Nooooooooooo!vember

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

On a day of strange weather around the country, including a very rare tornado warning for the city of Melbourne, I was up before 5 a.m. to pound out a gentle 5km run that I had sworn to myself that I would complete. The legs were a little sore, the left big toe (which I am calling ‘Terry’ because Terrys are always trouble) and the weather wet and miserable; yet I was up and at it by 4:45 in order to get the run completed with enough time to catch the 6:09 train to w*rk.

Wet and miserable it was, but nothing like the wild weather in other parts of the country, or indeed as we have seen here in Sydney in recent days, and so I headed off into the dark in spite of my whingeing legs and Terry’s insistent aching.

It’s a little weird running on mornings like this. It’s rare to find anyone else mad enough to be out on the streets, and doubtless passing motorists might have yelled out what they thought of my questionable sanity except it would mean rolling down their windows and thus getting a soaking. So instead I run along undisturbed other than the sound of constant drumming rain, the slapping of my Brooks Adrenalines on the wet bitumen and the wet tyre sound of the occasional passing vehicle. The usual wildlife – birds, rabbits and yes, the occasional fruit bat, are all absent today with the singular exception of a frog, close to home, boisterously calling out whatever it is that frogs call out about when the night is wet enough to take them from their usual homes and put them in the path of mad early morning runners.

The run took its usual course of events; the first uncomfortable kilometre, then a kilometre or two of fairly comfortable, almost enjoyable plodding around the neighbourhood, and then the ‘God I am sick of this, maybe I can chuck it in at that’ doubt and uncertainty, before the final realisation that I could, in fact, finish the promised five kilometres really quite easily if I just stopped thinking about it quite so much.

And so that is what I did, and returned home wet but happy, an easy-ish five clicks covered and the vague feeling that I had done something, not significant, but at least a run that definitely marks my return to regular running again. If I can run at that hour in those conditions feeling as I did, then I am pretty sure I can say I am back running again for sure.

And as for Terry, after a little grumbling and moaning and attempts at hurting me again, he settled down and went quietly back into his box.

Yes, I really do think things are looking up again. Apart from the weather, that is.
 
 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-05/to...ts/6915734