Thunderstorms, psychopaths and pinot gris.
It has rained nearly every day for the last six weeks here in Sydney. Everything is damp. Not just the roads and gardens and parks, but curtains and furnishings, clothing in cupboards, and every piece of timber has swollen with the unrelenting humidity of a hot summer's moist, biblical, watery plague. All of the windows in our house have swollen as if pregnant, and can no longer be opened, leading to a house more resembling a Turkish bath than a modest, suburban Sydney dwelling.
Monday, two days ago, the heavens did finally relent sufficiently for myself and three other blokes from work on a day off to hike around the coastal areas of Sydney for a few hours, to disassemble work issues and talk general, blokey talk. In all we covered a little over 30 undulating, mixed terrain kilometres, wreaking terrible and (I hasten to add) wholly hypothetical revenge on the psychopaths and Trumpesque egomaniacs that are our bosses, and who are as maniacs, destroying our work environment. They dismantle the very structures that support them (and employ us) for the promise of a 'productivity bonus' or a cushy promotion to some other area also ripe for wanton destruction in the guise of 'agile management' and the push for '21st century dynamism'. It makes one very literally sick.
This outing with the fellas was not only mentally therapeutic, but also gave my feet and ankles (in particular) a variable-surface workout they don't get on the treadmill, of course. On the downside, the day was especially humid, and all of us struggled with the conditions. It was muggy enough to make a Mumbai cabbie sweat, and the beers we consumed at the pub after our walk were well-earned and quickly vanquished.
Yesterday saw a return of the rain, and so I took once again to the treadmill, my sore feet and ankles demanding a 'slow, easy' and flat work-out. A two-hour, Maffetone method run it was, therefore, with just 15 kilometres covered, but done at such a low heart rate I could have fallen asleep, and this is the key. That I can now very comfortably run for two hours, and would barely have broken into a sweat but for the intense and relentless humidity, is extremely gratifying. Focusing more on time spent in training, rather than kilometres covered has transformed my thinking and given my training the kind of satisfying results rarely seen by me before. And as an antidote to the stresses and strains of work, it's a major blessing.
The latter part of my run coincided with the arrival of a severe thunderstorm, and as soon as I had finished I moved outside into our covered, alcove area with a bottle of pinot gris to enjoy the lightning show, the smell of ozone, a cooling breeze and the rapid reduction in the mugginess. Bliss!
I was also delighted to find the gentle massaging of the easy, long run had greatly reduced the soreness I was feeling in feet and ankles, and now, a little over twelve hours later and with a rest day to further relieve the workload, I feel fantastic and strangely eager for more.
Even the mad bastards at work can't destroy this mood. Thank you, Lord of Running.
{Attached: The view from South Head at the entrance to Sydney Harbour, part way through our walk.}
March Too Much
