four things friday
When in doubt, make a list...
1. I'm in a full-blown hatred affair with running right now. There is absolutely nothing enjoyable about it at all, and the only reason I'm doing the teeny tiny bit of it that I am doing is because I know how completely annoying it is to start over after several weeks off. And I try to plan my race schedule around how much it sucks so I can minimize my own complaining. But I hate it. I hate the weather here in DC, and I know that it's my choice to live here (despite the fact that we are trying to leave), but I still hate it with an angry fiery passion. I hate the humidity, I hate that the dew point is consistently rated somewhere between "oppressive" and "miserable," I hate that the temperature doesn't go below 80º for weeks on end, even at 2am. And don't even talk to me about the treadmill, the climate in my gym is worse than being outside because their a/c situation is such a disaster.
2. All of that said, I had a lung function test at my spring allergy appointment in April that revealed 69% lung function (I just looked it up, I actually remembered it as being higher than that), which was a pretty significant drop from the test I had done a year earlier. My doctor prescribed a different kind of inhaler after I told him that last one had stopped helping, and that helped for a little while, but then it stopped as well. I did not even consider associating this with my severe hatred of running until I read a post by Cristina earlier this week about her own dealings with asthma/summer/running, but now the wheels are turning. I run early in the morning because I'd rather take humidity with cool temps instead of boiling sunshine after the humidity has burned off a bit. After about 15 minutes of running, my chest is hurting so much that I stop and walk a bit, then run until it hurts again, walk, and repeat until I'm home, and then spend the rest of the day coughing. I pretty much assumed that everyone dealt with this in the oppressing humidity and I was just being a giant weenie, but now I do wonder if perhaps I could find some relief. So I've made an appointment and we'll see. The soonest appointment they had was several weeks away so I'll be complaining until then, and there's a good chance that I'm just going to pay someone to tell me to stop being a fucking pussy and run already, but I don't have much else going on so I might as well go annoy a specialist with my whining.
3. I got my hands on a pair of these:
...and ran in them this morning. I've never actually run in Mizunos before and might have picked out the wrong pair because I don't understand their line at all, but they were pretty comfortable. They are a bit narrow in the front for me (I have a bunion on my right foot) but soft and squishy and I think I will keep them around for a while. And honestly, a person running eight miles per week can't have too many pairs of running shoes.
4. When we brought Graham home almost three years ago, we crate-trained him. I firmly believe that it is a kindness and not cruelty to a dog, and all three of ours have gone through it. By the time Graham was a year old, we weren't really crating him anymore because he never had a chewing problem when we weren't home. Molly took over his crate when she came home and Sofie got a crate of her own because she is completely insane, but Graham hasn't been crated in years. But as soon as we learned that we were going to be able to bring him home from the hospital, we went out and bought a crate. As his incision has healed and he has transitioned away from the cone, we've been reintroducing him to life behind bars.
He hates it almost as much as I hate running in the summer, but I don't have a lot of sympathy for him because at least he can't hurt himself in there.
So that's my four things, which is basically just one giant pissed-off complaint about running and the weather, but I'll try to not complain about it again until next summer. Anyone else choking to death on slow 3-mile runs?
1. I'm in a full-blown hatred affair with running right now. There is absolutely nothing enjoyable about it at all, and the only reason I'm doing the teeny tiny bit of it that I am doing is because I know how completely annoying it is to start over after several weeks off. And I try to plan my race schedule around how much it sucks so I can minimize my own complaining. But I hate it. I hate the weather here in DC, and I know that it's my choice to live here (despite the fact that we are trying to leave), but I still hate it with an angry fiery passion. I hate the humidity, I hate that the dew point is consistently rated somewhere between "oppressive" and "miserable," I hate that the temperature doesn't go below 80º for weeks on end, even at 2am. And don't even talk to me about the treadmill, the climate in my gym is worse than being outside because their a/c situation is such a disaster.
2. All of that said, I had a lung function test at my spring allergy appointment in April that revealed 69% lung function (I just looked it up, I actually remembered it as being higher than that), which was a pretty significant drop from the test I had done a year earlier. My doctor prescribed a different kind of inhaler after I told him that last one had stopped helping, and that helped for a little while, but then it stopped as well. I did not even consider associating this with my severe hatred of running until I read a post by Cristina earlier this week about her own dealings with asthma/summer/running, but now the wheels are turning. I run early in the morning because I'd rather take humidity with cool temps instead of boiling sunshine after the humidity has burned off a bit. After about 15 minutes of running, my chest is hurting so much that I stop and walk a bit, then run until it hurts again, walk, and repeat until I'm home, and then spend the rest of the day coughing. I pretty much assumed that everyone dealt with this in the oppressing humidity and I was just being a giant weenie, but now I do wonder if perhaps I could find some relief. So I've made an appointment and we'll see. The soonest appointment they had was several weeks away so I'll be complaining until then, and there's a good chance that I'm just going to pay someone to tell me to stop being a fucking pussy and run already, but I don't have much else going on so I might as well go annoy a specialist with my whining.
3. I got my hands on a pair of these:
4. When we brought Graham home almost three years ago, we crate-trained him. I firmly believe that it is a kindness and not cruelty to a dog, and all three of ours have gone through it. By the time Graham was a year old, we weren't really crating him anymore because he never had a chewing problem when we weren't home. Molly took over his crate when she came home and Sofie got a crate of her own because she is completely insane, but Graham hasn't been crated in years. But as soon as we learned that we were going to be able to bring him home from the hospital, we went out and bought a crate. As his incision has healed and he has transitioned away from the cone, we've been reintroducing him to life behind bars.
So that's my four things, which is basically just one giant pissed-off complaint about running and the weather, but I'll try to not complain about it again until next summer. Anyone else choking to death on slow 3-mile runs?