by I’m supposed to ice my foot often. I probably don’t do it as often as I should, but I have made a point to do it at least once in the afternoon, and that has led to just a bit of quiet time most days. Because I need to put my foot up with an ice pack, or stick it in a pot of ice, or roll it on my frozen plastic water bottle, I can’t really do much else while I’m taking care of it. So usually, I sit and have a cup of tea and perhaps look at a magazine, watch some TV, or update my running log for 20 minutes.
It’s made me realize how spun up I get some days. Like today. A frustrating meeting last night, some less-than-enjoyable stuff going on around the house, and various email crap had me in a dark funk this morning. It was just a shitty day from the moment my eyes opened, one of those days when you wake up with the thought that you are irrepairably behind.
I’d run at St. Eds/Forest Ridge yesterday and, as usual, had a restorative and refreshing time there. But the minute I finished, it felt like the world came crashing back in; so many little, boring, unappreciated things that needed to be done. Things that you know make a difference somewhere but damn, if it isn’t hard to see exactly where sometimes. The meeting to prepare for, which ran late; home to a messy house, alone; tired.
So this morning, foggy and gray, started out fairly doomed and I vented online…a friend posted a note that said to give her call. I did and we met for coffee. It’s amazing how we can find time for so much minutia that we crowd out the things that matter. We sat and chatted about our lives and talked about just this, and that weight in my chest lifted.
Our house is in disarry, some of it on the inside and a lot on the outside. It’s funny how unsettled that makes me feel. So after I came back from our coffee, I got my desk in order, corralled the papers floating around the house, cleared post-it notes of “to dos” out of the vicinity, put things in folders, and felt better. Nothing I can do about the outside; I made a purposeful decision to ignore the phone call about the tree. There’s no rush to remove it, and I can’t quite process that just now.
I blew off any workout this morning, and I’ll miss coaching tonight due to a school function (the cross country banquet). We’re looking at a weekend full of traveling, and I’ve planned to get my long run in on the greenbelt starting late on Sunday afternoon while the boys head to San Antonio for a soccer tourney. I haven’t done this particular run in over a year and I’m looking forward to it. In the interim, I think I’ll hit Walnut Creek or the greenbelt on Friday for a mid-length run, something to justify not running on Saturday while we’re doing college things.
Surprisingly, I am fairly on track for the 100K out at Bandera. I’ll be on the under-trained side slightly but that’s much better than heading down the side of over-training, especially with my recovery issues. My biggest hurdle is probably my mind.
I’ve got two races inbetween, Warda Wild Hare 50K in two weeks and Dallas White Rock two weeks after that. Nice way to finish out the year. Despite the hamstring and my foot, I will have managed 14 events when I complete those two, everything from the super-short Splash & Dash to back-to-back trail events in Tulsa (a marathon and 25K on the same weekend) to the 5-day, 201-mile bike ride across Germany. Three marathons, one ultra (50K), and a metric century on the bike amongst all the short stuff. And I picked up my first age-group award in triathlon. Clearly, I have much to be thankful for and much to celebrate for 2010.
I just need to let go of all the minutia and focus on the good.
