Schleptember

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Digesting in the waiting room.

Sitting in my doctor’s waiting room the other week I despaired at the pile of magazines sitting on the table in the middle. It was the usual mind-numbing stuff of very little interest, and the dog-eared corners were in any case probably laden with the germs of dozens of the infirmed. The whole concept seemed geared toward generating more business for the doctors by re-infecting the patients with the illnesses of all the other patients whilst lowering their morale and therefore immune systems by simultaneously creating despondency and despair through earth-shattering magazine articles about stars I’ve never heard of on weight-loss programmes I also hadn’t heard of that looked about as convincing as Donald Trump winning a ‘good citizen of the world’ award.

I mean, there wasn’t even a single copy of Reader’s Digest. Don’t people read that anymore? I still see it for sale in supermarkets, so people must be buying it, but it certainly isn’t as ubiquitous as it was in my youth, when everyone read the latest editions at home, then re-visited them some months later in waiting rooms all across the country. One of the best sections of the good old Reader’s Digest was of course ‘Laughter, The Best Medicine’ which is presumably the reason why it found its way into doctor’s waiting rooms in the first place. This was a section of short, funny jokes designed to make you at least chuckle if not actually laugh out loud and one of the first sections I turned to. These days it all seems a bit lame, but back then it was good, clean fun.

Another popular section was ‘Life’s Like That’ with more short stories designed to illustrate the absurdity or just general strangeness of life at times. Some things really are just difficult to explain, among them my recent about-face on Almeria. I mean, life really is genuinely mysterious and wonderful at times, and just when you think the horse has bolted from the stable, you find that all along he was just having a kip in his stall and is now feisty, fine and raring to go. In the same manner has been the story of Almeria and my participation in its Medio Maraton along with a large RC contingent next February. One day I’ve all but written off any chance of being there and the next I’m just about ready to book flights and start a serious training program.

Can I explain what happened? No, not really. Quite suddenly two seemingly insurmountable difficulties just evaporated overnight and I’m still somewhat flabbergasted at what happened and how it happened. But then, sometimes it’s the mysteries of life that make it so enjoyable, and so I’ll just leave it at that.

But there is the small matter of training. With a little over 21 weeks to go, there is tons of time. I’m not off to a great start however, with an extended batch of night shifts making week 1 of this campaign difficult. But it will happen. If I’m to travel 17,589 kilometres to Almeria (isn’t Google wonderful for looking up this sort of thing?), it’s not going to be to just totter around the course smiling and waving at the crowds. It will of course be a memorable occasion anyway, but let’s make it more so by at least putting in a fair effort.

I haven’t been this excited by a race in a long time. It’s going to be fantastic!