I looked at the run time of the album and thought, shit, I don’t think I’ve ever actually run for that long before. In 2019, I was running sub 60 min 10kms in around 55 mins or so, which was a decentish time, and I’ve never done a run longer than 12 km! So, here I am again, gently reminding myself not to think about past numbers, in fact, not to really think about numbers at all. Just run to the album time.
Because I’ve been so paranoid about my shins flaring up again, I intentionally ran at a pace that was 2 to 3 minutes slower than I usually would (especially because the last few Green Day albums have each been less than an hour long). My physio told me that shrinking my stride (almost shuffling instead of “running”) would help to take the pressure off my shins and calves, so decreasing my pace forced me to think more carefully about my form whilst being super vigilant about detecting even the slightest twinge in my shins! And this approach was actually really enjoyable – this is probably one of my favourite runs I’ve had in recent times.
I always walk for a kilometer or so before I start to run as a way to gently warm up, and as soon as I put on 21st Century Breakdown I thought that this was going to be a sucky and long hour because the first track didn’t grab me (but the opening lyrics “Born into Nixon, I was raised in hell” sure did!). Doing this project has been great because it’s also given me a certain level of eagerness to really try and find at least one track that I can appreciate, at the minimum. I ended up finding two!
I haven’t actively listened to a Green Day album post-American Idiot before, so this was my first listen through. While I’m not enamoured with it on the whole, I really enjoyed Last Night On Earth. It threw me because I was expecting every track to be some sort of scathing political commentary of contemporary 21st century America, but actually it’s a really sweet Beatles-esque ballad sandwhiched between the critiques. I am confident enough to say that if John Lennon specifically was to write a song in 2009, it would not sound dissimilar to this because Last Night on Earth has all of the Lennon hallmarks – haunting, melancholy dips into the minors, the melody itself, sentimental lyrics without pretence (more in the same vein of early Beatles though). I really liked this song. Looking at streaming numbers, it seems that lots of other people did too, but this is new to me!
The second track I thoroughly enjoyed was Peacemaker because it has these Balkan-folk overtones that Green Day has played around with before that I very much adore. I feel a deep connection and ancestral pull to these folk rhythms and listening to this song just sent me into a spiral of thinking about my family history that I couldn’t pull out of until I finished my run and honestly, I don’t remember much of the album from after this point! I’m a first-generation Australian – my father is Romanian and came here in the 80s. I don’t know too much about his side of the family, but my understanding is that he is from the capital, he speaks the “proper” tongue, and his “Romanian-ness” cannot be disputed on these grounds. My mum’s side is where it gets a little more complex and abtruse. She was born in former Yugoslavia (specifically the Serbian bit very close to the Romanian border) but in very small village that is made up of a Romanian minority. Her mum was Hungarian, or a least part, and her dad has some Czech connections. I’m certain I have Romani connections somewhere down the line, and I’d like to do one of those DNA geneology tests because I’d love to have some more clarity about my family’s history. Do the tests give results that are more specific and targeted than “congratulations, looks like your family comes from Eastern Europe” though? Because this I already know with absolute certainty!
Anyway, because I took the pressure off and gave myself license to just run and not care how far, I really enjoyed myself. And I did it, I ran for over an hour for the first time! It also gave me hope that I could slowly make my way towards increasing my mileage as I plan to (sustainably) train more actively to reach my half marathon goal. It felt easy and there was no pain, although now that I’m icing my leg, my left shin (the cursed one) feels tense. Ultra paranoid about this!
Thank you Green Day and thank you 21st Century Breakdown – it was fun!
Please keep my pesky shin in your thoughts, and thanks for reading.
Banger Moves 
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