Visions of the future and alternate realities

It is heartening to know that at least most of you have heard of 1984, if not read it. I am always taken aback if someone stares at me blankly if I mention it; I just thought it was one of those cultural icons. It wasn’t on my high school curriculum; however we did watch Animal Farm, which of course I then read which lead to 1984. I saw the film on video when I was in about grade 6 (my parents were happy for me to watch the strangest things when I was young, I remember once being woken by my father to watch open heart surgery on TV because he thought I would find it interesting, then again he also thought is appropriate to teach a four year old to read using Wilbur Smith novels), but it didn’t really register so I watched it again after reading the book and yes, it did come across quite well as a film.

This lead to me think of some of my other faves, there seems to be a pattern emerging –

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Philip K Dick – Made into the film Bladerunner which I love. A few of PK Dicks short stories were adapted for film, Total Recall and Minority Report, I’ll admit to seeing Minority Report, even if it did feature that evil alien munchkin Tom Cruise.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess – the film was pretty good, if you ignore the bash you about the skull seventies ness of the costume and set design. The book takes a bit of getting used to as Burgess writes with quite a bit of made up slang.

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll (and before you ask I thought The Matrix was crap)

All of this rambling is a just a smoke screen for the fact that I am not saying much about running lately. I have been having a small crisis of confidence, I said a week or so ago that I feel like this is my danger period, having laid the ground work for injury this same time over the last two years. Fact is I am near paralytic with fear over it! I think I have lost the ability to discern between a minor don’t worry about it niggle or the potential onset of a stress fracture. Last week I pulled up a little sore from a run and was in a deep and dark mood all the next day, by the time I pushed off for my run on Saturday morning I was nearly sick with panic, two steps in I realised I felt fine and calmed down a little bit.

As a result I’ve not done much at all over the last 10 days and have lost my direction somewhat and the fear has robbed me of the enjoyment. I’ve decided to stop fretting about the Sandown 10km at the end of May, instead admit to myself that I won’t be at my best and not rush to get into shape for it. I’ve even gone all new age and bought something called Zen Therapeutic Tincture, it is a muscle rub that is supposed to help reduce inflammation, who the hell knows if it will make any difference, but I’ll give it a go. Right now if I was told that dancing naked under the full moon would prevent a stress fracture I’d be inclined to give it a go. Incidentally that is not a cue to suggest that I dance naked under a full moon as obviously I am joking (just don’t go driving past my house during the next full moon, you may get a fright).

I am not totally neurotic though, my shins were tight as correlated by Corrie last night when I had a massage, however there was nothing specific and trust me, this is no sweetness and light aroma therapy massage, it’s H A R D, if there was anything awry in there I’d have been jumping off the table.

I have my regular appointment with the Doc in two weeks, where no doubt she will slap me around for freaking out so much instead of making a time for her to have a quick dig in my shins and give me a yay or nay.

I might give intervals a miss tonight though, feeling a bit run down as well, all this worry is exhausting stuff, maybe a light 8km or so is in order.