or outrageous depression. In fact, apart from one or two moments of angst and frustration, I managed to handle it all with relative ease, all thanks to the magic of the simple act of running. As several medicos have pointed out to me, it really is far more beneficial than just about any drugs or therapy that they can dish out.

And so we run on, folks - it is the only way.