robin hood

It may surprise you to know there are some places in this world where the internet cannot go. I’ve been restricted to one of those places, namely my place, for the last couple of days. Hence the distinct lack of postage either here or on bad-tempered.blogspot.com.

The brief break from the verbal/blogal diorrhea has at least given me some time to think. Always a mixed blessing that.

Since the marathon I’ve been a bit down on the running thing. I have an informal agreement with the missus that I’ll only run 3 times a week. I think she objected to the amount of time the marathon training was taking up.

So the plan was to do two quality/speed sessions during the week and one long run on the weekend. But it’s not enough. It’s not enough at all. I’m beginning to feel sluggish, fat and generally out of shape.

I new the marathon fitness couldn’t last. It never does. But gosh it’s upsetting to lose.

And it’s so fragile. If, last like weekend, I have a minor brush with illness I can lose 50% of my weekly running in one hit. AAAARRRRGGGGHHH..

Bloody addicts.

Luckily, I have a run coming up tomorrow morning. Clarkey, PG and some other people from Ausrun are running up at Sherbrooke Forest and I’m taggin along. I’ve never been to SF before. Makes me think of Robin Hood, obviously.

Albert Park

In recent weeks I fear I may have been a wee bit disparaging about Leonard Cohen, particularly with regards to his music’s usefulness while running. Probably too disparaging.

Now’s the time to set it right.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a reason they don’t play Leonard Cohen in gyms. There’s a reason your local “pump” class plays amped-up, dumbed-down “commercial dance” without the good bits, and it’s not just because they want to insult your intelligence.

No, high energy music is usually pretty good to get you going and low energy introspective stuff isn’t.

But not always! No, sometimes, when in the early to mid stages of the weekly long run, when staying cool and restrained is of the essence, what you need is calm, calm, calm music and something to take your mind off the relentless thumpety-thump of rubber on bitumen.

Doesn’t this get you thinking?

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
You were talking so brave and so sweet
Giving me head in an unmade bed
While the limousines wait in the street.

Or this:

Great Babylon was naked
oh she stood there trembling for me
and Bethlehem enflamed us both
like a shy one at some orgy.

And when we fell together
all our flesh was like a veil
that I had to draw aside to see
the serpent eat its tail.

This is the best one for me though, from the end of a song called “Queen Victoria” an otherwise incredibly urbane and literate song from Live Songs:

Confusing the star-dazed tourists
with our uncomparable sense of loss

Shouldn’t that be “incomparable”? Shouldn’t it? It bothers me.

These are the things that run through my head during running.

Running
A vomit-free run this lunchtime. You know things aren’t going well when the best thing you can say is you kept your lunch down. Today was helped a little by not having any lunch at all.

Anyway, it was a quick brief jaunt from my office in Lonsdale street down to Albert Park, around the lake and back. I pushed the pace a bit as I had a 2 o’clock meeting in a very confined space and I felt a preparatory shower was a good policy.

tagged

I’ve been “tagged” by Andrew over at ajh. It’s a bit of a strange experience, being tagged. It makes me feel all pre-pubescent, knobbly kneed and as if I’ve probably not done my homework.

Anyway, apparently I’m supposed to answer 35 questions with single word responses, a feat of brevity that doesn’t come naturally to me. Here goes:

1. Where is your cell phone? What
2. Relationship? is
3. Your hair? this
4. Work? ,
5. Your sister? twenty
6. Your favourite thing? questions?
7. Your dream last night? Oh
8. Your favourite drink? ,
9. Your dream car? right
10. The room you’re in? .
11. Your shoes? I
12. Your fears? get
13. What do you want to be in 10 years? it
14. Who did you hang out with this weekend? .
15. What are you not good at? No
16. Muffin? wait
17. Wish list item? what
18. Where you grew up? was
19. The last thing you did? the
20. What are you wearing? question
21. What are you not wearing? again
22. Your pet? ?
23. Your computer? Would
24. Your life? you
25. Your mood? slow
26. Missing? down
27. What are you thinking about? ,
28. Your car? I
29. Your kitchen? can’t
30. Your summer? think
31. Your favourite colour? straight
32. Last time you laughed? .
33. Last time you cried? How
34. School? about
35. Love? now?

How did I go? Not too well, I suppose.

Apparently I’m supposed to pass this on to three people, rather like gonorrhea or “the dutchie” if heading in a left-wise direction (a little musical joke there for people old enough to remember their musical youth).

So, over to you, Clarkey, Peter Rhode, and Bryan Appleyard. I realise it’s probably not the most appealing offer you’ve had in a while, what with the references to STDs and all, so I won’t be offended if you don’t pick up this particular blogospherical baton.

riding the bus

I refuse to catch the bus. I just don’t trust them. I’m fine with trains, trams, feet, bikes or cars, but never the bus.

On a train, you know exactly where it’s going – it has to stick to the tracks – and you know when you get there – there are signs on each station.

But with a bus, it’s not like that. When I lived in London and used to spend time tootling about to places like, well er.. Tooting, I used to constantly get lost in buses. One suburb looks much like another when you’re new in Sarf London.

The one thing you can say about red London buses is they’re better than their white porcelain equivalents. I’ve spent most of last weekend getting reacquainted with the porcelain bus, and I don’t like it.

Ironically, I started getting sick on the train. On the way home from work on Friday night, of all the stupid times to get sick!

I got home to discover the rest of the family were also pretty keen on a demonstration of technicolor yawning at Olympic level.

So a great weekend was had by all.

I did attempt a long run on Sunday afternoon. I managed 10k before the stomach cramps convinced me it wasn’t such a hot idea.

I need a drink

Yes, I’m not alone in that. The whole of Melbourne, the whole of VICTORIA, is drier than a dead dingo’s donger. And that’s dry.

Luckily our political lords and masters, far-seeing and omnipotent people that they are, have come up with a super-dooper plan to make sure we don’t all die of parchedness. Yes, we’re going to build a bloody great factory to make water and we’re going to plonk it down near Wonthaggi.

The good people of Wonthaggi are, predictably, complaining big-time. It’s hard to have sympathy for a town who’s major attraction is an abandoned coal-mine.

The other big idea is building a bloody great big pipeline from the Goulburn river down to us.

As always, when it comes to bloody great plans to fix climate change, the Americans are way ahead of us:

Addressing Climate Crisis, Bush Calls For Development Of National Air Conditioner

WASHINGTON, DC—”We must act now so that our children’s children can live in a world without sweat,” said president Bush, justifying the project’s $100 trillion price tag.

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Running
None yet today, but if you’re standing around somewhere in the Croydon vicinity tonight watch out for a dashingly handsome figure of a man flitting, gazelle-like, down the back streets.

That’ll be me. Either that or you need to cut down on the medication.

low-tech

I’ve been having trouble posting today, technology-wise.

I still can’t say with any degree of confidence that blogger will still be functioning at even the most basic level by the time I finish typing this sentence, particularly as this sentence is one of the more extroardinarily verbose and complex examples of the species ever seen outside of a Henry Miller novel.

Whoo. What was I trying to say? Oh yes, technology problems. Very grumpy. Read more at my grumpy blog: It makes me mad.

anderson street hill

For some god-awful reason, known only by my sad excuse for a subconscious, I decided today was the day for a tempo session AND hills. One can only assume I’ve done something extremely bad in a former life and/or in a dream.

Either way, as you might expect, it wasn’t a wholly pleasant exercise. I started out at lunch-time in the city, after showing a rare bout of common sense at 5am. At that point I, quite justifiably, thought it was a little too cold to venture out.

On the other hand, 5am runs may be cold, but at least you don’t have the psychological torture of making an exit from the office. For some reason, even the hint that I’m going for a run seems to bring hordes of people out into the lobby, and not just ordinary jo-blows: people who really shouldn’t see me in my shorts.

I ran the gauntlet of leers from the boss’ boss’ boss’ PA and various other low-lifes, after which half a dozen Anderson street reps didn’t seem so painful.

Don’t get me wrong, Anderson street is never fun. Neither are 15 minute tempo runs around the tan. Let me qualify that, they probably could be fun, but only to someone with, as they say in the classics, a diseased imagination and a healthy dose of self-hatred.

In fact the best thing you can say about today’s run is this: I didn’t get shot.

Danger
Melbourne readers will no doubt recognise that last sentence as a rather oblique reference to yesterday’s triple shooting in extremely-down-town King Street. To the best of my knowledge, the only person to actually die was a runner who stopped to give the woman some help.

I don’t mean to make light of this. Quite the opposite, I think he was one of the rare people who actually deserve to be called a “hero”.

If I came across a fight, would I intervene? I’d have to think carefully about it, after yesterday.

On a similar issue, in the US it’s been noticed how often runners/joggers come into contact with the seamy side of life. See Nation’s Joggers sick of Finding Dead Bodies.

video

There are some among the Jruns readership I think of as friends, even part of a big happy family. In fact there are some days when my family are the only people who read this blog, but that’s another story.

Even if you only have a passing association with this blog or myself, you will know how much pride I put into the daily posting. It is my constant endeavour to present to you your daily dose on time, without exceptions, and phrased perfectly with the mot juste used whenever possible.

Given a choice between tapping away at this blog and actually doing some work, there really is no competition.

Yesterday was the exception to that rule. My employer oppressed me with constant demands to actually do something to justify my exorbitant salary. Even if that wasn’t the case, I was unable to type for most of the day, due to a minor case of frostbite, picked up in the morning run.

Memo to self: must buy gloves.

Video
Just after the marathon a few weeks ago I mentioned the existence of a video of me finishing the race. I’ve finally managed to load the aforesaid video, thanks to the magic of “blogger in draft” and google video.

It seems to work okay for me. Enjoy.