Running Nirvana and Om...elette.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Disembarking the pickle juice express.

The apparent inevitability of gun massacres in the U.S.A. have once again dampened the mood for everyone, and it was nice, therefore, to get away from everything for two days and nights with a quick trip to the family cottage at Blackheath, the highest township in the Blue Mountains. A visiting cousin made the trip to the mountains de rigeur, and it was indeed a welcome break from the endless agony of rolling news coverage of massacres and politics, both of which become inevitably and agonisingly entwined. If rolling news is the pickle juice chaser, then a trip to the mountains is the satisfyingly soporific whisky that is both the antidote and the contextualising brain-brake that allows reason and calm to again return.

There wasn’t to be a total escape from drama however: on arrival we discovered the house to have been over-run by ants. No room had escaped the invasion, and it took almost the entire first afternoon to be rid of them. Tracking down and uncovering the mother nest was rather like lifting the lid on a nightmare, if nightmares can be said to exist underneath an empty electric blanket box in the top cupboard of the second bedroom. Tens of thousands of ants and ant eggs were seething in glistening black and white monstrousness there, and were eventually disposed of, the surviving critters finally getting the clear message and disappearing, quite literally, into the woodwork.

Ant busting complete, we set about the task of enjoying a quiet time of it. There was no running undertaken during the two days, but a reasonable amount of walking was involved, and more importantly, I slept well both the nights we were there, which has made a more than modest improvement to my general mood and well-being.

This morning then, following our return yesterday and a third straight good night of sleep (and it has been probably months since that last occurred), I donned the running shoes for another 7km base-building, early-stage training run. It was, I have to concede, rather tough, but I put that down to the warm, humid weather more than anything. The important thing is that it was done, and I am once again beginning to feel the early benefits of ruddy good health. It’s probably little more than my imagination at this stage, but a positive indication even so.

It’s a start, at least. With still one more week of annual leave before returning to work, I am keen to get a few more of these runs tucked safely into the running log and with few other activities in the diary to interrupt the week ahead, I am confident of getting properly into gear before the week is out.