May as well ... 2014

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Fittingly, I finished reading Boff Whalley's "Run Wild" whilst on a quick trip to the mountains, so nothing for it but to go for a run and "experience" the landscape as Whalley insists we should.

It wasn't a particularly long run - just 8.4km (doubtless Whalley would facepalm at the thought of my carrying a GPS on such a run, but hey, old habits die hard) but it was essentially alone, at dusk, and took in a brilliant lookout with views of Blue Mountain ramparts, pink sundown clouds hovering overhead and the roar of a distant unseen river far, far below in the canyon at my feet. Wrens and bellbirds fussed about in the scrub and wallabies crashed through the undergrowth as I plodded along, struggling at first with a dazed and maladjusted body clock from night shifts, but surprisingly came alive at about 6km, and fair sprinted the last part of the run, feeling very much alive as Whalley would have us on every run. It was not, as I say, a long run, but one of the best of recent times. It is nice to get into the mountains once in a while, immersed in whatever nature feels like throwing at you, rather than dealing with traffic fumes and dodging dog walkers.

But, that was very much just a day-and-a-half crammed-in trip to the mountains. Now I'm already back home preparing for more night shifts. It's all good training though, and a run like that last one is great because it rams home the fact that no matter how tired you are, you can always run a little further, and if you do so, the fatigue will pass and you'll hit another purple patch. Never fails.