Wide awake and starry eyed

I couldn't sleep last night and was wide awake at 1am. This made me tetchy; I had an intimidating run ahead of me in the morning: lots of fast intervals, that I needed to be fresh for, coming off the back of a good night's rest. Not recovering from trolling the internet all night.

I was surprised how well I went this morning. I actually thought my GPS had gone mad: every interval I did 10 seconds faster per kilometre than I was meant to. I tried to pace myself, to slow down, but I kept going faster. I shouldn't really complain.

At the same time, having read the biography of Bill Bowerman, it's chastening to think that 'fast' in my terms is as nothing. When I do some kilometres at 4:18 pace it's quite an achievement. For the young men running around the Oregon track, they'd be doing miles in 4:18, not kilometres. I suppose that means I'm more than half way there.

I took a tram back to Central, rather than sweat all over the inside of a taxi and ruin the day of the next person to ride in it. I wasn't in a hurry: without an access card, I wouldn't be able to get into the office before anyone else arrived. The day itself was a bit harsh, a struggle to keep my energy up, and it was probably a mistake to go to lunch with some other comedians, who were spouting a fair amount of bile. I joined in, but it wasn't adding to my life or subtracting from my stress.

Tonight, I rehearsed. It's hard: my set's duration seems all over the place. Sometimes it's 7 minutes, sometimes it's closer to 9, and I don't feel I have the pace of it yet. A bit like my running. I went to an open mike in an L-shaped room, with painful results. Tomorrow I'll do better, tonight I'll sleep.