Jumpin' Januaries!

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Insomnia in Sydnia.

The central highlands region of Tasmania is a wild, remote, and largely uninhabited area noted for its ruggedness and its cold, stormy weather, but also for its lakes and streams stocked with plentiful trout. When I was young my father and I would on certain weekends arise at 4 a.m. to drive up into the highlands along dark, empty roads, headed for our favourite camping and fishing spot on the northern side of a small lake named Brady's. Arriving there just as the sky was starting to lighten with the dawn we'd make camp, get a fire started and cook eggs and bacon for breakfast as we watched the rising sun burn off the low-lying mist that hung over the lake. Usually we'd be the only ones there, and we'd enjoy a weekend of peace and serenity, fishing, walking or just enjoying the solitude of the lake and surrounding region.

To me then it was a great adventure, and it seemed that as we headed off from home on those super early starts that we were the only people awake and had the whole island to ourselves. Without a care or a concern of any kind we made the most of what the highlands had to offer which was an abundance of scenery, solitude and even the occasional trout, the likes of which, caught and cooked in some of the island's spectacular alpine scenery over a fire near the lake's shore remains for me an unequalled gastronomic experience. 

I was thinking about this last night as I lay awake in bed, listening to the last train from the city pulling into the station across the road from our house at 2:10 a.m. I had been awake since about half past midnight, having done the right thing and been in bed early, and even asleep by about 10:30 p.m. Following a week of night shifts however, the body clock does not adjust quickly or well to then having to be asleep early and ready for work at 6 a.m., and so I was lying there wide awake again, listening to the late night revellers returning home from their night out in the city. Then finally as the last train departed and the revellers went home, silence descended on our neighbourhood. We only get about two hours of peace like this per night. Living on a busy road with a major commuter hub train station on the other side of the street from us, it's not the quietest place to live, but in general the convenience outweighs the noise.

These quiet periods after about 2 a.m. are such a contrast to the regular hubbub that if I'm awake, it often does remind me of those blissful days of my youth in the highlands with my Dad. This peaceful part of the night is also my favourite time to run, and so by 2:45 when it was clear that I wasn't going to get any more sleep I arose, changed into my running gear and by 3 a.m. had hit the streets for a quiet, solitary 45 minutes of pleasant, albeit hilly running. It was another warm, humid night, and this seemed to bring out the nocturnal animals in greater numbers than usual, with possums, rabbits and fruit bats in abundance, and the croaking of nearby frogs in the creek that runs along Burgoyne Avenue where I run also much louder than the norm. One bat I encountered along that same road even swooped me, although I think it was more in fear and confusion than aggression. These bats are big buggers, and apparently carry some nasty diseases, so it's best not to come into contact with them, and this one had me ducking for a moment before it flew one way and I ran the other.

The warm night had also intensified the scent of the local murraya paniculata trees, an invasive species quite nice to look at, but the flowers of which have a very strong scent which makes me wheeze. I seem to be a little more tolerant to it these days, possibly as my fitness is increasing, and so I resisted the urge to duck back home for my asthma inhaler, and indeed the wheeziness soon passed.

I completed three laps of my Burgoyne circuit which contains two hills, one short and one long, so six hills all up followed by what I call, for reasons that aren't clear even to myself, the Grand Tour, which is simply a circuit of the railway station, bus interchange and one of the multistorey car parks near to home. It's hardly romantic like a grand tour at all, really, and perhaps it's the irony which suggested the name in the first place. Whatever the reason for the title, it's a nice, simple and thankfully reasonably flat way to finish the morning run. I returned home good and sweaty and with still just enough time to get cleaned up, ready for work and at the station in time to catch the first train of the morning, the 4:14 into town. Getting this train meant I then had enough time up my sleeve to alight at Milsons Point on the northern side of the Harbour, and allowing me to walk the hour and a quarter to work across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, through The Rocks district, Barangaroo, Darling Harbour and onto Ultimo by 6 a.m. for a day at the broadcast centre, where I help to keep the airwaves waving, which mostly involves kicking recalcitrant computers into life and coercing befuddling pieces of software into doing what they ought.

And you know, it's funny how even just a 45 minute run followed by a nice walk across and alongside Sydney's Harbour can negate even the worst insomnia, despite being of themselves, tiring activities.

You have to love this sport; it's just brilliant.