Nooooooooooo!vember

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Tomorrow morning. 5 a.m. Test run. Might only be five minutes, it all depends on the big toe of the left foot, or more to the point, the arthritis that has been torturing it for the last week or so. It's better, definitely, but still sore and I'm very nervous... as nervous as hell, in fact.

But! This must happen. It must. And it will.

I shall report back tomorrow a.m.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

When they were the age I am now, both my parents had serious arthritis. They were permanently on medication, my mother for her hands which became increasingly disfigured as the years progressed, and my father for his knees, both of which were eventually replaced with titanium versions. My arthritis is in my toes, and doctors have spoken in hushed tones of its likely impact as I get older.

Over the years it has flared from time to time, but as long as I kept running, the instances of it were minor annoyances only and quickly abated. This latest case of it however has lasted over a week, and made running impossible. For a couple of days I even seriously thought about using a stick to walk with.

Both my parents were of the opinion that you 'use it or lose it', and kept the inflammation at bay as much as possible through action and activity. The worry with arthritic toes is that it gets so bad one can't run any more, as was the case for a few days, but it has slowly improved, and this morning the pain had subsided to a dull ache, so I donned the shoes and tentatively headed out the door. I just did laps of the block in case any hobbling home was required. This wasn't the case however. The toes were sore, certainly, but the pain didn't get any worse, and so I plodded out a stubborn, slow 3.3 kilometres, just enough to classify as a 'run' but not placing too much strain on the recalcitrant appendages.

Afterward, the feet felt pretty good, all things considered - no worse, no better. After the half hour train ride to work however, I 'alighted' from the train (do we 'alight' from anything else, or is it just trains?) and felt immediate stabbing pains in the toes again. This was a little depressing, but after a few minutes of hobbling, the pain quite suddenly vanished and reverted to the same, tolerable dull ache again. I'm taking this as a positive sign and remain hopeful that the running regimen is once again under way.

We shall see what tomorrow brings before becoming overly optimistic, but I am quietly confident.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Nothing untoward, toes slightly better, so another run in the morning. Things are looking a little more positive now.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

On a day of strange weather around the country, including a very rare tornado warning for the city of Melbourne, I was up before 5 a.m. to pound out a gentle 5km run that I had sworn to myself that I would complete. The legs were a little sore, the left big toe (which I am calling ‘Terry’ because Terrys are always trouble) and the weather wet and miserable; yet I was up and at it by 4:45 in order to get the run completed with enough time to catch the 6:09 train to w*rk.

Wet and miserable it was, but nothing like the wild weather in other parts of the country, or indeed as we have seen here in Sydney in recent days, and so I headed off into the dark in spite of my whingeing legs and Terry’s insistent aching.

It’s a little weird running on mornings like this. It’s rare to find anyone else mad enough to be out on the streets, and doubtless passing motorists might have yelled out what they thought of my questionable sanity except it would mean rolling down their windows and thus getting a soaking. So instead I run along undisturbed other than the sound of constant drumming rain, the slapping of my Brooks Adrenalines on the wet bitumen and the wet tyre sound of the occasional passing vehicle. The usual wildlife – birds, rabbits and yes, the occasional fruit bat, are all absent today with the singular exception of a frog, close to home, boisterously calling out whatever it is that frogs call out about when the night is wet enough to take them from their usual homes and put them in the path of mad early morning runners.

The run took its usual course of events; the first uncomfortable kilometre, then a kilometre or two of fairly comfortable, almost enjoyable plodding around the neighbourhood, and then the ‘God I am sick of this, maybe I can chuck it in at that’ doubt and uncertainty, before the final realisation that I could, in fact, finish the promised five kilometres really quite easily if I just stopped thinking about it quite so much.

And so that is what I did, and returned home wet but happy, an easy-ish five clicks covered and the vague feeling that I had done something, not significant, but at least a run that definitely marks my return to regular running again. If I can run at that hour in those conditions feeling as I did, then I am pretty sure I can say I am back running again for sure.

And as for Terry, after a little grumbling and moaning and attempts at hurting me again, he settled down and went quietly back into his box.

Yes, I really do think things are looking up again. Apart from the weather, that is.
 
 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-05/to...ts/6915734

[Charliecat5]

yet I was up and at it by 4:45 in order to get the run completed with enough time to catch the 6:09 train to w*rk.

You're mad... MAD I TELL THEE... 

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

yet I was up and at it by 4:45 in order to get the run completed with enough time to catch the 6:09 train to w*rk.

You're mad... MAD I TELL THEE... 

Hmm, we'll see who is maddest come Moyleman marathon time, eh?

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

I so badly just wanted to sleep in this morning but had to get up anyway, and therefore ... yep, I figured I may as well just get up even a little earlier and do the damned run.

I covered just the bare minimum (3.5km), but given the way I felt (extremely tired after an extremely tiring week) I was very happy to have done even that much. Three runs in five days - that is a huge improvement on recent weeks. Alright, months, even.

And tomorrow? I am not getting up early unless the damned house is on fire.

And I mean really on fire.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

So after a nice sleep in yesterday, I was up again early this morning for a 5 a.m. plod around the streets. A little quicker, a little easier, and the 5km outing left me feeling pretty good all day. You could say I'm bouncing.

There's still a long way to go, but I really feel I'm properly under way this time.

As for Terry, he's still whining slightly, but without nearly so much vehemence.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Wow, that's a first. I was out the door at 4:45 a.m. for my morning plod, and during my outing crossed paths with no less than four other runners! Unless I run along the highway (which I haven't been), I never see anyone else that's not in a car on the roads at this early hour. They must have put something in the water around here.

So anyway, a nice little run was had (albeit shared with a bunch of other people, only one of whom bothered to shout 'hello'), with a little over six kilometres added to the running log, and quite pleasingly completed, I must add. These are not lengthy runs, to be sure, but on the back of general laziness and sloth, I am pretty pleased that my return to running fitness has got off to a pretty fair start. I feel it won't be too much longer before I'm hitting the double digit distances again.

Terry, a.k.a. my recalcitrant arthritic left big toe, is settling down, albeit in grumbling kind of way. I look forward to the first pain-free day, which I am sure is coming. As I knew all along, running is the cure. It just somehow frees up the joint and stops it, well, calcifying, I suppose. Whatever the reason, it works. I guess sometime in the future it is going to catch up with me, but then again, maybe not, so long as I keep it moving. Time, as they say, will surely tell. But I can wait for that day. Meantime, I am really enjoying being back in the running togs.

This is the life!

[Charliecat5]

Wow, that's a first. I was out the door at 4:45 a.m. for my morning plod, 

This is the life!

4:45 AM!  Quarter to bloody FIVE.  This is not the life... this is crazy madness!

Buy hey, that's what makes you a runner...

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Wow, that's a first. I was out the door at 4:45 a.m. for my morning plod, 

This is the life!

4:45 AM!  Quarter to bloody FIVE.  This is not the life... this is crazy madness!

Buy hey, that's what makes you a runner...

That's true Charlie, it is doing the insane, tackling the impossible, getting up in the middle of the night to go for a jog, that makes us runners, um, special.

By contrast, today's run was a daylight event. 9:15 a.m.! Ridiculously late in the day, it was very warm, very muggy and atrocious running conditions. The streets were busy with traffic, landscape gardeners, builders, maintenance crews, road works, leaf blowers, jack hammers; you name it, I had to dodge it all as well as cope with the heat and humidity. It was very tough, so tough I even had to walk the last two hills. I deliberately did not look at my watch through the run and thought it would turn out to be a very slow one, but in fact my pace wasn't too bad. So tough as the run was, I am pleased with the result and very glad I made the effort.

Also pleasing were the numbers spat out by my bathroom scales. Finally, all the important vital signs; weight, muscle mass, basal metabolic rate and so on have turned the corner and are finally all headed in the right direction. This is great news, and only spurs me on to continue my disciplined approach of running on alternate days. With a rest day between each run, you get the results but not the injuries.

Speaking of such things, Terry is still throwing the occasional tantrum, and may yet have to be sent to the doctors, but on the whole is much better since my return to the world of running, so I remain optimistic.



Some people don’t have the guts for distance racing. The polite term for them is 'sprinters'.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Je cours pour la France.

I don't know exactly why, but the latest attacks in Paris seem to have suddenly become much more personal. As I pounded out a few kilometres this morning I tried to make sense of it all but couldn't. Thinking about it just raises ever more questions and increases the abhorrence and uncertainty surrounding it. There seems to be no real way of stopping it. The threat to innocent lives will always be there, so long as this war continues. 

Perhaps what the terrorists don't understand is the enormous difficulty of undermining a society. The more you throw at it, the more determined it becomes to withstand the offensive. Unless you are prepared to send in an overwhelming army, the destruction of a society is impossible. Without such an army, all that happens is that innocent people needlessly lose their lives and the perpetrators foster ever more intense hatred against themselves.

One commentator I heard suggested the attacks were designed to increase the mistrust and hatred of Muslims in Europe, and thus create a breeding ground of new recruits for ISIL. Maybe so, but that's still no way to win a war, although it may of course prolong it.

But to my run, which, for what it's worth, I dedicated to the victims of yesterday's attacks. Conditions were near ideal for a jog; pleasingly cool, and with the drenching rain of the past 24 hours having ceased, the streets smelled wonderfully fresh and vibrant. The only slight concern was the carpet of lilac jacaranda flowers that cover the footpaths around my district. Jacarandas are an exciting, vivid tree when in bloom, but when they drop their flowers, the resulting slush makes the footpaths very slippery, so some caution was required.

I was still leg weary from my previous tough, hot outing, and found the hills especially hard going, but I had just five kilometres planned, and did that plus another half without too much difficulty. My improving fitness is motivation enough at the moment, and I'm enjoying these outings around my local streets. Without the pressure of a race deadline I am running enough to see continual improvement, without the anguish of having to stick to a particular schedule or exercise program. The day will come however, and probably soon, when I will need to start focusing on a race of some kind.

Meantime, the troubles caused by ISIL are enough for me to run for the sake of not wasting my freedom and good health, and to keep it that way for as long as possible.

En solidarité.



P.S. I haven't forgotten Beirut - equally horrific, of course, but there's a familiarity about Paris and the people of France, and not just because I've been there, that's at the heart of my empathy, I suppose, which isn't meant to diminish my concern for the victims in Beirut, but which I suppose does. These are the things that concern me when I think about them as I run. I have no answers, and perhaps never will, but I'm working on it.

[El Gordo]

Is it definitely arthritis? I've had an on-off problem with gout over the years, and you're at the right sort of age.

I've had a toe problem for about 6 months -- though it seems to have finally taken some time off over the last month. Had a blood test but it seems this one isn't the auld enemy. The doc has concluded that it could well be the onset of some arthritis problem. "You are are at a good age for it", he cheerfully said.

On the plus side, I've finally managed to start turning the fitness corner -- or at least, I've identified the distant corner through the fog of my lassitude. More when I have it.

[Edit - sorry, written before the Paris outrage, and before I read your thoughts on it. Been hidden on a tab since Friday and just spotted.]

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Is it definitely arthritis? I've had an on-off problem with gout over the years, and you're at the right sort of age.

I've had a toe problem for about 6 months -- though it seems to have finally taken some time off over the last month. Had a blood test but it seems this one isn't the auld enemy. The doc has concluded that it could well be the onset of some arthritis problem. "You are are at a good age for it", he cheerfully said.

On the plus side, I've finally managed to start turning the fitness corner -- or at least, I've identified the distant corner through the fog of my lassitude. More when I have it.

[Edit - sorry, written before the Paris outrage, and before I read your thoughts on it. Been hidden on a tab since Friday and just spotted.]

Well EG, I've had three independent diagnoses of arthritis, so it seems a fairly safe bet. And yep, they all make the same 'you're the right age for it' comments with me, too. Doctors seem oblivious to the fact that we pay good money for those irritating, bleeding obvious statements. Sheesh.

Turning the fitness corner, eh? This is great news indeed, but why wait until you're there before telling us about it? The journey is the thing. Write, man, write!

I must away. W*rk beckons with its skeletal digits and drooling fangs. Shudder.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

So I slept in. By the time I was up, it was too late and too warm for the full planned distance, but I threw on the running gear and did a few laps of the block anyway, just so that I felt better, kept up my alternate day running routine, and had something to put in the running log.

And you know, it wasn't too shabby.

I don't know why it constantly surprises me like this, but this running game really isn't half bad.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Although today was for me a day free of paid employment, I was still up before six a.m. for my scheduled constitutional. This was less to do with any iron will or discipline I might have, and more to do with the simple expediency of a forecast maximum temperature of 30C, meaning of course that it would be too hot once the sun was properly up to run at all, and so up and at it nice and early was the only sensible call.

I had decided to be a bit different this morning and run laps of my block, ostensibly to give me an easy 'out' once the going got tough, but also to have some lap times to mess around with in the spreadsheet. Yep, the old hunger for number crunching is returning; I must be back in the running fold for sure!

Although warm and a little humid, the conditions were brilliant for a gentle plod (or plods) around the block. A huge red fireball of a sun was rising as I began and had the double benefit of being a sight to look forward to as I turned the corner facing east on each lap, and a clear reminder to cover some distance before it rose above the trees and began to properly fry me.

At dawn at this time of year Sydney really can be magnificent - pleasingly cool, it smells clean and fresh with the scent of eucalypt, and the combined dawn chorus of currawongs, magpies and kookaburras make this landscape unlike any other part of the country. It really does make getting up early for the dubious habit of running so much easier.

One does rather have to arise particularly early however. It's not hard to see that a great many people set their alarm clocks for six a.m., because from about a quarter past, the streets suddenly fill up with joggers, cyclists, dog walkers and early commuters. The contrast is striking, and I think to get up that half hour earlier will be all the more pleasant for being a little cooler, and a lot less crowded. Not that it's a huge problem of course, but I do like to have the streets and footpaths to myself if possible. I guess I'm just a bit selfish and grumpy like that. Well, not really, but it is nice to run the streets without having to think about dodging and weaving and overtaking and avoiding dogs etc.

In all I did nine laps of my block, each one progressively faster until the fifth lap, and then each a little slower until I had done my time just shy of six kilometres. Despite taking it fairly easy (in fact my pace was pretty dire by comparison to other recent runs) and wearing an allegedly high-tech moisture-wicking running shirt, I finished the run completely drenched in sweat, quite at odds with my effort and the relative coolness of the morning. I had to sit quietly for some time sipping water before sufficiently revived to hit the shower. Whatever the reason, I'm treating it as a positive sign of a tough work out which can only be beneficial. I may not be much of threat to those Kenyan and Ethiopian marathoners yet, but I'm making small and important steps in the right direction.

I chose the easy option today and ran the block anti-clockwise, which means I have a long gentle ascent and short, steep(ish) descent, rather than the other, trickier, way around. Given the condition in which I returned home, that was probably a wise move. I do look forward however to tackling it clockwise which gives me a reasonable hill climb to work the legs a little harder. Maybe next time.

Terry, a.k.a. the recalcitrant arthritic left big toe, is hanging in there with twinges of discomfort from time to time, but not hindering my running at all, so I'm still hopeful of resolution there without the need for medical intervention. We shall see.

Until next time, au revoir.

[Seafront Plodder]

If I remember rightly mate, turn right out of your house and it's a steep hill to the top.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

If I remember rightly mate, turn right out of your house and it's a steep hill to the top.

That's correct SP. Not a great way to start a run, unless you're in training for a hilly race of course.

And no, I'm not, in case you were wondering.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

A freak day yesterday of intense heat enveloped the city. It's still spring, yet the temperature rose to 41C making running of course impossible. Luckily it was a rest day anyway, so it hardly mattered. Also in the category of good fortune was the cool change that blew in overnight meaning the temperature was a very pleasant 19C when I headed out for a few more laps of the block at 7:15 this morning.

This was anything but a quiet, sleepy Saturday morning jog however as the main road outside our house was being ripped up and resurfaced, requiring lots of very large and very noisy, not to mention smelly machinery going about their business from 6 a.m. Sleep was therefore impossible anyhow, so on with the running shorts and out the door I ran. A good ten laps later I returned, tired but in better shape than previous outings, so progress is still being made. A good indicator of that is that my last lap was also the fastest, although that also perhaps indicates that I should have run further. But no, I am happy with my modest outing (6.75 km) and slow, steady progress. I'm enjoying it too much to risk it by pushing too far too soon. I've no race goal to speak of, my main concern for now being to return to a decent level of fitness and to get my weight and core strength back to where they were two years or so ago.

Progress without the pressure. That's the name of the game for me just now, and it's suiting me just fine, thank you.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

A long day of plastering and painting yesterday meant taking this sore and tired body for a run this morning was looking decidedly unlikely. However, in the interest of maintaining a semblance of routine, I did take it out for a short but punishing few laps of the block.

The only real item of note was the sighting of a pair of King Parrots, large, outrageously bold red and green parrots quite common in the mountains but far less frequently seen here in the 'burbs.

Anyway, duty done. It was the bare minimum really (3.4km) but completed at a decent pace, so a hard enough work out. I'm counting it, anyhow.

With three of the dreaded night shifts coming up this week, I'm not altogether certain how this alternate day running routine is going to hold up, but we shall see soon enough.