A case of the blahs

I've been avoiding posting here, because I feel like I'm in a negative mood lately. It's true that the shit has been hitting the fan more than usual in my life, but I also can't seem to shake this slight "I'm overwhelmed so I don't give a fuck" attitude. Paralysis has been nipping at my heels the last few weeks, so what do I do? Go out an run a 10K, because that makes a ton of sense. Now I feel defeated and overwhelmed! Yay me.

I've tried to look at the positives in this race attempt. I went into it  not knowing if my foot was OK enough to actually race. A bad shoe purchase made my foot extra sore. That was a mistake. The idea in my head for the race was that I would use the 10K as a tempo run, which I pretty much did. After the fact, I'm suddenly on my own back for not actually racing the thing. It's a weird feeling, but I didn't even know if I could race a 10K. There were times in the race where I felt completely overwhelmed. Even the nice long hills, which I usually love, seemed daunting, especially with the overly vocal guy screaming out various complaints the entire way. "LEGS, HAMSTRINGS, GAAH, THIS HURTS, UGGH!!" I was overly angry with having to listen to that. God am I pissed that I allowed him to sprint by me at the finish. What's frustrating is that I had no clue how hard to push it, so I kept backing off the pace. I had a slightly faster last mile, but by that time, it was too late. And wow- everyone annoyed me in the race. At one point, I wanted to elbow the guy following a little too closely on the slightly windy section that was run on the dirt. I mean, he had the whole fucking road. I kept thinking, "either pass me or move the fuck over!" Instead, he just sat on my ass. In the past, I would have dropped it into a faster gear and dropped the guy, but I didn't have the confidence or energy this time. I'm hugely disappointed, even though I know I should look at it in a more positive light.

My race report was the following:

warm up + 10K in 46:3X Everything was annoying me, so I knew I was having a bad day. It's my slowest 10K to date. I didn't even make the top 10. Oh well. I got through it, despite the guy breathing down my neck as if it was some kind of national meet, the guy grunting and yelling odd things the entire way and the people who made getting a cup of water into a game of tug of war. I think I muttered fuck a few times and said something about needing to let go to the people at the water station. I was a bit of a grump. Oy. About the only good thing was rallying when a lady gave me some encouraging words at the end. I was about to jog it in when she came up beside me and said, "Let's go!" I can't say I sprinted to the finish, but I did pick it up a little. I finished just a hair in front of her and made sure to thank her for her kindness. I can tell I didn't push hard though, because I was completely recovered by the time I handed my bib number to the race official at the end. I need to learn how to push it again in races. I've got the fear and some mental blah thingy going on. Sigh. Actually, there was more good news. The other good news is that I'm not as crampy and nauseous after the whole cyst ordeal, though last night I had some minor issues after the race. Still, I think any improvement in that dept is good. Another good thing was meeting new and old friends after the race. I even did a cool-down with my old running partner! We haven't run together in years, so it was great to catch up with her. After breaking her foot not too long ago, she ran a little over an hour in the 10K, but she had also run Imogene recently. 


OK, enough of my whining and complaining.

Later in the day, I was able to get my mind off of the not so great race effort by focusing on work. I did notice that my foot was exceptionally sore, but I gave the Dr. a call to see if something can't be done. Later, a friend of mine invited me to go to a fundraiser inducting a few athletes into the new Boulder Athletic Hall of Fame. It was interesting. Had I known that my high school coach would be presenting one of the awards, I might have thought twice about going, but I'm glad I went for a little while. I got to say hello to a few friends and say thank you to Lorraine Moller in person for writing my foreword. She is such an amazing lady and so kind. It was really nice to see her.

My mom is finally home and doing better.

I'll end things here, but I will say that I have been writing, just not much on this blog. Here is the link to another blog post I wrote recently about the SCAR project, something I think is definitely worth mentioning. The manuscript is coming to an end, so I will keep everyone posted about that too.