Superfast Jellyfish

I had a day off on Friday, and it was a serious luxury that I didn’t want to waste. I got up early, fell back asleep, dragged myself out of bed at about 6:15 and faffed around until I finally managed to get out on the road at 7:00. Then I took a nice leisurely run down to Lake Burley Griffin and around the central basin, only stopping occasionally to take some photos.



I find it strange that things always look so much further away when you take a photo of them.

I also tried to take a shot of some fluffy baby ducks but as soon as I got my phone out to get all happy-snappy the mother duck started freaking out and went straight for me. Duck needs to take a chill pill. Probably thought I was going to eat its children. And I may have. Fluffy baby ducks looked pretty damn tasty.

The run itself was uneventful. I’m getting back into the swing of the long runs, not really feeling any discomfort due to the increased distance. Now the boredom starts to sink in, unless I entertain myself some other way. Does this mean I’m not pushing myself hard enough? I’m just trying to avoid heat exhaustion, dehydration and all the other wonderful things that come along with running at this time of year. I only drink water on these runs and I get pretty sweaty, so there might already be some electrolyte loss. Especially considering what happened later in the day.

After my run I had a big breakfast of eggs, bacon, crumpets and a pop tart. Long long runs = mucho food = bliss.

Now, complications. I went for a swim pretty much as soon as I’d eaten my breakfast because it was a really hot morning. I went down to CISAC, which is pretty good. They’ve got a nice 50m pool there, and it’s not too far from home. Six hundred metres in, I had an encounter with my old friend Leg Cramp. Now, this could be because of the electrolyte loss from earlier, or simply from muscle fatigue due to the run and my bad swimming. If I thought I ran badly, my swimming is like 1000 times worse. Children watch me in horror and turn to their mothers, shrieking “Mummy, that girl is drowning!” Or, “Mummy, is there something wrong with her legs?” and this is on a GOOD day. This was not a good day. I was halfway through my 13th lap and both legs completely seized up, bending double underneath me. I had to swim to the other side of the pool with no legs, avoiding splashy freestyle guy in my lane who kept trying to overtake me despite there being two sparsely populated lanes for medium-speed swimming and only one slow lane. Which I was in. Life in the slow lane, that’s me.

Out of this, I took the comforting assurance that if I really were to drown, the lifeguards would probably just stare at me in a bored fashion as they had when I was all cramped up and struggling to stay above the water.

Later on in the day, I went to get a deep tissue massage. This had seemed like a great idea earlier in the week, but this woman was BRUTAL. She had elbows of iron, and by the sounds of it she was either really exerting herself while working me over, or she was enjoying herself a bit too much. She tortured my back for what seemed like a lifetime, and even though I knew it would hurt when she got to my calves, I had no idea just how much.

Yeah. I like deep tissue massage. Nothing like a bit of whimpering agony to liven up my day.

Now after dancing today, my legs feel odd. Rubbery. Jelly-like. I know I have to run tomorrow, but I’m hoping they’ve fixed themselves up by then.

Doubts, dramas and philosophical inadequacies

I don’t know all that much about philosophy, but I know a whole bunch about traffic lights. I want to share something, a lesson that was taught to me by the little green man on the pedestrian crossing. He’s a friend. He’s very close to me.

The little green man says to walk, but it’s more than that. The little green man says to keep moving forward. When you’re waiting to cross the road, the little green man teases the shit out of you. He never shows up when you want him to, he waits and waits until you’re halfway tempted to start crossing despite him. But then he tells you to walk, and you cross the road.

Sometimes when you get to the other side of the road, you realise that you really want to be back there where you were before. But you can’t just turn around and walk back, because now the cars are going past and you’ve missed your chance. The little green dude is nowhere to be found. He disappeared when you were still walking, when the little red man started flashing at you in warning. The little green man fucked off to do whatever it is the little green man does when he’s not shepherding your ass across the road. You no longer have the freedom to cross the road unimpeded. You’ve lost that magic moment. If you want to cross back again, you’ll just have to wait. You don’t know when the lights will change again. Is it healthy to stand there, looking back across the road, wishing you were back where you were before this whole crossing-the-road mess started? Staring at the red man, wishing him gone. It’s not frigging healthy. It’s not good for you. You’re wasting your life, waiting for the green man to come back. If you ever got back there, it wouldn’t be the same.

The little green man is trying to tell you that you just have to keep moving forward. You think you’re on the wrong side of the road? How do you know? Have you really looked? Maybe life is great here on the other side. Even if it’s not, there will be other roads and you’ll cross them in your time. If there’s someone you left behind back there, maybe in their time they’ll come over to this side of the road to join you. It’s what all the cool kids are doing.

But basically, setting aside the confusing metaphor, reflection is okay every now and then but living in the past is counterproductive because you’re not living at all. When there are setbacks, you just have to pick yourself the fuck up and KEEP MOVING FORWARD. Because life doesn’t stop for anyone, and nor does the little green man on the traffic lights.

Maybe I know a little about philosophy.

I landed stupidly on my ankle during dance class today. Sometimes my spatial perception sucks ass. I went floundering on the floor, knowing I’d have to pick myself up and somehow get to the other end of the room so the other dancers could keep on dancing, knowing that there was no dignified way of doing this because I couldn’t put any weight on my left foot. I had to hop the length of the room. I knew I looked like a dick. I knew I was epitomising the fucking ridiculous but what the hell else is new? Since I got home I’ve accessorised with a hole in my hand from accidentally grating it with a box grater, and several hot oil burns on my fingers.

But you know what? That’s me. I’m clumsy. I’m a dork. I don’t have to explain myself to anyone.

I haven’t been in a dark place, but over the last week I’ve been standing right next to a dark place, peering in. I don’t want to go in there. I want to go back to the way I was before. There is no going back, and I’m going to give the dark place a wide berth. I’ve just got to accept the way I am and keep moving forward. Hope for a road somewhere ahead.

I wish I could follow this more consistently, stand by my convictions and be a strong person. But I’m too fucking weak. It comes and it goes.

In short, I didn’t run this weekend, even though I don’t have a long training window left. Falling back into the lazy trap. Am I going to let it bother me? No. I’m going to just keep on going.

I used to be so awesome. Now I’m not sure anymore.

Tempted...

Ooh. Entries have opened for the 2012 Canberra Marathon. Already. I’m sorely tempted to shell out for my entry fee now so I’ve got the race locked in for next April.

Also, I’ll probably get a nice low bib number as well. Does that actually matter? Nah.

Interesting to me is that the race was $99 this year, and next year it’s going to be $109. Is there going to be more included? More amenities? Better quality medals? More of those deliciously awesome gels they provided this year? Is this prompted solely by inflation? I DON’T KNOW.

I haven’t really run this week at all. But I did do my long run on the weekend, and I swear I’m going to start getting my act together during the week. Soon-ish.

This is my Race Face

Okay, not so much my Race Face as my early morning Saturday face, where I haven’t showered or prettied myself up. Pre-run. Scary, huh? This is as candid as I get. I took a post run photo but it seems to have vanished. Which is a good thing.

As may become evident, I just got an iPhone 4s and I’m so overwhelmed by the novelty of a shiny awesome phone with a camera that I tend to take a lot of pictures. So, I apologise in advance.

I ran on Saturday, despite being for the most part unwilling to drag myself from my comfortable bed at 6am to spend half an hour dousing myself in sunscreen before hitting the road. I’m very sun-smart, most of the time. Even though sunscreen makes my face sting and my eyes swell up and inexplicably causes me to come home covered in tiny dead flying bugs. The bitches just love me. Maybe it’s because sunscreen makes me sweat like crazy. Sometimes I feel like the essence of Summer is purely the smell of sunscreen. Or Golden Gaytimes. Gotta love a Golden Gaytime.

I didn’t know if I was going to be able to cope with the distance, given that I’ve been so slack of late with the whole running malarkey, but I managed to run 14k in a pretty respectable time (at least respectable in my middling standards) of about one and a half hours. No personal best, but it’s just a training run. As the weather hasn’t really heated up as of yet, I’m starting to dread the longer runs to come through November and December in the lead-up to my race in January. I’ll get to experience the joy of a 4am alarm on a Saturday morning once more.

I can hardly wait.

I’ve given up on the MarathonGuru training plan. It’s just not realistic. Add to which, they sent me an email this week (or at least I think it was them, I can’t find the email now) to tell me that my free trial was coming up and I’d need to pay in order to keep my membership of the site. Naturally, I thought “Get stuffed” and stopped logging in. I know I can train for this event by myself anyway. I don’t need those losers.