After this cold has run its course, it’s going to be time to get serious. Between work, my PF, and a general lack of motivation that came with the time change, I’ve been running inconsistently for the last few weeks.  New Bedford is in March, and I’m no where near being prepared to start on a real half training schedule.

Technically, my training doesn’t start to pick up until mid-December. I should be running around 15 MPW right now, with 2 days of cross training (swimming, mostly) and yoga. I’ve been good about the cross training but my mileage has hovered around 8-10 lately. Sad, sad, sad.

My foot pain has been… manageable. I picked up a new pair of Sauconys in a bigger size, which seem to accommodate my orthotics a little better. While they’re still a bit narrow in the forefoot, they seem to be a nice ride.

These are the same shoes that I first started running in, so it’s been a bit nostalgic to lace them up. Somewhere along the line they changed the fit and I switched to a different shoe, which was later discontinued. Then I moved to the Asics, and got PF, which might have been the shoes, and might have been the increase in miles – I’ll never know for sure. Anyway, I’m back in the Sauconys for now and we’ll see how it goes.

In spite of being sick, I did manage to run a few miles with Maureen today. It kind of sucked, given that I had only one working nostril, but we managed. Yes. One working nostril. *sigh*

On the schedule this week is a 4, 5, and a 6. I’m hoping to do the 6 on trails, but we’ll see how muddy it is. This week is supposed to be cold (in the 30s! Yikes!) and dry, so it’s definitely a possibility. Provided this stupid cold doesn’t move into my chest, I’m feeling optimistic.

Woo!

I woke up today hoping that my cold wouldn’t have gotten any worse overnight. Instead, it felt like someone punched me in the face and ear, repeatedly. Joy.

I went back to bed for a while, but lying there just made the pain worse so I got up and tried to start my day. Soon I discovered that were out of juice, cold medicine, Nyquil, tissues, and canned soup. I bundled myself up (in spite of the warm temps) and actually drove down to the store.  I never drive to the store when I’m getting just a few things. Never. But today I felt sh*tty enough to do just that.

The good thing about the grocery store on a weekday morning is that there’s usually no one there; a few SAHMs, a few blue hairs, and me. The bad thing about the grocery store on a weekday morning is that the cashiers are really slow and it takes forever to get out of there. I’m not usually in a hurry, but today I was sick and just wanted to purchase my tissues and soup fixin’s and be on my way, you know? Sigh and woe.

I watched some bad morning TV and blew my nose 800 times, and then decided to make my soup. Now, this soup is, hands down, my favorite thing to have when I’m sick. Maybe because it’s spicy. Maybe it’s the garlic. Maybe it’s all the vitamin C. Maybe because it has goat cheese in it, which is maybe the perfect garnish of all time.  Heidi’s Vegetarian Tortilla Soup recipe is the one I use, with the following changes:

• Roast four, whole Italian peppers along with the tomatoes. Peel when cool, remove the seeds, and chop them up.
• Use a 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes, and only 4 cups of broth.
• More garlic. Double it.
• Add half of the roasted peppers before blending the soup.
• Add the rest of the peppers and half a bag of spinach (chopped) after the soup is blended.
• If you feel like it, add some beans, too. Cannellini or red kidney beans are a good choice.

That’s it! And you don’t even really need the tortillas (even though they’re delicious). Guaranteed to clear sinuses and make you feel a little better, which is all you really want when you’re sick. Well, except for a hot toddy. We all want that, right?

Stupid sick.

Stupid Rob for giving me his cold.

Stupid having to be at work when sick.

But, great run last night.

One of the good things about running a lot is being able to eat more. There’s also the cravings I get for healthy foods, which is a win/win. And I don’t care that my friend Mark says, “it should be illegal to crave vegetables,” because a) Mark is hilarious, and b)I really do crave them.

The flip side of this, of course, is that when I’m not running a lot, I tend to lapse into a relatively slothful existence, downing Halloween candy and fried foods galore.

Guess what I’ve been doing for the last month? *sigh*

The scale is the highest it’s been in 2 years, by only 3 lbs or so, but it’s still making me really sad. And angry, I guess. I mean, I didn’t choose to get PF. I got it from doing the thing that is supposed to be helping with my weight. And I’m angry with myself, too. I ran less and ate the same, then ran still less and ate like crap. So, here I am, having made some bad choices and basically hating myself… again. The other thing I hate is that I’m apparently fragile enough to let 3 stupid pounds make me feel shitty about myself. What does that say? Worth = weight? I mean, fuck that.

Not to be all sigh and woe, but this kind of sucks.

So that’s that. It’s time to try again. It’s time to get back to the salads every day, back to the simple healthy foods, back to the absence of candy and other crap from the pantry shelves. It is so stupidly simple to do these things, but sometimes it’s so hard to follow through. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it. We just can’t always do it.

Well, it’s time to do it. (That’s what she said)

All the sigh and woe won’t keep it from being necessary, so I might as well just suck it up and get it over with. Stupid salad. Stupid tofu. Stupid no candy.

Last week, I invited Daniel to join me on the annual Halloween Ride in JP. The Halloween Ride is an 18 mile, community organized bike ride, at night, in costume that goes all over Boston, into Cambridge, then back across the river again, passing many popular locations along the way.

The event was amazing. Almost 250 riders started the ride, and while some people dropped along the way, we probably finished with about 100 people or so. We rode down to Jamaica Pond, over to the Longwood medical area, past Fenway, over to Brookline, then into Allston. We crossed the river to Cambridge and through Harvard & Inman Squares (the most fun part was racing down into the tunnel and whooping it up to hear the echo). Then it was down Mass Ave, across the river again, heading down Boyleston St to the Trinity Church, over to the Christian Science Center and it’s beutiful redflecting pool, back down Huntington Ave, past the MFA, Mass Art, and Northeastern, and finally back into JP. Then I rode home. :)

Daniel had, by far, the best costume. Or rather, his bike had the best costume, which he named “Nude Riding a Bicycle” (after Nude Descending a Staircase). His pictures are here. There are two of me in my comparatively lame sushi costume. Next year, I plan to go all out. My favorite costumes were the elaborate ones. There was a tandem bike with  a big cardboard pirate ship built around it, flying a HUGE flag. There were headless horsemen, light-up suits, bugs and dragons galore, Harry Potter witches, misc. dead people, and one of my favorite costumes, The Liberal Media, which would surely have been noted on StuffWhitePeopleLike.com.

Anyway, we rode and we smiled, yelling “Happy Halloween” to amused onlookers. It was a great night, and I hope Daniel rides next year. If you’re in Boston, please join us.

The past few weeks have been hard. There was a big shakeup at my job and roles & responsibilities have changed there, which is not unwelcome really, just exhausting. At home I am feeling the effects of the approaching winter in that I just want to curl up and sleep under a blanket and stuff myself with mashed potatoes and Halloween candy, not necessarily in that order. On the roads, I have been getting in a few miles here and there, but nothing noteworthy or consistent. I have good and bad days with my foot, and that has been getting me down, too, although I think that I am finally starting to see some consistent improvement there, which is encouraging after months of pain.

The common denominator in all this is that I need to be working toward something in my life that is bigger than just existing, if that makes any sense. While I’ve been relatively happy lately, doing fun things like hiking with Jill, running and going to the theatre with Maureen, and puttering around the homestead, I am also having that feeling like my life is just passing by, and soon I will be 37, then 40, and so on, with an ever-growing list of unchecked items written down, but not much actually lived or experienced.

I know I’ve written about this many times, and it is just as boring reading it, I’m sure, as it is writing about it. I feel like I’m suffocating, so I make small changes and the feelings pass and I feel better for a while, but then it all comes rushing back at me and I’m feeling lost again. I don’t want to live my life in such a way that I end up with a huge pile of regret staring me in the face. I don’t, and I won’t, so with that I have been thinking about some things I’d like to do before the end of the year, and into 2009.

As any runner will tell you, having a race on your calendar will get you out the door. There is something comforting about the structure of training, even at my modest level, and knowing what you have to do and when to do it. I’ve picked out a few fun races for the remainder of the year, and have my sights set (depending on my foot) on a half marathon in early 2009, on my 37th birthday. Thirty seven. Holy. F*ck.

Other things I’m planning for 2009 – a trip to Denmark or Italy, taking a class, and volunteering. I miss the community involvement I had up in Lowell and would really like to get involved with a cause or an arts organization here. Maureen has suggested getting involved with the Footlight Club, and that sounds really good to me. There are also some things I’d like to learn for my job, and maybe some areas of focus will come out of that, but it’s hard to tell at this point what will happen next year given that the economy is so f*cked up right now.

The key to all of this is making the time to do all of these things, and prioritizing. Now, I know that because I don’t have kids, it’s assumed that I have all the free time in the world to do whatever I want. While that is partially true  – I do have more free time than the parents I know – I have obligations, too: family obligations, dog walking, taking care of the house, laundry, cooking, shopping, yard work, etc. Plus, there’s my job. I work a lot of hours and I travel more now than I ever have before. I keep saying to the guys at work that I need a wife, but Rob won’t let me have one… or a pony… because he’s mean.

But back to the prioritizing and whatnot. I’m not going to be cooking as much as I normally do during the week. I’m not going to get sad if the house isn’t spotless. I’m not going to feel guilty if I’m only able to take Bo for a half hour walk after work instead of his normal hour. He gets an off leash romp every morning and a half hour walk/run at noon and he is not deprived of exercise or mental stimulation. I’m probably never going to finish my knitting projects or make much art in the next few months, but that’s OK. I can pick that up again when I feel like it, and right now I don’t feel like it. And like I said, I’m not going to feel guilty about that. Work is mentally exhausting and making art takes thought and mental energy. Running does not. Not in the same way.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at right now.  It’s a pretty sucky place to be, yet still hopeful. And honestly, I don’t have a lot to complain about. We’re employed. We’re healthy. We love each other. Those are the main things, and I wouldn’t trade a PR or a trip for any of that. Yet, I’m thinking about PRs and trips. I’m thinking about goals, the timeline, and how short life really is.

What was it that Peter Krause said on the extras of the Six Feet Under DVD? I know he’s just an actor and that program was just a TV show, but it was something like “if there’s one thing I’ve learned is that death will shut you up right quick. So if you have something to say, you’d better say it.”

I’m saying that I have a lot of things to do, I guess. Better get busy.