My Mind Needs to Run
I’ve been running consistently- barring time off for injuries- since high school. I’m always surprised when people parise my “motivation”- the truth is, I need it for my mental health. Even with running, sometimes I feel like I’m barely keeping my head above water. As you can imagine, recently my mood has gotten darker and darker. That nagging, sarcastic, negative inner voice is slowly taking over. For example! Recently Kae shared a quote: “Even if you don’t have all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don’t have that you don’t want.” – Bob Dylan’s father I love that! I decided to list all the things I don’t have that I don’t want- #1. Cancer (“or, at least not that you KNOW of…”). ARRRG! Be quiet, negative inner voice. Now instead of being grateful that I don’t have cancer, I’m thinking that I really do have it but just haven’t found out yet. See what I’m up against? Now let’s try making a list of good things: College football is starting! The first Baylor game is this Saturday! It’s almost time for Pumpkin Palooza (you remember that, right???) I got a text from my son saying that his year is off to a great start (happy kids=happy parents.) The problem is, if just “thinking happy thoughts” made people happy, no one would ever be depressed. If only it were that simple! Oh well. Tomorrow is my day off, which I need badly. I’ll go to the gym and try to work up some endorphins. Then I’m going to Barnes and Noble to browse, and sit in the cafe with a tea and my notebook. In the words of Cassandra Mortmain, “Perhaps if I make myself write I shall find out what is wrong with me.” Have you thought about the things you DON’T have that you don’t want? Does making a list of things you’re grateful for make you happier? Top photo by Hendrik Morkel on Unsplash
Reading
Ooh! I finished Fall of Giants and started the second book in the series, Winter of the World. This one starts in 1933, with the Nazis coming to power in Germany. To be honest, I hated it so much I almost stopped reading. There are some things that are horrifying and yet still kind of fun to read about- Hitler is not one of them. The first few chapters made me feel sick and infuriated- but I told myself to stop being a wimp and read on. Sure enough, before long the storyline switched to America and I’ve been reading that part happily. I know we’ll get back to the Nazis, and I’m steeling myself. And I know the book overall will be great- I just have to stop being so sensitive. Sheesh. From a historical perspective, Germany in the 1930s is fascinating (remember how I couldn’t stop talking about WWI when I read the first book? I’m having the same problem now with WWII.) The German people in the early 1930s didn’t have the perspective that we do now. The Nazis were just another fringe political party- most people didn’t love them, but they didn’t fear them as much as they feared the communists. Also, the 1920s were a pretty terrible decade for Germany. It wasn’t completely unreasonable to think that democracy just wasn’t working. Hitler gave a lot of people hope with his “Make Germany Great Again” speeches (huh! That reminds me of something, but I can’t think what…) Hitler and his thugs did seem a little dangerous, but I can imagine people thinking “How bad could it really be?” (VERY BAD! Assassinate him! Flee the country! Don’t let this happen!!!) Ahem. You can see how I have a hard time reading it, but I know I’ll love the book overall. Before I started Winter of the World, I read this book: This is the first book I’ve read all year that I did NOT like. I’ve been on a Japanese murder mystery kick, and the other ones I read were pretty good. They tend to be very light on character development, but strong on ingenious solutions. This book had NO interesting characters, and the ending, instead of being ingenious, was preposterous. Plus, there were important plot points that were unavailable to the reader until the end. That’s not fair! Who made this book a “classic”, anyway??? What awards did it win? I think I’m through with this genre. Lastly… I read Allison’s guest post on Engie’s blog. Allison shared a list of her favorite horror books. Horror is one genre I’ve never been interested in, but Allison has convinced me! I’m going to pick a couple from her list and try them. Sophie Hannah’s The Orphan Choir seems like a good place to start. Do you ever read horror? Is there a subject that just just can’t stand to read about?
Weekly Rundown- Moving Forward
All right, you guys- this was a hard week. The previous week was so good! Then my calf pain returned and all the good vibes evaporated. I listened to the latest Sally McRae podcast episode where she talked about how sad she was to leave her daughter at college (YES, I KNOW THAT FEELING!) but she said it’s important to remember, when you’re in a hard phase, that there’s always another phase of life coming up. The only way to find out what that is is to keep getting out of bed every morning and moving forward. Thanks as always to Kim and Deborah for hosting the Weekly Rundown. Here’s the gory details… Sunday Leg day at the gym! All the usual moves- squats, deadlifts, and some abs thrown in as well. So far, so good. Monday When I ran on Saturday, I felt a tiny, teeny twinge of pain in my calf, so just to be on the safe side, I took an extra day off and did a pool run, followed by the Caroline Girvan deadbug workout.. Tuesday Here’s where it all fell apart! I started a 3 mile run, but after a mile my calf started to hurt. I made it two miles before I gave up and walked the rest of the way. Looking on the bright side, I did get to run/walk in the daylight- there was no school because of election day. The other bright spot was, I was able to get an appointment for the next day with my sports chiropractor. But I was pretty down overall. Wednesday I did the Sally McRae “Bulletproof Runner” workout before taking my daughter to school (where my sarcastic, angry inner voice was in full swing- “Yeah, I’m bulletproof, all right!”) and then went to my appointment. This is not the same doctor who did the dry needling- but I’ve seen him many times in the past and he’s helped me through plenty of injuries. He did a diagnostic ultrasound to see if there are any tears (there aren’t) and then did an ART treatment to release the tight muscles (ouch.) He recommended ART twice a week for the next two weeks- okay fine, let’s do that! Thursday 3 mile walk, followed by CG deadbugs again. At night, we had another football game! I usually just go to see the band. Our team used to be terrible, but now we have a new coach and we’re actually good! This turned out to be the most thrilling game I’ve ever attended. We were playing the #1 ranked team (we’re ranked #4) and at halftime we were losing 13-0. Our team came back to win, 14-13 with a touchdown scored in the last two minutes of the game. SOOOO fun! Friday Okay, back to the gym for leg day. The usual! Good workout. Saturday Sigh. 3 mile walk. I set a new walking mile PR- 13:28- and a new average PR for the 3 miles. All I have to do is walk twice as fast and I’ll be ready for the Olympics! Hahahahaha. I literally can’t imagine how to go any faster without breaking into a run. Sunday Instead of my favorite Sunday morning activity- a trail run- I’ll be doing my least favorite Sunday activity- going to work. I added an extra day of work because I’m feeling guilty about draining the family’s HSA account to pay for my calf. The ultrasound was expensive, all the treatments are expensive, and guess how much insurance pays for? ZERO. (DO NOT GET ME STARTED.) I’m just going in for a few hours- it will be fine. At some point in the day I’ll probably do some sort of upper body strength, which was glaringly absent from my workouts this week. Forward!!! How was your week? Can we turn the clocks back now??? Top photo by 愚木混株 cdd20 on Unsplash
It’s My Party, and I’ll Cry If I Want To
Uh oh! It’s another “dumpster fire mug” coffee date! What is wrong NOW, you ask? Oh, just the same old thing…my calf. I had FOUR good runs. FOUR! And then, on the fifth run my calf pain came back, sinking me into depression. Then I felt guilty for being depressed. I ran through all the usual reasons why my life is great: I’m not blind! I’m not paralyzed. Everyone in my family is healthy. We’re not living in a war zone… etc, etc, etc. Okay, I’m lucky. Then I made a list of all the reasons running makes me happy. It makes me feel healthy, it makes me feel young. I love being outside, moving forward on my own two feet. Training for races gives me a sense of purpose. The races themselves are adventures for me- I get to travel, explore a new trail, and experience a brand new challenge every time. Let’s see, is there anything else in my life that checks all these boxes? Nope. The thing is… we get one life. I’ve figured out what makes me happy. When I can’t run, I’m not able to live my life the way I want to, and that makes me sad. So, yes- it’s okay for me to be sad! I’m pretty sure no one reading this was criticizing me- it was all in my own mind. Okay, so we’ve condoned depression. What I don’t condone is complaining about something but not doing anything to fix it, so yesterday I started a new treatment program with my sports chiropractor. I didn’t go to him at first because I really wanted to try dry needling and he doesn’t do that. But now I’m back with him, and we’ll see what happens. SOMETHING has to work, eventually. In addition to my not-running malaise, I’ve been feeling the effects of time and my kids growing up. SHU recently posted about her challenges of dealing with a new school schedule this year, and I remember that so well. I only have two kids, but because they’re six years apart, my parenting years have been drawn out! My kids also never went to the same school, so the challenges of figuring out the schedule of getting them both to and from school, and then dealing with one of them changing schools and uprooting the existing schedule, were a huge focus of my life for a long time. Now… we’re in the home stretch. My son is in college and my daughter is a sophomore in high school. There’s no more switching schools- this is it. That thought made me sad. I’m not ready for an empty nest! Hopefully by the time it happens- three years from now- I will be ready. But let’s end on a happier note. Yesterday I needed a mood boost, and I knew just where to go. I LOVE when fall things appear in the stores! I went to Bath and Body works and smelled all the candles. I love all the names- Brewed Coffee, Flannel, Sweater Weather… the most intriguing one was “Pink Lavender and Espresso” (that one actually smelled terrible, though.) My favorite was Pumpkin Clove, but I didn’t buy it. They only had it in the three-wick size, and I wasn’t ready to commit to that many hours of pumpkin clove. Fall is coming! You can tell me it’s too early, but I won’t listen. This wasn’t much of a coffee date- more like a one-sided whine-fest- but what would you tell me over coffee? Do you like fall-scented candles?