any minute now

Last year was a bit of a super-running year for me. Over 3,200 kilometres covered in training, two marathons, a PB in the half and two in the full. All good stuff.

This year is a fair bit more laid back. I ran the 30km Maroondah Dam run earlier in the year, the Run for the Kids and a Sri Chinmoy 10km a few weeks ago but I don’t plan on anything serious. No Trailwalker, no 150km training weeks, nothing.

The reason for all of this is about to show his or her face any minute now. In fact, we were expecting movement at the station yesterday. Pretty soon I don’t anticipate much in the way of personal time, exercise or, above all, sleep.

All of this lends these last precious few runs an extra air of poignancy. I made it to the top of Anderson street; a secret tear was shed. I stopped for a drink somewhere along the Dandenong Creek Trail and was forced to choke back a silent sob. I forgot to apply Vaseline this morning and started chafing 20km into my long run; the wince was a wince of regret.

It’s all too much.

Still, kids have a way of making these little sacrifices worthwhile.

Running
As mentioned, a comfortable 23km run this morning. I started at a nice and slow 5 minute k pace as the air was pretty smoky. I could feel it (the smoke) in my lungs, like a flashback to me at age 21: a pack and a half a day smoker. As I ran the wind picked up a bit, clearing the air, so I picked up the pace in the last 15km, including over some hills in the Montrose area. I finished nice and strong, and could easily have run another 10km, but I didn’t want to wear myself out, with the chance of a fairly strenuous ordeal ahead of me (and the wife, obviously).

Now I have some sort of craving for handburger(s), preferably the old-fashioned sort, with real meat, an egg and possibly a slice of tinned beetroot or two. We’ll see.