Pretending it's the home stretch

because it basically is ...

I've exhausted my alphabetic book of excuses ending with zygodactyl zydeco zebras zipping zephyrs zealously ... next time I'll get the unabridged book of excuses.

Anyway - for whatever reason I'm having trouble finding a road, a hill or a track to run on, so today I opted for plan Q ... obviously plans B through P didn't pan out well either.  I headed to the gym and found it crawling with my favorite creatures - gym rats.  From the oblivious people who have no clue how to use the equipment to the obnoxious who seem to go out of there way to be in people's way or hog the equipment ... I opted for the stair-stepper - 30 min level 2 & 3 and feeling surprisingly strong and not winded.

After getting off the stepper I paced around the cardio equipment waiting for either a treadmill or an elliptical.  I did get a good laugh watching all the people doing bizarre things that vaguely resemble exercising on the equipment, like the guy who was doing the gazelle leap at a very fast pace, but his feet were barely touching the treadmill, or the lady who had the treadmill at the max incline and was holding on for dear life.  Eventually this lady finished her ... walk?? and had to do her ... stretching???  Of course the fact that there were now 3 people waiting for the machines made no difference ... I was first in line, the little angry gym rat in training had been waiting an entire 2 minutes and another guy was waiting at the far end of the row.  Before the stretchy lady could finish her whatever she was doing (I actually think she got her foot stuck on the control panel of the treadmill) another machine opened up.  I was about to step on when I saw gym rat jr in the mirror charging up behind me - like actually almost running.  I wasn't willing to have a confrontation over a treadmill (and unlike a swimming lane, we couldn't share it ... sorry Julie couldn't resist ;-)  )  So he jumped on the first machine just as the stretchy lady finally jumped off her machine so I didn't have to wait too long.

I did 30 minutes on the treadmill at a moderate walk increasing the incline for the first 20 minutes and then going back down during the last 10.  Overall I'd say I accomplished what I wanted ... I just dread the gym rats (both male and female) but I did my best to ignore them and just enjoy my music and my training.

Of Snot Rockets and Streamers

Day 14 of what will be known as The Great Sinus Flow of 2011 ... at least today hasn't been filled with the intense sneezing fits I've has pretty much every day since my last post.

Training Stats:

Will not bore with the details of the past couple of weeks, but I did train some ... unfortunately pretty much everything was cut short or otherwise altered due to the insane allergy symptoms I've been sufferring.

Today:  12k 2:1 ratio for the first 4k ... then came the hill.  1:1 ratio for the next 7.??k with a few walk periods longer than 1 minute ... and ending with a barely moving walk for the last 1k or so.  My legs completely gave way one muscle group at a time ... and it was horribly obvious on the gps trainer as the running times gradually slowed from 11.25 min / mile (first 5k including the beginning of the hill) to 13.5 min / mile from the 10k mark to the 11.1k mark.

Total run / walk distance 12.25k total distance including warm up and dragging my tired @$$ home (aka a cool down) 13.5k.  Despite taking more than the usual amount of sinus meds the Great Sinus Flow continued throughout today's run.  I was not able to launch any true snot rockets due to the lack of viscosity of the flowage, but I did have a couple of streamers flapping in the wind before they wrapped themselves around my nicely braided hair like a sparkly and somewhat slimy decoration ... thank you dear for getting up early to do braid my hair for me.  I also managed to soak the seven tissues I took within the first 5k.  Once again the inhaler worked great - I did take one extra puff mid run ... It doesn't make running any easier, but it makes the recovery during the walks a lot easier.

The small victory of the run came between 10k & 11k.  I promised myself I would run at least to the edge of town.  My brain was telling me I didn't want to, my legs were telling me I couldn't ... the mental game, or lack there of, still plagues me ... but something pushed me ... that inner drive that I often lack didn't let me stop, and though the las several run segments were brutally slow, they were run segments.

Again I need to thank my niece Andrea for keeping me on pace.  I'm sure she could run much farther, much faster if I weren't lumbering along beside her.


Non training:

My highs and lows have definitely had their ups and downs ... Work goes smoothly then it gets crazy then it gets intolerable then it goes back to crazy which suddenly becomes the acceptable norm because it's slightly better than intolerable.  The only problem is it makes every other aspect of my life crazier and less tolerable than it should be.

I am really getting tired of the corporate philosophy of empty threats and broken promises.  I resent somebody who has 3 years experience delivering packages or picking up garbage telling me that my 20+ years of school bus transportation experience is meaningless because their system is better.  I'm mentally exhausted from getting my butt chewed for not having a report in on time when I was never informed that the report was due ... or that there even was a report, or a project or a meeting or whatever.  Thankfully my immediate manager is awesome and has faith in my abilities ... she let's me take an idea and run with it.  Sometimes they don't pan out, but more times they work the way I knew they would ... then corporate gets involved and tries to quash my ideas, my creativity, my spirit.

On a different side note.  My company may be opening a yard in Alaska ... they will need supervisors to help run the show for a while.  It may be my only realistic chance to see Alaska ... but I won't get my hopes up.  I'm considered a slightly rebellious rogue, although my area director of safety likes a lot of what I do and how I accomplish it ... He just won't man up and tell the VP level baboons that I know what I'm doing ... Oh well.

Right now photography is taking the edge off my tattered nerves.  Thank you Pam for getting me this camera.  I'd like to post about 638 photos ... actually, it's my blog so I can do what I want, but I'll stick with 5 of my favorites over the past couple of weeks.

OK, I lied ... It was more than 5, but I like them all.  The Sushi chefs noticed I was taking pictures of the food, so they made a happy face for me to shoot.  The squirrels were following me around ... cool.  Oh well.  Thanks for reading.

Showing improvement ...

Whether I deserve it or not ...

Training Stats:

Nothing major during the week :-\

Today - 10k 1:1 ... actually 9.25k 1:1 with .75 walk home.  Several 2 minute walk breaks and one extended 5 min run (it was downhill, but it was 5 min run).  Once again I need to thank Andrea for helping to set a good pace and putting up with my old age ailments.  Today my legs felt great for the entire run until the last .75k but my heart rate peaked at 170+ several times and did not want to come down ... maybe I just overheated or maybe including the steeper hill took its toll ... or maybe the fact that I forgot to take my blood pressure medicine last night have had something to do with it ... oh well.  I still did better than last week.


Non training:

My personal stress has dropped over the last couple of weeks (stressing personal stress, work stress is still up and up and up and level with a slight dip then up some more).  I had a follow up to the follow up optometrist appointment - a vision density test I think they call it.  So I've found out that my vision is actually better than it was 6 months ago - My peripheral vision and visual acuity is at least average - maybe slightly better than average except one small area in my left eye which isn't bad.  So because I did so good on the tests (and because I'm seeing a shadow in my right eye) he dilated my pupils ... again!!  And after searing my retina with the exceedingly bright light he told me there is absolutely nothing wrong with my eyes ... in fact they look better than they did a few years ago ... when I wasn't seeing a shadow.  In fact there is nothing to explain or indicate that I'm even seeing a shadow. 

So does this mean I'm just going nuts??

Never mind - don't answer that.

I haven't done any writing (other than blogging) lately and my imagination is getting a little itchy.  How do you scratch your imagination?  O.o  I just haven't felt motivated by the recent Faith Writers topics, but my excess verbiage pressure is building and the emergency release valve is eventually cause me to spew bountiful bits of bloviation on unsuspecting readers ... I just hope it doesn't cause any permanent damage when it eventually blows.