Yet another run where I can hardly stay in Zone 2. I talked to my trainer, ChatGPT, about it, and apparently it might just be accumulated fatigue from training. It recommended taking a week off from pushing myself too hard. That might actually make sense, so I’ll report back on whether it helped.
I love that technology can still excite me. I haven’t been this hyped for an Apple product in years, but the iPhone Duo looks so good, and the interfaces feel so well thought out. October can’t come soon enough!
Sunday is long-run day. I love a good yap and run. Later that day, we were invited to Basti’s birthday party in the park. I didn’t know anyone except Anna and still had a fantastic time. Basti and all of his friends were great, and I really enjoyed what might have been the last picnic of the summer.
This was one of my favorite evenings from the last couple of weeks. I was somewhere in the city center, buying a new bag, and I knew Anna was out on the Alster, paddling around on her SUP. So I stalked her on Find My, got off the subway early, and ran to catch up with her. She picked me up and paddled me all the way back to my apartment.
The hardest days are the ones when my run is the only usable material for my comic journal. It feels like there are only so many ways I can draw on it (pun intended) without repeating myself. This one was a close call, and I was glad I found a way to tie it to the sweltering heat that shaped the rest of the day.
Every time a long train ride is part of the itinerary, I pack my Switch 2. Every time, I pull it out for maybe ten minutes, if that, before it ends up shoved back into my backpack. You’d think I’d have learned by now and just leave it at home. But I’ll do exactly the same thing next time.
Marcel from four years ago would never have been able to go for a run after a day of travel. For one thing, I wasn’t running back then. For another, travel used to take so much out of me that I’d be completely spent.
But over the last couple of years, I’ve worked on my relationship with travel, and this run felt like one of the clearest signs of progress.
In Germany we have the saying “Was muss, das muss,” which roughly translates to “What has to be done must be done” and I think that’s beautiful.
6x6 all-out sprints (30 sec) with 60 sec recovery. It’s fun!
Baltrum is one of those strange little places you find on Germany’s islands, where nothing much ever happens except for the twice-daily ferry that brings in and carries away the tourists. I have a peculiar fascination with villages like this. They feel like a theatre production where most of life revolves around serving tourism, but the actors and crew can’t leave the stage when the season ends and no one is left to watch the show.
Being back at the sea did something to me. The sounds, the sights, I love it all. Every summer of my childhood, I spent all six weeks of the holidays by the sea. No internet, barely any infrastructure, just me, my boredom, crabs, seagulls, and the ever-changing tides. Come to think of it, it might be my favourite childhood memory.
My reading can sometimes be a little too intense for Anna.
Summer is the best season, no debate needed.
I love drawing in this journal, but I’d love even more for AI to handle the scanning and editing for me.
I love winning battles against that inner voice telling me not to do hard things. It feels great.
Please don’t judge my apparently abysmal push-up form.
My journal entry from two years ago (just a classic text-based journal) ended with me promising myself I wouldn’t spend my birthday alone the following year. And I didn’t.
Last year, I invited my friends over on the evening of my birthday, and it was wonderful. Now many of them have babies, so this year I invited them over on Sunday afternoon for coffee and cake instead. It was great.
I went to bed blissful and full of gratitude.
Running intervals offers an interesting contrast. I never want to do them, even less than a classic run. But once I get going, they’re so much more fun. There’s something deeply life-affirming about sprinting through a forest. It feels almost primal.
I turned 37 on that day! That number doesn’t remotely reflect the age I feel I should be, but who am I to argue with Chronos?
I mentioned the quality of beds in the UK to a few friends, and many agreed that modern sleep technology doesn’t seem to have made it across the Channel.
I actually had to take a nap later on. We even tried to stay in Zone 2, but it was harder than usual.
A proper birthday butt slapping.
