Not much of interest rhymes with July. Which is appropriate as I've always found July a rather dull month. Nothing of note ever happens in July, and I really can't figure why big Julius Ceaser thought it was the appropriate month to name after himself. Admittedly being mid-winter down here is always going to tell against you as a month, but even so, July just never seems to cut much mustard.
However, today was pretty good. A nicely productive day, followed by a gentle, pleasant 5km plod, a half decent meal, a beer and one of the best rugby matches I've ever seen - the decider of the State of Origin series was a cracker, and 90,000 people at the ground and millions of Queenslanders went berserk as the Maroons came from 10 points down to win by two in the dying moments. Classic stuff! I'm sure if I understood the rules better I'd be much more of a rugby fan, but tonight's game went a long towards completing my conversion (rugby pun - sorry). Maybe the pleasant after-effects of a good run, a meal and a beer contributed in some small way, but it was a ripper of a game...
Mid winter is probably way too late to start a concerted training programme for any of the major spring races, so I'm just concentrating now on getting back some running fitness and getting some decent base mileage in place before a concerted campaign maybe next year. Well, to be honest I'm not even looking that far ahead. For now I'll just be happy to get back to a reasonably regular running routine and see how knees and things hold out.
Google Earth have now at last some high-res images of bits of Tasmania here abouts, so I've been able to measure out some accurate possible running routes. There's a beach not too far away which I've been eyeing off called Seven Mile Beach, and guess what? It's exactly 10 kilometres long. Which is six miles. Perhaps it's seven miles from somewhere significant? Who knows. But it's a nice beach, so I'm aiming to run it, which means a 20 kilometre run as the car park is at one end. Maybe once the weather warms up I could even have a dip first - it's so invigorating to do a bit of body surfing before a run along the beach. One feels as if one could run all day. But the weather/water will have to warm up a bit first.
Good to hear you're back on the plod, MLCman.
There's a few of us 'round here trying to scrape up some form, but it does appear to be a struggle. I'll swap my sun-scorched hills for your rain-lashed beaches any day . . .
(self-consciously mops up puddle of sweat created by the extraordinary effort of typing three sentences)
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
Well done guys, it looks like we're all at the same tentative stage. I did my 5km, and it did me back. Report on its way up later.
Rugby is a game I've never quite managed to love, despite being made to play it at school.
Let's rephrase that.
Rugby is a game I've never quite managed to love, because I was made to play it at school.
As a player, I could see the attraction if it was a warm-weather, less aggressive sport. It could never be a non-contact sport or it wouldn't be rugby of course but I don't understand the need for crunching tackles and rucks and mauls and everyone leaping on top of the poor fellow with the ball. Especially in freezing temperatures.
Mind you, I have enormous respect for the way they conduct themselves (with one or two odd exceptions). What a staggering irony that a namby-pamby sport like football produces so many people pretending to be mortally wounded by the slightest contact, while the full-on aggression of rugby does the opposite.
Er, anyway, I didn't come here to opine about rugby, so I'm going away again.
El Gordo
Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
It's weird. I've been reading back through some of my postings and it seems I'm obsessed with shin splints and spreadsheets And it's true. Anyway I was looking at my running log/spreadsheet and had the not-so-wonderful realisation that this is my fifth attempt to begin a routine of regular running, the previous four having all been at least dogged by shin splints, if not curtailed totally by them.
And still I question why I persist. There are lots of reasons I suppose, but the one I usually trot out is that middle age is, if nothing else, for me at least a time of grim determination. Perhaps it's because this is when things start going skew-whiff. Everything's a doddle when you're young, or at least seemingly so, but nowadays I find things rarely work out as planned. And of course there's the medical dimension. Suddenly the doctor is mentioning age "as a factor", recommending all kinds of nasty tests and prescribing medications for things I've never even heard of and didn't know I had. OK well maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but you get my drift.
Er, actually I've lost my drift now. Hang on while I read what I wrote (See? That never happens when you're young...)
Yeah well anyhow. So because of all that I've become determined, i.e. grumpy. Rather than see sense and take up something less hazardous like l*wn b*wls (gag, splutter, cough) - and I'm horrified to have to report friends of mine - no older than I am - have actually t-a-k-e-n u-p l-a-w-n b-o-w-l-s. Urgh, I can't say it, I have to spell it out. I'm feeling faint just thinking about it. What's really excruciating is that they're enjoying it... I'm sorry, I've got to stop for a nip of Jamesons, I'm that upset...
Ah, bless the Irish. And hey! Proof that God does exist (as if Guinness wasn't proof enough) ... Flogging Molly's "Within A Mile Of Home" just came on the random play thing... a 1:1123 chance
Where was I?
Oh yeah. So anyway, I'm grimly determined. It'll take at least a half marathon to satisfy me. And with these supremely uncomfortable orthotics (actually to be honest I hardly even notice them now) things will be fine.
Damn. I'm out of Jamesons.
I've another run scheduled in the morning. I'll report back after that. It's too late to go and buy more whiskey, so I'm going to cry myself to sleep.
Before I tell you about today's run, I must make a confession. I am, it has to be said, an accomplice to a crime that happened only recently on British soil... English soil in fact... London no less... Soho... Rathbone Street... at (dare I say it?)... the front bar of the Marquis of Granby... about 9 o'clock one Thursday evening... (sigh, hangs head in shame)...
A friend of mine, and a hero to the cause it is true, but none-the-less a criminal in the strictest sense of the word, or at best perhaps slightly misguided, or maybe just slightly pissed at the time (on account of it being his birthday), on a recent visit to the aforementioned premises during a holiday in the mother country, stole not one but two Fullers London Pride pint glasses from the aforementioned Marquis of Granby. And then, and here's the rub, he smuggled them out of the country, concealed them in his luggage for the entire duration of a British Airways flight to Australia, and failed to declare them at Australian customs; then insisted that I have one of them!
Well, what's a bloke to do? I accepted, of course.
Shameful behaviour I know, but when a mate goes to that amount of trouble, well, one just has to help hide the evidence, doesn't one?
So, I have to keep low for a little while until the heat blows over, so I'll hang out here for a bit...
Anyway, confessions aside, I have something of genuinely profound significance to tell you. I, that is me, myself, MLC Man, the personification of night owl-dom did something known to have happened only a handful of times before in the existence of MLCMankind. I actually got up early and went for a run in the morning. Rash, I know. And I really don't know what came over me to make me do it, but do it I did. And I was rewarded with a rare sight - I actually saw, for the first time in my life, a water spout! Not the vapourous things exhaled by whales, but a tornado over the water. Now it only lasted a few seconds, and didn't even make the evening news, but a water spout it was, and I saw it from my treadmill, dead in front of me. Excited, I was. I nearly fell off the wretched machine in disbelief...
And it was a good run, too. Felt great for the rest of the day, and then just as the adrenaline of that was dying down, my crim mate hands me the stolen goods I mentioned in paragraphs one to three.
And just to round out an interesting day, I was told to be at work early on Monday morning in order to watch the World Cup final. Well, strictly speaking they're not paying me to watch the game, but that's what I'll be doing. If I can stay awake that is - kick off is at 4 a.m. local time
Maybe I should go for another early run first? Or I could drink a pint of something interestingly alcoholic out of my stolen glass? Just to give it a sense of occasion, like?
Either way, I'm enjoying my return to the RC School of Running.
Criminal activity excepted this is good news indeed, antipodean friend.
Water spouts in the early morn? I'd take thyself to a physician post haste - sounds like a bladder infection to me. Oh yes, this week's Guest Beer in the Sweder Husky - Tanglefoot (by Badger) - a fine summer brew.
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
andy Wrote:"Soho" is pushing it slightly. Wrong side of Oxford St, old boy. But not far.
What? You mean I'm wrong again?! That's twice in one week
andy Wrote:I've been to this boozer many a time ...
I half expected you to say as much... your detailed knowledge of London pubs, as expounded within these pages, made such a statement quite likely, I felt.
andy Wrote:...used to be a haunt of Dylan Thomas, they say. He would have approved of your mate's anti-social behaviour...
I thought your poetic affinities were with Bob Dylan, not Dylan Thomas...? Now I would be somewhat surprised if His Bobness had turned up there...?
Mid Life Crisis Man Wrote:I thought your poetic affinities were with Bob Dylan, not Dylan Thomas...? Now I would be somewhat surprised if His Bobness had turned up there...?
But Robert Zimmerman famously took his name from Dylan Thomas, so there is a link. It's possible to admire both, of course.
El Gordo
Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
andy Wrote:But Robert Zimmerman famously took his name from Dylan Thomas, so there is a link. It's possible to admire both, of course.
That's true, but I suspect both of us have more Bob Dylan in our collections than DT. In fact the only DT I have is "Under Milkwood" and I don't like it. Give me "Blonde On Blonde" or (my current favourite) "Blood On the Tracks" - much more to my taste
Mid Life Crisis Man Wrote:In fact the only DT I have is "Under Milkwood" and I don't like it.
I trust you have the Richard Burton audio version?
What's not to like? Even if the verse gets a little heavy just hearing the Great Man's voice rumbling out of my speakers makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
Mid Life Crisis Man Wrote:That's true, but I suspect both of us have more Bob Dylan in our collections than DT. In fact the only DT I have is "Under Milkwood" and I don't like it. Give me "Blonde On Blonde" or (my current favourite) "Blood On the Tracks" - much more to my taste
I was probably one of a very select bunch of teenagers who had Under Milkwood on vinyl along with the Dylan (B) and all the other stuff back in 73-ish. The Richard Burton reading is the only one worth having. A true classic.
Under Milkwood is a great work, but if I'm honest, not that accessible to most of us, and probably decidedly 'foreign' to an Aussie. Lots of in-jokes.
Blood On The Tracks is a bit more like it. I'm most definitely an early-Dylan man. That said, there are two songs on BOTT that freeze the blood in my veins. 'If You See Her Say Hello' gets me for simple sentimental reasons that I won't bore you with.
But 'Idiot Wind'? Oh god, a great song and a wonderful piece of polemic poetry. One of his greatest slabs of stuff. Non-believers: download it, and believe.
I do envy the Sussex golfers for the quaint, pastoral simplicity of their lives, and yet I must also pity them. Dylan was like an alternative electricity through my life.
I guess it's a bit like me not being a parent.
Idiot wind, blowing through the buttons of our coats, Blowing through the letters that we wrote....
El Gordo
Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
Sweder Wrote:I trust you have the Richard Burton audio version?
What's not to like? Even if the verse gets a little heavy just hearing the Great Man's voice rumbling out of my speakers makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
Crikey, where did you spring from?
It's 1:30 in the morning, FFS!
El Gordo
Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
Sweder Wrote:I trust you have the Richard Burton audio version?
What's not to like?
Geez, don't get me started...
Suffice to say I think Burton's performance appalling - to my mind he sounds like a sleep-deprived, half-drunken funeral director; I think Thomas's writing is pretentious and extremely on the nose, and oftentimes quite incomprehensible... for example, what does...
It is night in the chill, squat chapel, hymning, in bonnet and brooch and bombazine black, butterfly choker and bootlace bow, coughing like nannygoats, sucking mintoes, fortywinking hallelujah; night in the four-ale, quiet as a domino; in Ocky Milkman's loft like a mouse with gloves; in Dai Bread's bakery flying like black flour...
actually mean? And why did he have to communicate whatever it does mean in such ugly, stupid verse?
Anyway, I shan't go on. I have tried to like this work and I can't. I have totally given up on it. I criticize it only because you asked
"Idiot Wind" however, is a piece of Dylan I can enthuse about. Like Andy, I think this is a masterpiece. I love the whole album, even "Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts" which it is fashionable to dislike (it even regularly turns up on "10 Worst Songs of All Time" lists), and aggressively defend it against its detractors - much as you've supported UMW.
"Tangled Up In Blue" - what a song!
"If You See Her, Say Hello" - such feeling!
"Buckets of Rain" - what a clever end to the album!
etc. etc.
To my mind, it is Dylan's most accessbile, and most thoroughly enjoyable album. Do buy it, won't you?
Mid Life Crisis Man Wrote:to my mind he sounds like a sleep-deprived, half-drunken funeral director;
Err . . . I think that's the point . . . I'm sure the Chuckle Brothers' version is pretty entertaining, but had DT been asked he'd certainly have, if not approved, dipped his troubled brow in aknowledgement at Burton's offering.
Mid Life Crisis Man Wrote:night in the four-ale, quiet as a domino;
I take it that's not a serious question, MLCman
Andy's right - perhaps too many nudge-nudge, wink-wink moments in UMW to appeal to the masses. Granted, one of Motorhead's most avid supporters is an unlikely source of support for what it's fair to say has been described by many suffering students as a mournful dirge . . . but even mournful dirges have their time and place.
If I want to crack myself in two I'll stick on some John Cooper Clarke - if you've not inhaled his fabulous work download I Married A Monster From Outer Space or Daily Express - social commentary with a thick mancunian accent; simply marvelous.
Right, thats enough giggles . . . I'm staring bleary-eyed down the barrel of a hilly 12 miler with a bunch of hopped-up endorphin-heads with kick-off a mere hour-fifteen away . . .
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
The first week of my triumphant return to training has been excellent - three 5km runs successfully under the belt, each one progressively faster and stronger, which is encouraging. Even more encouraging is the lack of any injury concerns - a very slight niggle from the left knee, but other than that no muscle soreness or aching anything (touch wood).
I tried concentrating on form during this evening's run. Every coach who has written anything on the subject of running seems to have different ideas about the type of technique you should employ, but the common denominators seem to be running tall, hips forward and landing mid-foot or even front-foot rather than heel-striking. It occurred to me whilst pounding away trying different methods of contortion, that whilst I have personally never had a coach, I recall my kids Little Athletics coaches simplifying all this down to "run as quietly as possible", which actually seems to quite naturally get you landing on the mid-foot, raising the knees slightly, running upright and with hips thrust forward and head held high. And it's a lot easier to remember.
Actually one other thing I found which seemed to help a lot was to run with my arms moving parallel to the ground/treadmill, i.e. not crossing over in front of me, which tends to round the shoulders and cause a stoop.
Soooo, I've developed the MLC Man School of Running Correctness (how very presumptuous!) which says (i) run quietly, and (ii) keep your arms moving parallel to the ground. I shall test this out over the next few runs and see how it goes.
Well the World Cup final starts in a few hours and I need some sleep, so I'll bid you buona notte.
Yes week two of MLC Man's fourth triumphant return has been marked by a rather special occasion. Today commemorates 1000 days since I took that first tentative jog nearly three years ago. Of course only a number slut like me who records everything diligently in a spreadsheet would be able to mark an occasion such as this, and tis true that I didn't realise it was day #1000 until I actually recorded today's humble 5km in said spreadsheet. But there it is, and a cause for pause for thought it is too.
Not that there's actually much to celebrate. If I was so shameless as to tell you what I've actually run in terms of kilometres you'd be singularly unimpressed. As I am But, at least I'm hanging in there. And I'm hanging in there because I still enjoy it, despite all the frustrations that have gone with it over the last 1,000 days.
I think the enjoyment aspect is sometimes overlooked in the incredible details that are involved with running (as spreadsheet freaks know only too well). But I read a very wise bit of advice by a runner/physiotherapist/coach who, when asked about shin splints and how you know when to run through them and when to stop running, simply said "We forget that running should be enjoyable. I don't have a problem with someone running off shin splints. You are the only one who can say when you should stop running, and that's when the pain causes you stop enjoying it."
Nice, simple advice.
So anyway, day number 1,000 came and went without fuss or fanfare, and with virtually none of my running goals achieved. But in truth, the goals aren't that important. As long as I keep running the goals will be achieved. The time frame doesn't matter so long as I'm still having fun. And the longer it takes, the more of an achievement for me it will be anyhow.
So, I'll continue to record every kilometre in my laptop, and I'll happily ignore the fact that I've covered many days, but very few kilometres, and just get on with it. Coz it's fun. And deep down, that's really why I run - not to meet my silly synthetic goals formulated in ignorance, but to have fun running.
Yeah.
Who knows what the next 1,000 days will bring? So long as I'm still having fun, I really don't mind if I don't reach my goals - the only really important goal is to have fun with it. And thus far, I am
Man I need a beer. So why the *&!% am I drinking coffee???
Mid Life Crisis Man Wrote:But in truth, the goals aren't that important. As long as I keep running the goals will be achieved. The time frame doesn't matter so long as I'm still having fun.
That's a healthy atitude MLC Man. Congratuations on your 1000-up optimism I'm crocked at the moment and the goal is just to get back running again.
July. Just July.
And it's true. Anyway I was looking at my running log/spreadsheet and had the not-so-wonderful realisation that this is my 
I'm crocked at the moment and the goal is just to get back running again.