Yeah Mangan, who’s doin yer talking!

I had a couple of days over the last weekend when I actually asked myself if I was enjoying myself as much as I should be. If I was surely everyone was right and I needed a couple of screws tightened. What with sweat  dripping down my body like a slow tap running as I ran in blisterin heat, circumstances and lack of time forcing me to run right through the hottest time  of the day. I wondered if it was a mistake sending Nirvana onto Buenos Aries, Argentina when I have another friend in Equador that offered to take delivery  of her and obviously  nearer than BA.

You see I am having serious trouble running with my pack in this heat. When I experimented with this in Mexico I coped reasonably well.. But just like pushing Nirvana in the first days  of the expedition, when I was so fresh  that I could push her with just one  finger Well these things are compounding, compounded effort leads to serious fatigue.. Right now I am running myself into the ground.

There were days when running with the pack that I felt as strong as a horse then the following day it was a long slow  plod..

Perhaps other factors came into play here, like not enough sleep , nutrition, recovery time due to the commute  I mentioned a couple of weeks ago.

My total baggage was about 4 and a half kilos. Now its about 2, I will explain later in this posting.

If you remember I  mentioned  a couple of weeks ago that I finished my days running that without a support vehicle I had devised a system of commuting back and forth to my previous days finishing location. Sometimes this worked like a peach for example it I was running along the highway and a bus came towards me going back in the direction my hotel or place I left my bag… Life is easy I could just stop it and the next day continue running  from the  previous kilometer marker..

Well, that was not as easy as it sounds as many bus drivers  simply didn’t stop for the gringo on the roadside.. Best to finish in a town and besides if I finish on the road in the middle of nowhere that’s  exactly where  I  have to return to the very  next day, to continue running towards the town but then with a heavy pack. Also a 45km commute can sometimes take a long time..

Sometimes I think I must suspend the ‘ eternal optimist ‘ in favour of the realist.

I have since heard another reason  the bus drivers  don’t stop is the perceived language barrier, they just couldn’t be bothered.

Last night I waited an hour and a half for my bus from where I finished running  in Parrita to where my hotel is in Jaco, where  I finished on Sunday.. This is crazy, a total of nearly three hours including travel and a 25 minute walk from the bus stop.. I try to be accepting of this, listening to my music, but there is a limit as I need to rest,eat and recover as best as I can, also this is one ot the reasons my blog is suffering due to my lack of time.

At the end of every day I am wiped out. And for a man that never had any trouble getting up in the mornings, now I often hit the snooze button for over two hours before somehow managing to venturing out of bed.

ONE AFTER 909

Don’t get me wrong the motivation is still cast iron, I’m just more tired. some days I feel as though I’m in the 40th hour of a 48 hour race again.

I mentioned in the log that at the end of Sundays run I discovered this lovely hotel, The Beatles Hotel owned by Roberto. Roberto is a very decent person. At first he told me the beautiful spacious luxurious suite I am staying in now would be $50 a night! A bargain for the large amount of gringos here but out of my league. I told him about the world run and it didn’t take me long to bargain the Beatles fanatic down to $20, still a bit steep for me but I am delighted with it and felt I deserved it.

Much of this extra comfort is due to the recent increased support from my main sponsor, many thanks to THE NORTH POLE MARATHON

Roberto is such a kind soul that I am sure I could have bargained him down further, but I didn’t have the nerve!

I looked around at the pictures of the Fab Four who he calls Los 4 Grandes.

Yes the Abbey Road pedestrian crossing, The White Album

Thank you Roberto you were there for me when I needed HELP!

All this while Roberto joked with me and his receptionist, the conflictingly named Priscilla (as in Presley)

THE LOVELY PRECILLA

So YESTERDAY before commuting back I said to myself ” How about a rest day Tony, you have not had one in two weeks? ” Yes I know it was A HARD DAYS NIGHT

After all Roberto is such a decent man I know he won’t mind me taking a second night.

I told myself at the start of year two that there were too many rest days last year and this year I will need to ‘ get the finger out! ‘ I now plan less rest days and less daily distance, afterall, rest days are for wimps

Actually I rarely plan them,I just take them when a ‘ gift horse ‘ arrives, like this one or the many lovely places I stayed at in Mexico.

Time to GET BACK!

I had great plans for today, no not lying on the sands of the glorious Jaco beach, only a block away. I have never availed  of even one facility when given a discount or comp.hotel. Nor was I gonna TWIST AND SHOUT.

So what was I going to do?

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW A SECRET

Sorry for this torture!

I figured on doing two huge things…

Time to get back to being a PAPERBACK WRITER!

Yes I would spend about 8 or 9 hours in an internet cafe  and catch up on the blog, yes that would surely PLEASE PLEASE ME!

Well the great day dawned and

I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER!

Ah! Tony

TELL ME WHY

And if I told you,

IF I FELL out of bed and into the internet cafe, that would  be a lie. Why do you lie and cry to me,as they say.. I’LL CRY INSTEAD.

I rambled down to Subway and had a foot long sub! Or 35 cm as they are known as here. Hey one reason I’m metric! Also had an apple  pie and four coffees! The whole morning gone..

Back to  checking emails, hungry again, lunchtime.

I stopped at the supermarket for the ingredients for my 4 course lunch. AND I LOVE HER!

WHEN I GET HOME

I am called into action with my favorite meal. No Tony, you are no childrens role model..

For my starter  I tucked into a half kilo bag of crisps, or chips as my American friends call them. Biscuits or even cookies for the main course.

My pharmacist and general health advisor Greg tells me to lay off Coca Cola, so I pull a fast one and wash it all down with a 3 liter bottle of Pepsi Cola

I ME MINE

Along with a 250 ml tub of ice cream. At this point I am a bit peeved off as I discover a refrigerator in my room and I could have bought e world runner tub size and not this little girl size

No tip to the waiter. He forgot the chocolate

I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER, yes SOMETHING makes me wonder if running around the world is an excuse for gluttony AND I LOVE HER!

So, what about the important things and I am thinking ANY TIME AT ALL.

I do what I do best, waste time..

I rush back to the supermarket, grab a cardboard box, get some tape, marker and a scissors from the lovely and agreeable Pricilla. Lash 2 and a half kilos of my gear that I don’t need… Or have found a way to survive without. What do I need a towel or hat for when I have a bandana! I will do a posting on (what’s left of) my equipment list and how every single item has to earn its keep.. How if I saw the end off anything else, toothbrush,comb,razor…well I will need to start carying a saw around with me Also gone is the nail clippets, back to being a child by biting my big toenail off, or even borrowing s scissors.

YOU CANT DO THAT!

Yes and TELL ME WHY.

I rush down to the post office catching them minutes  before they close. 

Yes I posted more than half my baggage home and instantly felt a huge weight off my shoulders, I apologize for  that pun!

Yes my arms were sore just carrying my parcel  to the post office.

CANT BUY ME LOVE!

Back at the Beatles Hotel Prisilla is trying to load me up spare pens and notepads.. Ah! Now if you keep this up I will start calling this place

HEARTBREAK HOTEL.

Gotta watch my weight The equipment I mean, not the calories.

So now hopefully I can run from door to door easier and less commuting. I mean the hotel or place I finish at I will continue the next day :

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE.

Tomorrow I will return to where I finished on Monday… The LOVELY parRITA.

THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD..that leads from door to door.

Later I played my rarely played Beatles songs and wondered what Roberto would have reacted, had he bern here.

I’LL BE BACK!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 9th, 2011 at 1:39 am and is filed under jogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.