Wednesday 5 October 2011

Not so much tapering as just not running...


Enjoy Britten's "The Sick Rose"

I've been "tapering" for nearly 2 weeks now and seem to be just enjoying the rest. I need to squeeze out another wee run this morning, soon in fact, but I'm not feeling much urgency about it. The stormy wind doesn't help. I have very little anticipation about the marathon because my training for it was all over the place and I don't think I'll do particularly well. Oh and it looks like the weather's going to be pretty crap. Another race consigned to the "treat it as a training run" scrapheap. The marathon will be race 35 of the year.

I must look back and see if I had a plan for this year or if this is just what happens when you don't plan...In a very long, slack moment at work yesterday I was reflecting that it would be nice to have a goal, work towards it and achieve it. Maybe next year I'll train properly for something.

So what's with the picture by Blake and the link to Benjamin Britten? I don't know. The sick rose is a good Autumn poem. None of your season's of mellow fruitfulness. Autumn is a disaster. It means that winter's coming. Kiss the light and the heat goodbye baby.

Mum used to like a bit of Britten on the tape-player in the kitchen in the morning when we were growing up and I guess it reminds me of winter mornings with the dark at the window, eating toast and staring into space before the day got started. I guess I better get moving...

3 comments:

Climbingmandy said...

yep Mary, get your ass in gear. Go out there and grab the day before it grabs you!

sandymacd said...

I had a terrible taper for Berlin, could hardly run at all and felt my confidence sapping away... but actually think the enforced rest did me good. Reckon the autumn colours will be fab in the trees round Kielder too. So anyway, you made me think of "A Wind that Rose" by Emily Dickinson:

A Wind that rose
Though not a leaf
In any forest stirred
But with itself did cold engage
Beyond the Realm of Bird -
A Wind that woke a lone Delight
Like Separation's Swell
Restored in Arctic Confidence
To the Invisible -

Emily Dickinson

Yak Hunter said...

AGH - harsh!

sandymac - I was puzzled by your poem at first but I think I get it now and you're right, its the same thing. It makes me want to tell you about another poem by Pablo Neruda which also seems to give reference to invisible or hidden forces that destroy or transform, but I'm afraid to let my rugged Yak Hunter persona slip!