Christmas Massage

The new Mid Life Crisis Man sends greetings to hightly steamed viewers around this globular planetoid object we call home.

Much has happened of late, but largely it is has been boringly inconsequential stuff of little interest to those not directly related to me. Others of you however will be at least gratified to know I continue to run, and am substantially injury-free and enjoying my plods. Not only that, but I have liberated myself of stopwatch and spreadsheet and now run without a watch and no longer record my efforts in the computer. To say it has freed me up would be an understatement. In conjunction with this, my son and a friend have finally persuaded me to don the metphorical lycra and enter the precincts of a gym which has much scary looking equipment to entrap myself in and many heavy blunt objects to flog myself with. Truth to tell, it is all quite addictive, and I even have functioning triceps again... or perhaps I should say, at last.

Currently I am spending a month back in my second home town of Adelaide, and doing much of the festive thing, drinking too much wine and exotic beer, and eating many very splendid things. Oddly enough however, the warm climate seems to bring out the active athlete in me and despite the food and grog I am reducing the flab and getting nicely tanned and decently toned. So all is pretty much hunky dory in the life of MLCM at the mo.

As for races, well there are none on the horizon, and my only goal is to keep on enjoying my running. Given the lack of deadlines and logbooks, this is actually easier than before, because I am not forcing myself to run when I don't want to, and I run where I want and at the pace I want, and if I stop for a breather, I do so without one eye on the watch and a concern for split times and average pace per kilometre etc etc. 

So there's a new lease of life in the old bod, and it's good.

I should give my son some credit for this I think. He probably saw the increasing size of my belly and figured the old running lark wasn't sufficient motivation for me anymore, and so he dragged me to the gym and beat me severely about the head with some enormous dumbbells until i saw sense. Well, in fact what happened was that I was so impressed with his motivation and level of fitness that I decided to give it a go myself. And by mixing up the routines, it is not as boring as I had feared.

But I don't think it's a substitute for hitting the roads at that perfect time of day when everything is glorious and you seemingly have the planet to yourself and you feel that you could run forever. I'm not saying I'm converted to being a morning person yet, but when I do get up for those early morning runs, it astonishes me just how glorious the world can seem at those times. Running is still the thing for me.

So, health and sanity is good. I must try and get back here more often. I've been missing you guys.

Have a safe and happy Christmas everyone, and I'll see you all in the New Year.

MLCM.

Comments

[bierzo baggie]

Hoorah! The crisis man is back!

[Sweder]

Good to hear from you Old Boy : )
Yes, those early mornings can take your breath away, in more ways that one. Happy Chrimbo, stay healthy and drop us a line sooner rather than later.

[ANTONIO L.R.]

It´s great to here from you again, MLCM. I´m glad you´re feeling fine without worrying about how long it takes you to run a distance and enjoying early runs and workouts at the gym. I think it´s great not to get obsessed about PBs.

Feliz Navidad Happy Christmas and a wonderful new year for all of you

[stillwaddler]

We've missed you too MLCM, great to hear from you. Belated Happy New Year, glad to hear you are up to running again, great ide to forget the watch.