Getting It Done

There's a run scheduled for the day: 65 minutes. Two half-mile repeats. Two one mile repeats. All at 5k pace. That's gonna suck, I know this much ahead of time. Yep, on some tired legs with hours of work on them already this week, a 5k pace is going to be no fun to hold. Then I look out my window: pouring rain. Dumping rain, buckets of rain. As it turns out, more rain than has ever fallen from the sky on that particular calendar day in recorded history.

But I didn't know that when I first looked out of my window. No, at that point I thought it might stop. But it didn't. And didn't. And didn't. How much #@!$%! water can fall from the sky? Eventually, it was either get out there in it or not run at all.

So this is really where the rubber (on the bottom of my Vibram Five Finger shoes) meets the road. How many times do people say things like "You're so lucky, you stay in great shape."


Lucky? LUCKY? No. I don't even want to be out here running on a day like this. There's no stinking luck involved. It's just putting in the hard work when you have to, and looking forward to race day, when the payoff will be... wait for it... more suffering! Lunatic thing to do, this Ironman stuff.

So here's my little corner of Hell on Earth today, but I got 'er done.

Blah, said Toad

Frog and Toad was one of my favorite books as a child, and then again as a book to read to my own kids. There are so few books for small children that don't want to make me scream internally when reading them to my kids (Bite me, "I Love You Forever").  But Frog and Toad is different. I think every state of life can be summed up by one Frog and Toad story or another. When I'm feeling down in the dumps in the middle of winter, I think of the story where Toad is at home hibernating under the covers and Frog keeps trying to wake him up. Toad just says "Blah". That's how my January has gone so far.

I don't know if it's the short daylight hours, the fact that our "holiday" was filled with activity and house guests, the walls of the house closing in on me, or some other random thing, but I've felt just Blah these past couple of weeks. I have to say, it gives me a lot of empathy for people who struggle with depression on an ongoing basis. It's really not fun.

Luckily, my workouts have not been suffering, I've been "gettin her done" as they say. Punching the clock, putting in the miles. Not really enjoying a lot of it, but doing it anyways. When it's cold or windy or rainy, it would be easier to pull a Toad and just pull those covers back over my head.

Couple the "Blahs" with the usual anxiety of the Robotics season - will our team get their act together, can I help them make it through the season, is there something I'm forgetting that will cause them a setback? and you also get a recipe for insomnia. Which I'm sure doesn't help the blahs. There's nothing like that feeling of staring at the ceiling at 3:00 am with a million things running through your head to really make your next day unproductive.

So what can I say that's useful out of all of this? Maybe that when you're feeling like this, it's more important than ever to have routines in place. Routines that you set down in good times, in easy times, can carry you through the hard times. If you're already grocery shopping for healthy food on a weekly basis, then it's not that hard to just keep doing it. If you're already exercising, getting to bed at a decent hour, and taking care of yourself, then at least if you just keep on keeping on, you can make it through. If you don't have those routines in place and you fall into a dark time, it's very hard to start doing something good for yourself at that point.

So here I am, Toad-like, blinking at the light and plodding on with life. I know I'll make it through. I know in another couple of months when the weather is warmer and the schedule is easier, I'll be okay again. Just wake me when it's spring.

Keep Your Fingers Crossed

So, in the Reality Show of my life (maybe titled "What's Wrong With Me Now"), I have come down with a case of poison oak. In case you have never been afflicted by poison oak or poison ivy, or are one of those people who gets a small itchy rash when you come in contact with these evil plants, I can't even begin to describe the misery that is me when I manage to come within 10 yards or so of a poison oak leaf. When I get poison oak, I end up looking like a villain in a comic book, shortly after he's been doused with flesh-eating acid and just before he gets his evil mask to cover up his hideousness. Let's put it this way: the last time I got poison oak, I had scars for a year. I won't even show you pictures, it's too horrifying.

So on this week's camping trip, twelve of us went on a hike through the forest. It was a pretty green forest (lots of moisture) and fairly high elevation, so poison oak was a dim possibility at best. Still, I scoured the vegetation at every step of the way for the Evil Three Leaves. Never saw it (and as you might guess, I'm pretty good at spotting the stuff). No one else on the trip got it. I did.

So when I get poison oak, it is really difficult to exercise because (warning: gross description ahead) it gets scabby and oozes and my flesh melts off in big sheets and it basically really hurts and clothing sticks to it. But remember, I've got a half-Ironman in less than a month? And I'm already behind on my training? So now I can't swim, fortunately that's the least of my worries in a race. I haven't been running this week, I've been biking on my trainer in the basement in my underwear. I'll spare you a photo of that one too. At least I discovered I could do this the last time I got the poison oak affliction, and maybe it will help me through this race.

Today I finally did get to go run, and actually had a very nice pleasant evening of it. I put big non-stick pads over all of my remaining patches and wore some long running shorts and nobody stared at me so I guess I covered it up pretty well. I went for 1:45 at a slightly sub-10:00 pace, so I'm feeling pretty happy about that. I think my early-season plan of keeping my long runs at 1:30 even through training for shorter races has saved my bacon here.

In the meantime, please keep your fingers crossed for me that toads don't rain down out of heaven on me or something between now and my race day.