Same Shit, Different Year…?

According to my extensive internet-based research, a blog post at the tail end of one year or the beginning of the next is legally obliged to include some kind of list. Top ten achievements, number of words written, number of kilometres jogged* – that kind of thing.

So with that in mind here’s a list of blog-relevant stuff I didn’t do enough of in 2017.

Writing.

End of list.

2017 was a very weird year for me and subsequently 2018 seems to have kicked off with the inevitable hangover. Somewhere during the course of the year I misplaced my ambition and I’m having a bugger of a job finding it.

I Would Jog 500 Miles…

…and I would jog five hundred more

Just to be the man who jogged a thousand miles for no particular reason whatsoever and then kicked off your new year by blathering on about it*

*last line requires work and possible kickbacks to The Proclaimers

Sitting in front of the Mac eating biscuits and drinking tea in an effort to bleed out the excesses of New Year’s Eve seems like the perfect time to review my year of running.

At this point a normal, upbeat person would insert a line like And What A Year It Was! I shall spare you such vomit-inducing positivity but I will go so far as to say, It Wasn’t Bad.

A Farewell Of Sorts

Forgive me father (and indeed mother) for I have waffled. It’s been eight years, six months and one week since my first blog post and despite my best intentions I have used foul and blasphemous language on several occasions…

Eight and a half years, that’s a fuckload of time!

Oops. Sorry.

…furthermore I have rarely had much of any substance to say and have mostly relied on word prompts, tricks and a bunch of other stuff to get by.

Sad but true…but it perhaps needs a little more context and explanation around why it matters.

Two Truths For A Sunday

One is a poem.

One is a 100 word story.

I think you can work out which is which.

*

Sunday. Click. Monday

The overriding sense that

A change is needed.

*

The Next Dreamer In Line

Do you remember how we used to play? How we extended each other? How we brought your imagination to bear on those willing to listen?

Distant, longer days and nights alive with the bending of boundaries. Souls cast out into the glare of a single spotlight, thrown upon the collective mercy of the gathered few.

We do not belong here. Barricaded in this graveyard of youth by the transient clutter of lives that have altered.

And yet we remain. Strings broken. Necks unbowed. Settled amongst the dust.

Waiting.

Waiting for you to remember.

Waiting for the next dreamer in line.

OMTOM Time Again

Or the Old Mutual Two Oceans Marathon to give it the full beans.

Two Oceans weekend is almost upon us. It’s dubbed The World’s Most Beautiful Marathon and it’s a reasonable claim. Aside from the early kilometres along Main Road there is some truly breathtaking scenery to behold – which is a good thing because it has some fairly killer climbs to negotiate.

56km of wonderfulness.

Or so I’m led to believe.

When I attempted it I only negotiated one ocean and had to pull out at the 30km mark with severe stomach cramps. It was a cold, miserable day and I saw the scenic parts of the route in a combination of agonised walking and the failure bus of shame.