Setback

Feeling Old & Crusty
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

So, I'm bagging the half-marathon tomorrow.

I've spent the last two weeks going back and forth over it.

Should I run?
I should run.
No, I shouldn't run.
Well, maybe I should run.
Should I run?
I should run.
No, I shouldn't run.

Ah, the circles. I grow dizzy. (Probably shouldn't run.)

At this point, it may be more my brain than my body, but either way, it's probably the right thing to do. Or rather, the decision to run it would probably be for all the wrong reasons.

Two weeks ago, I did the last scheduled long run before the race. The longest I've run since the last time I trained for this race 3 years ago. 15 miles. It wasn't too bad through the first 10*, but I got clobbered by a particularly nasty patch of annoyingly steep paths in Weston (alongside a more tamely graded road). I managed to recover a bit during some flatter sections, but I was pretty spent, and the last 2 miles were a real struggle. I probably should have stopped at that point and walked the rest of the way, but I was working on my "mental toughness." (This is also know as "being stupid.")

End of run. Spent. Crusty. (the photo doesn't do it justice -- there were lines of salts all down my face, around my eyes and in my hair.) Feeling old.

...and feeling broken.

My lower back on the left side, which actually turned out to be my upper butt once palpated (gluteus maximus attachment into the iliac crest) didn't feel so awesome after that. I skipped Sunday (although we did some work in the garden), and when it still bothered me during my frisbee game Monday night, I got a little concerned. The right hamstring thing that's been bothering me all year wasn't feeling so great either, so I put myself on the DL, hoping some time off would take care of things.

Things felt a bit better that Thursday -- I ran 3 miles and then went to practice. But the weekend "long run" (8 miles, which turned out to be only 7.5) didn't show much sign of improvement. The soreness persisted (started to notice it as early as mile 2), even with a new hydration pack.

Anyway, all this week, it was evaluation. How's it feeling today? Better? Worse? Hamstring? Ok. Gluts -- better... no, still the same. And on and on and on.

And then I looked into the start time of the race: 9am, registration at 7. No problem. And a quick check of the directions... and somehow I had forgotten that it was a 2 hour drive to the race.

Um, whoops?

I forgot that we stayed with a friend in Portsmouth, so we only had to drive half the distance. So now I had to get up even more wicked early, drive 2 hours, pick up my registration stuff, then run the race that I wasn't sure I was ready to run. That, or get a hotel room and deal with registrations, and check-ins and check-outs...

And then there was the threat of rain. It actually looks like it'll be pretty good racing conditions tomorrow, but looking at it earlier this week, it looked like a pretty good chance of rain along with the wind in the mid-40s at race time. And I remember being so cold from the rain and wind the last time I ran this race, that at the finish I couldn't untie my shoelace to get the timing chip off my shoe.

Yes, I'm psyching myself out.

I actually felt alright yesterday. People were asking about the race. I got some encouragement. I felt pretty good after my run and during the subsequent frisbee game last night.

I was still on the fence.

Until around 1:30am, when I still hadn't fallen asleep.

So no race tomorrow.

I'm still going to run tomorrow morning. But I'll do it around here, after a good night's sleep. Or after more sleep, at least. And we'll have some time to do some more work in the garden. I'll get a massage. Watch the Celtics game. Get ready for the Tri on Sunday. (I'm volunteering, giving post-race massages.)

And I'll heal up, and hopefully still be on track to run one of those marathons in October.

* part of that distance is sketchy, since there seems to be some sort of Lincoln Mystery Spot where the GPS gets all wonky. The GPS tells me one thing, but GoogleMaps and, more importantly, my feets tell me different. I'm not a great judge of pace, but I'm pretty confident that I can tell when I'm running sub 6-minute-miles and over 15-minute-miles, and I didn't hit either of those paces, irregardless of what that little piece of technology strapped to my wrist was telling me.

Almost Back...

...to square one, it seems.

I finally gave up trying to fall back asleep after tossing about restlessly for a little over an hour and a half. Residue from the weekend shake-up? I do have a few things on my mind tonight, so that isn't helping.

Just had some hot ovaltine and a few cookies; it remains to be seen whether I'll be able to get up at 7AM to run as previously planned given that I've only gotten about 90 minutes of sleep* so far, with the max limit at 5.5 hours and counting. Down.

Even if I manage it, I'm not expecting to be particularly functional at work tomorrow.

*sigh*

* On a small nerdy positive note, I suppose this reconfirms my understanding that people generally sleep in 90 minute increments; something I just mentioned to the SOOTTAD not 4 hours ago. (Actually, almost exactly 4 hours ago.) Did I mention *sigh*?

sick thoughts

I've been pretty much out of commission since Friday with some kind of bug. I thought I was mostly back yesterday, but I guess I got a little cocky (I saw a client in the afternoon), and ended up almost back to square one last night. Anyway, not really feeling up to doing much else, so just a few thoughts and observations:

• It's probably been the longest that I've been sick since I started having regular acupuncture treatments almost two years ago. I'm pleased that I've only had a moderate cold maybe once in the last year, but I guess I'm kind of bummed that I've been laid up for over 3 days now. It makes me wonder whether the new assistant who works at the clinic doesn't have the same skills as the previous one or if maybe I need to reiterate that one of my original treatment goals was to keep my immune system up to snuff.
• Does anyone else find that they can't remember what it's like to feel healthy when they're sick? Over the weekend, I kept noticing myself doing little check-ins: Am I better now? How 'bout now? Is this better? Is this how normal feels? It's like a bunch of kids on a road trip asking "are we there yet?" Answer: no. (Also interesting that the opposite is true.)
• It figures that the nicest weather we had in the last week was yesterday and the day before when it got into the 40s. I was finally starting to ramp up the miles and was looking forward to a longer run on Saturday and I ended up not leaving the house. I barely left the bedroom.
• It also figures that I'm sick over the weekend. Of course, it was probably the stress from preparing for a meeting on Thursday that pushed me over the edge in the first place.
• Started reading the Golden Compass series. I'm enjoying it so far, but it's kind of a bummer when reading makes me tired. Geez, when am I supposed to find time to read if not when I'm home sick? Sucking it up and reading anyway. Probably part of why I'm still sick today.
• Being able to sleep on and off all day -- good.
• Not being able to fall asleep at night after sleeping on and off all day -- not good.

Also, less computing -- good... So I'm signing off now.

Later folks.

late to bed, early to rise

Woke up around 4am this morning, dreaming about some crazy Nerds animal launcher to capture some accumulated in-game collectable item (small nautilus-shaped radio/TV sets?) and thinking about user interfaces and gameplay and then recognizing an underlying rate-matching problem that mapped into a problem I've been trying to solve at work. After lying in bed for an hour trying to figure out a workable algorithm (I hate it when the solution only makes sense in the dream state), I finally realized I wasn't falling back asleep. I think I was also hungry.

All that, after lying in bed awake for at least an hour after going to bed a bit after midnight last night a few hours ago.

So I got up a little after 5, and tried to capture some of what I was trying to work out in my head. (Sadly, not much progress.) And installed some new anti-virus software* while I was at it. And had a cookie and some warm Ovaltine.

I did have this crazy idea that I might try going for a morning run, seeing as I was up and all -- I'm still trying to figure out how to fit the workouts into my schedule these days -- but a quick check of the weather seems to indicate that it went from unpleasant to inhospitable in the hour since I was up, dropping from a balmy 16°F to 10°F between 5 and 6.

*sigh*

Productive, and yet, not so much.

Ok, I think that's it for my gripe this morning.

*And, hey Norton Anti-virus? Since when does "dismiss pop-up window" mean "accept the query as to whether to restart my machine right now?" God I hate it when installation programs to that.