stack

There are many things to be said for running at 5am in the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne, but abundant natural light is not one of them.

It’s as dark as Phillip Ruddock’s soul out there. It’s also not terribly flat. The footpaths are amusingly riddled with rippled and bumps and abrupt changes of direction. Can you guess what happened this morning?

That’s right: a stack. I came a cropper and/or went arse over tit in dramatic fashion.

Thankfully, due to the aforesaid lack of street-lighting, I’m pretty sure no-one noticed. Also, due to my natural agility and cat-like grace, I managed to avoid serious injury.

Running
12.5km this morning in 54 minutes, plus about 2 metres flying forward, an inelegant barrel roll and a fountain of four-letter words.

it’s beginning to look a bit like…

Right now, mid December, is about the best time of the year.

I know I have some work to do before my time off, but I also know it’ll be pretty slack and it won’t go for long. I’ve been going around buying some last minute presents, which is probably better than actually getting them on the day.

The day itself seems like something to look forward to at the moment, despite the fact I know I’ll just feel bloated and vaguely irritated at all the idiotic conversation thrown around between the extended family (most of it coming out of my mouth, of course).

What was it that guy from the Simpsons said “better than the act, better than the aftermath – the moment of anticipation!”. Of course, he was talking about making love to Patti and/or Selma, which just goes to show how wrong you can be.

So what do I want for christmas? About 15 points for my beloved Charlton Athletic, who have suffered miserably in recent months. Oh, and some nice time off with the family. That’ll do.

Goofy theory no 1 for today
(I have many goofy theories)

Early morning runs hurt less.

No, really, it’s true. Also they don’t seem to tire me out quite as much. I think this is because I’m at least 56% asleep and don’t notice what’s going on.

This cuts both ways, though. The catastrophic crash and burn rate rises markedly when I get over 50% sleepiness.

Okay – so let’s revise my goofy theory. I’m nothing if not flexible.

Early morning runs hurt less hurt just as much, but not ’til later.

Running

12k this morning around Croydon and Ringwood. Technically 53k for the week so far, but I want to claim Monday morning’s run as part of last week, which was otherwise pretty low. So I’ll claim 37k and aim to put in around 20 – 25 on Sunday morning.

Crash and burn

km: 23.6645, for the week: 57

Conversation overheard in my front room at about 16:00 yesterday:

DB “my god you look terrible”
JRuns “I feel terrible”
DB “quick, have something to drink”
JRuns “no thanks, I need to go die in the corner somewhere”

Rewind to lunch-time, and if you were somewhere in the Mooroolbark region, you would have seen me setting off for my weekly long run, all bright-eyed and bushy tailed, little knowing the ordeal ahead of me.

Yes, it was possibly my worst long run, and very possibly the worst run ever, full stop.

At less than 2k into it, I had to stop and walk up a fairly innocuous hill. I was sweating like a pig in a pizza oven, and even detected a bit of calf-tightening.

So, at this point I was sweaty, tired, dehydrated, sore.

I persisted though on the grounds I was:

1. damn stubborn
2. at least 10k from home, with no mobile to call for help.

At 8k I took a spectacular tumble coming down the hill from Montrose. Somehow I managed to land like I was doing a long-jump, with limbs all somehow pointing forward.

So, at this point add bleeding, dirty and undignified to the list.

I struggled on, took a left into Colchester road and then right into the Dandy creek trail.

By this stage I was giving new meaning to the term “run yourself ugly”. In fact I was verging on “run yourself unconscious”.

I had, however, reached that stage when it’s easier to keep going than to stop. I was able to cruise along the DC trail, which is mercifully flat on the whole. I made it all the way to Wantirna road without major incident. I did scare a few pensioners and small animals, but they’ll live.

At this point I wanted to push on towards Koomba park, but had the feeling I was pushing into fainting territory. I turned right and headed up the hill towards Ringwood. The next few kilometres are a bit of a blur. I ended up with some gatorade somehow, so I must have either gone into a shop or robbed a small child.

Somehow I ended up at home, after almost falling over in the video store (don’t ask). So, over 2 slow, painful hours later the long run was over.

I still feel pretty crappy this morning. I don’t know exactly why this happened, but I’ve made some guesses below.

Lessons from the experience:

• Even if I’ve eaten a big serve of curry the night before, I still need to eat some breakfast.
• 24 degrees is too hot to run without good hydration.
• I need to sleep before a long run
• If I’m feeling really bad, I shouldn’t keep running out of subbornness.

so, to begin

I have very reluctantly joined the self-publishing, blogging world, characteristically about 18 months after everyone else in the known universe. Being just that little bit behind cool is such a nicer place to be. All the hard work is done, and everything comes with a simple GUI that takes away any possibility of independent thought. Lovely.

Anyway, this blog is notionally about running. Mine mainly, although I’m not opposed to other people running as long as they don’t go faster than me.

Running itself is a little boring. One foot in front of the other. Repeat until unconsciousness. Same old same-old. I guess the reason you do it is to go to some sort of zen level of boredness. Increasingly wild delusions followed by a brief moment of stillness as everything goes grey; then down you go crumpled in a heap in some suburban gutter.

So here’s a picture of me, which apparently I need to post if I want to be able to put it in my profile. I’m not used to this, but it seems a pretty awkward work-around to me. Ah well.