Crude Weather

This picture says a lot about how I am feeling now. Winter is after all a time when nature sleeps. Even nature has to recharge, replennish and restore itself. Nature cannot be green and gold all year round. To understand how nature flourishes and changes is to understand balance and symmetry. We need also to ebb and wash with the tides if we expect flow in our lives.

But in contradistinction to this picture I have not been sleeping nearly enough. It is a difficult time to be overburdened because at least four teachers, five if you include Corneli, are sick. The cold is obviously creating an added dimension which stresses the immune system. I have felt a little sniffy, and my throat a little scratchy, but I seem to be alright so far. You cannot imagine how hard teaching becomes once your voice goes.

I am continuously aware of the need to be consistent. I am also aware that I have an injury for a reason, and it is one of those injuries that do not easily disappear. I'm trying to remember what I did that brought it on. It may have been a hike I did. It was not the marathon, because I did the marathon wondering whether my foot would stand it, and the slow pace did not seem to effect it severely. I believe it is the new shoes I bought. So my strategy is not run for a while, and when I do, possibly next week, to run very slowly, and not far, and to build the distance really gradually. This week my foot hasn't seemed to improved at all. It hurts enough now when I go down stairs to consider taking the elevator.

Today I could really feel the impact of standing all day, and it concerns me that this may turn out to be a serious factor in the weeks ahead.

From skimming through my blog I am also aware of the incredible amount of mental energy that is flowing. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I do feel I need to limit what is being produced, concentrate on quality and develop a few ideas, and really do something with them, rather than produce oil tanker loads of crude that are going to spill uselessly into the sea again.

Some of the ideas I'd like to develop are:
1) The Real Game (children's fiction)
2) Bean Curd as an energy food in South Africa, possibly a sports-specific fuel. I'd like to take this to the Sports Science Insitute in Cape Town and get an assessment/endorsement from them.
3) The 'I am...' series of children's stories.

I also want to spend a little time fleshing out a possible storyline for Next Day, about a world full of bald people.
And I want to develop the idea I had for a commercial for Road Safety which utilises peoples fear of sharks, and uses them as a metaphor for a car that has a certain number of kills. The implication should be that there is a powerful hunter that has been out there (aerial view of the sea) that has killed X people in the Cape Town area alone, and around the beaches of PE is suspected of having injured holidaymakers too. The commercial implies a monster shark is trawling around the Cape's beaches but it turns out to be a barely roadworthy, and very rusted bakkie (pickup truck).

I have let some of my training momentum slip this week, and I am trying to see what is the best way to approach the next few weeks in Korea. I don't want to train in ignorance. My first priority was to develop my run and I have already picked up an injury. I will obviously spend more time on the swim and cycle now, but pay special attention to developing the overall strength of my body in the gym. And I think if I can run and not worsen the injury then it is better to run a little. I must just test to see whether I am tearing the tendon, and how far and how slow is OK for it not to tear. I will also have to start treating it with ice.

Possibly running in the cold will prevent the sort of inflammation that running in the heat would have produced. I will need to stretch more now, and avoid hills. It's really ironic, because the lesson I learned from the last Ironman journey was that I didn't run enough hills.

Earlier this week I said I would do a 7 Day Mental Diet. I have adhered to it to some extent, but being half awake is not an effective way to attempt mental discipline in the first place. So I will undertake this again once my system is restored. I will have some extra free time in the morning as from next Wednesday, so I am looking forward to starting again then.

I had an interesting mixture of emails and phone calls today. I feel a bit bad because I have not gotten around to calling my sister. It was her birthday yesterday. I haven't heard from her in ages so it will be good to find her number again and see how she is. There are actually a few people in South Africa that I'd like to call.
http://www.getsomesleep.com/insomniaTreatments/insomnia-treatment.html