Possible Variables

I was never much of a scientist, but I do consider myself a semi-trained and fully-interested psychologist. I analyze everyone, let me tell you. And if I feel badly about it, which is rarely, I just remind myself that it’s in my nature. So when I hurt my knee, I started thinking about dependent and independent variables of the injury and if there was any way to pinpoint the one most idiotic decision that led to my injury. I am bothered to say that I’m not quite sure what happened; it does not suit me to not know something, but I’m working on coming to terms with the idea that it might be several idiotic decisions rather than just the one.

1. Yoga—or really, lack thereof. I’m no tattooed, patchoulied, vegan, 1% body fat yogi, but I did enjoy weekly lessons in the art of stretching, relaxing, breathing, and peace that yoga classes offer. When I thought I would be finding a day-job, I quit yoga because the best teachers only worked during the day and the other classes were during the time I actually was working. Well, too bad for me. I can now barely touch my toes (and I’m really flexible) and my upper back gets sore after I go to the gym, even if I don’t lift any weights requiring the use of said muscles. I’m sure yoga would have helped prevent my injury—why did I have to be so cheap and egotistical?
2. Skiing—not only does the act of skiing require massive amounts of squatting and otherwise rubbing of the IT band across leg bones, it also took me out of my training schedule and “forced” me to forgo stretching for a good ten days. When you ski all day on big mountains in fresh, clean air and bright sunshine, you are way too tired to hold any stretching poses, no matter how much your muscles are screaming for help and how good for yourself you know it would be. I also was way too dehydrated and far too set on finding the perfect belt-buckle to worry about my training plan. Did I mention the Mexican food (and margaritas)? Or Whiskey Wednesday? So that week and a half of western debauchery could be the cause…
3. Doing a Crap Job on Following the Training Plan—this may or may not have a huge, irreplaceable part in my injury. I didn’t exactly start the plan on time, or maybe I did, but I wish I had left a couple weeks of “mess-up” time in there. I did that for my last (and first) marathon training and that was cake. Yes, cake is the word. Anyway, the ski trip, which made me miss a 16 mile run, came the week after I was sick, which made me miss a 15 mile run, and then I promptly hurt myself and haven’t run that long since. I got back up to 11 and then 12 miles before hurting myself again; but I don’t imagine the 18 and 20 mile runs on the training program are going to get done anytime soon…
4. Weakness—since I stopped going to the university twice a week—oh how I wish I still was—I also stopped going to the really good gym and giving my legs a good workout. Sure, running is supposed to be good for your stems, but what I need, and my not-so-tight little bum now desperately needs, is a good weight lifting session. Normally I have some pretty hot legs, but now I’m not too keen on showing them off. Anyway, regardless of my level of leg self-esteem, extensive research has shown me that weak hip flexors, gluteals, hamstrings, and quads lead to IT band injury. Considering it’s been five months since I did a real squat with any kind of weight, I consider this a legitimate reason for being injured. Dammit!

I feel as if I had many more epiphanies than the above four, but in the end really I guess that’s it. Those are enough excuses; I don’t really need to dwell on the myriad other things I probably did wrong this time around. As you know, I am basically jobless, spending hours every day begging for something to do to keep my brain from rotting and spilling out my ears (didn’t your Grammy tell you that’s what happens when you watch too much telly?), so I really don’t have a good reason to be injured in the first place. I should have been stretching, going to yoga, lifting weights, and following the God-forsaken oracle of a training plan because what the hell else have I been doing?!

The Joy of the Job Search

If you can’t tell I’m in the middle of a fruitless, tedious, pathetic job search, that’s because I never talk about it. It’s so boring, and so lame, and so unbelievable in its hideous results (none) even I know not to bring it up to other people. What would be the point really? I would just be confessing a) how many times I’ve been rejected and b) how nobody around here thinks I’m smart enough to teach their kids. “Hey, I finished my Master’s degree six months ago, and I haven’t been able to get a job, even though the greater Boston area has over 200 private schools and countless public ones, and despite the fact that there is a major teacher deficit in America. What’s new with you?” Pathetic.

I mean, maybe it’s my fault. Possibly. But really it’s definitely not my fault at all. I have literally e-mailed every school or school district within 30 miles of here, regardless of their current or expected job openings. I write a mean cover letter, let me tell you. I have talked to friends, relatives, friends’ relatives, and pretty much every coworker I have (hint, hint: give me more to do around here and I’ll stay!) The thing that really kills me is, as everyone knows, I’m a great catch. No really! I’m like a triple threat celebrity who can dance, sing, and act—think Beyonce, minus the acting, and Britney, minus the singing. And acting I guess. Only I have more skills and I can actually do a good job on them. I teach, I coach, I babysit the dorms, I tutor, I proctor SATs, I cover the front desk phones, I decorate the dances, I drive vans—I do it all. So why won’t anyone hire me? It’s certainly not my ego, is it?

This marathon training thing has been a nice distraction from the abysmal annoyance of job-hunting, but since I’m injured I can’t even rely on that to take up an hour or two of my day. I suppose I’ve been stretching and icing more than usual, but I can do that while watching tv or reading a book, so it doesn’t exactly feel like I am challenging myself intellectually and getting anything out of the $36,879 advanced degree diploma I have in my care. I have to find a job. I can’t live in this stinky, squeaky old house full of high school boys again if I don’t find at least four hours more of work a day. And no, sorting files and opening envelopes does not count as work for me. I can only sit on my ass for so long before I get restless leg syndrome and start to wig out. I can only plan lacrosse practice for so long before I make it into a novel that will last an entire school day to complete and I begin obsessing over game plans and offensive plays that continue to follow me into my dreams. I can only take the dog on so many walks, cook so many meals, do so many crossword puzzles, and watch so much E! television before I go crazy and start begging anyone and everyone on the street for work.

Let’s hope it doesn’t get to that. As I have mentioned, I would not be a good panhandler.

Fundraising- The Point of this Madness!

So, I haven’t been saying much about fundraising, and, even though it’s pretty boring, I think it’s about time. It will help me consider the progress I’ve made and definitely help me appreciate how many wonderful supporters I have. Maybe it will feel like Thanksgiving or something! Mmmmm, Thanksgiving. I like squash and mashed potatoes the best. Gravy is delicious, of course. And dessert. Pecan pie, apple pie, la la la.

But yes, fundraising. In order to run this crazy marathon I have to raise money for a charity. This, if you recall, is because I would not enjoy attempting to qualify—by running another marathon (why would anyone do that, you say?)—and would much enjoy just raising money instead. Turns out “just raising money” isn’t all that easy. Maybe if my friends were a) not just out of college, b) not cheapskates, or c) not teachers/other good people who don’t make enough money as it is and do enough good things for the world as it is, then it would be easier. But, I’m trying. I have had some “events”, an NCAA March Madness pool, and lots and lots of e-mail harassment disguised as ”training updates.” Example: One month to go! Hurt my knee. Have you donated? Think about the children. I don’t know what I would have done without sports. It is such a great organization. Here are 18 different ways to give MetroLacrosse money…

I have e-mailed, on several occasions, everyone I played lacrosse with in college, all my friends, all my relatives, all my acquaintances, and all the random people in my address book, plus all other random people I think even remotely like sports, kids, or helping the youth of America. I posted stuff on websites, hoping anyone and everyone would see my plea and donate money. I spoke in person with businesspeople on Main Street. I spoke in person with lots of people I had already e-mailed. I bothered everyone I work with. I was/am annoying.

It is an interesting feeling, to have to raise money. I am certainly not cut out for it in “real life”. It feels so awkward, but at the same time I know it shouldn’t. People don’t have to say yes (they just have to live with extreme and gnawing guilt if they don’t), and it’s not like it takes that long to listen to my story, and I know the result is that a really great organization gets some urgently needed moolah. But somehow it still just feels wrong. Another profession I couldn’t summon the guts to do: panhandling. Scratch that off my list.

Ruined profession aside, I am doing alright. I’ve got 3.7/5ths of my goal amount, which, by the way, is a totally arbitrary number I copied off the example fundraising sheet they gave me in the “starter kit”. How the heck do I know how much is a good goal? I do know that good goals are attainable…but I don’t know how much money people want to pay to get annoying “update” e-mails from me about how my running is going. And I hate failing so I couldn’t exactly overshoot my goal by too much unless I wanted to become depressed and pathetic about it; obviously I didn’t, and still don’t, so I shot fairly low. I aimed higher than the mandatory amount, just to feel like I was trying, but not too much higher (see aforementioned competitive nature). I have reached said mandatory amount but not my goal. I am in the middle, and I am pretty proud of it. I still have a month to the race, and they accept donations far past that, so I think I can do it.

If you get an update e-mail, sorry. But definitely donate anyway.

http://metrolacrosse.kintera.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=253234&lis=1&kntae253234=1E4988660E54426DB9B6A0F2C28BD304

High School Hormones

Obviously I hurt my knee again after the team workout. Of course, right? I am so mad at myself for not just giving up and skipping the damn training session, as I really would have liked to do. There are times when I like my go-get-‘em attitude and sometimes it gets me in so much trouble! In researching the “IT Band” some more, to find out what the heck I need to do in order to be able to run this marathon in a month, it all became clear why I hurt myself in the first place—or the second place, if you are counting the actual first time I hurt it a month ago. PS. Why did it get better only to fool me and get worse again? Well, there could actually be several reasons for this IT pain, but the one I believe is that the IT band pain comes from super tight leg muscles, especially the gluteals (ass) that then get overworked and drag the IT across the knee joint and femur creating this friction aka misery pain. In my case, the crazy-intense team workout followed by three days of muscle soreness and an immediate attempt at a 15 mile run wasn’t the best of ideas. But my knee didn’t hurt at the time! Of course I wouldn’t have even tried if I thought it wasn’t magically better. So anyway, back to square one on the resting, icing, and stretching. So utterly boring.

Here’s what is anything but boring: chaperoning a high school girls’ lacrosse trip to Florida. Maybe tedious at times, maybe hot and sunburny at times, but never boring. Especially when boys’ baseball teams start showing up at the hotel. Somehow, the girls didn’t get in trouble until the last night of the trip. Ever so smartly, they were loudly commingling right outside our balcony—of all the places on the property, I mean really. We heard a boy yell one of our girls’ names across the entire hotel; we saw some of them walking off on the beach with boys we had never seen before; we saw them exchanging phone numbers; we heard them conspiring to go back out to meet the boys after they had checked in with us. For kids who are supposedly so smart, they sure can make some surprisingly inane choices. And of course, even though we saw and heard all of the above with our own eyes and ears, the group blames it all on the one girl we actually called out because we saw her going off alone with a boy. I sure don’t care if you gals hang out with some boys but golly can you not creep alone down a dark alley with someone you don’t know? The number one rule was “stick together”, so of course we had to bust her. I guess that’s not too bad for six nights though.

Anyway, it was too hot to run in Florida (even though I saw, several times, people of various shapes and sizes running around lunchtime of all hours—near the highway of all places) so I took the week off. This does not bode well for the “training” I am supposed to be doing, but maybe will help with my annoying perpetual injury. The girls did get a lot better at lacrosse though. And I have a nice tan, naturally.

Team Workout aka Persisting Pain

Well, sh%$. I am still sore from a workout four days ago and it ain’t lookin’ like its going to feel better anytime soon. Can someone tell me why I went through this torture? I will tell you why. My charity team gets together once a month for a cross-training session. Cross-training in this definition means: “squats, lunges, jumps, and other things that make your legs extremely sore”. I wasn’t here last month so I couldn’t go to the last one, and I have extreme guilt about not being a good teammate if I don’t do these group activities, so I had to go this time. I had already done a big run that day, was tired from something else I don’t even remember, and knew it would be a tough workout but the guilt just ate away at me until I finally just got in the car and went.

Now, I’m the kind of athlete who thrives on someone else telling me what to do in a workout; that’s what happened from age 8 to 22 for me so I have plenty of practice taking orders. I can run by myself but not really do sprints (why would I if someone wasn’t making me?); I can lift weights but not really get stronger by doing anything intense (again, why?); I’m pretty healthy but I’m certainly not “cut” or “ripped” or losing pounds by any means. I think this group workout is good for me for many reasons, among them that I would never do the exercises on my own. That’s the problem, though. Because I never do “flying jump squats with a twenty pound dumbbell” or “side lunges with hops, skips and pushups” or “sprints” or some such nonsense, I get mad (read: super) sore when I do. Which, at this point, is once a month or less for the past four months and, um, never in the past five years. After this workout, I feel muscles in my groin and hips I can’t even find in a physiology textbook. Things not connected to anything we worked out start to hurt the next day—I think my armpit muscle was trying to get some attention. I hobble up and down stairs at the rate of a slug for days; I must look like someone who just went through an assault or child-birth or something else scary and painful.

However, it feels good. The group part of it is pretty nice: there’s always someone slower and weaker than I am, which is important if you are me. The coach part of it is very nice: I don’t have to plan anything or hold myself to anything so there’s little to no thinking involved. The actual workout itself is superbly nice: it can’t possibly be boring because I have no idea what’s next and I know it’s good for me because I sweat through two shirts, drink two Nalgenes’ worth of water, and fall asleep before 9pm. If this workout wasn’t $25 a session I would sign up for some on my own, seriously. I would be jacked if I did this sort of thing once a week. Alas, I will not pay for anything like this and, doubly alas, I will not plan or make myself do anything like this on my own. Therefore, I resign myself to a week of sore muscles and limited mobility for the sake of not feeling like I am letting down my team (even though about six of 35 people actually show up each time).

Bonus: the charity gives out prizes to those who attend these sessions and I just won a signed 2004 World Series baseball! Cha-ching! Too bad I am too sore to even pick it up to examine its legitimacy…

Relaxation

I have to say that running is a great relaxer. You may not agree, but I’ve heard and read that opinion several times and I certainly concur. That might not really make sense, considering what some people look like when they are running. Have you ever seen a marathon on tv? They, of course, only show the people in the lead, who, of course are torturing themselves, slobbering while somehow at the same time bleeding from their chapped and dried out lips, they are totally dehydrated but half of them have peed (or worse) their shorts, and they are skinny, wiry, and crazy-looking, wincing with every step but pushing themselves so hard to maintain that intense pace and probably crying. No offense—they do great things, things of which I am not capable, but even they must know they don’t make running look relaxing. Someone, let’s say an alien, who had never seen a runner would take one look at a marathon competitor and deduce that running is the most painful exercise on Earth and not worth one bit of anyone’s time or energy.

Pain isn’t just for the racers though. Do you ever see people in your town who look as if their morning jog is hell in sneakers? I hate those people. If you detest running so much, do something else. I have no sympathy for you, pal. Kudos to you for working out and all but let’s be honest, how many times can you go for a run and hate every second before you just up and quit, never to run again? All the experts know and suggest that people pick exercise that interests them, not makes them miserable. And everyone normal knows this idea is a big “duh”. However, some people, I guess, and I don’t know why, ascribe to the “no pain, no gain” school of thought. Ha!

Anyway, back to my vision of a misery-runner: I believe this person is most often a middle-aged man who usually has somewhat of a pot-belly and (hopefully) is wearing some kind of old-school thick and wide headband from the 70s' NBA era. He shuffles along the sidewalk, squinting in the sunlight like it’s giving him a migraine; his shoes are totally scuffed out in certain areas which makes his gait look even more uncomfortable and wobbly; his sweat stains droop on his cut-off sweatshirt (Bill Belichick style, especially in New England) from his armpits to his hips and cover his lower back; often he looks like he won’t make it one more step. But I’ll tell you one thing: this guy is the king of the world when he finishes his run, even if it was two miles in two hours. I would love to see one of these people at the end of a jog. I picture a cross between Jack Dawson on the bow of the great Titanic (the movie version, not real life) and Rocky after he defeats Drago in the best of the series (Rocky IV, if you don’t know); fist-pumps, smiles, and sweat galore.

However, and again, this may not be true for you or for some people you know, I feel totally at ease running. I was once running somewhere and some random guy walking by commented on how he had never seen anyone smile while running before. I thought a) that’s weird to just start talking to someone running by, b) I must actually have a big smile on for anyone to notice at all, and c) perv. This attitude of mine may be attributed to my non-racing pace, negative desire to get my heart rate above 140, happy running dog partner/distracter, and the fact that I have been an outdoorsy, athletic person for pretty much all of my 26 years so it feels weird not to be active. That’s part of it.

The other part has to do with all the daydreaming and problem solving involved. Do you ever talk to yourself? I do. All the time. In accents sometimes too (I’m pretty good at Australian). Is that weird? When I run I try not to actually talk out loud to myself, but I definitely have conversations and monologues in a voice in my head; I think it’s my voice, anyway. When Bruschi the Mutt is having a great time and I wish he had a doggy friend to have this great time with, I daydream about when and where I will be able to get his said friend and what this lady-mutt will be like. This often leads to daydreaming about getting a full-time job I want, which is taking a lot longer than it should right now, moving out West which I really want (to do, ASAP), and other random things that go along with a life that is conducive to having two dogs and running with them in the glorious, free outdoors. This sort of thinking could leave me depressed I suppose, but it actually makes me feel great. That could also be that fresh air is my magical life elixir and sitting still for even one full day just doesn’t feel right.

There are also those scientifically proven endorphin thingies I suppose.

What Goes Up Must Come Down

Remember how great I felt running the other day? I felt equally as horrible yesterday. I think I was being punished for writing about how wonderful and amazing and super my run was; somebody of a higher power didn’t care for me to enjoy such an activity as much as I did and flaunt my happy feelings. I should have known it couldn’t be true: “Training for a marathon? Not supposed to be fun you stupid human. You shall pay.” (said in God-voice, naturally). Of course Law School BF and Bruschi the Mutt were having a grand old time, chatting about inane subjects I would normally laugh at and appreciate in their stupidity, running at a faster pace than usual and making me mad it was so easy for them. Literally as soon as I set foot on the pavement, I had to convince myself every step was going to feel better than the last and that yes, I could complete the remaining 11.99 miles of my 12 mile run.

Have you ever had that feeling that you are just plain doing the wrong thing? I don’t mean morally, because those stories would take months to tell, let’s be honest, but the feeling that what you are doing is okay to do and maybe even good for you but absolutely, horribly wrong for you at that particular moment in time? That’s what I felt. For 12 miles. That’s almost two hours in Average Josephine time. And, if my calculations are correct, that’s 12 miles and two hours too long to do anything that doesn’t feel right. However, at this point in the game, I can’t afford to skip any training just because it doesn’t feel right. Imagine what the higher powers would think of that?

Some of my weaker thoughts:
Mile 1: I wish Law School BF would shut up already. I wish he would go home and do his stupid law school homework and be miserable too and just leave me alone and stop frickin’ talking as if I ever have once cared what he has to say.
Mile 3: I’m only a quarter of the way done? Are you kidding me? I would rather break my ankle right now on that dirty, nasty pile of old snow and have to drag myself home down Route 2 while 18 wheelers barely miss flattening me into the gravely pavement than run the marathon.
Mile 6: I’m starving. I’m so stupid for not eating a snack before we left. What kind of idiot leaves for a two hour run without shoving some food down her gullet first? Stupid. Idiot. Moron. Loser.
Mile 9: Alright, I dropped off boyfriend and dog. I had a snack and some water. I went to the bathroom. I plugged in some music. It’s 6pm and still light out; it’s sunny and not too cold. There is no reason I should hate this right now. I have to do this. I have to. I hate my life.
Mile 11: I still have a mile left? What the heck kind of dumdum made up this horrible training plan? What sort of idiot follows that obviously stupid training plan? Can’t I be finished already? If mile 11 in the marathon isn’t even half way done what kind of failure am I going to be? If I just passed out in the street right now would someone pull over and drive me home or would they just think I was a drunken bum passed out and ignore me?

Then, I was done. And I felt great about it. And I forgot all the horrible things I said to myself, and I was psyched about running, and when I got in the apartment I told the boyfriend how the rest of my run had been grand. That’s the thing about training: sometimes you have to struggle to do it (and you want to kill yourself and everyone around you and you hate the world, etc., etc.), but when you finish you feel like the strongest and smartest and most accomplished person in the world and you are so proud of yourself.

I’m sure I’ll repeat this entire process more than once in the next month and a half, but for now I’m still feeling great about finishing that run yesterday. Go me.

Enjoying Myself?

I had a wonderful, absolutely amazing, calming, easy, relaxing, enjoyable, exciting, feel-good, smiling-the-whole-time run yesterday. It sounds so weird to say, but that 8 mile Wednesday afternoon run was fun and simple and I feel great about it. Most people, me included, would think that an 8 mile run is abnormally long, tedious, and a waste of time. Well, maybe not a waste of time if you’re trying to lose weight because you are morbidly obese (like half of America) or training for the Olympics (like 1/10000000th of America) or something, but a waste of time if you are an average person with a job, a social life, and some hobbies outside of running, let alone a family or secret affair to nurture and hide.

For me, yesterday, I was in the zone. I have never really experienced “the zone”, that I know of, so I’m not sure if that’s exactly what it was, but the 8 miles flew by in a breeze of comfortable enjoyment and pleasure, and when I was done I felt like I could have done it again but was perfectly content being finished. The air was clean and it was quiet on the roads I chose; I could hear some birds, excited for the spring, and the soft padding of my feet—nothing else. When I finished, I couldn’t stop smiling and I felt as if I was walking on air. That is how I wish I felt after every run. Sometimes it’s nice to be a little too sweaty and a little too out of breath and wish immediately to have a different shirt to change into; it feels as if you’ve really accomplished something (and can afford calorie-wise to go huge on food later). But this feeling of euphoria I experienced definitely tops that. That magical run really put me at peace and, as cheesy as it sounds, I felt like a runner.

I’m not sure when one becomes a runner—is it like a butterfly coming out of its cocoon, wrapped up one minute and free the next? Or is it like a seed, planted months in advance and sprouting slowly as the weather permits? Maybe it’s like a cake and you have to get all the right ingredients in order, perfectly measured, and then combine them exactly right, stick ‘em in the oven, and wait for the timer to ding. I don’t really know. And I’m certainly not saying I think I am a runner. Runners wear those super loose and short shorts (on men you can almost see their…you know), even when they have jackets and gloves on; runners get up early on Saturdays and run until lunch time; runners are skinny with big calves and tight quads. So no, I don’t consider myself a runner. But it was nice to feel like one.

And then go have a margarita and some cookie dough because I could.

Back in the Game

After my two week hiatus from training (flu and vacation; bad and good reasons), I promptly hurt my knee. Now, don’t get me wrong, I really want to complete the training so I have every chance of enjoying (and finishing) the marathon in April, and so I don’t look like a total a-hole, petering out after five miles and stumbling off course to secretly catch a cab home but I also know when to stop and rest so that’s just what I did.

Since I have absolutely zero chance ever of winning the marathon (any marathon, let alone the Boston Marathon), and, honestly, even less desire to do so (unless it was wicked easy and the prize was never having to work at anything ever again, duh) I didn’t much mind taking some time off. Maybe if four days turned into ten days and I even had pain just sitting still, which is so annoying, then I would have worried. But this injury didn’t worry me, and thusly (positive psychology works, remember that) it healed with speed. I stayed away from running for five days. I admit, I used the elliptical trainer once. I got a really cheesy book from the library about some girl moving to NYC to live with her French prince boyfriend for some inane reason and in the end she makes out with and wakes up next to his best friend and oh, dear, the drama. So at least that was entertaining for me while I droned away in the stupid gym.

I also took three days straight-up off from using my legs at all. I could really get used to this “marathon training” thing! From the library, I also procured some information on the IT band, icing leg injuries, and the like. I walked around for three days with a little lunch-pack ice bag Ace bandaged to my knee, bulging out from my leg like a Discovery Channel tumor; I started to think it felt good though. A couple times, I took off the ice pack and my skin was white and numb. Naturally, I like to poke it with various objects to test myself when this happens. Ahh, my good friend, Frostbite! Have you ever frostbitten something on purpose? Well, in ski group we used to steal latex gloves from the bathroom supply closet, fill them with water, leave them out for a few hours, and then play with the frozen hands we so geniusly made—that has nothing to do with frostbite unless you then put that frozen hand down your pants or something. Which you didn’t, so nevermind. The point is, I kind of frostbit my knee on purpose a few times. I really started to like how my knee felt in that almost frozen state, making me limp around the apartment, and allowing me to get free stuff, like a drink from the kitchen, or control of the remote, from Law School BF while I laid, necessarily of course, on the couch.

Resting a knee is boring, but the library (and my brain) told me to do it. So I missed an 8 mile run and a 4 mile run. Then, I postponed a 16 mile run and when I did it it became just 11miles. Haha, just 11. Like that’s not long. My first run “back” I was pretty wary of my knee starting to bug me again so we did little loops around home; if I needed to bail out I wouldn’t be far away. Total wimp style, I know. Luckily for me, all the stretching and icing and whining and sitting still and reading trashy books (that must have played a part) and planning my first route back paid off. Four miles this loop, ok, five miles this loop, ok, two miles this loop, better not push it= 11 miles. Obvious equation.

I’m pretty proud of myself for my self-rehabbing, but if I think too much I just get nervous about how much training I haven’t done and start to sweat in the armpits. Sweating just sitting there is gross. So, I’ll stop.