Summary.

As much as some may think, I haven't forgotten about this place.

- I'm still on the right side of the dirt. (Alive, that is.)
- I'm training (well, kind of training) for the Comox Valley Half Marathon again, and I'm running with a guy I work with who's extremely fit, but has never ran that distance and has only ran one 10k race ever. It's fun to have someone to follow a program with.
- Work is still work, and until I win the lottery or some other logistical impossibility, I make it as fun and interesting as I can.
- My Movember mustache is just as hairy, itchy, gingery, and gray as it was last year. There's about one week left, and trust me - the razor can't come fast enough.

Suffice to say I'm back, and hoping to not fade away again.

Later.

Pile It On.

..Oh hey, Boss - What's up?

You've got something else you'd like me to do?

Is that before or after I:

a) Finish learning the new department you want me to run, while b) still running my regular department and c) doing my everyday assistant manager duties?

Should I make room for it between:

d) Maintaining, updating and tweaking the company website, e) setting up the social media (Twitter, Facebook) and f) running that as well?

Maybe I can fit it in between my:

g) training for a Marathon that HAPPENS IN A WEEK AND A HALF, and h) juggling my regular family responsibilities.

Yeah - sure, why not.

Whatcha' got?

Later.

Invading My Inner Sanctum.

I have an annoyance.

It's not an earth-shattering annoyance or anything, but it's just a slight change in my regular routine that's bugging me.

You see, there's this girl who works at my gym - extremely pleasant, great personality, and has that outlook on life that you need when you're dealing with people at 5:30am.

I can understand that working part-time at a tiny local gym isn't where the big bucks are, and I'd be kidding myself if I said I was surprised to see that she had picked up a second job.

It's where here second job IS - that's where the annoyance comes in.

You see, she now works for the same company I do.

I don't work directly with her (she's in the other location) but now everytime I see her at the gym, the talk has gone from pleasant chit-chat to "work" talk - customers, things that happen, etc - our common ground has increased immensely.

And there's my annoyance - I go to the gym to not only better myself, but to get AWAY from talking about work. (The Wife and I work for the same company as well, so the goings-on of the business are a big subject at home.) It's my time and area to not think about what I do for 40+ hours a week. I could ask the Wife not to talk about work, but explaining that I want her to stop doing it so that some other girl can would go over about as well as you'd expect it to.

Yet I don't want to be rude and not talk to the girl at the gym - I just don't know how to break it to her that I don't want to talk about the job - maybe if I keep changing the subject, she'll get the hint.

Either that, or I'll have to duck out of the gym when she goes to clean the bathrooms...

Yeah - maybe I'll try that first.

Later.

Headwind.

It must be Fall again.

I don't care what the calendar says, to me, fall is when the soft breezes of summer give way to the chilly wind of winter.

I encountered them this morning on my run.

When you're sweating away in the midst of a 8 miler (and running waaay faster than you should be), a cold breeze coming up behind you is actually a welcome relief. (Contrary to popular opinion down south, there was no smell of Moose in the air - just the crisp, clean scent of the ocean.)

But turning around is a bitch.

As I rounded my halfway point and headed back, the cold breeze went from welcome relief to incessant pain-in-the-ass, as the wind kicked up and turned a rewarding experience into something much less fun.

I actually had to lean into it, people. That's how strong the wind was.

It sucked.

There's nothing pleasant about a headwind - you never hear any runner say "Right on - the wind's blowing right at us!"

It slows you down, makes it harder to run, and just generally sucks balls.

As I get closer to my Fall Marathon (28 days!) I just hope that the day of the race is a calm and cool, and that the breeze somehow magically stays at my back.

Either that or I somehow find a really fast fat guy to run behind - drafting isn't only for NASCAR, people.

Later.

Dear Newsweek:



Thank you for making any attempt to eat asparagus, from now until the end of time, incredibly awkward.




I could watch this woman eat all day.

I will admit your cover did get my attention, so good job at that.
 

But seeing those luscious lips preparing to do dirty, dirty things to those asparagus spears has forever scarred me. Maybe it just shows that my mind, like many others, resides in the gutter 90% of the time.

 

Later.
 

Funk.

Hello people.

Don't attempt to adjust your monitor - turning it off and on wont do any good, it's actually me.

I know most of you thought that I abandoned this place, and I'll admit, I thought so too. It's hard to explain what's been going on in my head for the past month.

Somewhere along the line, I just stopped life.

I was living, but not really being a part of anything. I worked, and if you were working with me, you'd be hard-pressed to say that anything was wrong. I had fun with the kids, enjoyed time with my family, but I just stopped anything to do with just me.

Running felt like a chore, going to the gym was an exercise in futility. I didn't feel like doing anything. I had no motivation. I ran over 130 miles in July and barely 50 in August.

Worst of all, I could see what was going on. I could see the missed runs on the calendar, feel the lack of energy in my body, and no matter how much I said "I'll get back on track tomorrow/Monday/whenever.", when that day would come, I'd actually talk myself out of doing it - finding some reason to not run or hit the weights.

And my family isn't going to complain - if I'm not at the gym or on the road, I'm home. And who doesn't want Daddy around more, right? And when it came down to it, I'd feel better that I stayed and had a couple hours with the kids before work.

Until I'd see a runner on my drive.

Someone out there doing what I should be doing - someone who probably has the same goals/plans/problems that I do, but with one difference - they were out there doing it, and I wasn't.

I thought about this place alot, to be honest, but my creative energy and motivation was in the same place as my physical - completely fucking absent.

You have no idea how much this sucks.

I had a small epiphany the other night, though, and I'm trying to follow through on what I realized:

I'm happiest when I'm doing something for myself. When I'm running, when I'm writing, and when I've looked after me before I've looked after everyone else. I know it sounds selfish, and I'm totally not phrasing it right at all, but trust me, in my mind, it works.

I have one month and one day until the Royal Victoria Marathon. That's 4 weeks to get my shit together and do what I should have been doing all summer. Will I qualify for Boston? Hell no - but I am going to do it, run it, and finish it.

Sunday I did 10 miles. Today I hit the weights, ran 3.1 (5km) and tomorrow is an 8 miler. I have a big run this weekend to get back on my training program, but I'm looking forward to it more than I'm dreading it.

I'm hoping that's a good sign. (Hurdling a moose would be a better one.)

I hope to be around here more often as well. It might not be the everyday occurrence it once was, but it'll be more than it has been, that's for sure.

Damn it feels good to get that off my chest.

Thanks, people.

Later.

A Tale of Two Runs.

I ran yesterday and today.

I'm running tomorrow and the day after that too, but that's not important. The thing is, I couldn't have had two different runs if I would have tried, and it was all due to heat.

See, I normally do my runs in the wee hours of the morning. It's cool, there's no traffic, and the run just seems to go better. Yesterday, however, I slept in and when I did wake up, the kids asked that I not run and that we spend some time together instead. (How do you say no to that?) The easy choice was to run on my lunch at work instead.

Since I was working late shift, lunch rolled around at 4pm, and I set out as soon as I could get changed.

Holy shit was it hot.

I know it wasn't Texas hot, or probably even Chicago hot, but for my area of Canada, it was pretty fucking hot outside.

And that run sucked. I sweated and sweated, and it felt like I couldn't get my pace under control. I hated it halfway through, and only finished it because I was so far out and had no choice but to run to make it back to work on time. (Looking back, I could have hitch-hiked, but would you pick up a sweaty guy who's breathing hard on the side of the road?)

In contrast, today's run was smooth as silk. My pace was good, it was hard but not too hard, and while I was sweating, it was more of a trickle than a waterfall.

And that level of comfort made all the difference.

After yesterday's run, if someone would have asked me why I ran, I would have to them it was because I was obviously crazy. Today, my answer would have been one about challenging yourself, the serenity, and the sense of accomplishment.

Funny how 5 or 10 degrees can make a difference in performance and outlook, isn't it?

Later.

Absenteeism

Today is my first day back to work after holidays.

I could talk about all the fun I had with the family, the things we did, the frustration of coming back to work, or I could even touch on my thoughts in regards to the shooting in Colorado or the whole Penn State/JoePa thing.

But I'm not going to.

Instead, I'm going to tell you of the thing that's slowly been bugging me during my entire holidays.

Elk.

Particularly the lack of them.

Do you see that sign up there? There are literally hundreds of them along the highway - the minute you've driven past the 6km warning for those Elk, there's another sign telling you to look out for more. We traveled up and down the Island during my week off, and I saw so many of these signs that you'd think there was an epidemic.

For those of you who haven't ventured into Canada, your first visit must seem like a wild safari, where herds of Elk are about to spring from the bush any minute and haphazardly trample your rented SUV. Why would they have the signs if the danger wasn't there?

I'll tell you a secret: I've lived on Vancouver Island for 25 years, and I've yet to see an Elk. Ever. No mommy elk, no baby elk, and no majestic bucks ready to leap over the 4-lanes of highway.
I've seen deer, bears, cougars, (both wild and in-the-bar kind) - but not one single Elk. I've seen them in the Yukon, but not once on Vancouver Island. I guess they hate the cost of the ferry just as much as I do.

So why all the signage?

Why not warn me about the sketchy hitchhikers, horrible gas prices, and slow-moving elder drivers instead? Warn me about something I'll actually see, instead of some mythological horned beast who's going to endanger me with his presence - this isn't the Bible belt, people.

I think the signage is to make it seem like there are tons of them out there. Keep the tourists on the lookout for imaginary Elk so they don't notice us gouging them with our food and fuel prices.
I'm sure there's an Elk out there - the Government wouldn't lie - but he's probably old, in ill health, and doesn't get within 20km of a highway since a run-in with some Vegan hunters in 1969 who wanted to "commune" with him.

But that's just my theory.

And its a good theory too - one I'll keep reminding myself of every time I see one of those signs....






Later.

Three Days, 23 Miles.

I'd offer an excuse for my absence here, but it really doesn't matter - I just didn't feel like I had anything to write about.

I've spent the last couple of weeks running, working, seeing movies (both the Kid-Bitten-by-a-Spider variety and the Talking-Teddy Bear-with-a-Bong variety.) and for the last week, have been doing the Family Vacation thing - we've kept it fairly low-key, and didn't bother venturing off Vancouver Island at all.

For the post title to make any sense, I had to explain about being on Holidays. For those of you who remeber my trip to Vegas in May, you'll recall my Wife has a rule when we are on Vacation: it's a vacation from running as well.

I know - crazy, right?

Since she knows I'm not going to take the whole week off running, we just settle for me not running when we are out of town. That meant our 3 day visit to Victoria put a serious cramp in my weekly mileage. To get back on track I decided to drop my shorter runs this week and just focus on the long runs and steady pace runs.

In a juggling match of epic proportions, I ran my Tuesday 7 mile run on Wednesday, my missed 9 mile Sunday Long Run on Thursday, and my Friday 7 miler was actually run on..well, Friday.

That's 23 miles in 3 days.

Did I mention there was a day at the lake and a minigolf-bumper boats-beach day in there was well? I've spent more time on my feet on my holidays than if I was at work.

And I actually feel pretty good.

I have a light 4 mile run tomorrow, (completely optional) and then an 18 mile Long Run on Sunday.

After that, my holidays are over and I'm back to my sweet routine of running, work, and life.

...oh yeah, I'm going to try to include blogging in there too.






Later.



*Did I mention it's only 73 days until my marathon? Any guesses as to how bad I'm freaking out?

Friday in the Park With the Kids.

So with today being our first real day of Summertime heat, I decided the last thing I wanted to be doing was hanging inside with the kids.

Do not confuse Canadian summer heat with what Triple T is going through in Chicago - that shit ain't natural, and I'm sure that the extreme heat they are feeling is just because there is possibly a portal to Hell on Lower Wacker Drive. (That's a road in Chi-town, right? I got it from the Blues Brothers.)

At first I thought I'd take them to the beach - sun, sand, possible views of bikini-clad bodies (there ain't nothing wrong with that) - but the thought of all the shit you have to bring to the beach, plus the fact that you have to lug it all there and back, put a kibosh on that idea. I'm doing yard work tomorrow, so packing crap around today was not in the plans.

I took them to the trails instead.

We went for a hike/walk on the Canyon View Trail - it's a 6km loop over and around the Campbell River - it's at the far end of town, about 20 minutes from my house. We grabbed a bottle of water and headed on our way.

The trail isn't actually red - that's just my awesome MSPaint skills.

I figured the kids wouldn't do the whole thing - that they would tire out and want to quit after the first big set of stairs, but they persevered, (there are benches occasionally) and did the whole thing.

As you can see, there are stairs and stairs and hills and hills. The bench was a welcome relief to them.

The Boys main plan was to make it to the steel bridge over the canyon. The goal? To drop rocks, of course. C'mon - they're six and nine - throwing rocks is in their nature.

 

The first picture is the bridge - my youngest is holding a rock up. I know it looks like he is giving you the finger, but trust me, it's a rock. The other two are the view from the bridge looking up and then down the canyon. It's pretty high up, and I'll admit, the rocks make a pretty loud and significant splash when dropped from that height.

 

We then crossed over the dam (that's the swirling water from the outflow) and headed back towards the car. The trail on this side of the canyon is way lower than the other side, so the sound of rushing water is beside you all the way. I'm pretty sure that's why the Boys had to stop and pee a couple of times, and I'm definitely sure they'd be pissed if they knew I posted about it.

On the way back, there was a sandbank alongside the river (you can't see the trees growing out of it, but they are there) and people had carved their initials into the hard, compacted sand. We decided to go along with the flow and etch ours there as well.

(At least I'm pretty sure it was people's initals - it could be the remnants of some sort of Satanic ritual - I may just have inadvertently sold the Boys souls. I guess they can deal with it when they turn 18.)

I guess the desecration of nature's beauty should shock me, but I was just happy to see that none of the words scribbled there were curses or slang for genitallia - having to explain to my six-year-old why someone carved "cock" into the sand would have taken the magic out of the moment.

Since we were almost back at the car, the Boys thought we should have a sit down and just chill for a second. We sat on this bench:

and enjoyed this view:

Until they realized that 3 guys sitting on a flower-covered bench looking at the river isn't the coolest thing in the world. After quickly getting up and talking about how much we all love Hockey, we made it back to the car.

All in all, it took us an hour and a half to walk the 6km. The runner in me groaned at how slow we were, but the Dad in me had a great fucking time.









Later.

...and before anyone asks - no, we did not see any Moose.

Anticipation

Things I'm looking forward to tonight:

- getting off work at 9pm. This many late shifts in a row starts to drag on the soul.

- Speeding (shhh don't tell) into town after work to meet up with the Wife and Sidekick to see the new Spider-Man movie. (Yes, the title of the blog is "....a Forty-Something Man", but let's be honest - mentally, I'm like 18, tops.)

- The coffee and Peanut Butter M&M's I'm going to have while watching what I hope will be a cinematic masterpiece and not a train wreck of epic proportions.

- Finally crawling into bed after a night of fun and friends, knowing that at 5am my running shoes are waiting for me.

Top that - I dare ya.

Later.

Bald Ponytail.

I've seen this hairstyle at least 3 times today.

Maybe it's the granola-chewing, tree-hugging, free-loving, never-left-the-sixties attitude of the people who live in the area where I work, or else this dreaded folic nightmare is making a comeback.

It has to be stopped.

As a guy who has noticed his hair slowly creeping away like a coward in the night, (I'd convert to Judaism just for the hat.) I can't imagine a hairstyle that does nothing but draw attention to what you're lacking.

It would be like having a small dick and choosing to only wear chaps.

When I've seen these abominations in the store, I'm compelled to do one of two things:

•  gently take them aside, assure them that no matter what they think, it just doesn't look good and they should embrace who they are in the best way possible

Or

• walk up behind them with scissors, cut the damn thing off, and scream "Just wear a fucking hat already!"

I've restrained myself so far, but I think I'll just play it by ear..

..however, I'll keep the scissors handy - just in case.





Later.

I Feel:

1. That now that things are (relatively) back to normal with my parents health, I can finally take care of that other person I've been neglecting: Me. (I've been informed by the Wife that I should probably include her in that statement.)
   
2. That while I have been keeping my running mostly on track (I've only missed two short mid-week runs) the area I really have to get back on track with is Nutrition. Mini-Donuts and Coffee may sound like fun carb-loading, but really aren't the best for me.
3. That I am a creature of routine, and I need to get it back.
4. That since I am also a running nerd who likes his data, I could have just about snapped the other day when my Nike Sportband refused to upload my 14 mile run.
5. That the rage was short lived, as a Non-functional Sportband meant I might get to buy the Nike+ GPS Sportwatch that I've been drooling over for six months.
6. That right about the time I realized that, the Sportband worked. It was a mixed bag of emotions.
7. That I really need to take notes more. I had many things to write about over the last couple of weeks, and I really can't think of any of them right now.
8. That as much as Canadians are lauded for our self-deprecation and humbleness, we get really full of ourselves on Canada Day. I'm all for national pride, but where is it the other 364 days of the year?
9. That after saying that, I'm sure I'll have to turn in my passport.

Later.

Priorities.

With all the visits back and forth to to see my Mom at the Hospital, I've gleaned some important facts from the Doctors and Nurses around her.

It seems to me that the most relevant things for them to know about anyone in regards to their health are:

• How did you sleep?
• How much did you eat/drink?
• Did you take a shit?

Sleep and nutrition/hydration I can understand - it's the Hospital's unnatural preoccupation with bowel movements that concerns me. It's my Mother's lungs that don't work great, people - questioning what's coming out the other end just seems weird.

They must know what they are doing though, because she is slowly getting better. Her dissatisfaction at the moment is being in a four-person room (and on the door side, not the window side) instead of the window-view, solo area she had in ICU - she could look at the deer grazing on the helipad* to pass the time, and she misses that. I've convinced her that being out of the Intensive Care Unit is a better thing, regardless of view.

She did state however, that she can't wait to get home - at least she won't have someone asking her about her colon every 10 minutes.

I'm going to try and find a way to work that into our daily talks from now on...






Later.

*not shitting you - actual deer munching away on the grass beside the helipad. It is a Canadian hospital, after all.

Elderly Dichotomy

Today was a day of errands with my Dad - taking care of the banking and other things that need to be done while my Mom is still in the hospital.

My Dad is kind of a funny guy -  He doesn't drive anymore, he's shaky, unsure, and can be the most cantankerous and frustrating guy I know.

I love him to bits.

The thing with my Dad is this: Because of his age and physical/mental condition, doing anything with him takes forever - and yet he has absolutely zero patience for anyone.

Example: We head downtown, and Dad decides that he wants to eat before we do the shopping. There's a Subway inside the grocery store, and he says he wants to go there. For me to walk from the car to the Subway would normally take less than 2 minutes. Walking with Dad takes 15.

We get to the Subway, and there's a lineup. We are in the line for no more than 2 minutes when Dad looks at me and says (and I quote) "Can't these fuckers move any faster?". As you can see, Dad's appreciation for the talents of a Sandwich Artiste only goes so far.

It was like that everywhere we went today - get Dad out of the car, take him where we had to go, and watch him get crankier and crankier anytime we were in a lineup. We usually spent more time getting him to where we needed to be than we did doing what had to be done.

The irony of it all hit me when I got him home and settled - I said that it was nice to get those errands out of the way, and he said to me "It would have been faster if people in this town weren't so goddamn slow."

I almost explained to him that aside from the groceries, almost everything we had to do could have been done in less than five minutes online.

I held my tounge.

Dad hates computers more than he hates lineups.







Later.

Distance Therapy.

I'm not sure if my Twitter feed shows it or not, (I think the Nike+ software/site upgrade messed with that) but I've been running lots of miles the past week or so. I think last week was 36, and this week looks to be creeping close to 40 when it's all said and done.

There's two reasons for that.

One, I'm at the point in my Marathon training where the mileage starts to ramp up - and two would be the fact that right now, running is what's keeping me sane.

There's been some stuff going on with my parent's health that has made life a bit of a chaotic jumble lately. It's manageable, but at times it's a bit overwhelming and organization is critical.

Of all the bouncing back and forth from hospital, home, work, and my parent's place, having that morning run - that time of the day when it's just me, my shoes, and my thoughts means more than ever.

Knowing that no matter what - whatever prognosis, whatever comes up, the pressures of work or the schedule juggling at home - tomorrow at 5:30 am, there's a run waiting for me.

4 miles, 6 miles, intervals, hills, and the always-loved Long Run - those aren't just numbers on a program - they're my salvation.

I can sweat away my frustrations and clear my head for organizing what the day will bring. I can finish the run with a stretch, a shower, and a coffee - and believe me, the day looks infinitely more manageable when your view is from the right side of the coffee mug.

After I get off work today, I'm heading to the hospital, then out to check on my Dad, and then eventually to home.

When I get there, I'm going to come through the front door and see my shoes, sitting where they always are, ready for tomorrow's run.

And that's when I know everything's going to be okay.

Later.

Inspiration.

Having been at that stage where I was the Chubby Guy running on the side of the road, wondering if people were laughing as they drove by, I found the following blog post to be incredibly inspirational and rewarding.

Just thought I'd share.

Flintland: Hey, Fat Girl.





 Later.

Physicality

Having recently turned 40, and because it just seemed a prudent thing to do, I went to my Doctor on Friday and had a complete physical.

One of my co-workers was recently diagnosed with Prostate Cancer, and he has said that while he'll be fine, he still wishes they had caught it earlier (he's 56). with that in mind I called and set up an appointment with my Doctor.

(Actually, my Wife called, because she's got the number memorized, and I barely know where the place is.)

Turns out my Doctor is on vacation, so I just said I'd take whatever Doctor was available. In hindsight I might have wanted to re-think that decision.

The waiting room at the office wasn't too bad - they had replaced the chairs since the last time I had been there, the magazines were current, and there was even a running one that I could read - fresh coffee would have topped it all off, but I guess you can't ask for everything.

The nurse came, called my name, and I followed her to the other room to get weighed and measured. As a Canadian, I'm ashamed to admit that her statement of "1.78 Meters and 79 Kilos" made as much sense to me as "12 Stone and 17 Hands high".

After getting sent back into the waiting room for a moment, I was called to one of the examination rooms and given a robe to change into.

This gave me pause.

When talking to the guys at work, they all told me that it was all modern-day stuff - that all they did was listen to your heart, check your lungs, and everything else was done by lab tests. If that was the case, why the robe?

I know - the resemblance is uncanny.

Not being one to shy away when someone tells me to get naked, I shrugged my shoulders, stripped down, and pretended the robe was some sort of cape, or that I was doing a re-enactment of Brad Pitt in Twelve Monkeys - but just the asylum scenes.

Once I was comfortable in my robe (as comfortable as you can be with your ass hanging out) I sat and waited for the Doctor to arrive. At this point a heated seat in the examination room would have been a great addition.

When the Doctor walked in, I got another surprise - it was a woman. My regular Doctor is a man, and I just automatically figured that when scheduling a replacement for my physical, they would have just switched another guy in there. Oh well, how bad can it be, right?

She started off asking me questions about my health and history - normal type stuff - and lit up when we discussed exercise and I mentioned I'm a runner. She and her husband both run, and we discussed goals, plans, and past races for about the next 10 minutes.

She then had me get up on the table and checked my heart and lungs. At this point the whole robe thing made sense, as it was way easier to do all that without a shirt in the way. Everything was great and we were still discussing running when she asked me to roll over on my side.

What?

She didn't even pause in our conversation - we were talking about running, she said I was going to feel some pressure and slight discomfort, and next thing I know she's knocking on my backdoor and complimenting me on my smooth and small prostate.

She didn't even buy me dinner first.

While I thought our relationship had taken off to the next level, she was just as casual as ever, and was still asking about my training and if there were any other races I was doing before the fall. I was halfway through my reply when she said "While I'm at it, I might as well check your testicles."

Since I was still glowing from the prostate compliment, I lifted the robe up and let her get to work.

I'll admit, I was expecting another round of praise, but she kept quiet and just kept feeling around and around and around... she kept checking over and over in a certain area, and it wasn't until I told her I forgot to mention my Vasectomy in my history that she seemed satisfied with what she was looking at. (I'm taking the silence as a compliment this time.)

We discussed some of the lab tests I'm going to have to do - since my work schedule and the lab hours don't jive, they'll have to wait until Tuesday to happen - and then I was free to put my clothes back on. (I almost asked to keep the robe as a memento of our time together.)

From what she told me, I'm the picture of glowing health - at least until the lab tests come back, and hopefully they won't say anything different. So all I have to worry about is whether or not my cholesterol is high and my blood sugars check out okay.

Next to that, my only other fear is that they'll hand me a robe and ask me to roll over on my side...






Later.

Water Wings.

I'm trying something new in both my training and general life, and while rewarding, it's kind of driving me crazy.

It's Hydration.

Basically, I've realized that in the general course of the day, I don't drink enough water. Sure, if you count the kind that is mixed with ground up coffee beans, sugar, and cream, I drink tons of it - but not so much of just the regular stuff.

So I've been trying to drink a bit before I run and whenever I'm thirsty during the day, I try to reach for the water bottle instead of the coffee cup. It's been pretty good so far, except for one thing:

I keep having to pee all the time.

Maybe it's the added fluids, maybe my bladder is only the size of a walnut - I'm not sure what it is, but I think I've turned into a 5-foot-10 water conversion unit.

I think my kidneys are working overtime just to get me to put down the water bottle. It hasn't affected my running yet, but the day I have to stop in the middle of a race to pee, it's over.

I'm willing to give it another week but if I keep peeing like this, I'm going to have to have Adult Diapers underneath my running shorts.

I'd stay and chat, but I'm on my lunch, and I have to pee before I go back.

Later.

I Feel:

• That since today was National Running Day, I made sure to log some miles (which I would have done anyway) and I did a tempo run (7:15min/mile) just to show those pesudo-runners who's in charge on the roads.
• That since yesterday was a hill day, maybe putting a tempo run right after wasn't the best choice.
• That since coming back from Vegas, all I've done is work and run. (The Wife forbade me from running in Vegas) I can't complain about the running, but the work really sucks.
• That I should get a medal for every person I don't slap after coming back from holidays. That includes customers, co-workers, and just random people on the street.
• I've decided that I really like the dry heat - Vegas was around 40C (100F) and I loved it. Coming back to the humidity of the West Coast just made me feel sticky and smelling like a moose.
• That given the choice, I would never run another hill again. Problem is, you can't go more than 1km from my house without having to go up some sort of mountain.
• That I'm both amazed and appalled at Helicopter Cat.
• That since (because of social/personal obligations) I'm moving my Sunday run to Saturday, my Saturday run to Friday, my Friday run to Today, and Today's run to Tomorrow, I may lose track of exactly what year it is.

Later.