Double trouble and the angry summer.
Summer here has officially been dubbed the "angry summer" by the climate scientists with some 205 weather records being broken in the last 90 days, mostly in the form of intense heat around the country. Here in Sydney, whilst it has also been officially the hottest summer on record, we're currently instead being subjected to one of the longest wet spells I can ever remember. It's depressing, and when the rain does stop the humidity levels rise dramatically making everything, damp, sticky and mouldy. So we're being subjected to a summer form of winter blues, and it's getting us down.
My battle plan to tackle this is of course quite simply to continue running, and I have. I'm running every second day, with my short runs being around 12-13km and the longer ones, well, a few kilometres further, and this has been enormously beneficial. Even yesterday, which followed a night of far too little sleep, and a long day at work, I knocked over another 12km when in all honesty I thought I'd only be good for an "at least turn up and show my face" effort of 15 minutes or so. But as often happens, once under way, it wasn't so bad and I completed the full, scheduled session.
It was a doubly useful run, really. Apart from filling out the running diary nicely and helping to cope with the appalling weather, yesterday was also another dramatic day at work, with the MD announcing staff cuts of 5% across the board, all of which are to be undertaken by the end of June. My area especially is under threat, with a major shake up and possibly serious levels of redundancies in the offing. So we nervously await news from our department head as to what it all means for us, but as usual the nihilistic, psychopathic bastard is taking great delight in telling us nothing, being his usual, smarmy, smiling self, obsessed only with his own inflated sense of self-importance, and not caring a jot for the actual workers who produce the very thing that keeps him in his senior executive lifestyle of business-class travel and 'hire and fire' ego-inflating mentality.
These things used to get me down, and if my style of writing suggests that it still does, then fear not, gentle reader, for the noble pursuit of athleticism really is a pure form of mental and physical tonic and I actually feel fine. Of course there are concerns as to the uncertain future, but these are met with clear-minded rationalism, and my aggressive form of writing merely indicates that I will, once the revolution comes as surely it must, with a clear, sharp and unemotional mind, line these cretins up against the wall and shoot them. An angry summer it has certainly turned out to be, but in a considered, "clean kill" manner.
Meantime, I run. It really is a life saver.
March Too Much
