Across the Alps 2012 or maybe later...

I'm back in training and have taken up listening to audiobooks while running. Oliver Sacks' "The Minds Eye", Philipp Roth's "The Human Stain" and currently Robert Musil's "Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften" have accompanied me through dark and ugly winter evenings, wrapping me in a comfortable shell of story and endorphin. Next on the menu will be Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina". The selection is somewhat accidental and was so far totally dependent on what I chanced upon through friends or the internet.

Further recommendations are very welcome!

Recently one thing has started happening. It's like through running I'm starting to get a look further down the funnel of this soul of mine. Or some such thing.
What I mean is: What Haruki Murakami says about running is mostly true for me too.
Today for instance, as I was blasting through the night, propelled by music, I felt really very genuine and happy. It was a profound feeling that is still going on until now.
Three times I had to replay this song for its refrain, for its grasp on life and the happiness I felt. Wings seemed a real possibility, life a raw landscape with me running right through its middle...

I'm pushing an elephant up the stairs
I'm tossing up punchlines that were never there
Over my shoulder a piano falls
Crashing to the ground
I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great beyond

If you type in "ending the hiatus" in Google, you get 5.950 hits. Most of them refer to blogs and bloggers ending their hiatuses and engaging again with lifting, feminism, higher ed marketing, myspace or autism. In many of these blogs the blog post "Ending the Hiatus" is amongst the last of the blog posts. In German we call this "Panikblüte" - a last and final blossoming of nature and life during a dry spell before it all comes to an end.

"Hiatus" comes from the Latin word "hiare", meaning "to stand open, to yawn" and in English its plural is not only really, really "hiatuses", but it is also a nifty little word that can refer to a long syllable break between two vowels (like in the Tagalog word "Oo", meaning in English "yes"), a gap in geological strata, the opening in an organ, a vacation or break from work or the condition of having such a break.

You get the point: I had a hiatus and I haven't got many excuses. How I wish it would have been a gap in geological strata or the opening of an organ! But alas - it was merely the condition of having an idle, simple, very long and open yaaaaaaawn. Sometimes a yawn can take months to conclude.

My two prime excuses are a) having had to stop running in the end of July due to problems in the fricking Achilles tendon, and b) issues with the hip joint when I tried again in late August. Both of these experiences kind of got me down a little and for a while I pretty much stopped worrying about running all together and thought and did other things...

Now, some of you might think now that this is the end of my little self-deceiving megalomaniac plan of running across the Alps. Not so! No no no! I have simply taken some time to build up the motivation to build up the courage to build up my training again! Sometimes even a runner needs a good, open and long yaaaaawn to stretch the jawbones and sing along: You can manufacture a miracle!

Yes, I'm still sticking to the plan. Only now with less time and greater pressure to actually do the qualifying runs in 2011. So do give me some motivational speeches, emails and facebook messages, will ya!

Before you start yawning quite openly - here's the plan for December and early January:

1) Find a good orthopedic surgeon to prescribe me new orthotics.
2) Find a good fitness studio to help me build the trunk and support musculature.
3) Slowly start building the running again, supported by swimming and occasional water jogging. Today I already did a 8.6k run - wheeee...

June has gone, July has come. Several ideas for blogposts have been postponed and the sun has tanned me latino shoulders (standing out against the peaky white of my chest). The springtime of our metereological discontent has now become glorious summer by this sun of ours! Football is on, people flock to parks and public viewing, and my running routine is fitted in pleasantly according to the schedule of our pastime. You can always run home from a walk along the river or an afternoon at the pool!

There is more to report - a half-marathon, the results of the Cro-Magnon Race 2010, the fascinating story of my Achilles tendon and, and, and - all of this will follow in the next couple of days... So long!

The June data:

No of Runs: 14
Total Distance (km): 193,9
Ave speed (min/km): 5:59
Longest Run (km): 40,8

Edit: I was trying very hard to find a theme song for this month. After watching many youtube music videos I stumbled across this. It is just perfect ;-).

May? What May? Oh, you mean that February-like so-called "month" when people rumoured about some strange "yellow thing in the sky" somebody with holidays had actually seen far, far away in a southern country. As far as crappy Mays go, this one was number six in Vienna since 1841. 164 liters of water fell on every square meter and I have run through many of them. At some point I didn't care about weather anymore - I got totally soaked by cars going through puddles, did a rainy 25K mountain run with 1100m altitude change, had to run around flooded rivers and told myself that weather is overrated and rain good for the crops and that there isn't bad weather, only bad clothing. Yes, and then I caught a cold and had to stop running for a week.

Looking for an adequate song to describe these borderline metaphysical experiences, I found a slightly nerve-wrecking 80s thing by guy called Max Werner. Surely, I have had my share of rain in May! I feel nervous and itchy and need to and shall run again today! Yesterday Summer has finally arrived here - with open air cinema, people flooding the parks and dancing in the streets, hmmm...

...but now for the data on my merry, merry month of May:

No of Runs: 18
Total Distance (km): 186,7
Ave speed (min/km): 6:01
Longest Run (km): 32,3

One nice side effect of my current training regime is that I swim more often. Amazing! Today I even felt somewhat like a fish - which is very unusual for me. I only choked on chlorinated water once or twice. Or thrice. Which would make me a special needs fish, BUT - nevertheless a fish. I used to be a wood grouse - who according to urban legend wood grouses even drown in rain - and now I'm growing gills...

Blubb!

ps:
please click to picture above to feed me and my friends!

Every month I will post my training results, so my current training mileage will be public. And if I sit on the sofa instead of scuffling the streets, people will know, so I gotta run! Haha - it's a catch!

In order to make the whole exercise even more interesting I shall also hide songs and links randomly here and there, like easter eggs. So in 2012 we won't only have crossed the Alps, but we'll also have done so on one gigantic two-year egg hunt. Hannibal's bones shall shuffle their feet in awe...

Oh and I forgot - the "Hopeless Feats Illustrated" will be cited for comments from time to time. For those more interested in where I steer my training. If "steer" is the right word here...

But here's the training, April come she will:

No of Runs: 12
Total Distance (km): 120,7
Ave speed (min/km): 6:24
Longest Run (km): 25,3