I’ve seen Muse a couple of times in London and they are massively loud. 👍

 

What are your thoughts on Piwi’s wife losing her job because she decided not to be vaccinated. Do you think your government was right in doing that?

They’ve toured here a few times back when we had that kinda stuff. Think I’ve seen them 3 times now? The best show was on the back of Black Holes and Revelations.

I don’t think vaccinations should be required for most jobs and I said so at the time. If the vaccine is such a good idea then you shouldn’t need to compel people to get it in backhanded ways like our government did. IMO it should be no different to the flu vaccine in that regard.

The only way I can explain the 2020 election is Stockholm Syndrome.  The worst, most incompetent government in our history wins in a landslide after being behind in the polls in January 2020 just before this all began.

The border is a disgrace, illegal and immoral.  It's really sad what has become of our country.  Mark I agree 100% with your vaccine position.  "2 shots for summer" was the carrot, including getting musicians on board to promote the message so all the festivals and gigs could go ahead.  Those musicians are now being forced to cancel every gig.  I feel for them in some ways, but also think they were naïve to believe a word this government says.

I'm winding up into full rant mode so I should probably stop....personally, losing another marathon, as I expect to happen in a week or so, is a pretty big blow.  Today on my long run I had 10km to go and my legs were more tired than usual at that point, and I strongly considered cutting it short "the race isn't happening anyway" but I decided to dig in in the off chance.  Lack of motivation is hitting me and I would guess a whole lot of people across the country.

I did mention my long run in this post so I think it counts as running...

 

It seriously was Stockholm Syndrome though.  The usually incompetent government actually did a reasonable job around Covid initially.  That, combined with some Ministry and media fearmongering (and a pretty useless opposition) meant that people were very afraid of any change in the 2020 election and stuck with the incumbents.  Since then they've gone from incompetent to worse.  I think we are all in need of a rant about that.

 

Anyways good job digging it in on your long run Steve (seriously, not just for the sake of putting something running related in my post).  I'm glad smaller races can still go ahead with wave starts as that's keeping me going, but it'll be nice to get the big events back.  Mentally I know (or at least hope) we will be through this in a few months, but as usual it's frustrating when there's basically no point to these restrictions other than an assertion of government control.

 

The current stupidity has led to all the water fountains being turned off in the city IN THE MIDDLE OF SUMMER.  Apparently the council are worried about people catching Covid off water fountains, I wonder if this is like when people thought you could catch AIDS off a toilet seat?!?!  Luckily there is a slightly 'off the grid' water fountain on my usual long run route that has escaped the stupidity (so far).

I actually disagree they did a good job early in Covid. They went ‘hard and early’ well after it was obvious what was happening. Bloomfield (who unfortunately is now as much of a political stooge as Fauci) threatened to resign if they didn’t cancel the March 15 Ardern promotion (my sources on this are impeccable).

Closing water fountains when we keep hearing it’s an airborne virus…quality. Logic has disappeared. My neighbour isn’t allowed to watch her son play school cricket in a huge outdoor area.

Hopefully all your races go ahead.  And hopefully ChCh finds a way to go ahead in June rather than spring. I think cumulative fatigue hit me today, it got real tough from quite early and reminded me how hard the next 8 weeks or so will/might be. I’ve had a long stretch of big weeks, and one more before a down week. I may request to bring that down week forward, depending on how I pull up.

Piwi - Nice workout and takedown of your mate. If I do choose a down week, our run may drop to 8-10, hope that’s okay. Thankfully it’s an easy run so you don’t take me down.

I do agree that fitness, both physical and mental, is the main reason to do this. I exchanged messages with Oska this week to get his read on the plans for ChCh and part of his response included ‘training is the fun part, racing is the cream’. Pretty cool from the local elite. Having said that, I’ve had my first marathon cancelled already so it’s getting harder to not focus on the cream!

I'm not going to get into what's reasonable as a Covid precaution, nor will I argue with or try to persuade those with other views, nor will I tell people what they should do.  Here in the States people are still dying at the rate of 2,500 a day, most of them among the more vulnerable population.  People infected with omicron can be contagious, and thus spreading the disease, for as much as two days before they have any symptoms.  Since I have two parents, a wife, and a son among the more vulnerable population, I cannot take it as lightly as others here may feel able to do and I'm thankful for those who make personal decisions that help keep everyone safer.

In running news (since this is a running board), it was 20º with 25 mph winds gusting to 35 mph with a few inches of snow already on the ground when I went out for five miles with my Yaktrax strapped to my shoes.  The hardest going was uphill where the extra weight from the spikes plus the slick footing made it hard to maintain any kind of pace, but it sure required effort (as did running on the few streets that hadn't been plowed yet).  Just over 5 miles for me on hills and at a very slow average pace.

Fred - Absolutely you should do what makes sense for you and take every precaution you need to.  That's how anyone who is vulnerable or closely connected to vulnerable people should handle this.  I think our issue is that we don't have that choice and are forced into doing things which have been proven ineffective and have potentially serious side effects.  And I don't just mean the vaccine, I mean the many many businesses that are going to the wall, mental health etc etc etc

 

That sounds like a pretty stressful run but great effort getting out there.  I think that's why I'm not the biggest fan of trail running - at least 50% of the time I'm happy not to overly concentrate and just run.

Thanks, Steve.  I certainly get needing to vent about the restrictions you have to deal with.  The run wasn't really stressful because there were hardly and cars out, so I had the streets pretty much to myself - not something I'd want to do often, but when it's once in a while it's an adventure.

piwi - Nice solid week.  Kayaking is a pretty good substitute for the long run.

My week was good, continuing to increase mileage, which has been the trend for about 8 weeks now.  I'm due one more big week before a down week.  Yesterday I said I might bring the down week forward, but I've pulled up well.  Probably shouldn't make that decision after a long run when I'm still feeling it.  The long progression was a pretty tough one with a long stretch of work.  There was also supposed to be a 2km block @ 4:30/km to finish but I was feeling the beginnings of cramp and had already dug pretty deep so I kept it easy to finish.

The decision on the race could come any day now, so the second that comes in I'll get my coach to update the training.  I think the best case scenario is a new date in June.

Weekly for period: From: 24/01/2022 To 30/01/2022

Total distance: 96.06km