escalators

16.6195k, for the week 38km

At my age it’s a good idea to cherish what small pleasures life offers you.

In that spirit – I’d just like to write a little blog entry in praise of the escalators at Parliament station. (for non-Melbourne readers, it’s one of the CBD stations, it has very steep, long escalators)

So why the escalators? It’s not, as you might think, because they represent a release from both the train system in the morning and a day of drudgery in the afternoon. And it’s not because I’m particularly fond of looking at people’s rear-ends close-up at eye level.

No, it’s because they’re steep, and because when I jump into the right lane and scoot up as fast as the traffic will allow me, I can feel every step of the morning run as it swirls around various bits of my legs in a hot, lactic-acidy frenzy.

I like feeling sore and stiff after a run. It tells me I’m alive.

Yes, yes, yes I’m a wierdo. I know.

vale charlton

A quick post today, as I have to rush off to three days of what I anticipate to be oh-so-exciting training….

Running – last week was much improved. Solid efforts in the early morning have left me feeling more purposeful, and the LSD run on saturday morning hit the spot. Overall there was 64km last week, and they were generally of a reasonable standard and mix of styles (hills, speed, long-slow).

I was up again slightly before the dawn for a 12k run including the Mullum-mullum creek trail. So everything’s qoing well, running-wise.

Shoes: Some runners (who will remain nameless) seem to almost fetishise running shoes. I’m not one of those, but I do admit to some excitment over my new shoes. I’ve managed to get some new Brooks Adrenalines cheap, via a great uncle-in law thrice removed, or something, who turns out to be a physiotherapist and can get special deals. Who-hoo. They should come in 2 weeks or so.

I always used to be an Asics person, having run in 2010s and 2110s for years, but I’ve enjoyed my current adrenalines, and I think I’ll stick with them for a while.

Charlton – as you may or may not know, I’ve supported Charlton Athletic for years now (small, unfashionable “soccer” club in the English Premier League). They’ve had some pretty good moments, some pretty dire moments, but they’ve generally had at least enough success to keep in them in the league.

This year it’s all gone to hell. We have a new manager, Ian Dowie. To be precise, we HAD a new manager, who only lasted 12 games, before being unceremoniously dumped. He may have even been escorted from the building carrying his stuff in a cardboard box, I don’t know.

We’ve lost a lot this year. I mean A LOT. I haven’t mentioned it, because frankly, it’s been too upsetting. Last weekend we finally didn’t lose. We didn’t win either, but we didn’t lose. It’s a sign of the times that this has been greeted with some celebration around the traps, and we even made the Sports Tonight summary yesterday.

How depressing. Lucky my running’s picking up.

nijinsky

Today: 16.4219k, for the week 39km

I leapt from my bed this morning at 5:00. Really, it’s true – I DID leap from my bed, arms outstretched like some budding Nijinsky, and promptly knocked over a vase, 2 bedside lamps, one small child and almost woke the other half. Graceful as always.

Pushing on, regardless, I slipped into the old faithful Brooks and a pair of shorts and headed for the door, filled with verve, brio, elan, and the sort of irrational exuberance that, until today, I feared had deserted me forever.

What a difference a day makes eh?

The run itself was quite satisfactory – some hilly bits, some less hilly, some fast bits, some less fast. You know, the usual story.

What’s on my ipod?

Gabriel Faure– Piano quartet no 1 in c minor, op15

I’ve been a bit of a Faure afficionado for some time now. I like his requiem and drool disgustingly at the prospect of hearing the Sonates pour violon et piano, particularly the first one. He wrote beautifully; passionate, lyrical, emotional, and quite French.

I don’t know much about the guy, but I assume Monsieur Faure was on a bit of a downer when he wrote this piece. He had fallen in love with a girl called Marianne and pursued her for 5 years. Given it was the 1870s, I’d say there’s a fair chance he may have even wooed her. Or possibly he just courted her. Either way, he mustn’t have done a great job, as she cast him aside like a worn-out glove after only 4 months.

Bummer eh?

He dealt with his frustrations by writing a piano quartet. As you do. I personally prefer to take myself on a long hard run or drink a lot of beer or occasionally both.

The third (adagio) movement shows signs of being written on a particularly long, lonely winter’s afternoon. There’s a quite a bit that you might call meditative if you were charitable, or depressing if you were otherwise inclined. Other bits are a bit more stormy.

But it’s all characteristically elegant, and beautiful. I like it.

Music: lovely, 4.5 stars
For running: are you mad? 0.

polymathy

Damnation. Just when I thought I had this year’s stupid run of the year award sewn up, along comes Peter Rohde.

Peter, according to his website, is a mountain-climber, political commentator, PhD student in theoretical physics and an amateur electronic artist. Quite the clever-clogs/whiz-kid/free-thinker type, you might say. And you’d be right.

In May this year he applied his free-thinking approach to the world of long-distance running, entering and completing the Brisbane marathon after only doing training runs of 7km.

If he was looking to test the theory that running a marathon on close to zero preparation will hurt, then I think he can tick that box off. It sounds like it definitely did hurt:

By this time my knees were in absolutely agonizing pain, which only became worse once the race had finished, and my legs were numb and tingly.

Well, derrr….

Reading Peter’s blog, I feel I’ve come across my long-lost polymathic, banana-bending spiritual cousin. He’s made quite an impression on me, certainly enough to be added to the links on the right of this page.

After the Brisbane marathon experience, it’s probably not advisable to put him in with the “running blogs”. It’ll have to be misc for you, Pete.

Nice blog though.

we could live for a thousand years

Km, 12. For the week, 23.

Never let it be said that JRuns doesn’t acknowledge the people who make it all possible.

A big thankyou to the people who voted INXS’ song “Never tear us apart” the best Australian lyric ever. I never suspected VH1 viewers had such a well-developed sense of humour.

To be fair to Mr Hutchence et al, it doesn’t sound too bad in the song. The thing is, when you look at the words written down, it’s like a carcrash. Literally.

I
I was standing
You were there
Two worlds collided
And they could never ever tear us apart

A second thankyou to Connex, who, sensing how much I like my morning commute, managed to make it 3 times as long as normal this morning.

Last, but not least, I’d like to say a big thankyou to all the people I saw on my run this morning, who without exception, smiled and/or said “Hello” to me as I puffed past. They’re good sorts, those Ringwoodians.

who gots the funk?

Well, I do, actually. I gots the funk.

Unfortunately, I’m not talking about my dancing, or even my phat bass lines. To be perfectly accurate, I’ve not so much “got” the funk, as I’m “in a funk”. ie. in a rut, all over the place, drifting. It’s more like this:

funk (fngk) n.
1. A state of cowardly fright; a panic.
2. A state of severe depression.
3. A strong smell; stench.

That may be overstating it a bit, especially the bit about the stench. However, the fact remains, my running just seems to lack something at the moment.

I’m still putting in 50-60ks a week, and managing the usual LSD, hills and speedy-gonzalez stuff. For some reason I still feel unfit, lazy and unfulfilled.

My solution this week is to redouble my efforts – run every day, and don’t allow myself junk-miles.

The big question is “what’s it all in aid of?”, or if you prefer “what’s the point?”

Yes, I’ve come to the conclusion that all ain’t right with my running. Everything else is fine though, thanks for asking.

in circles

km: 9, for the week so far: 31.

If you will humour me for a little while, I imagine you, readers, as a pretty sensitive bunch. I picture you with emotional intelligence and empathy fairly oozing from your pores.

So did you read between the lines yesterday?

No? You missed it? I’ll fill you in…

Last night I’d arranged to go for a run with a friend and her workmates. Just a quick lap of the tan. For some god-awful reason this made me quite nervous.

I always run on my own, and this suits me fine. I can run at my own pace, for as long as I want, and everything’s fine.

I’ve also gone well passed worrying about talking to myself while running, or generally acting eccentric.

Way back in the beginning of this blog I described running as:

some sort of zen level of boredness. Increasingly wild delusions followed by a brief moment of stillness as everything goes grey

But with other people around, it’s all different. I’m uneasy about putting other people through that. Does that make any sense at all?

Are you mad?

I’ve always had a suspicion that people who do long distance running are a little – how to say this politely? – maladjusted.

When I read of people like Dean Karnazes talking with a sort of hideous coolness of running recovery runs home from New York to San Francisco, I have to suspect we’re dealing with people whose minds are somewhere out where the trains don’t run.

Okay, that’s a fairly extreme example, but I suspect most runners have had little “what the hell am I doing this for” moments at some point in their careers.

I remember back at the start of the Melbourne Marathon in 2005, feeling a lot like King Lear venturing out into the storm. It probably didn’t help that I was too nervous to sleep the night before. Ditto, the rain and wind and crazy hair.

I’m not saying all marathoners howl at the moon, or if they do that there’s anything wrong with it. It’s a pretty harmless form of lunacy. No-one really gets hurt (last Sunday aside).