Red Middle Removed
Last night a wind storm blew in and by morning the 100kpm gusts had brought the biggest dust cloud into Sydney that I've ever seen. When I woke up, the sun past the blinds was a vivid red, and walking out into the street was like arriving on Mars. Or the apocalypse, if much quieter. Somehow, even for the usual traffic sounds from Parramatta Road at that hour, everything was hushed, the way it is when there's a thick but gentle snow storm back in NYC. It stayed quite vivid all morning, although by afternoon had cleared. I was particularly interested in the effect the cloud had on colors. Because of all the red and yellow filtered from the light, greens were notably greener, and fluorescent lights - stripped of what makes them seem so white and yet cast such a ghastly pallor on everything - glowed an electric blue. It's just as well it's past, but the reminders will stay for a little while. The rain storm that preceded the dust gave it somewhere to stick, and there were more than a few complaints about just-washed cars, all bearing evidence to the event.

Satisfying Close to Running Season
1:56 by my watch, 2:09 on the clock at the finish. The discrepancy is due to starting well after the gun. I got to the start at about 6, but found getting up at 4:30 for breakfast etc. hadn't actually relieved me of the need to relieve myself, and there seemed to be far fewer facilities and far more people queued up to use them than last year. The family of four small children ahead of me should have been my first clue I was in the wrong line, but these things happen. Anyway, I felt pretty good throughout, sucking down energy gels every 5-6 kilometers, and only walking a little all up. So I'll go with my watch for now - an SMS should arrive shortly to provide the official time.

As for running season, there is a race on November 8, but with spring commencing in the next week or so, the hotter weather is going to seriously reduce how much time I'm inclined to spend outdoors actively seeking to sweat.

Update: 1:57:28, official. Still good.

Taper
So here we are: last long run of the training season done, at full volume, although, in fact, I've been tapering off for weeks now, having given myself time to recover from whatever virus laid me out prior to the City-to-Surf, and then recovery from that race, and the oddity of having found myself strangely less motivated, even in the face of the race a week from Sunday impending. So it's good to do 13K, if on the principle that on race-day I'll have the fitness to accomplish twice my training distance, and I did feel strong throughout. Luckily, there's a November race added to the calendar to motivate me past the running festival; just a 10K, but out at Olympic Park, which was where Nike put on a race one year that I would have like to have as a regular event. Too bad about that, but let's see how things go.

Here's another kind of taper.

Wrong kind.

Alien Nation
That's an obvious parallel, although technology has improved markedly, enough so that aliens can be depicted as something other than Mandy Patinkin in a spotted skin-head wig, but District 9 is also generally better, mostly for the cringing, cowardly anti-hero Wikus, but also for a better pay-off at the end.